(01-07-2016 11:45 AM)Dasville Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 11:41 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 10:14 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 09:03 AM)XLance Wrote:  Th B1G proposal is really more aimed more at the ACC than the Big 12.
Delany is trying to prevent the ACC from creatively selecting the two best teams in the conference for the championship even if both are in the same division.

If that's truly what the ACC wants, it should be careful what it wishes for. As often as not, that could backfire on the league, knocking its second best team out of an NY6 bowl.

But I agree - that shouldn't be any of Delaney's business.

Oh nonsense. It is absolutely his business, and the business of everyone in FBS: those rules, and the proposed changes to them, affect every FBS conference. So obviously they all should have a say (and will all vote).

And to that point, why should any of the FBS leagues let the ACC cheat their conference schedules to pump up the conf records of whichever team they think has the best chance of getting into the CFP??

I wouldn't call it cheating. Please see Ohio State last year and Iowa this year.

Ohio St last year and Iowa this year played every team in their division. As it should be.

I wasn't asking for more than that.

One minor thing: why the heck does Iowa St have a "FAR" and why the heck is this individual not only representing that University at the NCAA level ... but the entire XII conference???

You can't tell me that this professor has enough time to teach class, run his research lab, take part in dept/university operations AND competently speak for the athletic desires of the XII conference.


Every other conference, it's an AD.

(01-07-2016 11:46 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  The original Big Ten didn't have any East teams, other than Michigan.

Sorry, but for me personally -- I do not care about games against Indiana, Ohio St or Michigan St. In fact, I consider them a nuisance, because we usually lose (in football and bball). And I could do without the Michigan games as well, for the same reason (this year particularly ... still shake my head at how that one ended).

Obviously then, Penn St and now Rutgers and Maryland are just all the more foreign.


But I do enjoy having Iowa and Nebraska on the schedule. I'd welcome Kansas, too. Even Iowa St, but they have a much lower chance of getting in.

I am glad you got the set-up you wanted. For me, after playing 100 years of Big Ten football, we ended up with 2 teams who were part of the first "Big 10" (first 10 teams) in our division. Someone in 1950 looking at our annual games would assume the Big Ten had died.

I am not unhappy with everything and won't pretend I am, but this was not a perfect set-up for every team. If we had gone inner/outer as I preferred instead of east/west, I suspect this conversation would be very different.

If the divisions are set though, I would like to see the following eventually.
1. Ditch round robin play. Play 5 in division and 4 out of division (lock 2 teams in your division). This means you play everyone at least 50% of the time. If we end up with 2 undefeated teams in the same division once every 15-20 years, it is worth the cost.
2. Get rid of the "parity based scheduling" that starts next year.

(01-07-2016 11:55 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 11:46 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  The original Big Ten didn't have any East teams, other than Michigan.

Sorry, but for me personally -- I do not care about games against Indiana, Ohio St or Michigan St. In fact, I consider them a nuisance, because we usually lose (in football and bball). And I could do without the Michigan games as well, for the same reason (this year particularly ... still shake my head at how that one ended).

Obviously then, Penn St and now Rutgers and Maryland are just all the more foreign.


But I do enjoy having Iowa and Nebraska on the schedule. I'd welcome Kansas, too. Even Iowa St, but they have a much lower chance of getting in.

I am glad you got the set-up you wanted. For me, after playing 100 years of Big Ten football, we ended up with 2 teams who were part of the first "Big 10" (first 10 teams) in our division. Someone in 1950 looking at our annual games would assume the Big Ten had died.

I am not unhappy with everything and won't pretend I am, but this was not a perfect set-up for every team. If we had gone inner/outer as I preferred instead of east/west, I suspect this conversation would be very different.

(01-07-2016 12:01 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  If the divisions are set though, I would like to see the following eventually.
1. Ditch round robin play. Play 5 in division and 4 out of division (lock 2 teams in your division). This means you play everyone at least 50% of the time. If we end up with 2 undefeated teams in the same division once every 15-20 years, it is worth the cost.
2. Get rid of the "parity based scheduling" that starts next year.

