Tic-Tic-Tic...and what do you think of Notre Dame and...

[Btstimpy]

The problem the ACC/OB will have negotiating with the SEC or B10 is that their runner up some years will be playing in their own bowl id those bowls aren't part of the semis that year. So you could get their #3 which is not good from a perception standpoint and support the position of some that there are 4 major conferences.

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The ACC is going to be in this position with the Orange Bowl no matter what given that there are 5 Majors, we are the one without a designated parter with these bowl tie-ins. This would be even more pronouced if Notre Dame actually became a full member. That would take Notre Dame off the list of potential Orange Bowl opponents.

So the ACC is left with some options:

1. Figure out something with Notre Dame. The Orange Bowl would like this because it would draw interest from TV viewers as well as increase the likelihood of filling the Sun Life Stadium. The Notre Dame-Florida State game in Orlando last year sold out. The Notre Dame-Miami game in El Paso the year before sold out. Notre Dame vs ACC would sell out in Miami as well. The downside here is that Notre Dame hasn't produced teams worthy of the Orange Bowl in years. There is no guarantee that Notre Dame will start producing them anytime soon. So the ACC would have to go to plan B anyway.

2. Tie the Orange Bowl into the Big East or Conference USA if their champions reaches a certain ranking. There is a downside here to game attendance and possibly TV interest. We've had Louisville-Wake Forest and Cincinnati-Virginia Tech Orange Bowls this past decade. These were both announced sellouts, but there were empty seats. The Orange Bowl makes each team buy a big allotment of expensive tickets in bad parts of the stadium. The schools ended up eating large numbers of tickets to get the "sellout".

3. Tie the Orange Bowl into the third place team from the SEC or the Big Ten. I know that the perception would be that the ACC Champion is on a lower tier. Hopefully the ACC champion is in the Semifinals so that it would the the ACC #2 playing the #3 team from one of these other conferences. But it could be ACC #1 vs SEC #3. The SEC #3 would not be a slouch though and would most like help fill the stadium. To do this the Orange Bowl would have to buck the Capital One Bowl in Orlando. The Capital one bowl currently has SEC #2 vs Big Ten #2. One of those conferences would have to decide it wants to go play the ACC in the Orange Bowl instead. If they don't, then we get into the Big XII. Or it goes back to choice number 2 above.