MIhawk
Well-Known Member
Ok there has been lots written about B10 expansion, most recently with the talk about Texas.
I would love to see our conference expand with the 'right' team, but here's another (wildly unrealistic, I know) proposal. [ Warning-- this is LONG, don't read it if your're the kind of person who complains about that kind of thing!]
All this expansion talk is driven by money. The conference wants to increase the size of the pie shared by its members. How about a different approach, one where the size of the pie can stay the same, but the number of mouths being fed is cut back dramatically. Here's my realignment/ contraction proposal. The theme....get rid of the dead weight.
I propose that a 'College Football Association' be formed. Consiting of 36 teams- 4 divisions of 9 teams each. These 36 teams would represent the schools that have consistently shown the highest degree of commitment to the sport, have the biggest fan bases and cover the majority of the major tv markets. There's not a free loader in the group.
The Western Division:
U of Washington
U of Oregon
Cal
USC
Arizona
Colorado
Oklahoma
Texas
Texas A & M
my comments: 3 real, current and historic powers here in UT/Okie/USC. Oregon a very solid current program. A &M/Washington/ Colorado good programs w/ history, currently slightly down. Cal solid but unspectacular. Best argument to get in: Utah or BYU, adds another state/ market and pretty solid program-- sorry Boise/TCU-- you're good right now, but don't bring much ($$$) to the table. This is big boy football.
Midwest Division:
Nebraska
Iowa
Missouri
Wisconsin
Illinois
Michigan
Michigan St.
tOSU
Notre Dame
comments: tOSU the only program on this list that is a current top level power, but Nebby/ Michigan and Notre Dame with history to spare and plenty of upside. Iowa/ Wisconsin are teams that are poised at that next level, while Missouri and MSU are the solid/ unspectacular inclusions. Illinois is included mainly based on geography. Best argument to get in: can't think of one here.
Southern Division:
Florida
Georgia
Alabama
Auburn
Mississippi
LSU
Arkansas
Tennessee
South Carolina
comments: this is the current SEC with deadweights (for FB) Mississippi St/ Vanderbilt and Kentucky eliminated. 3 premier teams in Florida/ Alabama and LSU; Georgia, Tennessee and Auburn all with lots of great history with Mississippi, Arkansas and South Carolina solid programs a rung down.
Eastern Division:
Miami
Florida St.
Clemson
North Carolina
Virginia Tech
Penn St.
Boston College
West Virginia
Rutgers/Pitt/Syracuse/UConn or Maryland
comments: this is definitely the weakest of the 4 divisions right now, with no real current 'elite' team; PSU and Virginia Tech are just below that level. Miami and FSU of course have plenty of great (fairly recent) history and are just the right coach from returning to the heights. Clemson/BC and WVU provide a solid middle for the conference; NC is a reasonable team that is good fairly regularly, the 9th team here will be hard to decide on-- comes down to you look at recent success or potential for $$$ based on markets.
Here's how it works. You play all 8 of your division teams every year. You would also play 2 cross division games. These would be based on seeding. Say every 4 years add up the division wins for each team (e.g. for the southeast region Florida #1, LSU #2, Alabama #3) Florida would then play the #1 seeded team from it's 2 cross division games-say USC and tOSU. They would play that matchup home and away X2, then the 4 years would be up and they would 're-seed'. These would be the games used to determine each division champion. You get 1 point for a division win, ½ a point for a cross division win. Come up with some tie-breaker formulas, just in case. Your final 2 games would yours to schedule-- you could do whatever you liked as it wouldn't affect your division standing. Nebraska could schedule Okie without fear of what happens if they lose. Iowa can schedule Iowa St. Or you can go the patsy route for the guaranteed home games.
The 4 division winners then are your playoff. You pair the 2 divisions that didn't play in regular season (e.g in my scenario the Southeast winner would play the east winner). You could call that the 'conference' championship game. Those 2 winners could then play in a bowl game that would anoint a College Football Association Champion.
This system would be a financial gold mine. Every week you would have games featuring big name programs and there would be practically no bad games.
I bet a network like ESPN would pay almost as much for the rights to this as the conferences + ND get right now and by splitting the money in about ½ as many pieces (compared to the current BCS conference situation) everybody involved comes up golden. The rich would get richer and the rest would face reality-- they've been piggybacking on conference welfare for a long time, but not pulling their weight.
Putting aside your assessment of if you think it's realistic, because of course its not....would you like to see this implemented? Would you change anything? How do you think Iowa would do?