Well, obviously this is what Ohio St (and Michigan) fans want. It gives those two schools -- with all the money and national brand recognition in the world, relatively -- the chance to beat up on a bunch of schools that have much less of those two things. Disguised as the desire to "play the good ole boys again".

No thanks.

Iowa, Wisc, UIUC, NW, Purdue ... those are programs at the same level as Minn. Those are the teams I want to play. Neb and Kansas are slide in nicely. That would be a nice eight team conference, in its own right.


Keep round-robin. And let the weakest West teams play the weakest East teams.

The Big XII just needs to add two schools

it's not hard

(01-07-2016 12:16 PM)EvilVodka Wrote:  The Big XII just needs to add two schools

it's not hard

It might be for the Sugar.

Personally, I don't believe Delaney's motives have anything at all to do with competition, divisions, championship games or CFP games.

I think his hope is that his proposal would create more instability within the Big 12 and ACC, and that this would lead to the B1G being able to pry loose expansion targets that would otherwise not be available to them. Specifically, I believe he would like to expand the reach of the BTN into North Carolina and Virginia. I think he is quite willing to allow the SEC network to do the same thing, as long as he gets first choice.

The problem with this strategy is that it requires a lot of schools to make moves they would rather not make, and that the specific schools he would like to get choose to join the Big Ten. That's the major problem with instability - it is inherently unpredictable. But for Delaney, the alternative is the status quo. That requires the B1G to settle for what they already have, and I think he has bigger aspirations.

I think Delaney sees Florida State and Clemson as unhappy, but not yet so unhappy that they would leave the ACC. He doesn't want either of these schools for the B1G, but if he could drive them into the arms of the Big 12, that might trigger other moves. He would love to have North Carolina and Virginia, and knows he would have to take Duke as well to have any chance at all of making that happen. If he pulled off that coup, he could round out two 9 team divisions by taking Kansas from the Big 12. In that scenario, Georgia Tech is likely to (reluctantly) follow FSU and Clemson to the Big 12, joining West Virginia, TCU and Iowa State in an eastern division.

At this point, Virginia Tech and North Carolina State would be begging the SEC to add them to their eastern division (moving Mizzou to the west) in a 16 team conference.

Now, the B1G contracts with the Orange Bowl to match them with an SEC team, leaving both those leagues with two of the three best NY bowls. The smaller Big 12 (Sugar) and PAC 12 (Rose) have the other two contract slots.

It's all about the money, not the titles, and leaves 58 schools in four conferences with most of it. With all his goals accomplished, Delaney can now ride off into the sunset.

EDIT: I miscounted. there would be 58 teams in those four conferences, not 54.

(01-07-2016 12:16 PM)EvilVodka Wrote:  The Big XII just needs to add two schools

it's not hard

I'd like to see them split into two divisions, round-robin in the division and have the two division winners meet in a CCG.

That would make the conference appear the same to the committee as the other four P conferences.

The things I'd leave to the XII:

- whether the total number of teams in each division is 5, 6, 7, ...
- whether or not each team plays every team in the other division, as well


If they chose to stay at 10, you could have:

Texas/Tech/Baylor/TCU/WV
OU/OK St/KS/KS St/IA St


(or, in a stroke of genius, you replace WV with a much more logical geographic choice - like Houston - and let the SEC or ACC absorb WV)

I have posted this elsewhere, but I think the following two conclusions are all-but-given at this point:
1) The Conference Championship Game is the way forward in the FBS.
2) Some sort of "divisional" (and "divisional" is still up for grabs in terms of format...you could a variety of "divisional" arrangements from geographical (North/South, East/West, etc...) to a looser affinity group and "pod" system (oh say, "Tobacco Road" (UNC, NC State, Duke, WF) "Mid Atlantic" (UVA, VaTech, Maryland, Louisville) "New England" (BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Notre Dame***(affiliate) and "Deep South" (Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson) arrangement where the all the schools in the affinity Pod play each other and some formula matches the top two schools from the Pods or from some other arrangement) where the "divisional" leaders play in the CCG.

