ACC Football: Bowl Partnership with Big East Would Be Horrendous Move

News dropped Friday afternoon that the SEC and Big 12 are going to pair their champions in a bowl game to be named later. Basically creating a southern Rose Bowl of sorts that would pair the best teams not in the BCS playoffs, from both conferences.

Essentially, the move screws the Fiesta Bowl (not one of the rumored sites), and leaves the ACC, Big East and any team not in the Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten or SEC on the outside of two mega bowls.

That's not too bad. The Orange Bowl now has an extra team or two to select from. Instead of a random team playing the SEC in the Sugar Bowl and the Big 12 in the Fiesta Bowl, those two add-in teams are now in the proverbial pool.

Not a bad deal, especially considering the removal of autobids, the increase in the limit of teams that can play in major bowls, and the fact that the Orange Bowl desperately needs to pull a quality team from around the college football landscape.

However, the Big East has decided they should get into the business of self-interest. From ESPN's Joe Schad:

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Big East would be open to an ACC championship challenge

— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) May 18, 2012

 

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This would be great for the Big East. A solid move for the conference as they would be tying themselves to a specific bowl game instead of riding the whims of college football from a selection standpoint.

However, for the ACC—the league already tied into the Orange Bowl for the foreseeable future—this move would be terrible. A panicked, non-solution that would ultimately only serve to further increase the distance between the ACC and the Big Four leagues.

Making a move with the Big East would be damning. The two most mediocre of mediocre conferences pairing together leaves them both simply hoping for Louisville 2006 versus Virginia Tech 2004. That might happen, in the words of Dabo Swinney, at some point.

The ACC is better off sitting tight. Take your spin with whatever is left in the bowl after the playoff is set, and the Rose Bowl and Rose Bowl South pair up for the dance. If the Big East is the best partner out there, then the Orange Bowl and the ACC can take them home. But if there's a third place SEC team waiting on a call, that's the one you buy a drink for. Perhaps, there is a second place Big Ten team hanging out, then the league should saunter on over and pick them up.

Tying themselves to the Big East is a mistake. Even if the ship is going down, the league should not be signing up to help marginalize themselves. Ride this wave out, hope for the best and look to make the Orange Bowl as appealing as possible. Not an easy task with four teams being sucked out by the playoff, but the SEC and Big 12 pairing off does give the Orange Bowl a shot to make something decent of it.