I would love to see our conference expand with the 'right' team, but here's another (wildly unrealistic, I know) proposal. [ Warning-- this is LONG, don't read it if your're the kind of person who complains about that kind of thing!]
All this expansion talk is driven by money. The conference wants to increase the size of the pie shared by its members. How about a different approach, one where the size of the pie can stay the same, but the number of mouths being fed is cut back dramatically. Here's my realignment/ contraction proposal. The theme....get rid of the dead weight.
I propose that a 'College Football Association' be formed. Consiting of 36 teams- 4 divisions of 9 teams each. These 36 teams would represent the schools that have consistently shown the highest degree of commitment to the sport, have the biggest fan bases and cover the majority of the major tv markets. There's not a free loader in the group.
The Western Division:
U of Washington
U of Oregon
Cal
USC
Arizona
Colorado
Oklahoma
Texas
Texas A & M
my comments: 3 real, current and historic powers here in UT/Okie/USC. Oregon a very solid current program. A &M/Washington/ Colorado good programs w/ history, currently slightly down. Cal solid but unspectacular. Best argument to get in: Utah or BYU, adds another state/ market and pretty solid program-- sorry Boise/TCU-- you're good right now, but don't bring much ($$$) to the table. This is big boy football.
Midwest Division:
Nebraska
Iowa
Missouri
Wisconsin
Illinois
Michigan
Michigan St.
tOSU
Notre Dame
comments: tOSU the only program on this list that is a current top level power, but Nebby/ Michigan and Notre Dame with history to spare and plenty of upside. Iowa/ Wisconsin are teams that are poised at that next level, while Missouri and MSU are the solid/ unspectacular inclusions. Illinois is included mainly based on geography. Best argument to get in: can't think of one here.
Southern Division:
Florida
Georgia
Alabama
Auburn
Mississippi
LSU
Arkansas
Tennessee
South Carolina
comments: this is the current SEC with deadweights (for FB) Mississippi St/ Vanderbilt and Kentucky eliminated. 3 premier teams in Florida/ Alabama and LSU; Georgia, Tennessee and Auburn all with lots of great history with Mississippi, Arkansas and South Carolina solid programs a rung down.
Eastern Division:
Miami
Florida St.
Clemson
North Carolina
Virginia Tech
Penn St.
Boston College
West Virginia
Rutgers/Pitt/Syracuse/UConn or Maryland
comments: this is definitely the weakest of the 4 divisions right now, with no real current 'elite' team; PSU and Virginia Tech are just below that level. Miami and FSU of course have plenty of great (fairly recent) history and are just the right coach from returning to the heights. Clemson/BC and WVU provide a solid middle for the conference; NC is a reasonable team that is good fairly regularly, the 9th team here will be hard to decide on-- comes down to you look at recent success or potential for $$$ based on markets.
Here's how it works. You play all 8 of your division teams every year. You would also play 2 cross division games. These would be based on seeding. Say every 4 years add up the division wins for each team (e.g. for the southeast region Florida #1, LSU #2, Alabama #3) Florida would then play the #1 seeded team from it's 2 cross division games-say USC and tOSU. They would play that matchup home and away X2, then the 4 years would be up and they would 're-seed'. These would be the games used to determine each division champion. You get 1 point for a division win, ½ a point for a cross division win. Come up with some tie-breaker formulas, just in case. Your final 2 games would yours to schedule-- you could do whatever you liked as it wouldn't affect your division standing. Nebraska could schedule Okie without fear of what happens if they lose. Iowa can schedule Iowa St. Or you can go the patsy route for the guaranteed home games.
The 4 division winners then are your playoff. You pair the 2 divisions that didn't play in regular season (e.g in my scenario the Southeast winner would play the east winner). You could call that the 'conference' championship game. Those 2 winners could then play in a bowl game that would anoint a College Football Association Champion.
This system would be a financial gold mine. Every week you would have games featuring big name programs and there would be practically no bad games.
I bet a network like ESPN would pay almost as much for the rights to this as the conferences + ND get right now and by splitting the money in about ½ as many pieces (compared to the current BCS conference situation) everybody involved comes up golden. The rich would get richer and the rest would face reality-- they've been piggybacking on conference welfare for a long time, but not pulling their weight.
Putting aside your assessment of if you think it's realistic, because of course its not....would you like to see this implemented? Would you change anything? How do you think Iowa would do?
