What if every conference championship game just matched the two best teams?

The ACC is attempting to deregulate college football conference championship games, according to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. The proposed rule change would allow each league to determine its own preference for who plays in a conference championship, eliminating the need for divisions. This would mean we wouldn’t be stuck with mediocre championship games that fail to award the two best teams in a conference.

What would have happened if this rule had been in place a decade ago? What if conferences were allowed to pick their top two teams for a conference championship game regardless of divisional alignment all along?

We’ve gone back and figured out which games each power conference would’ve used, if they’d all gone by BCS rankings. Also, we’ve listed the improvement in each game according to total F/+ ratings for the teams involved. (And just for fun, we’ve included conference title games for years in which a conference didn’t actually have one.)

Two eventual ACC champions and representatives in the BCS -- 2005 Florida State and 2008 Virginia Tech -- would not have even played in the ACC championship game under the new rules. On the other hand, it would have drastically improved the last two conference title games and given us the FSU-Clemson rematch that every FSU and Clemson fan wanted in 2012. Five conference title game appearances in seven years looks impressive for Virginia Tech, until you realize they were good enough to be in six of them.

Back when the Big Ten added Nebraska and split into divisions, Michigan and Ohio State were adamant that they could not be put in separate divisions for fear of having to play each other on consecutive weeks. The thought was that replicating that mass of slow-footed testosterone and slate-gray sky two Saturdays in a row would change the planet’s magnetic field and send us all careening into the sun. So, what I’m saying is the Big Ten probably wouldn’t do this, because we all would have died in 2006 (and 2003, technically).

2011 comes with an asterisk, as Michigan had a worse conference record than, and regular season loss to, Michigan State, yet ended up with a better BCS rating because voters gonna vote. We’re going strictly BCS standings here, but presumably MSU would get the spot under any rational system of choosing a champion.

Nobody would benefit from the new rule more than the Big 12, a conference wholly uninterested in returning to 12 teams and a divisional alignment. The move to a championship game could cost the conference a BCS bid or two -- the loser of last year’s game wasn’t going to the BCS, for one -- but it would also prevent a conference champion from being passed in the final week by a team that went through a championship game (2011?).

The conference’s tilt toward the south in the late ‘00s gave it plenty of room to improve its prior championship games. The 2008 Big 12 Championship, an Oklahoma blowout of Missouri, would turn into a top 3 matchup between Red River rivals. And barely-.500 Colorado could avoid the embarrassment of a 67-point loss in the 2005 game, giving Mike Leach his one good shot at a BCS bid instead.

The proposed rule helps most in conferences with fewer than 12 teams, but it also means significantly better games in conferences where one division has dominated over the other. The balance of power in the Pac-12 has moved over the last decade -- having a nationally dominant program get hit with crippling sanctions can do that -- but the last five seasons have been ruled by the northern teams. A best-of-three between Stanford and Oregon would be great, and the F+/- loves a replay of USC’s 34-point win over Oregon in 2008.

What happens if Florida plays LSU instead of Arkansas in the 2006 SEC Championship Game? The Gators beat LSU 23-10 in The Swamp earlier that year, but LSU had established itself as the class of the SEC West by the end of the season. A second meeting at a neutral site could have gone to the Tigers, leaving the voters to choose between one-loss Michigan and two-loss LSU (or undefeated Boise State) to face Ohio State. That likely makes for an all-Big Ten championship game, and without those dual beatdowns of Ohio State, does the SEC reach its current level of dominance?

Obviously, LSU-Alabama 2011 is the other story here. The Tigers and Crimson Tide would move their BCS National Championship Game meeting to the Georgia Dome, paving the way for Oklahoma State or Stanford to play for the title. Recent dominance by the SEC West would give the division seven of the last eight title game spots.

Which are you in favor of: matching the best two teams per conference, or keeping divisional standings?