| 22 February 2012
The following is a guest post by JRsec
The teams listed are not intended to represent things as they should be, or will be. They are listed intentionally to create discussion about, or raise questions or concerns, about how various scenarios might play out. They are intended to show the flexibility, strength, and potential fairness of an 18 team conference model.
It should also show how 6 team groupings will prove to be economically more feasible than a 4 pod system. The Minor Conference realignment should be necessary to help those schools with expenses. They should be a different tier. The playoff suggestion is out of the box. Everyone is set on a tournament model. It will never work for upper tier college ball. It's to lengthy and unhealthy for tired players.
Determine your conference champion and play no more than twice after that. Replicate that as indicated and everybody wins, and fans have more fun and more to talk about. No politics, just brag and rag!
NCAA Conference Alignment if the Big East and ACC went away and we used a 4 conference, 3 divisions each of 6 teams format.
NCAA Conference Alignment if the Big East and Big 12 went away and we used a 4 Conference, 3 Divisions each of 6 teams format.
Suggested Minor Conference Realignment (given regional names)
NCAA Playoff Scenarios
1. If we have an eight team National Championship format, you could play the first round at campuslocations. The Northern States Champion would play the B1G Champion. The Western States Championwould play the PAC Champion. If the ACC survives the Southern Champion would play the ACCChampion, the Central Champion would play the SEC Champion. If the Big 12 survives the SouthernChampion would play the SEC Champion and the Central Champion would play the Big 12 Champion.
2. In the twelve team format the Minor Division Champions would play in a play-in game against thefour Major Conference’s second place teams. Brackets would be set so that no conference championwould play a team from their own conference prior to the finals. The four Major Conference championswould receive a bye in the first round.
3. The one I prefer is this. In a four team scenario the four Major Conference Champions play for a title.The four Minor Conference Champions play for a title in a new second level tier of the FBS. First gameplayed on last weekend in December. Championship played in two weeks.
3a. Then the major conference 2nd place teams meet to determine the seasons 5th through 8th positionsin the final standings. The major conference 3rd place teams meet to determine the seasons 9th through12th positions in the final standings. The major conference 4th place teams meet to determine theseasons 13th through 16th positions in the final standings. And the same for 5th and 6th place finishersif desired until the 21st through 24th positions in the final standings are decided. All major conferenceshave 6 teams with additional revenue for two games and the final standings will be decided on thefield. Campus locations for this round with split TV revenue and split ticket shares. All remaining majorconference schools with a winning record may choose to be matched against another school with awinning record for a season ending game. Therefore, all winning teams get at least one additionalgame for fun and revenue. (This could use the minor bowls, but revenue and crowds would be betterat campus sites.) For the playoff first round set the first game the second week of December and thesecond game during New Year’s Eve and the New Years day time period. This would be great TV viewingand all over before the championship game. For teams ending the season with a winning record, butnot making the playoffs their single game could be played any time before the third week of December.
Will the top 24 be the true top 24? No, but it will be closer to one than with polls. Everyone winsfinancially. Conference strength could be determined giving sports writers a lot to talk about.Conference rivalries would hold interest across the nation. The National Champion would be aconference champ. Football is not Basketball, or Baseball. Baseball is determined by a series of winsinterspersed with tournament play. Basketball holds an interest because of upsets and 3rd and 4thmatchups in a season with another good school. Football is and should be unique. You have one shotat everyone. Every game is more meaningful that way. If winning your conference championship getsyou into the final four, then your goal is to win your conference. Nothing else matters. No need forcupcakes. You could play all conference games. Goal #1 for a major college team would be winningtheir division. Goal #2 would be winning their Conference championship. Goal #3 would be a nationalchampionship.
Treating the Intangibles
There are 73 programs, plus 3 service academies, plus a half a dozen borderline teams that could beconsidered for the Major Conferences. If you take the first 73 and the three academies and 4 borderlineschools you could get into an 80 team field. That would mean the four Major Conferences would bebroken down into 4 divisions each of 5 teams. I’ve tried to do this. There are major logistical problems(each region has a different number of worthy teams) and numerous financial considerations (too manymarginal teams will hurt someone’s pie) which would harm a couple of the conferences if all of theseteams were accommodated. I’ve looked at the 4 Major Conferences with four divisions of 4 teams each.Again there are problems. This field accommodates 64. Are you really going to leave out teams likeKansas State, Duke, Maryland, N.C. St., Iowa St., Virginia and others of their size, history, and prestige?It would be a travesty to do so, and depending on which conference lost out, the ACC or Big 12 thatwould happen. In order to make this work economically for all the conferences, and numerically for allthe really qualified teams the number per conference would have to be 18. That doesn’t divide well byfour does it? So how do you make it work?
Four Conferences of three divisions of 6 teams is the solution. You are thinking what the………? If eachmajor conference took its three divisional champions and the remaining team with the best conferencerecord for its playoff several positive things would happen. Divisional races would hold their interestfor fans as teams not leading stronger divisions would still have a chance at the 4th spot. It would bea way of rebalancing within a conference in years where the strength has shifted too much to onedivision. It would still allow for the playoff scenario to determine the 24 final spots in the rankings.More importantly it would allow for divisional alignments that would require less travel. If you are ina pod of four that means you will have 3 fairly near games for your fans to attend, but it leaves yourrotation of cross divisional teams within the conference open to wide fluctuation for travel distance. Asthose games would comprise at least 6 of your league games your fans might find too many years wheretravel is difficult. With three divisions of 6 you have 5 static games that are relatively close for your fanbase. You rotate 4 cross divisional games lending greater travel stability from year to year.
Eighteen team conferences will yield mostly premium teams for each conference. With eighteen onlyone conference may have to take a marginal member to maintain good geographical balance but withan increase in their television footprint. Which conference has to do this depends upon whether it isthe ACC that survives, or the Big 12. The SEC and B1G would survive the change in good standing eitherway. The PAC would dip a little if the Big 12 survived. They simply have fewer options to expand withwithout a Texas block of teams to absorb.
What 4 Conferences of 4 Divisions of 4 teams might look like w/o Big E. & ACC
What 4 Conferences of 4 divisions of 4 Teams might look like w/o Big E. & Big 12
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