According to ESPN, the ACC is close to changing the way it schedules each year and doing away with its current division layout. Each team in the conference would have three opponents that they would play each year and then the schedule would rotate through the rest of the teams every other year. ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips shed some light on the reasoning for moving to this new format (h/t ESPN):
“The two, I think, drivers to this: One, is the opportunity for our student athletes to play every school in the ACC over a four-year period of time,” Phillips said. “That’s just not the case right now. The other piece of it is, I’ve always felt that was a local decision about how you handle your conference. You’re seeing that across multiple conferences that they’d like to dictate what their championship structure looks like, and which will lead into eventually an expanded football playoff.”
Would this be a change that could be incorporated into Pac-12 football? At present, the Pac-12 uses a similar two-division layout, with six teams in the North Division and six in the South. Of the Power 5 conferences, only the Big 10 and Pac-12 play nine conference games. There have been talks that the Pac-12 could look to renegotiate its TV deals to incorporate an eight-game conference schedule and take advantage of its new scheduling alliance with the Big 10 and the ACC.
“It depends on whether or not we’re able to renegotiate our nine-conference-game schedule with ESPN and FOX,” said Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff during an August interview. “If we’re able to re-negotiate that down to eight, and the Big Ten is able to do that as well, we can start playing these games next year. But there’s a lot of work to be done to get there.”
Assuming the Pac-12 is able to move to an eight-game conference schedule, here is what a non-division template could look like:
| Arizona | Arizona State | Colorado | Utah |
| Arizona State | Arizona | Colorado | Utah |
| California | Stanford | UCLA | USC |
| Colorado | Utah | Arizona | Arizona State |
| Oregon | Oregon State | Washington | Washington State |
| Oregon State | Oregon | Washington | Washington State |
| Stanford | California | UCLA | USC |
| UCLA | USC | California | UCLA |
| USC | UCLA | California | Stanford |
| Utah | Colorado | Arizona | Arizona State |
| Washington | Washington State | Oregon | Oregon State |
| Washington State | Washington | Oregon | Oregon State |
Each school has its primary rival listed directly to the right with the rest of their Pod following them. This would essentially break the Pac-12 into a regional “pod” system and Colorado’s pod would consist of its main rival, Utah, as well as Arizona and Arizona State. This would leave us with five other conference games spread over the remaining eight teams. It also presents a tricky option as the SEC and ACC both employ 14 teams, but this would create an opportunity for the conference as you would turn schedules over faster and see other teams more often. What do you think of this Pac-12 redesign?
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