I don’t know if that will change anything. Read on for more about Fickell and Longo. The most interesting situation is at Wisconsin, where new coach Luke Fickell’s hiring of Phil Longo as offensive coordinator suggests the Badgers are worried about competing for the Big Ten title and not the Big Ten West title.
Nebraska needs to be good enough to make a bowl first. We’ll see exactly what coach Matt Rhule has planned for Nebraska when the Cornhuskers start playing, but Big Ten title game appearances are the least of Rhule’s concerns right now. Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota are built to win the West.
What will be interesting to watch is how the former Big Ten West teams handle the change. But Penn State might wind up in one of those spots. Is it possible the league runs back Michigan– Ohio State a week later? Sure. The East has been so dominant that it usually produces the two best teams. The Big Ten probably will experience a similar shift to the ACC when it ditches divisions in 2024. Its two best will play in the title game, and we won’t have to wrap our brains around Missouri in the East Division. Georgia’s rise has made it so the SEC’s two best teams usually are playing in the title game again, but that league won’t have divisions in 2024 either. It just means the non-Clemson former Atlantic Division teams aren’t blocked if hiring Garrett Riley as offensive coordinator makes the Tigers national title contenders again. This doesn’t mean North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Miami have no chance. Or perhaps Wake Forest keeps winning and cracks the title game. It’s probably Clemson and Florida State this year, but it might be Louisville and one of those teams in 2025. There is a great chance that if those teams are as good as we think they’ll be, they’ll play again on Dec. Perhaps Florida State still could make the CFP as a non-division champ by beating LSU in the season opener and winning everything else but the Clemson game, but now the Seminoles or Tigers know that losing that game won’t eliminate them from the ACC title race. 23 might have been an elimination game in terms of the conference title. Under the old format, Florida State’s visit this year to Clemson on Sept. Losses to Houston and Kentucky would have hampered a potential CFP run that year, but in a 12-team format, Louisville might have earned a berth by winning the conference title. Louisville’s only conference loss was a 42-36 defeat at Clemson. Clemson wound up winning the national title, but Florida State was a 10-win team and Louisville was capable of beating just about anyone on the right day during Lamar Jackson’s Heisman Trophy season.Ĭoastal Division champ Virginia Tech lost by seven to Atlantic Division champ Clemson in the ACC title game, but the Hokies might have been the fourth-best team in the league that year. Let’s take a trip back to 2016, which might be the strongest year the ACC has had since it expanded. They all played in the Atlantic, so only one of them could have made the conference title game. That hasn’t been the case since the conference split into divisions in 2005. And now all those programs have a real chance to play for the title.
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