(10-23-2019 01:46 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(10-23-2019 01:31 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yeah, I agree.

Everyone needs to remember that the Big Ten explicitly FOUGHT the divisionless CCG game proposal from the ACC. The Big Ten was fine with a 10-team conference that plays a round robin schedule as a compromise, but they went out of their way to kill the ACC's proposal for larger conferences that aren't able to play a round robin.

I am taking that into account, but that was also a big reason I didn't think that Aresco was going to get the 11-team no-divisions waiver AT ALL. The logical outcome of "Big Ten says no" would have been to give the AAC the MAC/UAB waiver, for 5-and-6 rather than 6-and-7.

Quote:Maybe the Big Ten's thinking has changed on this (see some of Jim Delany's comments last year when Ohio State got shut out of the playoff), but the point is that the league very actively didn't want the rule change not very long ago.

Or maybe the Big Ten (for inscrutable reasons) is very much against the ACC playing divisionless, but doesn't give a rip what the G5 leagues do.

Quote:To be clear, I'm not saying the Big Ten is correct here: I personally think just taking the top two schools from a 14-team Big Ten as opposed to having divisions would be fantastic. However, we have to go by with how very actively the Big Ten fought against that format previously... and this wasn't simply a passive disapproval, but a true explicit fight against it. That's what anyone that wants to change the rules going forward is going to go up against.

I think the likely outcomes are:
1. AAC waiver gets extended "temporarily" for 2 years at at time until there is a shift in the landscape. No divisionless ACC though.
2. The rule is changed. (What exactly the new rule looks like, I don't know. Either the Big Ten has a change of heart/leadership and approves a free-for-all, or they write some baroque rule that allows AAC to be divisionless, but not ACC)

I don't think, over the next year-and-a-half as Aresco pushes for the rule change, there is going to be much sentiment to force the AAC to pick a 12th team. So either the rule gets rewritten, or the temporary waiver gets extended. And once it gets extended, it's basically a permanent fixture.

They’re not going to get an extension, there are no grounds for that. The waiver is literally giving them time to figure their s*** out.

The only way they get a waiver extension is if they invite a 12th team and have to wait for them to join a season later or so.