What NCAA Conference Realignment Should Look Like

Sep 14, 2013; Syracuse, NY, USA; General view of the Atlantic Coast Conference logo on the field at the Carrier Dome prior to the game between the Wagner Seahawks and the Syracuse Orange. Mandatory Credit: Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) 

The ACC formed in 1953 as a group of teams from the Southern Conference that did not break off and join the SEC 20 years earlier. It was always meant to include southern teams on the East Coast.

However, in recent years it has extended to the North, but it is an odd look when you have schools going up the Atlantic seaboard on the southern end, but after Virginia you jump to Pennsylvania, upstate New York, then Massachusetts. Let’s keep it a bit more regional.

We will have a place for those northern teams in the ACC and get to that in a minute. But for the ACC, which has 14 teams, it needs to be trimmed down to 12. That means cutting out those three northern teams along with Louisville, which is not in a state on the Atlantic coast, and adding two more Florida teams.

UCF is on the verge of becoming a college football powerhouse. They consistently win at their level and will be in the Power Five very soon with all the tools they have, which includes the size of the school and the fertile Florida recruiting ground. They will deserve as much respect as Florida State and Miami. With UCF, you can add USF, who is struggling right now but has the potential to be just as great.

The two together makes the ACC more than just North Carolina schools and friends. Now you have four North Carolina schools, four Florida schools, a Georgia school, a South Carolina school, and two Virginia schools. The conference could even become more powerful in football with this realignment.

And it would cover all of the southern states on the Atlantic coast. The next slide will show where the other teams would go.

Next: Big East