Just curious... since the conferences are all sitting at a maximum of 14 schools each (excluding Notre Dame's ACC deal) for the foreseeable future, what would you all think about each conference getting to 14 teams over the next few years and then going to a full round robin football schedule? Each team would play 13 regular season games against all of their conference schools, so conference championships games are not really needed. The loss of conference championship revenue is more than made up with an extra game on the schedule for everyone. One game a season could be played at a neutral site so that each school has 6 home, 6 away, and 1 neutral game. Playoffs could still be implemented, and bowl games would be very interesting because it would be the first time we see conferences square off against each other.

Take off the realist hat for a minute and think idealistic. Assume this was a possible path... would you want it, or do the OOC games (including or excluding cupcakes) mean too much?

I don't think 13 game season will happen for a long time. I think if there was ANY thought of it, we would have seen it tested this year, when they have an extra week which happens every once in a while. 15 weeks to play 12 games(plus conference title games). Normally it's 14 weeks. Or if not tested, at least brought up.

(this is how the 12 game schedule came into play actually, it was tested for 2 years, and then implemented full time a year later).

Interesting concept but you would have zero OOC games. That would loose some very good games. Some of those games are critical for alumni support.

I believe the Big12 is still siting at 10 and the Pac12 is still at 12.

Did 6 teams get "promoted" and I missed it?.....

(09-04-2013 02:32 PM)GO Coogs GO!!! Wrote:  I believe the Big12 is still siting at 10 and the Pac12 is still at 12.

Did 6 teams get "promoted" and I missed it?.....

Notice the independent clause of my first sentence in the OP.

Nobody in the ACC means as much to us as playing South Carolina, especially since they finally decided to play football after over a century of flailing around.

And I wouldn't have traded 10 straight home games against ANYBODY in the ACC for the environment we had Saturday night.

(09-04-2013 02:49 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  Nobody in the ACC means as much to us as playing South Carolina, especially since they finally decided to play football after over a century of flailing around.

And I wouldn't have traded 10 straight home games against ANYBODY in the ACC for the environment we had Saturday night.

That is easily solved... come to the SEC! In my world, Clemson is invited.

its not possible for a few reasons

1. the big schools cant afford to lose home games, they makes millions off a single home game and 3 schools in particular (psu, um, & osu) are so dependent on them that they cant even afford to lose a single home game

2. ooc scheduling will be a pain. for example utah has two yearly ooc rivals, multiple schools have a yearly ooc rival.

3. schools make a lot of money by creating new matchups like (bama-michigan) or temporarily reviving old rivalries (psu-pitt).

4. schools like those tune up games. im against any FCS scheduling but certain schools should have the right to get their playbook together by practicing against a scrub team.

5. schools who currently stat pad their schedule against scrub teams to have a decent record will be lucky to win 2 games a season and be stuck in a never ending cycle of being a bottom feeder that the program can get out of.

6. the b12: why base a model on something when we have a conference that doesnt have a stable long term model. the pac only has 12 teams


im all for a round robin style and think the concept of skipping teams is a joke. but these issues have to be solved

some idea's to fix them

problem number one unequal revenue distribution. yes i know this has been a conference killer in the past and as a big10 homer i hate this notion. but reality is that not all programs are the same. the cash flow will go from the sec/b12 to the b10/acc in most cases, but these schools SHOULD be reimbursed for their losses. so the fix goes as followed.

-each school gets an estimation of their current budget. schools who spend more to support more varsity teams (not stadium expansion, coaching salary or anything like that) get the cost of those extra teams covered by the rest of the schools.

the new problem created:
this may lead to a free for all on non varsity sports getting added. (for the record this is what schools should be doing so im not gonna complain, however the unchecked expansion will be a major problem
the fix:
-a cap on total sports a school can have. after this cap schools need permission to add another sport and can cite them for a number of reasons such as "our conference is getting stronger in this sport and we want to be included"
-a cap on only adding only two new sports a year + any title 9 added compensation

problem numbers 2, 3, & 4 add more games. theres no ifs ands or buts about it, this is something that must be done

the fix: add 3 OOC spots.

the problems created
1. players get overworked physically & academically
the fix:
-added roster spots/scholarships
-stipend for added work time and easing up on academic restrictions (i hate saying this but my plan is in the *)

new problems created:
the fix:
physically overworked:
1. spread the games out and make football a 2 semester sport.
-yes i can see this raising hell with a lot of people but the way i see it it must be done. there are 2 traditions that are at stake. 1. playing rivalry games/bowls on X dates, 2. playing everyone of your rivals each year.

personally i think #2 triumphs #1.....but thats just me

2. add scholarships to give schools more depth. yes this will cause a lot of issues for lower budget schools because of title 9. so the schools who make the most profit each year must stipend the schools that make the least profit each year.

