ACC Considering Eliminating Divisions In Football

Yeah, that and beating Clemson.

College football also isn't all about the playoff, and making it into that only works to the sport's detriment. It'd be nice to make it, but more important to me than gaining some small potential advantage in that pursuit is playing our rivals annually and playing everyone in our conference regularly, which is a return to what the sport historically has been about

I want State and Duke in the Wake pod. State for historical reasons. Isn't it like the second longest continuous series in the sport? Duke because of dominating them for about 30 years now.

As long as the 3rd team isn't Clemson, I don't really care who it is, since Wake will no longer go 6 years without playing teams.

wsc8521s said:

College football also isn't all about the playoff, and making it into that only works to the sport's detriment. It'd be nice to make it, but more important to me than gaining some small potential advantage in that pursuit is playing our rivals annually and playing everyone in our conference regularly, which is a return to what the sport historically has been about

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That's a great recruiting pitch.

Wouldn't mind playing Clemson every year. Cuse, State and Pitt all beat Clemson in the last couple of years. An awful GT team should've beaten Clemson last year; BC has taken Clemson to the wire often in recent years. Heck, even old man Mack Brown had Clemson's National Championship team on the brink in 2019.

For whatever reason (I know some here claim it's WF style of offense), Clemson has often saved its best performances for WF in recent years (Dabo rallied the team around not having an another ACC team celebrate a division title on Clemson's homefield last year). Love WF's chances against Clemson this season, and our schedule would absolutely suck this upcoming season, if Clemson had dropped off, and WF was playing VT or UVA or some other mediocre ACC team. As in, WF's schedule would suck so bad that not sure an undefeated season would be enough for a playoff.

wsc8521s said:

College football also isn't all about the playoff, and making it into that only works to the sport's detriment. It'd be nice to make it, but more important to me than gaining some small potential advantage in that pursuit is playing our rivals annually and playing everyone in our conference regularly, which is a return to what the sport historically has been about

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Agree 100%. If's there's ever a break-off of the 30-50 schools who want to compete at a mostly professional level with players whose only real connection to the school is the name on the (front) of the jersey, the regional model may be what those schools "left out" (some intentionally) return to.

The goal is and should be to get to the CFB playoff. Anything other than that being the goal is so LOWF it hurts. It's a tough goal, but it can be done, and the playoff will be 8-12 teams soon. It is attainable in the right circumstances.

deacfan123 said:

The goal is and should be to get to the CFB playoff. Anything other than that being the goal is so LOWF it hurts. It's a tough goal, but it can be done, and the playoff will be 8-12 teams soon. It is attainable in the right circumstances.

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Well, a 12 team playoff would likely (and an 8 team playoff might) include auto bids for the Power V conference champs, WF played in the ACCCG last December; so, yes, making a CFB playoff is very attainable.

Pilchard said:

Wouldn't mind playing Clemson every year. Cuse, State and Pitt all beat Clemson in the last couple of years. An awful GT team should've beaten Clemson last year; BC has taken Clemson to the wire often in recent years. Heck, even old man Mack Brown had Clemson's National Championship team on the brink in 2019.

For whatever reason (I know some here claim it's WF style of offense), Clemson has often saved its best performances for WF in recent years (Dabo rallied the team around not having an another ACC team celebrate a division title on Clemson's homefield last year). Love WF's chances against Clemson this season, and our schedule would absolutely suck this upcoming season, if Clemson had dropped off, and WF was playing VT or UVA or some other mediocre ACC team. As in, WF's schedule would suck so bad that not sure an undefeated season would be enough for a playoff.

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Even accepting your logic, if Clemson wasn't on the schedule at the beginning of the season, there's a good chance an undefeated Wake would play them in Charlotte.

PhDeac said:

Even accepting your logic, if Clemson wasn't on the schedule at the beginning of the season, there's a good chance an undefeated Wake would play them in Charlotte.

