Report: ACC explores new structure

Change is coming to college football’s conference championship structure – the ACC at the forefront of it.

CBSSports.com reports that legislation, which the ACC and Big 12 started pushing for last year, could be passed by 2016 to deregulate conference championship games.

What would it change?

As it stands now, the NCAA requires both 12 teams, which the Big 12 falls short on, and a round-robin schedule within divisions to hold a conference championship game.

The CBS report says the ACC could be eyeing a three-division structure with the top-two meeting in Charlotte.

“I think there’s some belief that ACC would play three divisions, have two highest ranked play in postseason,” Bob Bowlsby, chairman of the new NCAA Football Oversight Committee told CBS. “Really, nobody cares how you determine your champion. It should be a conference-level decision.

“But because the ACC has persisted in saying, ‘We’re not sure what we’ll do,’ there’s probably a little bit of a shadow over it. In the end, I don’t think it’ll be able to hold it up. We’ll probably have it in place for ’16.”

While it’s unclear how a three-division look would come together (or even if it would work), the intriguing part is the top-two or ‘highest-ranked’ going to the ACC Championship Game. That’s of particular interest to Clemson, given their place in a division with another national power in Florida State.

This story was originally published April 8, 2015 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Report: ACC explores new structure."