As some of you may know, doing a business proposal to revamp the way NCAA, BCS, and TV do the national title thing. Part of my proposal includes revamping some of the conferences, to align powers with powers instead of allowing power teams to feast on the likes of Dukes, Miss St., Indianas, Baylors, Syracuse, and Stanfords of the worlds.
Part of that research involves polling, poll data, computer rankings, conf affiliations with pollsters, etc.
Foxsports 119 ranks every Div I-A (119 teams) team. What I found so far:
ACC has most teams (5) in the bottom 70 (#50-119). Wake #52, UNC #54, UVa #69, NC State #77, Duke #105) They also have most (7) teams in Top 35 (#11 Va tech, #13 BC, #14 Clemson, #24 FSU, #27 Miami, #29 Ga Tech, #35 MD)
SEC has most teams (5) in top 125 teams (Auburn, LSU, Florida, Tenn, UGA, #3,4,6,10,12 respectively) in top 12, 8 in top 48 (Bama 38, Ark 44, South Carolina 48) but 4 teams in bottom 70 (Miss, UK, Vandy, Miss St #55,75,79,93 respectively).
PAC 10 8 top 45 teams (1 USC, 16 Oregon, 17 Ariz St, 18 Cal, 28 UCLA, 36 AZ, 41 Ore st., 45 Wash St. Two teams in bottom 70 (59 Wash, 95 Stanford)
BIG East has 4 teams in Top 40 (8 Louisville, 9 WVa, 33 Pitts, 40 S. Florida). 3 teams in bottom 70 (UConn 53, Syracuse 64, Cincy 78)
Big 10 Top 50 - 8 teams (2 Ohio St, 6 Mich, 20 Iowa, 22 Mich St., 25 Penn St., 32 Wisc, 43 Minn, 47 Purdue...bottom 70 (85 Illinois, 89 Indiana)
Big 12 Top 50 - 7 teams (7 Texas, 19 Neb, 21 Mizz, 23 OK, 34 Tex Tech, 37 Iowa St., 42 A&M)
Bottom 70 (56 Ok St, 58 Baylor, 63 K St, 71 Kansas, 76 Colorado)
To look at it another way...Top 60/Bottom 59 break down
ACC has 9 in Top 60...3 in bottom 59, or 75% of conference in the upper half
SEC has 9 in Top 60...3 in bottom 59, or 75% in upper half
Big East has 6 teams in Top 60...2 in bottom 59, or 75% in upper half
Big 10 has 8 teams in Top 60...or 80% of conference in upper half
Big 12 has 9 teams in Top 60..3 in bottom half (75% in upper half)
PAC 10 has 9 teams in Top 60, or 90% in upper half
Granted, I'll break it down even more in my research, but a rough take of the data revealed an interesting break down....
First off, interesting stats. I'm not a huge stats guy as they can be vrey misleading, but those were good to read.
My personal opinion is to go to a completely open bowl bid situation. Let teams play wherever they want and let the chips fall where they may. I enjoy the endless debate over who the top team is. It's FUN. Also, the BCS has proven to be more or less of a fraud.
That said, if we are to keep the BCS, my opinion is to have all the top division teams be placed into ten team conferences based soley on geographical location. Each team in their respective conference would be mandated to play every other team within their conference. That's nine games. The other three games would go toward building points that help to determine your ranking. For example, a team gets 0 points for beating a team in a lower division. The other points are awarded based on their opponents final W-L record at the end of the year. A top team playing Duke, SMU & Rice for their non conference games isn't going to get much love. That forces teams to schedule at least two 'good teams' or one very top team.
At the end of the regular season, look at the teams with the best records & points and pair them off in 3 or 4 BCS bowl games and hopefully a more or less consensus champ is found.
Part of my revamp idea (and others, like yourself share the same idea) is to create a 12 team Superconference, which Notre Dame would be part of (so long as they get the 9 win minimum)
Conf would be made up of Top 12 from previous yrs BCS polling data. Teams would be in 6-team divisions. Play their division opponents, then regional rivalries would make up the other 6 opponents.
Based on last yrs BCS rankings (the superconference has to start somewhere), these would be the two divisions:
USC, Oregon, Texas, LSU, Notre Dame, Ohio St would be in one division.
Penn St, UGA, Miami (FL), Auburn, Va Tech, WVa would be the other.
