ACC officials have voted to send the NCAA's Board of Directors “a piece of legislation that would grant the conferences the flexibility to determine who played in their football championship game,” ACC commissioner John Swofford told ESPN.com on Tuesday.
Swofford said the ACC faculty representatives, who were advised by the league’s athletic directors, voted in favor of the legislation at the ACC’s recent winter meetings, which were held last week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
“We will be sending that forward,” Swofford said. “We did vote to send that forward to consideration.”
Swofford said he’s not aware of any other conference that has taken this step yet. Under the current structure, the NCAA requires that each conference have an equal number of teams in each division, and every team must play each opponent in its own division. Should the NCAA lighten its restrictions, conferences would have the option to change the format.
“I’ve had conversations with my colleagues at the other conferences, and I think there’s a reasonable amount of support for that,” Swofford said, “but you never know until it gets to the board and is voted on.”
Swofford said the NCAA could reach a decision as early as April but that any changes wouldn’t be in effect for the 2014 season, should there be any changes at all.
“It’s simply permissive,” he said. “It doesn’t mean there would be changes with the conferences, it simply means the conferences would have the freedom to make those changes if they would choose to do so.”
