I just read this interesting tidbit in Maisel's latest three point stance:
"Stanford coach David Shaw suggests that the AQ conferences make scheduling deals a la the Big Ten-ACC Challenge in basketball. The Pac-12 and SEC schools all pair off one season, and the leagues keep switching partners from year to year. The appeal to viewers and ticket buyers is obvious. But that's not why most coaches and athletic directors schedule non-conference games. On the list of scheduling imperatives, appeal to viewers and ticket buyers comes well after home dates and coaching security. That's too bad."
David Shaw, my friends, is equal parts genius and insane. But unfortunately for us, this proposal will never get off the ground. Given the current college football incentive structure that includes securing at least 6-7 home games, coaching security and qualifying for one of the roughly 75 bowl games, no AD or conference is going to sign up for something like this.
But it never hurts to dream, right? My question is if an idea like this ever got off the ground, which conference would you want to see the ACC square off against?
The other AQ conference would have to have the same number of teams, so the Big East (currently at 9, maybe 10 in short order) and Big 12(-2) are out, natch. Those two would probably have to be paired together.
The SEC is king in football, but we are already treated to multiple ACC-SEC matchups a year between Florida State-Florida, Georgia Tech-Georgia, Clemson-South Carolina and Wake Forest-Vanderbilt. The ACC and SEC could simply extend the scheduling pairs to include Alabama-Virginia Tech, Kentucky-Maryland and Tennessee-Virginia.
Or we could go in a completely different direction and simply move the ACC-Big Ten Challenge from the hardwood to the gridiron, with matchups like Florida State-Penn State, Miami (Fla.)-Ohio State and Virginia Tech-Nebraska.
Perhaps since we don't see all that match of our coastal counterparts on the other side of the country, an ACC-Pac-12 Challenge is in order. How about pairings like BC-UCLA, Florida State-USC, Duke-Stanford and Virginia Tech-Oregon?
So the question is in a far off college football fantasy world, which conference would you most want to see paired with ACC in an ACC-[BCS Conference] Football Challenge?