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There will be an ACCCG; so, yes, WF will play another ACC team with a good record at the end of the season, but WF made the ACCCG this past year and played Clemson in the regular season (as WF did in 2006); so, playing Clemson doesn't preclude qualifying for the ACCCG. IF WF had won at Clemson last year, WF may have been playing the ACCCG for a spot in the CFP this past year. Don't see how ducking Clemson is good for WF, if the goal is the CFP, particularly, when WF plays Army, Vandy, Liberty and VMI in the OOC schedule. That is pathetic. Agree with the FSU AD; having Clemson on the schedule is good all around: high profile game, a ranked opponent every year; and strength of schedule is a criterion. Competition is good; the philosophy that WF should play the easiest possible schedule and then argue its way into the CFP is not the way to go.

If WF really wants to be a program vying for the CFB, the toughest opponents regular season opponents each year can't be NC State and UVA. At a minimum, when WF does not play Clemson, WF has to schedule ND or some other legit OOC Power V opponent.

ND is going to be on the schedule when ND is on the schedule. So that takes care of itself.

I'm all for playing a legit OOC P5 opponent every year, but I don't think we have to play Clemson in conference to contend for the CFB. Under this format, a 12-0 ACC team will have to face the second best team in the conference to get to the CFB. So that addresses any schedule concerns. They won't just be playing an 8-4 Coastal team.

What is WF's biggest game on the schedule next year? What is the game on the WF 2022 schedule most likely to get national attention? What game may even attract Gameday to WF? Who was the opponent the only time that Gameday visited WF? Hmmmm.

Let's take that away and play UVA or Pitt or GT? Really? How would that be good for WF?

Makes no sense if the point is to raise the profile of the program.

Is only playing them every two years instead of every year ducking them.

say we hold on against UNC and play another game instead of clemson. good chance we are playing for a CFP birth in Charlotte.

That’s a fair argument, Pilch. It’s also fair to say Wake would have had a higher profile playing VT and going 11-1 instead of playing Clemson and going 10-2.

berth

ChrisL68 said:

Is only playing them every two years instead of every year ducking them.

say we hold on against UNC and play another game instead of clemson. good chance we are playing for a CFP birth in Charlotte.

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I'm 100% for ditching the ACC divisional format. Beyond stupid that WF plays Cuse every year in football, but UNC on rare occasion, unless WF schedules an OOC series. Also, many seasons, the best two ACC teams are in the same division; so, the ACCCG becomes a walkover like Clemson versus Duke. The ACC was stupid when it set up the divisions in the first place. Coming off years of FSU v. Miami dominance, the league thought that it would reap massive attention from another FSU v. Miami matchup which the league thought would be a defacto national championship play-in game. That's why the league put the game in Florida when the division set up was first announced. As Miami sucked every year, the ACC was slow to react as 10,000 fans watched VT v. BC in Florida. Just amazing how the ACC didn't immediately realize that the initial division format was hurting the league as terrible ACCCG games continued for years.

Look, I don't see the ACC keeping WF and Clemson as rivals because Clemson is the ACC's most marketable product right now, and doubt the conference sees the benefit in ensuring WF v. Clemson every year because the conference doesn't think it will be as marketable as Clemson versus other opponents. However, as WF's advocate, I see WF getting more out of the matchup with Clemson than it does with almost any other school. It's good to play big games. It's good to get noticed. Even if WF is ranked in the preseaon poll, very few will care about WF v. UVA in September. With Clawson moving WF from good to great, people everywhere will notice Clemson v. WF.

Hopefully we don’t get a stupid permanent opponent like BC or Cuse. We won’t get Clemson.

Assume we get NCSU and Duke; hopefully the 3rd will at least make regional sense eg UVA or VT

Also hoping we take the opportunity to upgrade our future schedules and never, ever have an embarrassing, shitty OOC slate like we have this year

PhDeac said:

There's no shortage of $$$$ in college football so there's no point in trying to parse out how much will go where like there's a fixed budget. There will always be enough money for big time programs to pay transfers, pay HS recruits, buyout coaches, build shiny new facilities, whatever.

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Glad you agree with me.

There’s no way the ACC powers that be are banking on Wake-Clemson as a marquee rivalry game. No way. I think every team should get a brand new rival. Wake should get UNC and Clemson should get Miami along with GT and FSU.

PhDeac said:

There’s no way the ACC powers that be are banking on Wake-Clemson as a marquee rivalry game. No way. I think every team should get a brand new rival. Wake should get UNC and Clemson should get Miami along with GT and FSU.

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Those dumb-dumbs probably still think FSU-Miami is the marquee ACC rivalry