Firstly, I’m not new to the board. I think I actually posted once in 2003. I do look in occasionally and have seen your posts in the past. But I’m not normally into posting as most of the time any thought I might have has also been expressed by others.

But on the 4 division thing, here is what I think you do in a 16 team league. I’m curious if what you think of this way of handling the scheduling. Of course it’s a complete change of subject from your original post so maybe I should start a new thread. But by replying to your post, I’m calling it to your attention.

The number one assumption here is that you are sticking to an 8 game league schedule. (I have thoughts on how to get to 9 and keep FSU, Clemson, GT, and even ND happy as well, but I won’t address them here). And please just let me know if these ideas are redundant to ones already expressed. I don’t check in often enough to know.

1. Four 4-team pods (obviously). Call them whatever you want. For purposes of discussion, North/South/East/West, although I doubt that strictly geographical divisions would work (see Notre Dame).

2. Annually rotate which pods play which (North/South, East/West; then North/East, South/West; then North/West, South/East). So you play every team in the conference a minimum of once every three years. This gets you to 7 league games (three in pod and four in the rotating pod).

3. So you need one more. That’s where the crossover rival comes in. Play them and you are at eight league games.

4. But what happens when your crossover is in the rotating pod that you are playing? Ok, now you have a secondary crossover that you play when you are already playing your primary crossover. So now you have 4 teams you play every year and one team you play 2 of every 3 years. Meaning that in spite of all the moving parts, you actually have a relatively recognizable schedule on a year-to-year basis. And you never go more than three years without playing every member of the conference.

When you try to map all of this out, if actually gets quite complex (the primary and secondary rivals would have to be selected so that they work with the other primary/secondary’s). To make it work, you are likely going to have to force “rivalries” (ala VT/BC) on teams that really don’t have historic rivalries (and however that might end up, I hope Louisville gets screwed).

How do you decide who goes to the conference championship game you ask? Change the “two” divisions for purposes of getting to the championship every year. In year one, the winner of North/South plays the winner of East/West. You could actually keep the “Atlantic” and “Coastal” division names (which I hated at first but with which I’m now OK). Just change the members every year based on who is playing each other. Meaning in year one, the North/South division is the Atlantic and in year two the Atlantic division is comprised of the teams from the North/East. Or whatever. I don’t care what you call it.

Huh, you say? The teams in my division are different every year? And the division might actually have a different name? My response is “So what?”. You are still in the same conference. And you still have to win that conference. Against a different mix of teams every single year (repeating every three years). I think that would be exciting. Plus I would love the water cooler question: “do you know who is in our division this year”?

OK, so here’s an example of what isn’t exciting:

Exhibit A: The members of the Big10 West this year will still be the members of the Big10 West next year.

Exhibit B: The members of the SEC East this year will still be the members of the SEC East Next year.

In my plan, the conference doesn’t risk getting top-heavy in one division or the other. Sure, it can happen in a pod, but not in a division.

These every-single-year moving parts would drive sports talk people and fans nuts. Which would be great for the sport, the ACC, and for each individual team.

OK. There’s my post for this decade. Sorry it was so long!

[Post edited by Alicks at 12/01/2017 09:29AM]