Divisionless is suddenly all the rage but for a conference like the new 14-team AAC, divisions actually make sense and ensure that longtime rivals and schools in geographic proximity play annually.

So are they going to do divisional play or not?

They could also do something in between where there are technically no divisions but the 6 westernmost schools and Navy play round robin and then the other 7 do the same—divisions for scheduling but if the West’s #2 is better than the East’s #1, the East #1 isn’t a lock for the CCG.

yes

Divisionless actually make MORE sense for the 14-team AAC.

There are no seven-team groupings that offer the geographic advantages that the Sun Belt or MAC get. And the negative of 7-team divisions is that you miss on cross-division opponents for, like seven years. (SEC example). In the AAC, part of the appeal of the big footprint is you get exposure for football recruiting, a widespread fanbase, prospective students, but mostly football recruiting, so missing Texas for years in a row (for east division) or missing Florida for years in a row (for west division) is a net negative. I suppose you could go "Leaders and Legends" and split up the Texas schools, split up the Florida schools, split up the mid-Atlantic four...and then you lose any of the supposed "advantages" of divisions like travel, rivalries etc. (Travel note - this is big boy football, and we all charter aeroplanes, and we're only talking two different timezones. Travel and travel costs matter for all sports, but not football.)

Your suggestion of top-two CCG but six annual opponents has all the disadvantages of 7-team divisions, with only the advantage of matching up top-2 for NY6/6+6 purposes.

Something like 3 permanent fixtures, plus 5 H&H / 5H&H is ideal.
You have enough permanent games to save the Gansz Trophy or create a hot new close-by rivalry or even save a little on travel. You have a home & home with every other member in a four year period. You get the top-two advantages (which we've already been doing with our 11-team waiver).

Aresco has said publicly there is no sentiment from the presidents to return to division play.

I think the Conference should concern itself with attendance in its scheduling. Therefore everyone should play teams closer and not worry about playing everyone in the Conference often. Also, for the first few years, SMU and Memphis should not play each other in the regular season since many will assume they are likely to be the headliners in the AAC 2.0 at first. I know SMU will not be recruiting outside of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana that much, so playing in Florida or Carolina is not so important from that point of view. I would attempt to schedule trying to get two or more teams ranked than to play everyone in conference and get that NY6 game.

How about no divisions or conference schedule; every team plays a couple OOC opponents plus one permanent I'm conference rival. Then seed the teams into a tournament bracket and play that out to the conference championship. Losing teams play out the loss side bracket.

Easy peasy

(06-18-2022 09:56 AM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  Divisionless actually make MORE sense for the 14-team AAC.

There are no seven-team groupings that offer the geographic advantages that the Sun Belt or MAC get. And the negative of 7-team divisions is that you miss on cross-division opponents for, like seven years. (SEC example). In the AAC, part of the appeal of the big footprint is you get exposure for football recruiting, a widespread fanbase, prospective students, but mostly football recruiting, so missing Texas for years in a row (for east division) or missing Florida for years in a row (for west division) is a net negative. I suppose you could go "Leaders and Legends" and split up the Texas schools, split up the Florida schools, split up the mid-Atlantic four...and then you lose any of the supposed "advantages" of divisions like travel, rivalries etc. (Travel note - this is big boy football, and we all charter aeroplanes, and we're only talking two different timezones. Travel and travel costs matter for all sports, but not football.)

Your suggestion of top-two CCG but six annual opponents has all the disadvantages of 7-team divisions, with only the advantage of matching up top-2 for NY6/6+6 purposes.

Something like 3 permanent fixtures, plus 5 H&H / 5H&H is ideal.
You have enough permanent games to save the Gansz Trophy or create a hot new close-by rivalry or even save a little on travel. You have a home & home with every other member in a four year period. You get the top-two advantages (which we've already been doing with our 11-team waiver).

clt says you are very wise.

The 3 permanent + 5 H/A model is starting to sound more appetizing to me. Didn't care for it at first, but it has grown on me.

clt says divisionless is so hot right now

(06-18-2022 10:50 PM)ghostofclt! Wrote:  clt says divisionless is so hot right now

loki notes that dvisionless is so fetch.

(06-18-2022 11:31 PM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  

(06-18-2022 10:50 PM)ghostofclt! Wrote:  clt says divisionless is so hot right now

loki notes that dvisionless is so fetch.

clt says Gretchen wieners was misunderstood

(06-18-2022 12:48 PM)AusTxPony Wrote:  I think the Conference should concern itself with attendance in its scheduling. Therefore everyone should play teams closer and not worry about playing everyone in the Conference often. Also, for the first few years, SMU and Memphis should not play each other in the regular season since many will assume they are likely to be the headliners in the AAC 2.0 at first. I know SMU will not be recruiting outside of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana that much, so playing in Florida or Carolina is not so important from that point of view. I would attempt to schedule trying to get two or more teams ranked than to play everyone in conference and get that NY6 game.

