Could ACC Go Division-less in Football?

Jim Phillips is still in his first year as ACC commissioner, but the outspoken leader of the league is looking at making some major changes to football's schedule and format.

After making headlines with his stance on not expanding the College Football Playoff, Phillips is working on positioning the ACC to do away with divisions, an idea the Big Ten is reportedly floating and something the Big 12 has been doing for years.

According to a report from ESPN, that is the main talking point at this week's ACC Winter Meetings in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and it's close to becoming a reality. Phillips told ESPN earlier this year that the league will ask the NCAA for the waiver to have a conference title game without divisions at some point, and there seems to be support for a new format.

The idea behind this is to better position the ACC for an uncertain future. It's very likely that there will one day be playoff expansion, but nobody knows anymore what that will look like in terms of the number of teams and what the qualifiers will be. Having more control of scheduling could greatly benefit the ACC down the road.

Especially when you think of the league's greatest obstacle: television revenue. The ACC ranks fourth behind the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 in that category, falling more than $200 million per year behind those first two leagues.

To get a better TV contract, which doesn't expire for another 14 years, the league needs more high-profile games both on its ACC Network and with partner ESPN. Maybe being able to expand its scheduling abilities and not having teams going half a decade without playing will help.

There are plenty of ideas out there on what a division-less schedule could look like. For example, Clemson could have just three constant opponents, as opposed to seven right now (six Atlantic Division opponents and Georgia Tech from the Coastal). That allows for a quicker rotation throughout the league and could spawn more important games, especially if the ACC pits the Tigers against three constants that are considered big names.

Regardless of how it's done, it's apparent that Phillips isn't afraid to shake things up. He stated at his inaugural ACC Kickoff address in July that football is the priority, and it looks like decisions in the league will reflect that moving forward.

He's been described as a "listener" to coaches' concerns, and he's sought out their thoughts on changes needed to keep up with the climate of college football. Last summer, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was asked about his thoughts on expansion, and he went to his team for an answer for Phillips.

"Our team isn't for it," Swinney said in July 2021. "They don't want to play more games. And to be honest with you, I don't know if there's 12 teams good enough. So you're going to play more games just to play more games. And I think the more you expand it, the less important the season becomes."

Phillips used that argument when he fought against the prevailing thought that playoff expansion would happen by 2024. Instead, the conferences and powers that be reached a stalemate earlier this year. It's likelier now that they'll wait until they get closer to the current deal ending after the 2025 season and the quickly-changing landscape settles down to work out a new CFP/TV deal.

"We have significant concerns surrounding a proposed expansion model, though we'd be supportive of future expansion once and if these concerns are addressed," Phillips said last month. "The membership believes that we have a responsibility in looking at the CFP and college football from a holistic perspective and not just whether to add more teams to a playoff. Collectively, we have much larger issues facing us than whether to expand the CFP early by two years."