(04-30-2014 09:05 AM)oliveandblue Wrote: ...this really applies to the G5 (although a case can be made for Texas to go Indy as well).
Here are some reasons that can be used to justify independence:
1. The TV money isn't enough to warrant being tied to a conference. I'm pretty darn sure that a number of G5 schools can schedule 6h/6a and make enough between "buy" contracts and independent TV money (by game) to match the peanuts they are making already. You're not sacrificing 20m+ a year in going indy.
The Go5 level schools that are not already independent would not get enough independent TV exposure to replace the opportunity to play themselves into more TV games with a good season in the conference they are in.
Quote: 2. Greater control over scheduling. You can play the schools that you ACTUALLY want to. There are some G5 schools that would struggle to fill a schedule - but I'd wager a guess and say that half of them wouldn't struggle to do so.
I'd wager a guess and say that 80% of them would end up with a schedule no better or worse than what they have now.
Quote: 3. Greater control over kickoff times.
Not an issue for the reasons that Go5 schools subsidize sports. A kick-off time that is forced to change by "conference commitments is always due to the timing of a broadcast slot, and so from a University President's perspective is almost always a good thing.
Quote: 4. You can always join a local conference for smaller sports if necessary. This happens all across the college landscape in the form of "affiliate memberships".
Not only are affiliate members at risk of losing their affiliation based on changing needs of their host conference, but you can't be a D1 school based on affiliate memberships alone. Few Go5 schools would upgrade their BBall by moving to a non-FBS conference.
Some may, but now you are running into the critical mass issue ~ if you had twelve that were on the margin for going independent for the other reasons, a majority would prefer to remain in their current conference for BBall than the non-FBS BBall conference opportunities that they have.
Quote: 5. Keep what you kill - your branding is 100% your own.
This is only a slogan with appeal to a University President that for some reason has durable brand appeal independent of the upswings and, more importantly, downswings of the strength of their FB team. Which at the Go5 level boils down to BYU, Navy and Army, and even one of those decided that the benefits of conference participation outweigh the benefits of independence.
Quote: 6. Winning a G5 conference has ZERO value. P5 conferences have high-end bowl tie-ins.
This is total BS. First, for all but the Sunbelt, winning a G5 conference means you played on and won a nationally televised game, which is itself a benefit to a Go5 school. Second, it guarantees a better bowl slot than any Go5 school independent other than BYU, Navy or Army would get with a similar schedule. Third, it offers the opportunity to be the best of the five champions that goes to the Access Bowl.
Now, there are certainly a substantial number of college football fans that look down their noses at the Go5 conferences and belittle the champions of the Go5 conferences ... but they'd also belittle those same schools playing as independents, so P5 snobbery doesn't really enter into the pro-independence side of the balance.
Quote: 7. Low end bowls will always be looking for teams. You will probably NOT struggle to find a bowl game if you go 8-4 in the year 2014.
But if you are 8-4 in a conference and are not BYU, Navy or Army, you will be guaranteed a better bowl slot than those going to Go5 level independents. And assuming a "critical mass" of independent, whether you are 7-5 or 9-3, you are likely to be surrendering bowl places to 6-6 conference schools before any spots open up to you.
The reason it doesn't happen is the reason that all the big Eastern independents joined conferences in the 80's and 90's ... with conferences free to sign TV contracts, a conference place meant an opportunity to play your way into TV games when you have a good year, with the out of footprint alumni of the whole conference bolstering the audience for a national TV contract. For a broad regional or national TV contract with an independent, it has to have broad regional or national appeal.
That is what selected Notre Dame, Navy, Army and BYU as the remaining independents. BYU is the only one of those four to follow the track selected here, and even among that group Navy had decided that its better off in-conference, which seems likely to be the issue of bowl access ... not just gaining bowl tie-ins, which the service academies have been able to do, but developing a schedule from which they can qualify for a bowl.