Despite the Big 12 and SEC creating a New Year's Day bowl game last week, it is “not time yet for ACC fans or league officials in Greensboro to panic,” according to Heather Dinich of ESPN.com. Much of the initial “knee-jerk reaction to the partnership announced on Friday between the Big 12 and SEC was doom and gloom for the ACC.” It is "not like ACC officials have been clamoring for an annual ACC-Big 12 bowl game, anyway. Far more important to the ACC than the new bowl is how the four teams in the playoff are to be selected.” What the SEC and Big 12 did "was clever -- very clever,” because now the perception is that if the Champions Bowl and the Rose Bowl “become glorified semifinals in the playoff system, the ACC may as well start calling itself the Sun Belt.” It could be argued the Champions Bowl “should be of bigger concern to the Fiesta and Sugar Bowls than the ACC.” Dinich wrote, “The Champions Bowl will not ‘freeze out’ the ACC. You can’t be kicked out of a club you weren’t a member of to begin with.” The ACC “wasn’t at the same table" as the SEC and Big 12 to begin with, but as far as strategy and negotiations go, Commissioner John Swofford “has earned his seat” (ESPN.com, 5/21).
WATCH YOUR STEP: YAHOO SPORTS’ Dan Wetzel writes, “There remains consternation that the ACC, Big East and, who knows, even the NCAA itself is in danger -- real or imagined" -- following last week's SEC-Big 12 announcement. The ACC and Big East are “primed to be plucked. … Even if this isn’t a giant step toward four super leagues, it is a step nonetheless.” For the ACC, Big East and other conferences, “the risks are enormous here, the stakes considerable.” Wetzel notes, “There is a disparity among conferences for regular-season television money, but it is significantly offset by a playoff that could generate additional hundreds of millions per season. If you are in the ACC or Big East, whether you think a four-, eight- or 64-team tournament is best is immaterial. This is about plotting the best course for survival.” Four years ago, the ACC “smartly aligned with the SEC and pushed for the kind of four-team event that is about to become reality.” Meanwhile, the Big East “should've demanded the aforementioned eight-team playoff plan” (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 5/22). In Virginia, David Teel wrote, “The ACC’s cure-all would be luring Notre Dame to join the conference. Absent that, an Orange Bowl tie-in with the Irish would help. But given the ACC’s current uncertainty, those options may not be viable.” Swofford “will not be idle and that any malcontents will conclude that the ACC remains the best avenue for their football programs and athletic departments” (Hampton Roads DAILY PRESS, 5/21).
TIGER BLOOD: Clemson Univ. AD Terry Don Phillips discussed the ACC's TV deal in relation to the new SEC-Big 12 bowl deal, and said, “In this latest contract with ESPN, 80% of it is generated by football. As good as basketball has been in the ACC, it is very evident just through this contract that football has to be very, very relevant. And the conference is well aware of that and they are going to be turning over every stone that they can and not just sitting on this contract.” Addressing the potential exit of teams from the ACC and the effect it could have, Phillips said: “The only thing that I feel confident in saying is that I believe that the ACC understands the challenges that we have going forward that football is strong and gets stronger. We cannot afford to lose our seat at the table when it comes to the BCS and championships going forward.” Phillips, on whether the ACC might expand: “I’m at a juncture to where you don’t rule anything out anymore. You simply can’t rule it out” (TIGERNET.com, 5/21).
HOLD THE CORONATION: In Atlanta, Mark Bradley writes, “I’m a little confused about just how big this Big Game really is.” The Big 12 is “desperate to ensure its continuing existence, and this new bowl will go a long ways toward doing that.” With a four-team BCS playoff at hand, “chances of the SEC and the Big 12 champions not being included among those four teams in a given year is all but moot.” That would leave the new game with “lesser teams” from the SEC and Big 12. Bradley asks, “Is it really a Champions Bowl if it includes the losers of the SEC and Big 12 title tilts? And for all the SEC’s cachet, would a New Year’s Day game that features a team (or teams) riding a one-game losing streak be quite the draw [SEC Commissioner Mike] Slive has in mind.” In an attempt to be proactive, the SEC and the Big 12 “may be guilty of fighting a battle that has all but ended.” They are “trotting out a new bowl at a time when the future, at long last, will belong to a playoff” (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 5/22). In K.C., Blair Kerkhoff writes, “Eventually, college football will be the domain of super conferences, governed by a commissioner, with a playoff structure. You know, like every other sport.” He adds, “But with the mood and capacity for change never greater, it’s almost as if what’s being discussed, radical as it is, might not be enough. Not if the end game is a streamlined playoff” (K.C. STAR, 5/22).
TEN IS ENOUGH: Outgoing interim Big 12 Commissioner Chuck Neinas yesterday said that Big 12 ADs “expressed a desire to remain" at 10 teams in the conference. Neinas: “They like the way it’s a round-robin schedule in football and a double round-robin schedule in basketball and at this point in time they feel that moving forward, ten is good.” Neinas added, “Right now, there has been no movement at all toward a conference championship game.” ESPN's Joe Schad noted, “It is true, the Big 12 is in a period of study” about expansion, “but make no mistake, they are ready and willing to activate the expansion process at any time and in fact, it’s my belief that more schools than not within the Big 12 Conference favor expansion to 12 teams” ("College Football Live", ESPN, 5/21).
