Pac 12 Commissioner Wants Inter-conference Challenge for "The Alliance"
On Wednesday Pac 12 commissioner George Kliavkoff talked about a variety of topics with the media. He looked at the playoffs, his conference's health and more. But one interesting subject came up, the future of "The Alliance", the non-contractual formation of understanding between the PAC-12, ACC and Big Ten. Specifically, Kliavkoff addressed his potential vision on how the three conferences could work an interconference schedule moving forward.
Pac-12 commish George Kliavkoff calls scheduling college football games 12 years in advance "insane." He hopes the Alliance members can create an inter-conference challenge format where dates get saved and non-conference games get scheduled the preceding January.
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) December 9, 2021
PLEASE DO THIS
Typically conferences have out of conference dates planned out years in advance, as Kliavkoff mentioned above. For instance, Boston College already has games scheduled as 2034 (Alabama) and 2035 (Notre Dame). And yes, scheduling out that far in advance, is indeed "insane.", mostly because there is no way to predict the state of programs that far in advance.
While scheduling this far out has become the norm in college football, changing to a system with flexibility would make much more sense. Instead of having games that are haphazardly thrown on schedules fifteen years in advance, Kliavkoff's system would basically mimic the ACC/Big Ten Challenge that happens in men's and women's basketball. For instance next season you could have conference champions meet, possibly having Michigan or Utah face off with Pitt. This would help strong conference teams boost their strength of schedule for playoff seeding, and provide interesting other matchups, like Clemson vs. Ohio State, who could theoretically play against each other based on their standings.
Of course there has to be red tape, or pre-existing constraints that would get in the way of this idea. First, the Big Ten and PAC 12 have a nine game conference schedule, and many schools have those other three OOC games scheduled out years in advance. Kliavkoff mentioned that he would drop the PAC-12 top 8 conference games "tomorrow", but "the (Big 10) is not ready to do that yet".
This is all theoretical at this point, but "The Alliance" is going to need creative ideas like this if they are going to keep pace with the SEC. Fresh matchups created in January that pit the three conferences against each other would be one way to get that going. Hopefully the three conferences continue to work together over the upcoming year to figure out ways to work together as the landscape of college football continues to change.
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Editor and publisher of BC Bulletin. '06 graduate of Boston College, who has followed the program as long as he can remember. Has been covering the Eagles for the past nine years, giving expert analysis, recruiting news and breakdowns. Also the host of Locked on Boston College, a daily BC podcast that is part of the Locked On Podcast Network. When he is not writing or producing content on the Eagles, he can be found running, skiing, enjoying craft beers, or spending time with his family. You can follow AJ Black on Twitter @AJBlack_BC and our official site Twitter account is @BulletinBC
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