So, Notre Dame's division opponents would be those 5. There other six teams would come from list of regional rivalries, which could include the likes of Mich, Mich St, (all div 1 Mich schools)Cincy, Mizz, Illinois, Kentucky, Tenn, Louisville, Memphis, Vanderbilt, Akron, Toledo, Miami (OH), Purdue, Indiana.
Texas would play those 5 division opponents, plus 6 from their regional rivalries which could include the likes of all Div 1 Texas schools, Ok, ok St, Tulsa, NE, Mizz, Alabama, Memphis, New Mexico, New Mexico St, Kansas, Kansas St, Arkansas and so on.
UGa would play all division opponents, plus 6 regional rivalries - Ga Tech, Florida, florida St, Alabama, South Carolina, Clemson, South Florida, Central Florida, Tenn, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Lousivlle, North Carolina, NC State, Wake, Duke, UAB, etc.
Membership in the SC requires a 10 win minimum. So, instead of a meaningless GMAC Bowl in Dec between two small schools, the GMAC bowl could be between 9-3 Penn St team against a 9-3 alabama team with a spot in next yr's superconference on the line.
To determine the national champ, the top two SC division finishers play the top 4 non SC teams, based on some sort of polling data.
So, the pool could include USC, Texas, Miami, Va Tech (or other teams that finish 1-2 in each division, regardless of record), an undefeated Louisville, Nebraska, UCLA, Michigan, or whomever the Top 4 non-aligned teams are.
Teams would be seeded. #1 SC team plays #4 non-aligned team; #2 SC team, plays #3 non-aligned team, etc....so, from the example above, USC would play Michigan in some Dec Capitol One Bowl...Texas would play UCLA during Capitol One Bowl Week, Miami would play Nebraska during Capitol One Bowl Week, and Va Tech would play Louisville during that week.
Winners would play each other between Christmas and New Year's. So, Michigan could play Texas in national semifinal and say Miami plays Va Tech.
Then, the national title game would follow and the winners play each other.
All other SC teams play non-SC aligned teams for a spot in next yrs SC. Imagine Fresno St playing Oregon for a spot in the SC.
Blazer, help me with this roughdraft....or Canes, or anybody...
while i am intrigued by the ideas you guys have put forward today good input by all today a first since my visiting to these here message boards. You guys have overlooked one great big factor in all of this MONEY. There will never be a change to the current system we have while little private schools in miami and elsewhere throughout the country can rake in up to 20 million a season in bcs payoffs (if they get to the bcs games that is, which we should every year sorry for the bias but i'm pissed). The system for the super conference is a decent one but what happens to the rest of the teams in the country, take the cal's, iowas, boston college's of the world ( i through in bc cause they always upset everybody big) what is to become of them. So they go 12-0 and they get shi* for it. I don't believe in that come up with something fair for everybody and i'll be in otherwise live with what we got cause its the best scenario i've seen so far
If the Iowas, BC's etc go 12-0, they would more than likely be in the top 4 of the non-SC aligned teams, and therefore, be part of the 8-team playoff (Top 2 from each division in the SC, plus top 4 non aligned SC teams, regardless of conf affiliation).
What pisses me off about the current system is what happened to Auburn a few yrs ago. Started preseason #16, went undefeated, won the Sugar Bowl, yet were on the outside looking in as USC thumped OK in the Rose Bowl. The SC/regional rivalry concept would allow for an undefeated Auburn (or Utah, or Fresno St, or any other undefeated 1-A team so long as they are in the top four of whatever polling system used) to participate in the 8-team playoff for the national title.
Everyone else either with 9/10 plays for a spot in the following yr's SC. SC membership is not guaranteed yr to yr...must win 10 to be in....Imagine a bowl season where Alabama, Penn St, UCLA, LSU, OK, Mich, Uga, Fla St, Arkansas, Mizz, Fresno St, utah, Boise St, Ariz St, Rutgers, Florida, Iowa, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Va Tech, BC, etc play each other during Capitol One Bowl week with a spot in next yrs SC on the line. TV ratings would soar as opposed to watching North Texas play Tulane in the GMAC Bowl. Money would certainly be an issue, but with that bowl lineup, the head cheeses could name their price....
While I like the genreal idea of the super conference and how it will better determine a true national champion, it seems to take away from some traditional rivalries and homers like me would be disappointed to not play some of the teams we do now yearly.