(PLEASE do not get derailed on my pods...it's something I pulled out of my head as AN EXAMPLE. My bigger point is that there will be some objective criteria by which conferences will have to determine who plays in the CCG.)

So the issue facing the B12 will be:
-Does a CCG really work with a ten-team "round robin" schedule? (IMO, lots of problems here...)
-If YES, then just add the CCG with some objective criteria on how a team qualifies to play in the CCG.
-If NO, then the B12 could, in theory seek to divide into two- 5 team divisions (however they want to do that). Does that work? (again in my opinion, still may problems...)

The simplest solution would be for the B12 to add 2 schools to format their divisions and thereby match the other Power conferences. Not saying they will, but that's the obvious simple solution. Then again, if there were an obvious two schools to add, they would have done it already.

(01-07-2016 12:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  Personally, I don't believe Delaney's motives have anything at all to do with competition, divisions, championship games or CFP games.

I think his hope is that his proposal would create more instability within the Big 12 and ACC, and that this would lead to the B1G being able to pry loose expansion targets that would otherwise not be available to them. Specifically, I believe he would like to expand the reach of the BTN into North Carolina and Virginia. I think he is quite willing to allow the SEC network to do the same thing, as long as he gets first choice.

The problem with this strategy is that it requires a lot of schools to make moves they would rather not make, and that the specific schools he would like to get choose to join the Big Ten. That's the major problem with instability - it is inherently unpredictable. But for Delaney, the alternative is the status quo. That requires the B1G to settle for what they already have, and I think he has bigger aspirations.

I think Delaney sees Florida State and Clemson as unhappy, but not yet so unhappy that they would leave the ACC. He doesn't want either of these schools for the B1G, but if he could drive them into the arms of the Big 12, that might trigger other moves. He would love to have North Carolina and Virginia, and knows he would have to take Duke as well to have any chance at all of making that happen. If he pulled off that coup, he could round out two 9 team divisions by taking Kansas from the Big 12. In that scenario, Georgia Tech is likely to (reluctantly) follow FSU and Clemson to the Big 12, joining West Virginia, TCU and Iowa State in an eastern division.

At this point, Virginia Tech and North Carolina State would be begging the SEC to add them to their eastern division (moving Mizzou to the west) in a 16 team conference.

Now, the B1G contracts with the Orange Bowl to match them with an SEC team, leaving both those leagues with two of the three best NY bowls. The smaller Big 12 (Sugar) and PAC 12 (Rose) have the other two contract slots.

It's all about the money, not the titles, and leaves 54 schools in four conferences with most of it. With all his goals accomplished, Delaney can now ride off into the sunset.

That hypothesis is all well and fine, until you consider this:

- the "worse case" for the XII and ACC, no changes to the rules, just results in what we have now, in which none of the ACC schools are going anywhere

- any deviation from that, including the B1G proposal, results in some type of gain/benefit for the XII and/or ACC.

I would agree delaney wants UVA and UNC but the status quo will not allow it. Also, if the big 12 gets a waiver, than things really will be locked down + you got the ND option of joining the acc for football to check everything. Most likely for future big 10 expansion, they are going to have to take ACC school's they don't want, i.e. syracuse + Fl state or try to get big 12 school's, KU and OU.

(01-07-2016 12:07 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 11:55 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 11:46 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  The original Big Ten didn't have any East teams, other than Michigan.

Sorry, but for me personally -- I do not care about games against Indiana, Ohio St or Michigan St. In fact, I consider them a nuisance, because we usually lose (in football and bball). And I could do without the Michigan games as well, for the same reason (this year particularly ... still shake my head at how that one ended).

Obviously then, Penn St and now Rutgers and Maryland are just all the more foreign.


