Post subject: College Football Conference Realignments/Postseason Ideas
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 11:56 pm
Administrator
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
Since it's the time of year to once again complain about the BCS screwing things up, and why there should or shouldn't be a playoff to replace it, I thought I'd share my latest idea on how to make things better. Anyone else can share their own ideas in this thread as well.
I've always been a big proponent of the notion that either every conference should play a conference championship or that none of them should. It's always bugged me how teams can be subject to a second chance or a double jeopardy because of it. In the past, I've thought about ways to put all the conferences at 12 to even this out, which is simpler (BSU and Idaho in the Pac-10, Notre Dame in the Big Ten, Army, Navy, Marshall, and some other team in the Big East).
Recently, however, I thought about the other option, and I'm starting to like this one better than others. The central idea is to pare down all the conferences back to either eight or nine teams instead of ballooning them all to twelve. The benefits are that you get to play every other team in your conference, and yet still have four (or better yet, five) non-conference games to make sure all of the traditional rivalries outside are covered. This gets rid of the problems of playing that extra game to screw up the rankings, as well as the chance of playing the same team twice in a season.
I came up with nine conferences, which I think covers all the BCS teams and the best of the non-BCS ones. Of course, this will never ever happen, but it's still fun to speculate.
Pac-8: Washington Washington State Oregon Oregon State Stanford California USC UCLA
Just like the old days. Tradition. That's what this conference wants, right?
WAC: Arizona Arizona State Boise State Fresno State Colorado Colorado State Utah BYU
Pretty close to the original WAC, except this time there are enough strong teams to prevent the Arizona schools from dominating.
Big 8: Iowa Iowa State Kansas Kansas State Missouri Nebraska Oklahoma Oklahoma State
Just like the old days, except swapping Colorado for Iowa
Almost like the old SWC--I think Tulsa replaces SMU and Rice.
South Conference (stupid name, I know): Alabama Auburn LSU Mississippi Mississippi State Southern Miss Tennessee Vanderbilt
I had to split the current SEC essentially in half, as you'll see below:
SEC: Florida Florida State Miami South Florida Georgia Georgia Tech Clemson South Carolina
Doesn't it bug anyone that Florida isn't in the same conference as FSU and Miami? Or UGA and GT? Or Clemson and South Carolina? Am I the only one? Probably, but this new conference fixes that nicely.
Big Ten: Illinois Indiana Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Northwestern Ohio State Purdue Wisconsin
The Big Ten plays with eleven teams right now, so somehow I have a feeling they'd keep the same name even with only nine teams.
ACC: Boston College Duke East Carolina Maryland North Carolina North Carolina State Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest
This would be an awesome basketball conference. Football...not so much.
Big East: Cincinnati Connecticut Kentucky Louisville Penn State Pittsburgh Rutgers Syracuse West Virginia
Again, another awesome basketball conference, but a bit left to be desired for in football.
====
The bowl games are still played out as usual, except that eight of them are set aside as the top ones. Each one features the champion of one of the conferences, except the Rose Bowl, which will still get its beloved Big Ten/Pac-8 matchup, and in this scenario, will always be guaranteed the conference champs, which it would just adore. The other seven slots are filled at-large, which can still be decided by rankings, and hopefully there will be fewer complaints between #16 and #17. No limit on number of teams per conference, and the non-BCS schools and Notre Dame can also get a slot if they qualify.
Rose: Big Ten, Pac-8 Fiesta: WAC Orange: Big 8 Cotton: SWC Sugar: South Gator: SEC Outback: ACC Capital One: Big East
Now, the "easy" part: after these eight bowl games are played, commence an eight-team playoff, just like Barack Obama wants.
This year, it could look something like this (obviously, the rankings would be way different given the new conferences, but it's just an example):
Rose: USC vs. Penn State Fiesta: Utah vs. Oklahoma State Orange: Oklahoma vs. Ohio State Cotton: Texas Tech vs. Boise State Sugar: Alabama vs. Texas Gator: Florida vs. TCU Outback: Virginia Tech vs. Georgia Capital One: Cincinnati vs. Georgia Tech
Wouldn't that be one hell of a slate for bowl weekend?
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:51 am
Supersonic
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:54 am Posts: 10731 Location: The back of a Volkswagen
I like your conferences. It does make sense to have smaller conferences so each team plays each other during the course of the season. Essentially you have a 16-team playoff, which I think is too much, but then again I don't see any way else to do it unless you want to eliminate automatic qualifiers to begin with and just use the top 8 or top 4 teams regardless of conference affiliation. Maybe what it all comes down to is there are just too many teams in Division I.
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:52 am
Stone's Bitch
Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:33 am Posts: 35357 Location: Los Angeles, CA Gender: Male
16 team playoff. 11 auto-berths from the 11 conference champions. The next 5 teams are at-larges, no limit to how many per conference. If the SEC can fill up the 5 at-larges, more power to them. Keep the BCS system in place for seeding purposes only. First three rounds of postseason play are at the venue of the higher seeded team. Refs will be from a neutral conference, and may handle no more than 2 games in any single post-season. The finals will be at a neutral site rotating among the sites of the former Rose, Fiesta, Cotton, Sugar and Orange Bowls.