Also, let's say Oregon has a 11-1 season and wins a BCS bowl game and ends up ranked 5th. But they graduate 18 seniors from the starters and have no proven talents to take their place. Should they play in the super conference next season? And if not, then how do you determine who does and who does not get in. Imagine the stink if Oklahoma was ever left out- for any reason. If you think that entire team, coach, university president, govenor and the general population fell into weeping and gnashing of teeth over a disputed loss, then what would happen if they were left out of the SC? My guess is that they would seceede from the union and declare war on the other '49'.
Excellent points. Again, not perfect. But the system we have now is not perfect.
Say OU finishes 11-1, wins their bowl game over a non-aligned team (say 10-2 Nebraska), they've earned their right to be in the SC next yr. While losing players is a huge downside to this SC concept, it would enhance OU's recruiting since more blue chippers west of the Rockies would want to play in the SC.
OU's regional rivalries (the other 6 games) would include the likes of Ore St, Wash, Wash st, Fresno St, Boise St, Cal, UCLA, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Air Force, Stanford, BYU, Colorado St, etc.
See, the regional rivalry concept is supposed to bolster geographic comp. In the SEC for example, South Carolina plays Arkansas every yr. They are 850 miles apart. in the Big 12, Texas plays CO. They are almost 800 miles apart. In the RR concept, South Carolina picks up as possible opponents Ga, Florida, UCF, South Florida, Tenn, UK, Louisville, Ga Tech, Va Tech, UNC, Wake, NC State, Clemson (already an annaul opponent), WVa, MD, Navy, Fla St, Miami (FL). Texas picks up RR possibles LSU, Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn, Iowa, and a few other possibles.
I like the idea of an open bowl game. Remember how much fun it was to argue who was national champ when after the bowl games there were two undefeated teams?
Right now, we could possibly some year end up with 3 or 4 11-1 teams and yet one of them is "crowned" national champs and they could easily be the worst of those teams.
I say either have a straight up playoff or let's go back to open bowl games.
Great work Blazer. but as much fun as rankings are to debate and look at each week they really mean squat. obviously the people who create them are going to have some sort of biases for or against certain teams, players and conferences. besides who says foxsports is any more knowledgable than any of us. just because its their full time job doesnt mean they are anymore capable then we are of deciding who is the 1st 42nd or 96th best team after watching a full day of football and reading about the games the next day.
That is why the bowl season is so great and true fans who follow college football and conferences all year long should want more bowl games. These interconference bowl games, not individually, but as a whole can help shed some light on which conferences are better and which are overrated. the pac 10 gets a lot heat from people, including me, but if they go 5-1 or 4-2 in bowl games maybe we were wrong. of course you have to see if they are playing the thrid best team in the MWC or the second best team in the SEC to determine how big of a win it is. but a win against a non conference foe on a nuetral field is impressive. most of those games are against supposedly even matched teams as the 5th team in the Big 12 might play the 5th team in the Big 10. Its a great time for watching football but also help decide who the best conferences are, more so than a poll created during the first week of the year or the last week of the year.
Unless Lou Holtz says you are a good team, then you and your conference suck no matter what the polls say or the outcome of the bowl games.
Blazer, Your thoughts are close to ones I've been hashing out. I'm against playoffs because I think they make regular season games less important, and they would encourage teams to pad their schedules with patsies -- both are ultimately bad for college football. But, I think the $ that comes with playoffs makes them inevitable. So, I've been thinking of ways to have playoffs and minimize their negative effects. Here's what I came up with:
Every team must be in a conference (Notre Dame fans can go ahead a quit reading here).
Every conference must have 12 teams and a championship game.
10 conferences matches with the number of Div 1-A teams, almost.
The conference winners make the playoffs, no at-large teams make the playoffs (are there any ND fans still reading?)
The playoffs are seeded based on a ranking system THAT ONLY INVOLVES THE NON-CONFERENCE GAMES.
6 teams receive a bye in the first round, the bottom four teams play.
The 8 remaining teams have a standard playoff.
Use the bowls as the playoffs (some will have to move to earlier dates), with a rotation system to move the final rounds and championship games to various sites.
This encourages teams to keep tough non-conference schedules, preserves games like UF vs FSU, Clemson vs S. Carolina, USC vs ND, and other great non-conf games, lets the bowls still have meaningful games (even moreso than now).
