Miami football: How ACC would look aligned geographically
The Big 10 initially began their division model with the leaders and legends designed to have Michigan and Ohio State in opposite divisions like the Florida State and Miami football teams. The Big 10 realigned from the Leaders and Legends Divisions into the East and West when Maryland and Rutgers joined the conference in 2013.
The current ACC has teams playing a natural or created cross-division rival annually. For Miami that is Florida State. Some of the rivalries are obvious like North Carolina-North Carolina State and Duke-Wake Forest other rivalries would have to be developed or could be conducted on a rotational basis.
Roy Kramer and Mike Slive deserve all of the credit in the world for positioning the SEC into one of the top conferences in college athletics. John Swofford has done just as good of a job navigating realignment, implementing a conference title game, and launching the ACC Network. https://t.co/vJWe38oJD0
— Julian Council (@JulianCouncil) June 25, 2020
The Big 10 does not conduct cross-divisional rivalries with the exception of Indiana-Purdue to keep the Old Oaken bucket played annually. Four of those rivalries would have to be kept intact in the ACC to be played annually. Miami and Virginia Tech would be played annually in the geographic model.
Other annual games would be Duke-Wake Forest remaining intact annually and the game billed as the South’s oldest rivalry between North Carolina and Virginia should be played every year. The Tar Heels and Cavaliers are currently division rivals in the Coastal. The other eight teams in the ACC do not have rivalries with as much meaning.