*students are given a "green year" thats similar to a redshirt but its purpose is to give students 1 full year to get as many classes out of the way as possible, those classes may be added to any semester going forward. they are severely limited from team activities during this time. (no away games, game film, etc. they can only attend practices & home games)

so for example if a student is below a minimum credit/gpa requirement he can add a class he took from a "green year" to remain eligible.

problem number five the last fix solves this problem just a little bit, but this still needs to be looked at

the fix: low performing schools are given a grace period where they can have scholarship & stipend increases to give them a competitive recruiting advantage. grace periods are handed out based on 3 year winning percentage average....
a .600 or less school gets a small increase
a .400 or less team gets a medium increase for 3 years. a school below a .200 or less gets a large increase for 3 years. no school can get this grace period for more than once a decade. any school caught intentionally losing to reach the grace period gets a minimum 1 year death penalty

problem number 6
the fix:

pac12 gets
texas, tech, ou, osu

b10 gets
iowa st, kansas st, ku, mizz (i hate saying that but theres no other option)

sec 13 gets
gtech, clemson, (sorry FSU) and tcu/baylor do a coin flip for the last spot


acc 1 gets
notre dame,maryland, rutgers wvu

-makes 4 team playoff a heck of a lot easier, but we are probably looking at a 15 conf schedule + 3 ooc + ccg + bowls or 4 team playoff.....

how to cut games?
-eliminate a ccg......that gets decided by conf play since its round robin. tie breaker goes to highest in BCS.

we are talking of a lot of added cost with home games being cut and subsidizes being tossed around

how to increase revenue? (besides the massive tv contracts this will get)
-get rid of the bowl system. if all power teams get together and refuse to play them the bowls will cave. the schools need to "buy back" the bowls for dirt cheap and make them conference owned. this eliminates the bowls being money burning pits for these schools.

-allow players to market themselves by selling autographs, jerseys, ads, interviews, public speaking, videogames (but the school retains 75% of it)

**we cant do all this for football without bringing back the home/away bb setup for every school. odds are the bb season gets extended too.

we are talking A LOT of cooperation between these conferences. which is why they need to merge into one 60+ team conference with a pac12 division b10 division etc.

they should just do a conference network. they could be almost as big as espn and since the players will be allowed to go on tv and not lose eligibility this could be a huge money maker and be almost as big as espn. you are talking about 50 different sports played by schools that 90% of america has some kind of interest in........

***theres one other fix that doesnt come close to doing all the above work......

step #1
eliminate the ccg's

step # 2
eliminate the divisions

step #3
assign each school 2 conf. rivals (michigan gets ohio st & mich st.)

step #4
the schools play their conf rivals each year, but the rest of their b10 schedule gets played round robin style over a 2 year period. any team they skip this year they play the following year.

step # 5
conf championship winner gets decided by highest bcs ranking or a poll of that conference coaches. tiebreaker: highest in bcs

(09-04-2013 02:57 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 02:49 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  Nobody in the ACC means as much to us as playing South Carolina, especially since they finally decided to play football after over a century of flailing around.

And I wouldn't have traded 10 straight home games against ANYBODY in the ACC for the environment we had Saturday night.

That is easily solved... come to the SEC! In my world, Clemson is invited.

Yeah, LSU needs some revenge...

Interesting thoughts, john... I can tell you've mulled over this general subject quite a bit. Unequal revenue distribution is the one item that really threw a red flag to me. I'm all for the concept of keeping what you earn, but the Big 12's past issues with unequal revenue distribution is a good warning against trying it again. No matter how fair you make it, some members will be rubbed the wrong way, and it is hard to recover from it.