I would not go that far, but to accomplish a lot of that, reserve the last week for conference semifinals , and everyone else gets a game against a fairly seeded opponent who they haven’t played yet.

But 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3, winners meet in the title game.

Other 7 games could be 4+[3,3,3] with four permanent rivals and see everyone else at least once every 3 years on average.

(06-19-2022 04:26 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(06-18-2022 12:48 PM)AusTxPony Wrote:  I think the Conference should concern itself with attendance in its scheduling. Therefore everyone should play teams closer and not worry about playing everyone in the Conference often. Also, for the first few years, SMU and Memphis should not play each other in the regular season since many will assume they are likely to be the headliners in the AAC 2.0 at first. I know SMU will not be recruiting outside of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana that much, so playing in Florida or Carolina is not so important from that point of view. I would attempt to schedule trying to get two or more teams ranked than to play everyone in conference and get that NY6 game.

I would not go that far, but to accomplish a lot of that, reserve the last week for conference semifinals , and everyone else gets a game against a fairly seeded opponent who they haven’t played yet.

But 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3, winners meet in the title game.

Other 7 games could be 4+[3,3,3] with four permanent rivals and see everyone else at least once every 3 years on average.

AusTxPony makes a good point: '23, '24, and '25 will be important years for the AAC to reset/restart the P6 campaign, and snagging the NY6 bid is a key part of that. We'll have a clean slate after '22 to start the 14-team schedule rotation, so we could profit by doing a little crystal ball work to keep the projected top teams away from one another. 3 permanent rivals and then 5 H&H / 5 H&H makes the most sense (to me at least) so there is opportunity to do so with 5 "misses" for that first two years.
A couple thoughts on that, though.
- "semifinals" and variable games for all fourteen teams on Thanksgiving weekend seems like a non-starter to me, for several reasons. First, schools want to sell season tickets with a set schedule, and "Home tbd" doesn't seem like a winner. Second, that Thanksgiving weekend and Black Friday specifically has been a good window for us and ABC/ESPN, so we want to set that up instead of having tbd games. Third is the risk of regular season rematches - bleh.
- Speaking of rematches, how we do the best job of having potentially two undefeated, ranked teams meet in the CCG? I would think after the '22 season, the conference will know who performed well in '22, what they have returning, and whether they avoided losing the coaching staff. So all things being equal, projecting the top 4 and at least for the first two years making them three of each others five "misses" is a good plan.
- However, I would make that take a back seat to identifying the three permanent rivals. IF those projected top teams for '23-'24 ARE to be permanent rivals, schedule those matchups wisely...turning around for a CCG a week after a regular season matchup seems anti-climactic...but you also want late season buzz as well (e.g. SMU-Memphis Gameday late in the season in 2019) so if your projected top 4 are in the rotation in 2023, set 'em up 4 November or 11 November - if you do end up with a CCG rematch, you have some time for a bounce back.

That idea of projecting your top 4 CCG contenders and scheduling accordingly, though, only sets you up for '23 and '24 - you could set up '25 and '26 for fratricide.

I'll still say that more effort should go into the three permanent rivals. Those choices are what set you up longer-term, and will likely contribute more to local buzz and attendance, and can still set up good TV matchups for our media partner.

I have a theoretical for how the conference could set up a system to try and maximize getting everyone their preferences...

(06-19-2022 08:20 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(06-19-2022 04:26 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(06-18-2022 12:48 PM)AusTxPony Wrote:  I think the Conference should concern itself with attendance in its scheduling. Therefore everyone should play teams closer and not worry about playing everyone in the Conference often. Also, for the first few years, SMU and Memphis should not play each other in the regular season since many will assume they are likely to be the headliners in the AAC 2.0 at first. I know SMU will not be recruiting outside of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana that much, so playing in Florida or Carolina is not so important from that point of view. I would attempt to schedule trying to get two or more teams ranked than to play everyone in conference and get that NY6 game.

I would not go that far, but to accomplish a lot of that, reserve the last week for conference semifinals , and everyone else gets a game against a fairly seeded opponent who they haven’t played yet.

But 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3, winners meet in the title game.

Other 7 games could be 4+[3,3,3] with four permanent rivals and see everyone else at least once every 3 years on average.

