Captain Bearcat
All-American in Everything
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RE: Would you rather be a contender in G5 or bottomfeeder of P5?
(02-19-2014 10:12 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (02-19-2014 09:32 AM)orangefan Wrote: Let's take a look at the 2 worst schools in each of the P5 conferences from last season:
ACC:
UVA 0-8, 2-10. Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2011 Chick-fil-A; Last Conf Championship: 1995
NCSU 0-8, 3-9. Last Bowl: Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2012 Music City; Last Conf Championship: 1979
B1G:
Purdue 0-8, 1-11. Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2012 Heart of Dallas; Last Conf Championship: 2000
Illinois 1-7, 4-8. Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2011 Fight Hunger; Last Conf Championship: 2001
B12:
Kansas 1-8, 3-9. Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2008 Insight; Last Conf Championship: 1968
ISU 2-7, 3-9. Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2012 Liberty; Last Conf Championship: 1912
P12:
Cal 0-9 1-11. Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2011 Holiday; Last Conf Championship: 2006
Colorado 1-8, 4-8. Last National Championship: 1990; Last Bowl: 2007 Independence; Last Conf Championship: 2001
SEC:
UK 0-8 2-10. Last National Championship: n/a; Last Bowl: 2010 BBVA Compass; Last Conf Championship: 1950
Arkansas 0-8 3-9. Last National Championship: 1964; Last Bowl: 2011 Cotton; Last Conf Championship: 1989
I count that 7 of the 10 played in bowls within the prior two seasons and that all 10 played in bowls within the prior five seasons. 4 of 10 have won conference champships in the previous 12 seasons, and some that did not win their conference played in major bowls (e.g., Kansas, 2008 Orange). Kentucky appears to be one of the consistently non-competitive schools, but of course they have won several hoops National Championships.
I guess my point is that being a "bottom feeder" in a P5 conference is not a death sentence and it does not have to be permanent. These schools have a chance to compete and to have success. Most, if not all, have as good a chance, or better, to qualify for the CFP playoffs or a major bowl as the best schools in the G5.
Yes, this is extremely instructive.
Also, the main thing for G5 schools is that there simply isn't any margin for error. Just look at NIU last season - 1 loss sends them from a BCS bowl down to the Poinsetta Bowl. Meanwhile, a 10-2 power conference team will almost always make it into a CFP bowl in the new system, a 3 or 4-loss power conference team gets to go to a high profile bowl that's often on New Year's Day (i.e. Capital One, Outback) and maybe even into a CFP bowl depending upon the year, and even 6-6 power conference teams still get to go to high paying games like the Gator Bowl or Holiday Bowl. For 90% of us as college football fans, the bowl that we end up at is more relevant year-to-year since so few teams legitimately are competing for the national championship at any given time.
Now, has it been more fun for NIU fans watching their team over the past couple of years than it has been for me as an Illini fan? Absolutely. Watching a bad team blows no matter how powerful of a conference you might be in. However, there's no way in the world that I'd trade places with NIU. Who knows where a 3-loss NIU team would go for a bowl (if they even go to a bowl at all). In 2007, 3 losses for Illinois equaled going to the Rose Bowl. I'll happily take the latter.
It's a good point that being a bottom-feeder is not an eternal sentence.
However, the amount of positive publicity that NIU has received over the past two years is more than the Illini have gotten over the past 10 years. NIU may have less room for error, but that's more because of their institutional profile than their conference.
But what if you compare schools that are otherwise equal, which schools have a better opportunity at the top?
There are only a few non-BCS schools that are institutionally similar to public BCS schools. In 2000, the only non-BCS schools with over $400 million endowments and 22,000 students (in other words, above the 10th percentile for BCS schools) were Buffalo, Cincinnati, New Mexico, Utah, BYU, and Louisville.
Compare these schools to the public BCS schools that are in a similar size profile: WSU, the AZ and OR schools from the PAC; Arkansas, SC, Auburn, TN, and the MS schools from the SEC; KSU, TT, and OSU from the Big 12; WVU and Temple from the BE; and Clemson and FSU from the ACC.
Which group ended up more successful over the next decade? Despite starting with much bigger athletic budgets, fan support, and facilities, it's hard to say that the average school in the BCS group did a lot better over the next decade than the non-BCS group. If you take out FSU, Auburn, and Tennessee (which have gigantic facilities and fanbase advantages), the two groups' subsequent performance is practically dead-even.
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