Nah, any expansion of the season is likely in postseason form and not regular season. There is already enough bad press about injuries in football. At least with it just being an extra week added for a post season tournament, they can say that only four teams would be taking part rather than the full conference membership.

Trying to pass an extra week of regular season as well, first off that makes adding a week for a post season conference tournament very difficult and secondly it really starts to push that regular season further into the colder time of the year up north. Generally speaking that time is left to the NFL and it's professionally paid athletes to deal with.

In my opinion, the major conferences will be more eager to start their own conference tournaments than they will be to expand the National Tournament. I cant see them doing anything that could put such a huge money move, such as those tournaments, in jeopardy.

(09-04-2013 04:09 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  Interesting thoughts, john... I can tell you've mulled over this general subject quite a bit. Unequal revenue distribution is the one item that really threw a red flag to me. I'm all for the concept of keeping what you earn, but the Big 12's past issues with unequal revenue distribution is a good warning against trying it again. No matter how fair you make it, some members will be rubbed the wrong way, and it is hard to recover from it.

yeah thats why ive suggest the unequal revenue distribution based on budgets not being "a power program"

the b12s policy was the more you are on tv the more you get. (neb, aggie, ou & texas)

my plan calls for it based on two different things.....

1. amount of sports you play.
2. value of your home games.

-the school that theoretically gets the largest stipend based on sports played will surprise you (its boston college) this is not a move that the weaker schools are gonna hate. if a school is unhappy with their current share....add more sports....its as simple as that

-and to stipend the big schools for loss of home games the fix might not even be needed. if we are adding 3 games to the schedule then the amount of home games gets maintained and thus the problem disappears.

this is by far the biggest problem as the top 20 programs wont sign off on this without some plan to keep their budgets from total collaspe in place.....but if my suggestion to add games is included then unequal revenue sharing plan is not needed

however adding 3 ooc games is like exchanging a bad headache for a broken leg

(09-04-2013 04:13 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  Nah, any expansion of the season is likely in postseason form and not regular season. There is already enough bad press about injuries in football. At least with it just being an extra week added for a post season tournament, they can say that only four teams would be taking part rather than the full conference membership.

Trying to pass an extra week of regular season as well, first off that makes adding a week for a post season conference tournament very difficult and secondly it really starts to push that regular season further into the colder time of the year up north. Generally speaking that time is left to the NFL and it's professionally paid athletes to deal with.

In my opinion, the major conferences will be more eager to start their own conference tournaments than they will be to expand the National Tournament. I cant see them doing anything that could put such a huge money move, such as those tournaments, in jeopardy.

every school has a few demands....

you cant get psu, osu, um, tenn, texas, texas a&m, &bama without those added games for $$$ reasons.....

you cant get clemson, fsu, florida, gtech, georgia, usc, & ND without adding those games for rivalry reasons.....

(09-04-2013 04:26 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 04:13 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  Nah, any expansion of the season is likely in postseason form and not regular season. There is already enough bad press about injuries in football. At least with it just being an extra week added for a post season tournament, they can say that only four teams would be taking part rather than the full conference membership.

Trying to pass an extra week of regular season as well, first off that makes adding a week for a post season conference tournament very difficult and secondly it really starts to push that regular season further into the colder time of the year up north. Generally speaking that time is left to the NFL and it's professionally paid athletes to deal with.

In my opinion, the major conferences will be more eager to start their own conference tournaments than they will be to expand the National Tournament. I cant see them doing anything that could put such a huge money move, such as those tournaments, in jeopardy.

every school has a few demands....

you cant get psu, osu, um, tenn, texas, texas a&m, &bama without those added games for $$$ reasons.....

you cant get clemson, fsu, florida, gtech, georgia, usc, & ND without adding those games for rivalry reasons.....

I'm not sure I follow where you are going with this response to my post. You cant get these schools for what? The 13 game full conference schedule?

(09-04-2013 04:31 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 04:26 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 04:13 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  Nah, any expansion of the season is likely in postseason form and not regular season. There is already enough bad press about injuries in football. At least with it just being an extra week added for a post season tournament, they can say that only four teams would be taking part rather than the full conference membership.

Trying to pass an extra week of regular season as well, first off that makes adding a week for a post season conference tournament very difficult and secondly it really starts to push that regular season further into the colder time of the year up north. Generally speaking that time is left to the NFL and it's professionally paid athletes to deal with.

