ACC Continues Search for Viability
Is relegation the next logical step?
More than one year ago, in an analysis of the lawsuit brought by Florida St. against the ACC, I said that the grant of rights was not as strong as many imagined, and that Florida St. would win. It was just a matter of when.
The Seminoles flirted (or at least attempted to flirt) with the Big Ten and SEC. But after getting what the next generation might call the side-eye, then winning a grand total of two games in 2024, suddenly the calculus in Tallahassee changed.
By the start of 2025, I don’t think Florida St. (nor Clemson, for that matter) wanted to win the suit. Cut loose from the ACC, they did not have anywhere better to go.
Landing in the Big 12, which would have meant road games at Cincinnati, BYU, and Central Florida, which would have been unacceptable for ‘Noles fans.
So, the parties settled the suit and agreed to a new revenue sharing model.
Last week, Stanford men’s basketball coach Kyle Smith, “proposed the ACC adopt an English soccer-style relegation model similar to the English Premier League.
I’ve talked to Jim [Phillips] about relegation, so this might be my moment, trying to go two divisions, so you’d have a top play top,” Smith said postgame Wednesday in Charlotte. “They’ll probably be mad I mentioned that, but I do think that would give you more opportunities if you played everyone twice in the top division.
(It’d be similar to the) Champions and Premier League(s in English soccer) — I’ve been working on this. … You would have two divisions and then at the end of the year, you’d relegate someone, but that top division would play each other twice so you’d get more Quad 1s, and it would be pretty neat.
For the last few months, I have actually been thinking along the same lines, except with the focus on how to make such a system of relegation work for football.
How it would work
Similar to Smith’s proposal, there would be two divisions. Although the ACC would probably opt for some sort of branding, for now we could stick with Smith’s English soccer comparison and call the higher division Premier and the lower division Championship.
The conference would be evenly split between the two divisions - nine teams in each - with Notre Dame being the only permanent “member” of the Premier division.
Of course, Notre Dame will want to keep its independence, so while the Irish would play all eight of the other Premier division teams, the Irish would not appear in the standings and would not be eligible for the ACC playoff (more on that below).
Each team would play eight intra-division conference games. The home/away split would be even.
Each year, the bottom two teams in the Premier division, as determined by conference records, would be relegated to the Championship division. At the same time, the top two Championship teams would move up to the Premier division the following season.
The regular season would only feature 11 games (leaving room for three non-conference matchups),
The ACC playoff would replace what is currently the last week of the regular season (Thanksgiving weekend). The playoff would be seeded as follows:
Semifinal 1: Championship #1 at Premiere #1
Semifinal 2: Premier #3 at Premier #2
5-6 matchup: Championship #2 at Premier #4
7-8 matchup: Championship #3 at Premier #5
9-10 matchup: Championship #4 at Premier #6
11-12 matchup: Championship #5 at Premier #7
13-14 matchup: Championship #6 at Premier #8
Notre Dame would play four non-ACC games, and the bottom three teams in the Championship division would be free to schedule an ad hoc game that last week. In reality, the bottom feeders will almost always choose to get a jump on the transfer portal and coaching market.
Why it makes sense
If one groups Notre Dame in with the ACC, the conference has plenty of blue-chip programs - four by my count (Notre Dame, Clemson, Florida St., and Miami). Virginia Tech has been mediocre for 15 years, but the fanbase and stadium are still top flight, which matters for television.
Beyond that group of five, there are a group of blah state schools and some small private schools with absentee fanbases.
Louisville and SMU are ascendant. I placed the Cardinals in the top group and SMU in the middle, but both have G5+ brand recognition. They are on the same level as Cincinnati and BYU in that regard.
The reason why the relegation setup outlined above makes sense is that it maximizes the number of good games between teams with strong brands in the regular season. Most of the top group schools will be in the Premier division most years. Likewise, most of the bottom group schools will be in the Championship division most years.
A similar money split as to what was recently agreed (60-67% of media money) would go to teams in the Premier division, with the rest going to the schools in the Championship division.
Most importantly, at the start of the season, every team is in contention to win the conference and get the automatic bid to the playoff.
The Premier division has the better teams, so it gets three out of the four conference semifinal bids. Still, the schools in the Championship division would have everything to play for.
The top two teams in that division would ascend to the Premier division the following year, and the team with the best record in the Championship division would nab the fourth seed in the conference semifinal.
Many of the other games played on Thanksgiving weekend would have major bowl implications, and because the teams should be evenly matched, the games should bring some measure of anticipation.
What else would have to change to make this scenario a reality?
The biggest change would be in scheduling. Football would have to shift to the basketball model in which schedules are made in the months leading up to the season.
That level of flexibility, once considered unthinkable, was proven feasible in 2020 during Covid.
Such a system would enable schools to schedule strategically. If you’re Brent Pry preparing for a season in the Premier division that would, hypothetically, include games against the four blue-chip teams as well as SMU, Georgia Tech, Louisville, and NC State, you probably want to play some G5 teams out of conference, in addition to UVA.
That last bit would be another change. Years in which conference rivals are in different divisions could see them agree to play a non-conference game. It happens every so often under the current setup, and I doubt the sky would fall if it became more common.
Finally, the biggest change would be Notre Dame agreeing to play eight games against the ACC’s best teams. The media split would likely be the biggest sticking point.
The Irish would get great access to the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, which would help them recruit those talent-rich areas with even more success. It would also still leave them with four other games, so Notre Dame could maintain rivalries with Navy and USC and play other interesting games.
Is there any chance something like this will happen?
I actually think there is a decent chance that this is the way of the future. The ACC, like the Big Ten, has a ton of dead weight. Isolating those schools and keeping the conference powers together (with requisite room for movement between the two groups) will improve the television product markedly.
Such a setup is the only way I can think of to keep the traditional basketball powers on tobacco road in the same conference with the schools that care about and support football.
If the ACC wanted to move to a relegation arrangement, the league would need to announce the change a year in advance, which would make the next season the one the dictates the initial division assignments.
If the relegation system proved successful, and I think it would, my bet is the Big Ten would be the adopt a similar setup. That league is so top heavy that their blue-chip programs are bound to look at the ACC powers getting more money and more interesting matchups and think, “Why can’t we do this?”