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Could ESPN Be The Catalyst For A Nine Game ACC Schedule?

Will the ACC-ESPN agreement cause the push to a nine game schedule?

By A.J Black
NCAA Football: ACC Football Championship Game-Clemson vs North Carolina Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

It's the story that won't go away. Will the Atlantic Coast Conference bite the bullet and return to a nine game conference schedule? In today's Daily Press writer David Teel makes the argument that the ACC-ESPN partnership may facilitate talks on changing the schedule again.

If you remember, the nine game conference schedule was brought up after Syracuse and Pittsburgh were brought into the ACC fold back in 2012, but the idea was scrapped after the conference agreed to a deal with Notre Dame that required five ACC games per season.

Teel brings up a great point, ESPN could be the catalyst for this change to occur because they are going to want content for their platform, whether that is a channel or app or whatever they choose to use. The more games that are scheduled in conference the more content they get, all the while ACC teams will get to play each other more frequently, instead of once every 12 years. Win win right?

Well not so fast. The major power brokers in the conference, the Clemsons, the FSUs are probably not going to want conference schedule expansion to happen. In the past they were staunchly against the nine game schedule, and voted against it the last time the conversation was held. The argument against a nine game schedule is that it limits out of conference scheduling flexibility, something that these programs value greatly.

In terms of Boston College, the nine game schedule would be beneficial for the Eagles. Instead of having to wait years to play historic teams like Miami, BC could have them on the schedule more frequently. This would also clear up some of the out of conference scheduling duds that rightfully don't excite the fans, whether this is the usual MAC opponent or FCS sacrifice.

Now it's important to remember that this whole idea is just the thoughts of David Teel, this hasn't officially been talked about at ACC meetings or anything like that. But his rationale makes sense, will the Worldwide Leader be the push to make this change happen?

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