_________________ Winner, RM all-time NBA tourney.
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:03 am
Poney Girl
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 45120
pearljamfan80 wrote:
16 team playoff. 11 auto-berths from the 11 conference champions. The next 5 teams are at-larges, no limit to how many per conference. If the SEC can fill up the 5 at-larges, more power to them. Keep the BCS system in place for seeding purposes only. First three rounds of postseason play are at the venue of the higher seeded team. Refs will be from a neutral conference, and may handle no more than 2 games in any single post-season. The finals will be at a neutral site rotating among the sites of the former Rose, Fiesta, Cotton, Sugar and Orange Bowls.
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:22 am
Administrator
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
Wes C. Addle wrote:
pearljamfan80 wrote:
16 team playoff. 11 auto-berths from the 11 conference champions. The next 5 teams are at-larges, no limit to how many per conference. If the SEC can fill up the 5 at-larges, more power to them. Keep the BCS system in place for seeding purposes only. First three rounds of postseason play are at the venue of the higher seeded team. Refs will be from a neutral conference, and may handle no more than 2 games in any single post-season. The finals will be at a neutral site rotating among the sites of the former Rose, Fiesta, Cotton, Sugar and Orange Bowls.
This is what I want
This is what I like to call the Dan Wetzel proposal. Like I've said to Nick before, the only problem I have with it is the automatic qualifier for every single conference, where I think only the MWC should get one in addition to the current six. This would be fine if we had a 65 team super tournament like March Madness, but that's obviously not going to happen, and I can think of several teams that are more worthy than Buffalo and Troy.
I should say that something else I really like about my proposal is how it can still preserve what the Rose Bowl wants while still continuing on with the playoff afterwards. That's what's really fouling things up. I just looked back at previous Rose Bowls, and this will be the first time since 2004 that we have the Big Ten/Pac-10 champs playing.
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:44 am
Landry
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:50 am Posts: 11842
It'd be cool to play Arky and TCWho again every year. The main problem I have is that the OU-UT game would no longer have conference implications. And I doubt either school would be too keen on scheduling it late in the year since it's easier to recover from an early-season loss, so it loses its luster a little bit if it's in September.
But most of the old SWC schools have no real rivalries other than fabricated recent ones with the old Big 8 schools, so there wouldn't be that much lost in a split.
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:48 am
Poney Girl
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 45120
Green Habit wrote:
Wes C. Addle wrote:
pearljamfan80 wrote:
16 team playoff. 11 auto-berths from the 11 conference champions. The next 5 teams are at-larges, no limit to how many per conference. If the SEC can fill up the 5 at-larges, more power to them. Keep the BCS system in place for seeding purposes only. First three rounds of postseason play are at the venue of the higher seeded team. Refs will be from a neutral conference, and may handle no more than 2 games in any single post-season. The finals will be at a neutral site rotating among the sites of the former Rose, Fiesta, Cotton, Sugar and Orange Bowls.
This is what I want
This is what I like to call the Dan Wetzel proposal. Like I've said to Nick before, the only problem I have with it is the automatic qualifier for every single conference, where I think only the MWC should get one in addition to the current six. This would be fine if we had a 65 team super tournament like March Madness, but that's obviously not going to happen, and I can think of several teams that are more worthy than Buffalo and Troy.
I should say that something else I really like about my proposal is how it can still preserve what the Rose Bowl wants while still continuing on with the playoff afterwards. That's what's really fouling things up. I just looked back at previous Rose Bowls, and this will be the first time since 2004 that we have the Big Ten/Pac-10 champs playing.
Yeah I don't think every conference should get a automatic bid either, I mean not all FCS conference champion gets an autobid just the major players.
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:48 am
Administrator
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
Green Habit wrote:
This year, it could look something like this (obviously, the rankings would be way different given the new conferences, but it's just an example):
Rose: USC vs. Penn State Fiesta: Utah vs. Oklahoma State Orange: Oklahoma vs. Ohio State Cotton: Texas Tech vs. Boise State Sugar: Alabama vs. Texas Gator: Florida vs. TCU Outback: Virginia Tech vs. Georgia Capital One: Cincinnati vs. Georgia Tech
Because I'm a bit bored, here's what it could have looked like last year. Remember, we had some really shitty matchups (USC/Illinois, Georgia/Hawaii) and Mizzou getting absolutely screwed.
Rose: USC vs. Ohio State Fiesta: Arizona State vs. Missouri Orange: Oklahoma vs. Florida Cotton: Texas vs. Tennessee Sugar: LSU vs. Boston College Gator: Georgia vs. Clemson Outback: Virginia Tech vs. Kansas Capital One: West Virginia vs. Hawaii
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:59 am
Administrator
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
Wes C. Addle wrote:
and seriously there are just some BCS division schools that just shouldn't have a football program anyways, i.e. Utah State, Idaho, etc.
I bet if those two went to the Big Sky, they could tear shit up again. The Vandals pretty much owned the conference in the 80s along with Nevada. Plus, the Idaho/Montana rivalry would be back.
Post subject: Re: College Football Postseason Ideas
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:31 am
Poney Girl
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 45120
Green Habit wrote:
Wes C. Addle wrote:
and seriously there are just some BCS division schools that just shouldn't have a football program anyways, i.e. Utah State, Idaho, etc.
I bet if those two went to the Big Sky, they could tear shit up again. The Vandals pretty much owned the conference in the 80s along with Nevada. Plus, the Idaho/Montana rivalry would be back.
Seriously, I wouldn't mind Idaho and Utah State in the Big Sky.
I would like a Weber State/Utah State rivalry.
Don't like that our closest rivalry game is 2 hours away in Poca-hellhole.
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