College Football

ACC eliminates divisions for next season; Pac-12 expected to follow

ACC, not just the Pac-12, could eliminate football divisions

The Pac-12 Conference changed its football championship game format for 2022. Everyone expects the Pac-12 to officially eliminate divisions for 2023, but that formal announcement has not been made.

On Tuesday, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced a full overhaul of its football scheduling and championship structure.

The ACC changed the format for its conference championship game. It changed the structure of its regular-season rotating schedule. It also eliminated divisions, all going into effect next year, not this year.

The ACC is a 14-team conference, not a 12-team conference, so the specific challenges and problems it faced in creating a balanced schedule were different from what the Pac-12 had to contend with. However, the larger common thread between the two conferences is that they realized they needed to put their two best teams in the conference title game, rather than sticking with a divisional format.

This move brings up an obvious question: Will the Big Ten and/or the SEC eliminate divisions or, at the very least, make their conference championship games 1 versus 2 battles (the top two teams in the conference standings) instead of games between division champions? We will soon find out.

Times are changing in college football. One wonders how this will — or won’t — affect negotiations for a postseason format starting in 2026. The current 12-year College Football Playoff plan remains in place through 2025.

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