But I do enjoy having Iowa and Nebraska on the schedule. I'd welcome Kansas, too. Even Iowa St, but they have a much lower chance of getting in.

I am glad you got the set-up you wanted. For me, after playing 100 years of Big Ten football, we ended up with 2 teams who were part of the first "Big 10" (first 10 teams) in our division. Someone in 1950 looking at our annual games would assume the Big Ten had died.

I am not unhappy with everything and won't pretend I am, but this was not a perfect set-up for every team. If we had gone inner/outer as I preferred instead of east/west, I suspect this conversation would be very different.

(01-07-2016 12:01 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  If the divisions are set though, I would like to see the following eventually.
1. Ditch round robin play. Play 5 in division and 4 out of division (lock 2 teams in your division). This means you play everyone at least 50% of the time. If we end up with 2 undefeated teams in the same division once every 15-20 years, it is worth the cost.
2. Get rid of the "parity based scheduling" that starts next year.

Well, obviously this is what Ohio St (and Michigan) fans want. It gives those two schools -- with all the money and national brand recognition in the world, relatively -- the chance to beat up on a bunch of schools that have much less of those two things. Disguised as the desire to "play the good ole boys again".

No thanks.

Iowa, Wisc, UIUC, NW, Purdue ... those are programs at the same level as Minn. Those are the teams I want to play. Neb and Kansas are slide in nicely. That would be a nice eight team conference, in its own right.


Keep round-robin. And let the weakest West teams play the weakest East teams.

1. It's not what Ohio State and Michigan want, it is what I want. I get you don't want it, but please accept that I do care about tradition and winning/loosing is a secondary concern at most. The schools themselves love east coast exposure (good for recruiting both students and athletes) and want the big exposure games. It's fans that care about tradition and the Midwestern identity of the schedule.

2. I understand wanting to play nearby schools and divisions nearby (even if I don't personally agree it is the best move), but it sounds like you want to play schools you don't consider as strong ("those are programs at the same level as Minn."). My question to you is, if that's really the approach taken, why even remain together at all? If you don't identify with the teams with bigger advantages and don't want to play them, isn't the natural approach in the end for one side or the other to leave?

I don't want that to happen, but if that viewpoint ever becomes prevalent, that's what I see happening as the stronger side won't feel a connection to the other side (why would they if they don't want to play) and will be providing a greater percent of the revenue.

(01-07-2016 11:30 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 11:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  What do you think Delaney's motives are here?

Easy. He wants every conference to assume the same risk.

He has the risk of an 8-4 Minnesota beating 11-1 Penn State in the Big 10 title game and knocking Penn St out of the playoffs.

Bowlsby was trying to get around that risk by pairing the top two rated teams in the Big 12 title game.

So Delany called BS, and said if you want a title game, it has to be a game of division winners.

Swofford doesnt want a weak team upsetting fsu or clemson and knocking them out of the playoff.

(01-07-2016 12:22 PM)Dasville Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 12:16 PM)EvilVodka Wrote:  The Big XII just needs to add two schools

it's not hard

It might be for the Sugar.

As simple as this is to say, I think it hits crucially on the true, underlying crux of the matter: there are very few schools, even just within the P5, that bring the big ratings.

So for bowls (or one day perhaps, stand alone CFP games) to get the really big ratings that they crave, they really want to make sure they get the top ratings programs.

No offense meant to Clemson or Michigan St, but my opinion is that part of the ratings drop was due to these "lesser" national ratings draws being in the games. Sorry, but I think it's true.


Where does that leave us and where does that ultimately take us? I have no idea.

If you totally deregulate, the ACC could include Notre Dame with 5 conference games.

That would be a reason for 13 of the 14 ACC schools to be against it.

(01-07-2016 12:44 PM)bluesox Wrote:  I would agree delaney wants UVA and UNC but the status quo will not allow it. Also, if the big 12 gets a waiver, than things really will be locked down + you got the ND option of joining the acc for football to check everything. Most likely for future big 10 expansion, they are going to have to take ACC school's they don't want, i.e. syracuse + Fl state or try to get big 12 school's, KU and OU.

