ACC commissioner: No plans for 3 divisions if deregulation passes

Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford said Thursday that the ACC does not plan to change its current format should the proposed deregulation of conference championship games pass.

The NCAA is expected to pass deregulation by 2016. If that happens, conferences will no longer be required to have 12 teams or two divisions in order to have a championship game.

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said he expected the ACC would expand to three divisions in that scenario, but Swofford told Andrea Adelson of ESPN.com on Thursday that making the move to three divisions is "not something we're discussing at all at this point. It just isn't."

Swofford insisted the ACC's support wasn't related to its own league:

Our purpose behind initiating that discussion was really not about anything specific we would necessarily do, but based on the whole deregulation of a number of NCAA issues in recent years. We said over and over again that doesn't mean we would necessarily change anything within our own league.

We just feel conferences should have the opportunity to do that both in terms of the number of teams in a league and whether you can have a championship as well as how you determine which teams play in that championship game. During these conversations, we haven't had any real discussion about a three-division ACC. That has never had any legs in our discussions and so far, any change to what we're doing now has not had any real legs.

The NCAA Football Oversight Committee meeting that will be held later this month is expected to discuss championship game deregulation.

"My impression is that there is support for it," Swofford said. "I would guess if that support is there, that it could be implemented as early as the '16 football season."

Should championship game deregulation pass, the big winner would be Bowlsby's Big 12 conference, which is not currently eligible to have a conference championship game. Since the ACC does have a championship game, some have wondered why it's supporting the proposed change.

Swofford said the ACC is backing deregulation based on principle, and it does not mean change is coming in the ACC - at least not now.

"I think the fact that we were supporting this in principle and felt it was the right route to go, it gives people the impression that we have a specific direction we would take things in in our league that's different than what we're currently doing," Swofford said. "That's just not the case."