In my opinion, the major conferences will be more eager to start their own conference tournaments than they will be to expand the National Tournament. I cant see them doing anything that could put such a huge money move, such as those tournaments, in jeopardy.

every school has a few demands....

you cant get psu, osu, um, tenn, texas, texas a&m, &bama without those added games for $$$ reasons.....

you cant get clemson, fsu, florida, gtech, georgia, usc, & ND without adding those games for rivalry reasons.....

I'm not sure I follow where you are going with this response to my post. You cant get these schools for what? The 13 game full conference schedule?

the 3 extra ooc games.....

(09-04-2013 04:33 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 04:31 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 04:26 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 04:13 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  Nah, any expansion of the season is likely in postseason form and not regular season. There is already enough bad press about injuries in football. At least with it just being an extra week added for a post season tournament, they can say that only four teams would be taking part rather than the full conference membership.

Trying to pass an extra week of regular season as well, first off that makes adding a week for a post season conference tournament very difficult and secondly it really starts to push that regular season further into the colder time of the year up north. Generally speaking that time is left to the NFL and it's professionally paid athletes to deal with.

In my opinion, the major conferences will be more eager to start their own conference tournaments than they will be to expand the National Tournament. I cant see them doing anything that could put such a huge money move, such as those tournaments, in jeopardy.

every school has a few demands....

you cant get psu, osu, um, tenn, texas, texas a&m, &bama without those added games for $$$ reasons.....

you cant get clemson, fsu, florida, gtech, georgia, usc, & ND without adding those games for rivalry reasons.....

I'm not sure I follow where you are going with this response to my post. You cant get these schools for what? The 13 game full conference schedule?

the 3 extra ooc games.....

Oh, right. Yes you guys were going pretty in depth and in detail about the situation. For me though I only go into that much detail if necessary. For me the matter is decided on a much more general level. I really do not think these conferences could make a strong argument for adding both an extra week to the regular season AND an extra week to the conference post season to turn the championship into a tournament.

Therefore if they must choose then I see no possible argument for why they would rather have a full regular season week of games instead of their own contained conference tournaments that bring forth a very large payday for everyone in the conference while only four out of 16 teams will have to take part in it.

The Big XII has found out, the hard way, that round-robin schedules are fun! Everyone plays everyone else, and no one has an unfair schedule. But I'm still in favor of going back to twelve, or changing the name of the conference.

The long-term predictions of others for these new mega-conferences was, based on the experience of the WAC-16, they would fail eventually. Schools will long for the days of playing their traditional rivals. So history will repeat itself? Weren't much of the SEC and and ACC in one conference many years back?

(09-04-2013 06:39 PM)PlayBall! Wrote:  The Big XII has found out, the hard way, that round-robin schedules are fun! Everyone plays everyone else, and no one has an unfair schedule. But I'm still in favor of going back to twelve, or changing the name of the conference.

The long-term predictions of others for these new mega-conferences was, based on the experience of the WAC-16, they would fail eventually. Schools will long for the days of playing their traditional rivals. So history will repeat itself? Weren't much of the SEC and and ACC in one conference many years back?

apples to oranges buddy

Georgia / Georgia Tech.....gone.
Florida / Florida State.....gone.
Clemson / South Carolina....gone.
Kentucky / Louisville....gone.
Vanderbilt / Wake Forest....gone.

Missouri / Kansas....no chance of returning
Texas A&M / Texas....no chance of returning
Pittsburgh/ West Virginia....no chance of returning

I admire the idealism of it, but it would kill what little tradition we had left.

(09-04-2013 02:49 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  Nobody in the ACC means as much to us as playing South Carolina, especially since they finally decided to play football after over a century of flailing around.

And I wouldn't have traded 10 straight home games against ANYBODY in the ACC for the environment we had Saturday night.

Yep. Got to keep certain OOC rivalries

My plan:

10 conference games
3 OOC games
No FCS, limit of one G5 team per year

For South Carolina you'd see something like this:

Texas A&M
North Carolina (Charlotte)
Georgia
@Vandy
@Kentucky
BYE
LSU
@Miss st
Missouri
@Arkansas
Tennessee
@Florida
East Carolina
@Clemson

Sounds Awesome to me.