The ACC missed a golden opportunity in 2021

The ACC released the league’s 2021 schedules Thursday morning.

The 2020 ACC season was one that we are all grateful to have been able to play. It was a season full of surprises, ups, and downs as well as joy and heartbreak. It was a season that fans across the league will never forget.

While there was a lot we would like to never see again, like Notre Dame in the ACC, there was one thing that the conference should have kept from 2020 and that was the elimination of divisions.

As the ability to make the College Football Playoff becomes harder and harder, the two best teams from the ACC playing in the conference championship game just makes sense. If two teams are 8-0 or 7-1 in league play, they should have the ability to play for the conference championship.

Getting rid of the divisions as the Big XII did makes sense in college football today.

Over the last ten years, the ACC Coastal has become one of the worst divisions in college football. Going 5-3 in the ACC and making the championship game when you played five games against teams that are a joke and weakens the strength of schedule for teams like Clemson that have a shot at the College Football Playoff.

The ACC would have been better off playing eight conference games without designating whether a team is in a division.

Division titles are meaningless in athletics. Teams don’t get trophies or rings and while they celebrate by selling t-shirts, that is for fans and a way to add money to the bottom line of the conference and the programs.

The ACC had a chance to make a meaningful change to the conference, something that it has not done in years and once again they missed the opportunity. Hopefully, as the new commissioner gets settled, he will be open to new ideas that will help the league grow in ways it never did under John Swofford.