ACC Vs. Big East? Not Time To Panic, Folks.

Lost somewhat in all of the Big 12-SEC bowl game madness is that the ACC and Big East may eventually work on a similar deal:

But the spawning of conference-king matchups could grow even further, as a source told ESPN's Joe Schad the Big East would be open to a champion challenge bowl with the ACC.

If discussions progressed, would that be a good idea for the ACC? In a nutshell, probably not. But guess what - it might not matter all that much, anyway.

Without trying to sound like the guy kicking the Big East when they're down, the ACC would be much better served by scoring another deal with another conference. Unfortunately, the Big East is the only dance partner left since the B1G and Pac-12 are already in a similar deal in a little thing we like to call the Rose Bowl.

So from that standpoint, the ACC is essentially stuck with such a matchup for a 'major' college bowl. As Greg wrote, earlier, though, this is hardly the end of major college football relevance for a program like Pitt. We're simply too far away from knowing how this all plays out and when guys like Dennis Dodd speculate, it's important to remember that it's still just that - speculation.

We can go back and forth all we want and if schools like Florida State or Clemson decide the recent ACC deal isn't good enough and decide to leave, then things change, of course. But until that happens, we're left with doing nothing more than talking about what might happen.

The key, as it always has been, is how the playoff format is decided. If officials want to use the Big 12-SEC game and Rose Bowl to decide things ... well, let's just say Pitt wouldn't be in a great spot. But if it's merely a big time bowl game and the ACC is tied into one with the Big East, while not ideal, it's far from the end of civilization.

If you're a Pitt fan, you shouldn't be fretting over all of this yet. The bottom line is that college football is trying to find ways to get the best teams into its playoff. The big four conferences will get a bit more respect, but that's not to say the ACC is going to be left out of the discussion - regardless of apocalyptic media pieces.

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