Mountain West to eliminate 2-division format in football

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The Mountain West Conference will eliminate its two-division format in football for the 2023 season.

The conference announced Friday that the two teams with the highest winning percentage will compete in the league championship game. The decision came two days after the NCAA threw out requirements dictating how conferences can determine their champions and the Pac-12 scrapped its two-division format.

The two-division format will remain in place for the 2022 season.

A scheduling model and tiebreaking procedures are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Other conferences are expected to follow, most notably the 14-team Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC is looking to implement a new scheduling model as soon as 2023.

To have a conference title game, NCAA rules previously required leagues to split into divisions if they could not play a full round-robin schedule. But those rules were scrapped by the NCAA Division I Council. The 10-member Big 12 wound up deciding to resume its title game even without divisions in part to raise the profile of the winner for playoff consideration.

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