ACC Reportedly Open to Adding 9th League Game But Not 'Right Now,' SEC Also Debating

The ACC reportedly doesn't plan on joining the Big Ten and Big 12 with a ninth league football game, at least for the time being.

The Action Network's Brett McMurphy reported Thursday that a source told him the conference has no immediate plans to add a ninth conference game "right now, but would be open to it in the future."

McMurphy also noted the SEC is considering eventually adding a ninth league game to its own slate.

There are plenty of positives that would emerge from a nine-game schedule, especially in the era of conference realignment and expansion.

It would allow teams to face more opponents on a consistent basis and travel to different campuses more often than once every few years. With 17 ACC teams and a scheduling arrangement with Notre Dame, it is easy for some schools to miss other ones multiple years in a row. Adding a ninth conference game would at least expand those scheduling options.

It could also create more natural rivalries and increase consistency in college football across different conferences. In an era when teams from all of the major conferences are competing for the coveted at-large spots in the College Football Playoff, that would make it easier to compare resumes.

A ninth conference game would also mean more marquee showdowns, which should lead to higher television ratings, ticket sales and revenue. However, there is an obvious trade-off.

The ACC or SEC would guarantee themselves more cumulative losses with a ninth conference game, especially if most of the teams use the additional nonconference game to play a home game against an easy opponent. That would impact bowl eligibility and CFP races, as well as the bragging rights that come with that for many teams.

The debate, especially as it pertains to the SEC as one of the sport's headline conferences, has carried on for years. It only intensified when the SEC added Texas and Oklahoma, creating the opportunity to play even more headline showdowns within the league.

Yet the SEC continues to play just eight league games despite commissioner Greg Sankey seeming to favor a move to nine during a March appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show.

"One of the issues in the room for our athletics directors is what seemed to matter most, is the number to the right, the number of losses. And how do we understand what that means for our schedule moving forward?" Sankey said (h/t James Parks of Sports Illustrated).

"I'm one who said I really think we ought to be trying to move towards a nine-game conference schedule. I think that can be positive for a lot of reasons. You watch the interest around conference games. But not if that causes us to lose opportunities."

The debate will continue with no changes into 2025.