The recent info about NCAA not granting the petition for waiver of the 12-team rule for championship games creates more questions for me than answers, and I think I may have misunderstood the whole process. I also think the news media is muddling it up as well. Have tried to search for answers, without much luck.

Here are my questions:

1) Was the original request for waiver just for the year 2004? This then would be a one-year waiver, giving the ACC the room to meet the twelve-team requirement eventually.

2) Was the original request for a permanent waiver?

3) If the above, why did not the ACC start the paperwork and politicking for an actual RULECHANGE, or was the original petition a two-parter, with a request for a temprary one-year waver, and more thorough petition for a permanent rule change.

4) I was under the impression that the original request was for an actual rule-change, rather than a waiver, but perhaps I have been wrong all along.

If the request was just for a temporary waiver, rather than a permanent waiver or actual rule change, with nothing more permanent envisioned, the whole thing was pretty hypocritical and self-serving, and lowers my opinion of Swofford even more.

Javaman, here's my question:

Why should the NCAA have anything to say about internal matters within a conference?

They don't regulate how many members you must have to have post-season basketball tournament or conference championship track meet. So why should they have anything to say about this?

This whole question is bass ackwards. When the original question was posed to the NCAA back in the late '80s, the question was: How big do you have to get before you MUST have a play-off. It was NOT a question of how what is the minimum size before you MAY have a play-off.

The original question was to establish the legitimacy of a chanmpion when the league was so big that you hadn't played enough other members to really have a representative schedule. Roy Kramer stood this decision on its ear when he used it to say that we at the SEC are eligible to schedule an extra game beyond the maximum number of games allowed because we have 12 members. Since that time, everyone else has gone along with his interpretation of the decision without questioning it.

Now that 3 leagues have scheduled that extra game, what would the NCAA do if the ACC or anyone else decides to also schedule an extra game without 12 members? Would they ban them from a BCS bowl? Hah! It is already permissible to hold an extra out-of-season game for a league championship play-off. If I were the ACC or any other league that wants a championship game, I'd go ahead & schedule it & tell the NCAA to take their objection & stuff it.

Hmm...

Very interesting points, FriarFan, both on the original rationale for the championship game, which had not occurred to me, and the what if ACC simply ignored thought... Have to think about the latter a bit more.

The whole thing that also seems strange to me is that we really haven't yet seen any official ACC reaction to the "denial of waiver", only a leak from Clemson, with subsequent newsstories about ACC expansion and NotreDame simply assuming this denial is a given.

You would think Swofford would have a press conference or interview or something official to say that "we are dissapointed with this development, so now we will put all our energy on moving toward our original 12-team goal, since NCAA has not allowed us to do it somewhat differently" pr etc., pr etc., pr etc.

:)

Friarfan, totally agree with you on this one. Can we say take the NCAA to court. How many times has the NCAA won a law suit against college football.

The NCAA has never really had any control over college football and trying to control the number of members to stage a championship game would make the NCAA look like a representative of the BCS specifically the SEC and Big 12.

Either case, not good perception for the NCAA or BCS.

Adding more controls that appear to benefit the BCS is not going to fly very well especially with US Congress looking into the process.

If I understood it correctly...

The ACC DID submit a petition to the NCAA suggesting the membership requirement for holding a championship game be lowered to 10 schools.

They also submitted a request for a waiver regarding the 12 member rule in order for them to have a championship game next year while a) the NCAA considered their petition mentioned above, which could not be acted upon until the Spring, and b) the ACC searches for #12 or comes to grip with being an 11 member league. It is this waiver which (it seems) will be denied, not the petition for rule change. However, this does offer possible insight as to the outcome for the petition, no? At least, that's what I believe.

ACC title game still an option: http://www.news-record.com/sports/acc/acc_092603.htm

Ah, this account is finally much more definitive..

Thanks as always, cyberlion,

;D

Regardless of whether or not the 10 team conference championship game is approved, it is not as appealing as in a 12 team conference. The fewer the members, the more apt the championship game will be a regular season re-match. The SEC has had a couple of re-matches, and when it happens, a bit of the luster is diminished unless the earlier game was tight and involved the higher profile schools.

The other possibility with a ten team conference having a championship game, would be scheduling more out-of-conference games, rather than more of a round-robin type or eight conference games per regular season. It seems the larger conferences are using "8" conference games for the regular season as the norm.

Agreed. The NCAA will not approve less than 12 teams the ACC needs to get busy and Big East'ed some other conference.

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