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The expansion of the College Football Playoff led to a renewed focus on the conference championship games with the potential to throw a very interesting hitch into the equation. The ACC is consequently taking a closer look at its approach to those contests, and their significance could be dramatically reduced if it opts to adopt some proposals that are on the table.
The 2014 season marked the first time the College Football Playoff was used to determine a national championship, and a conference championship game (or, more accurately, lack thereof) was the source of some controversy when both TCU and Baylor were left out in favor of Ohio State.
It’s a virtual certainty one of those first two teams would have been picked over the Buckeyes if they’d faced off to determine the sole winner of the Big 12 title. Unfortunately, that season transpired in the midst of the six-year stretch where the conference opted to forgo a conference championship game, and the schools who ended up sharing the honor ended up on the outside looking in.
We were once again treated to some conference championship game drama when the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams this season.
There were a number of scenarios with the potential to spark chaos that ultimately didn’t unfold, but the fact that some teams theoretically had incentive to lose to avoid playing in a conference championship game that could have impacted their eligibility led to a fresh debate about their place in the current college football landscape.
Clemson’s victory over SMU in the ACC Championship game ultimately benefitted the conference, which likely would have only had one representative in the CFP if the Mustangs had beaten the Tigers. However, it appears there’s a chance that tilt could be the last one that features the best two teams in the ACC.
According to ESPN, commissioner Jim Phillips says the conference is debating potential changes that would theoretically ensure the team with the best record in the regular season (as was the case with SMU) won’t have to worry about seeing its CFP dreams dashed with a loss in the ACC Championship Game, with one potential solution being “giving its regular-season champion a bye, and have the teams that finish second or third in the league standings play” in the final showdown.
The outlet notes the conference is also considering an even more convoluted proposal that would involve a four-team tournament with a semifinal between “first place versus fourth place, and second place vs. third place” transpiring in the final week of the regular season to determine the lineup for the title matchup the following week.
It goes without saying a conference championship game that doesn’t feature the actual conference champion seems like the ultimate exercise in futility, and it will be very interesting to see if the ACC decides to go that route and if other conferences will take similar measures as the CFP continues to make the conference titles increasingly meaningless.