Report: Pac-12 May Consider Eliminating Divisions in Football
The Pac-12, under new commissioner George Kliavkoff, reportedly may consider two significant changes to its football structure – the elimination of divisions and a reduction of the number of conference games from nine to eight.
The league has begun “preliminary discussions” on these issues, according to a report by Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News, who notes that the possible changes would be in response to the proposed expansion of College Football Playoff from four teams to 12 teams.
The 12-team playoff format would not be put into effect until 2023 at the earliest, and Wilner notes that any significant changes in the Pac-12 structure are "months, if not years away.”
Nonetheless the possible changes are intriguing and would be geared to help get a Pac-12 team into the national championship playoff.
Eliminating divisions would maximize the chance of the conference champion being among the six highest-ranked conference champions, which are the teams that would receive automatic berths in the proposed 12-team playoff format.
In the division structure, an unranked team that wins a division could pull an upset over highly ranked team in the Pac-12 championship game, thus reducing the conference’s chances of getting a team into the College Football Playoff. Oregon was the 2020 Pac-12 champion but was only 25th in the final CFP rankings.
With no divisions the first- and second-place teams would meet in the conference championship game.
It is noteworthy that the ACC eliminated divisions in 2020 when Notre Dame was a football member of the conference, and the ACC ended up with two representatives in the four-team CFP – Clemson and Notre Dame.
The idea of adding a nonconference game to replace a conference game also may have postseason benefits.
The SEC and the ACC are the only two Power Five conferences that play only eight conference games per year, but they are also the only two Power Five conferences that have at a team in the College Football Playoff in all seven years that the CFP has existed.
With four nonconference games, Pac-12 schools could schedule one challenging nonconference game and three others it expects to win, thus maximizing its chances of finishing with an impressive overall record.
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Cover photo by Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports
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