Will ACC Football Change to 3-Division Format?

The 12-team Atlantic Coast Conference started using a two-division format (Atlantic and Coastal) shortly after Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College joined the then nine-team conference. The format allowed them to stage a conference championship game.

It could be time for the conference to restructure and go with three divisions of four teams each.

Along with the Atlantic and Coastal divisions how about a third division made up of North Carolina, Miami, Florida State and Georgia Tech, and call it the Sanctions Division?

It was two years ago when the NCAA came down on FSU and punished the Seminoles for what they called "major violations," which centered around an academic cheating scandal.

Florida State went on four years of probation, gave up scholarships and the football program was forced to forfeit all wins in which ineligible students participated.

The scandal involved a total of 61 athletes in nine sports.

Last month the Georgia Tech football program was stripped of its 2009 conference championship for violations including the failure to cooperate with the NCAA in an investigation of one of their players who accepted money from someone with ties to an agent.

In addition to losing its 2009 football championship, the NCAA imposed a cash fine, the forfeit of the final three games of the 2009 season and four-years' probation on the Yellow Jackets.

The North Carolina football program is currently in the middle of an NCAA investigation over improper benefits and academic misconduct. The investigation led to the suspension of 12 players from last year's team and the firing of head coach Butch Davis.

And now, Miami! 

In what could be one of the largest scandals in college football history, the NCAA has been investigating the Hurricane football program for serious violations involving 72 players. 

Has the ACC replaced the SEC as the most corrupt conference in college football? It's very possible!

As for the SEC, Arkansas was on a three-year probation that ended in 2001, Mississippi State was placed on a four-year probation in 2004 and was banned from postseason play and Kentucky was hit with a serious three-year probation in 2002 that included a bowl ban.

Florida went through a two-year probation in the '80s and was banned from postseason games on live TV. Steve Spurrier inherited a three-year probation that Lou Holtz's South Carolina program received and LSU was hit with a one-year probation in 1986.

Auburn was placed under a two-year probation for the "play for pay" scandal that was associated with the Pat Dye period, and two years ago Dave Link of the Knoxville News Sentinel wrote that Tennessee's Lane Kiffin was in trouble for recruiting violations before he coached his first game.

Georgia was placed on probation in 1985, four years after a prior probation in 1981.

It's not just the probations.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution released a report in 2008 listing Florida as the school that lowered academic standards for football players the most of the 54 FBS public institutions.

And John Clay of the Lexington Herald Leader is one of many writers who points to 24 arrests under the watch of Urban Meyer.

There are currently seven schools with football programs on probation. They are FIU, FSU, Alabama, UCF, Memphis, New Mexico, USC and Georgia Tech.

With the addition of Miami, unless they get the "Death Penalty," four of Florida's seven FBS schools will be on probation.

And as for Alabama—try to remember a year when their football program was not on probation.