With apologies to Fox Sports' “Saturday In The South” coverage of the ACC, the conference could very successfully look north for low-hanging fruit.

Perhaps you have seen the Mid-American Conference playing oddly-scheduled games on the ESPN family of networks during the week. Perhaps you have said, “Who cares?” (OK, you almost certainly said that.)

But the ratings, for games those from major conferences consider irrelevant, have drawn very well. Temple at Ohio on Nov. 2 drew more than 1.3 million people; Northern Illinois at Toledo hooked nearly a million the day before.

At a small school – or any school, really – drawing 1 in every 300 Americans is a big deal. Coaches in the MAC, which I covered for the past four years, have said the visibility has done wonders in recruiting.

Due credit must go to ESPN, which is wide-reaching and has a firm grip on sports broadcasting. The MAC has a deal with ESPN through 2017 that states the ESPN armada must nationally televise 11 of the conference's games.

The ACC can borrow – and thrive – with the same flexibility that MAC has shown scheduling. Every MAC school but one is in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana or Pennsylvania – the heart of Big Ten Country. So, instead of consistently fighting with (and losing to) the Big Ten for fans and for coverage, the MAC instead decided that Saturday did not have to be the sabbath of college football, and went to the middle of the week.

Though the conference received some criticism for moving away from Saturday, the move has been very successful, and the conference's visibility has improved. My alma mater, Ohio, does not play a Saturday game the entire month of November, but it does play on national TV in every November game. Here in North Carolina, I can watch all four games this month. I saw a total of zero of the first eight games on TV. Even a few years ago, that wasn't possible.

The ACC can employ the same tactic. Some games have been on Thursday nights, but a bigger shift could be beneficial. If one were to rank football conferences, the ACC is fourth behind the SEC, Big-12 and Pac-12. The Big Ten has a fairly good hold of the noon slate of games, the SEC runs the roost for night games and the Pac-12 fills the late-night void.

The ACC is fighting with every other good game in the country on Saturdays. The people in ACC territory who want to see the ACC can do so, but the average nonpartisan fan will pick the best game.

Case-and point: No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama were locked in a boring – albeit important – game on CBS at the same time No. 3 Oklahoma State was in a thrilling shootout with No. 14 Kansas State on ESPN. I think I can safely assume your television seldom left CBS, if at all. I know mine didn't.

So why fight? The ACC could start playing a couple of midweek games and avoid the ratings battle. The MAC has proven that people will watch football – any football – on any day of the week. The ACC offers better football with bigger implications, and would draw a much bigger share than small-budget schools in the Midwest.

The mid- to low-level schools in the ACC are the ones that can truly benefit from a handful of midweek games. People will watch games with teams in the Top 25 at any time, but will be much more inclined to watch a game that doesn't mean anything to them if it is on a non-traditional day.

Ultimately, teams are measured by their conferences. (I was interested to see Clemson go undefeated for the sole purpose of the reputation fight that might have occurred with undefeated LSU, Oklahoma State and Stanford, with one-loss Alabama claiming it belongs, too. Chances are the Tigers would still have went to the Orange Bowl.)

The better the conference, the better for its member schools. Visibility, to a degree, makes the conference better.

Further, the ACC recruits against the SEC fairly heavily, particularly in states like Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. The SEC is clearly the apex of college football, and the ACC would do well to win over top-tier recruits with any (rule-abiding) measures it can. Schedule changes could certainly give an edge.

For the first eight weeks of the season – before basketball starts, because you people love your hoops – why can't the ACC make itself a midweek staple?