Decide the champion on the field
Miami is stuck in the ACC for the foreseeable future. It could be worse. The ACC received two bids to the College Football Playoff, just one fewer than the (once) mighty SEC, and one more than the single-bid Big XII. But, there is a gap wider than Biscayne Bay between the revenue received by the SEC and the Big Ten, on the one hand, and the ACC on the other. The majority of the college football blue bloods have consolidated themselves in the Big Ten or SEC, and their broadcasting partners have rewarded them with the most lucrative media rights deals. By a lot.
Not helping the ACC’s cause is its weak sauce viewership numbers. This year’s ACC Championship Game between SMU and Clemson drew a paltry 5.98M viewers despite airing on ABC during primetime. By comparison, the SEC Championship between Georgia and Texas drew 16.63M viewers, the Big Ten Championship between Oregon and Penn State had 10.5M viewers (on CBS opposite the ACC Championship game), and the Big XII Championship game had 6.90M viewers on ABC at noon. Despite arguably having the greatest playoff implications, the ACC was a distant fourth on ratings.
Separate and aside from the low TV ratings, the ACC suffered from a lack of premiere regular season matchups for its teams. As conference sizes swell well beyond 12 members, many teams will go more than two years without playing one another. The result will be circumstances like this past year where conference leaders SMU, Miami, and Clemson didn’t play each other. That contributed to these team’s fans having to listen to the SEC-stumping, talking heads bemoan how weak the ACC playoff contenders’ strength of schedule was compared to the Alabama and Ole Miss.
For the ACC to stay relevant, it needs to generate innovative, bold, out-of-the-box ideas to ensure its top teams receive top billing with its media partners. One such idea could be to hold a tournament to determine the ACC champion – like basketball, baseball, volleyball, etc. This would generate premier, late-season matchups that would draw higher TV ratings and ensure that on-the-field results, and not tiebreakers, determine the conference champion. Inviting the whole conference is impossible, but a four-team conference playoff or tournament is absolutely feasible. Here’s how the ACC could squeeze a semi-final matchup into the schedule…
All conference championship games are held during Conference Championship Week (Dec. 6th and 7th in 2024), with the CFP selection occurring the following Sunday (Dec. 8). Having semi-final games the week before (Nov. 28-30) is impossible. That’s Rivalry Week, and several ACC teams already have annual non-conference games including Clemson (vs. South Carolina), Florida State (vs. Florida), Louisville (vs. Kentucky), and Georgia Tech (vs. Georgia).
So hold the semi-finals Week 13 (Nov. 21-23) after playing an eight game conference schedule, and reserve Week 14 for non-conference games (more on that later…).
The ACC Semifinals can be selected one of two ways. The easiest way is to use the same rules and tie-breakers presently in place to pick the top 4 teams. The other option would be to reinstate divisions (and probably add one more expansion team to make an event 18 teams, like UConn, Memphis, Tulsa, a Pac 12 team, or Notre Dame in a dream scenario). The top two teams from two divisions could be selected, or the top three teams from three divisions could be selected plus a wildcard.
Once the ACC Semifinals are set, you could give the rest of the conference a bye week or you could matchup the rest of the conference teams to play the most interesting games possible. The fifth and sixth place teams would play each other, as would the seventh and eighth place teams, ninth and tenth, and so on. Although these other teams won’t be competing for a conference title, at least a few contests should generate some intriguing matchups with bowl placement and eligibility implications.
As for Week 14, it may or may not be difficult for teams to find non-conference opponents. One opportunity is to implement this idea in partnership with the Big XII whose members are not invested in Rivalry Week – none of the best Big XII rivalries occurred that week, perhaps because Kansas v. Kansas St., BYU v. Utah, and Arizona v. Arizona State would get crushed by Big Ten and SEC rivalry games for TV ratings. The ACC and the Big XII, who both need to improve their TV ratings and visibility, could create a scheduling partnership for Week 14 (like an ACC/Big XII challenge). Logistically, scheduling these would work well for many schools: California and Stanford could face an old Pac 12 foe; SMU could face one of the Texas schools; and West Virginia, Cincinnati, and UCF could stay in the Eastern time zone even if they go on the road.
Imagine if Miami’s 2024 schedule dropped Ball State and/or Florida A&M, and added an ACC semi-finals matchup plus a Big XII matchup? That would have certainly improved Miami’s strength of schedule, which was universally ranked in the 50’s. It would have also taken one or two games off the ACC Network in favor of an ESPN, or possibly ABC, television slot. Hard to see a downside, at least while Miami is trapped in this conference.