ACC playing Friday night football games is beyond embarrassing

The ACC continues forcing member schools to play Friday night football games this season – and it shows why this will never be a football conference.

Friday night, football fans got ready to watch two teams battle it out in an effort to try and qualify for the postseason as the regular season get closer to finishing. But, I’m not talking about high school football powers in the Sunshine State like Miami Central, Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas, Lakeland, Tampa Blake, Madison County or others – I’m talking about ACC teams taking the field to end the work week.

That’s right – for the third straight season, one of college football’s Power Five conferences is so desperate for attention that it continues to force teams to play on a night traditionally reserved for prep stars from small towns and big cities to shine.

Yep, the conference that has had two of the last four national champs, including Florida State, is playing games on nights reserved for the Mountain West and the former Western Athletic Conference.

Are we sure that buy out is too big?

I’m kidding about the last part (mostly since there is no way the Seminoles are going to pay the ACC $50 million to get out if a real football conference came calling), but it goes further to show that the conference considers the big money sport second fiddle. Whatever the reason (mostly the basketball folks being hard headed and in charge), it’s embarrassing.

True, the ACC is not the only power conference to have scheduled games on Fridays – joined by the Pac 12 and the Big Ten. However, the latter has plenty of member schools who have said they will not play on that night…so why can’t schools like Florida State, Clemson and Miami do the same thing.

This week’s game was the third straight season the Seminoles and Boston College met on a Friday night. It’s a game that you can pretty much bet will be on that spot of the week as long as the contract between ESPN and the conference takes place. That’s right, each season the Noles and Eagles will meet at the same time the Florida High Seminoles could be facing the North Florida Christian Eagles.

We aren’t naive to believe this was anything more than a money move by the ACC – and that’s what proves out point that the conference will never put football first no matter how many national titles they win.

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Playing games on a Friday night is not what a power five conference does – and the powers that be in the Atlantic Coast Conference obviously don’t want us to be a power conference in anything more than name.