Or go really far outside the box: Harvard. (they decide they want to be like Stanford)

I know, it'll never happen.

I agree that Delany doesn't want leagues being able to match up the two best teams regardless of division. We can argue whether or not playing a CCG is an advantage or disadvantage, but the ability to pick the teams to play in a CCG is clearly a huge advantage.

(01-07-2016 12:46 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 12:07 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 11:55 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 11:46 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  The original Big Ten didn't have any East teams, other than Michigan.

Sorry, but for me personally -- I do not care about games against Indiana, Ohio St or Michigan St. In fact, I consider them a nuisance, because we usually lose (in football and bball). And I could do without the Michigan games as well, for the same reason (this year particularly ... still shake my head at how that one ended).

Obviously then, Penn St and now Rutgers and Maryland are just all the more foreign.


But I do enjoy having Iowa and Nebraska on the schedule. I'd welcome Kansas, too. Even Iowa St, but they have a much lower chance of getting in.

I am glad you got the set-up you wanted. For me, after playing 100 years of Big Ten football, we ended up with 2 teams who were part of the first "Big 10" (first 10 teams) in our division. Someone in 1950 looking at our annual games would assume the Big Ten had died.

I am not unhappy with everything and won't pretend I am, but this was not a perfect set-up for every team. If we had gone inner/outer as I preferred instead of east/west, I suspect this conversation would be very different.

(01-07-2016 12:01 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  If the divisions are set though, I would like to see the following eventually.
1. Ditch round robin play. Play 5 in division and 4 out of division (lock 2 teams in your division). This means you play everyone at least 50% of the time. If we end up with 2 undefeated teams in the same division once every 15-20 years, it is worth the cost.
2. Get rid of the "parity based scheduling" that starts next year.

Well, obviously this is what Ohio St (and Michigan) fans want. It gives those two schools -- with all the money and national brand recognition in the world, relatively -- the chance to beat up on a bunch of schools that have much less of those two things. Disguised as the desire to "play the good ole boys again".

No thanks.

Iowa, Wisc, UIUC, NW, Purdue ... those are programs at the same level as Minn. Those are the teams I want to play. Neb and Kansas are slide in nicely. That would be a nice eight team conference, in its own right.


Keep round-robin. And let the weakest West teams play the weakest East teams.

1. It's not what Ohio State and Michigan want, it is what I want. I get you don't want it, but please accept that I do care about tradition and winning/loosing is a secondary concern at most. The schools themselves love east coast exposure (good for recruiting both students and athletes) and want the big exposure games. It's fans that care about tradition and the Midwestern identity of the schedule.

2. I understand wanting to play nearby schools and divisions nearby (even if I don't personally agree it is the best move), but it sounds like you want to play schools you don't consider as strong ("those are programs at the same level as Minn."). My question to you is, if that's really the approach taken, why even remain together at all? If you don't identify with the teams with bigger advantages and don't want to play them, isn't the natural approach in the end for one side or the other to leave?

I don't want that to happen, but if that viewpoint ever becomes prevalent, that's what I see happening as the stronger side won't feel a connection to the other side (why would they if they don't want to play) and will be providing a greater percent of the revenue.

1. Fine, you're special. Most others who are fans of OSU and Michigan, would simply love to beat up on the Minn's, Illinois, etc. of the B1G world.

2. Simple: we want our piece of the TV money that programs like Mich, OSU, Penn St, etc. bring in.

My ultimate would be for the two divisions to essentially be two separate conferences, that have association only at the overhead level and then meet up only for conference championships.

(01-07-2016 12:50 PM)bullet Wrote:  If you totally deregulate, the ACC could include Notre Dame with 5 conference games.

That would be a reason for 13 of the 14 ACC schools to be against it.

Interesting idea, but I don't think it quite works.

Otherwise, you could have the B1G declare that Army will be in its CCG one year. There has to be something in effect barring such things.