NCAA D1 council to vote on eliminating division requirements for title games
The NCAA Division I council is reportedly set to vote on a proposal next week that would eliminate the requirement for conferences to have divisions in place to hold a conference championship game, according to Athlon Sports Bryan Fischer.
It’s a non-controversial move that figures to pave the way for conferences like the Pac-12 to eliminate divisions and completely restructure the league calendar.
Source says the D1 Council will indeed vote next week on eliminiating the division requirements for football conference title games, paving the way for ACC, B1G, Pac-12, MWC, etc. to eliminate divisions in 2023.
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) May 12, 2022
Present NCAA rules require a football conference with 12 or more members to hold a championship game and split teams into divisions with round-robin seasons for divisional opponents. The NCAA passed legislation in 2016 that allowed conferences with fewer than 12 members to hold conference championship games, green-lighting a title game for the 10-member Big 12.
The ACC has made waves in the past week after reports emerged that the league was considering a schedule re-structuring where each team would have two or three “permanent” opponents and then would rotate through the remaining teams each season. If the ACC made such a change, each team would host every conference opponent at least once every four years.
Doing away with divisions and creating more of a pod structure has been a topic of conversation throughout college football in recent years, specifically in Power Five leagues where the balance of power has shifted dramatically to one side of the league.
In the Pac-12, Oregon has won three straight Pac-12 North division titles and five of 11 since the league re-organized ahead of the 2011 season. Washington State, Oregon State, and California have yet to appear in a Pac-12 title game. Meanwhile, all six South teams have played in the title game since its 2011 inception.