AusTxPony makes a good point: '23, '24, and '25 will be important years for the AAC to reset/restart the P6 campaign, and snagging the NY6 bid is a key part of that. We'll have a clean slate after '22 to start the 14-team schedule rotation, so we could profit by doing a little crystal ball work to keep the projected top teams away from one another. 3 permanent rivals and then 5 H&H / 5 H&H makes the most sense (to me at least) so there is opportunity to do so with 5 "misses" for that first two years.
A couple thoughts on that, though.
- "semifinals" and variable games for all fourteen teams on Thanksgiving weekend seems like a non-starter to me, for several reasons. First, schools want to sell season tickets with a set schedule, and "Home tbd" doesn't seem like a winner. Second, that Thanksgiving weekend and Black Friday specifically has been a good window for us and ABC/ESPN, so we want to set that up instead of having tbd games. Third is the risk of regular season rematches - bleh.
- Speaking of rematches, how we do the best job of having potentially two undefeated, ranked teams meet in the CCG? I would think after the '22 season, the conference will know who performed well in '22, what they have returning, and whether they avoided losing the coaching staff. So all things being equal, projecting the top 4 and at least for the first two years making them three of each others five "misses" is a good plan.
- However, I would make that take a back seat to identifying the three permanent rivals. IF those projected top teams for '23-'24 ARE to be permanent rivals, schedule those matchups wisely...turning around for a CCG a week after a regular season matchup seems anti-climactic...but you also want late season buzz as well (e.g. SMU-Memphis Gameday late in the season in 2019) so if your projected top 4 are in the rotation in 2023, set 'em up 4 November or 11 November - if you do end up with a CCG rematch, you have some time for a bounce back.

That idea of projecting your top 4 CCG contenders and scheduling accordingly, though, only sets you up for '23 and '24 - you could set up '25 and '26 for fratricide.

I'll still say that more effort should go into the three permanent rivals. Those choices are what set you up longer-term, and will likely contribute more to local buzz and attendance, and can still set up good TV matchups for our media partner.

I have a theoretical for how the conference could set up a system to try and maximize getting everyone their preferences...

You mean something like give everyone a ballot and 30 points to distribute between all the teams you want as permanent rivals?

So if you have 3 teams you want to play give them 10 points each.

Or one team you REALLY want to play and three more you’d be pretty ok with then split it 21-3-3-3.

Or maybe five teams of various preference, 12-6-5-4-3

Then pick the picks that maximizes the most total points for everyone without jacking anyone over (everyone hopefully gets at least 15 points worth from their wishlist…)

I would give every institution:
1 platinum chip worth 7 points
3 gold chips worth 5 points
5 silver chips worth 3 points
4 bronze chips worth 1 point
1 black chip for a veto (with one extra chip, everyone has plausible deniability for vetoing anyone)

Matchups therefore get votes from both parties.

Tie breaker could go to the higher chip used - I'm wavering there - gold-gold seems like more of a win-win than platinum-silver, and gold-silver seems like more of a win-than platinum-bronze, but you should get some ROI for that big pick.

The top will sort itself out, the platinum-platinum and platinum-gold picks. If there is a traffic jam at 10 points or 8 points order by the team with fewest completed matchups so far.
Three matchups complete, and that team is off the board.

(06-19-2022 10:07 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  I would give every institution:
1 platinum chip worth 7 points
3 gold chips worth 5 points
5 silver chips worth 3 points
4 bronze chips worth 1 point
1 black chip for a veto (with one extra chip, everyone has plausible deniability for vetoing anyone)

Matchups therefore get votes from both parties.

Tie breaker could go to the higher chip used - I'm wavering there - gold-gold seems like more of a win-win than platinum-silver, and gold-silver seems like more of a win-than platinum-bronze, but you should get some ROI for that big pick.

The top will sort itself out, the platinum-platinum and platinum-gold picks. If there is a traffic jam at 10 points or 8 points order by the team with fewest completed matchups so far.
Three matchups complete, and that team is off the board.

This could be an ESPN2 special event. Have a legend from each school sitting around a table with the chips. Maybe Mean Joe Greene stands up and punches Roger Staubach for making a snide comment or something. This could be real good TV.

Can this be merged with one of the other two divisionless threads?

This one

Or this one

This one?

Hell, maybe even this one

Of course there will be divisions. this is America for God's sake.

I could live with Divisions:
West - Tulsa, UNT, SMU, UTSA, Rice, Tulane Navy.
East - Memphis, UAB, FAU, USF, Charlotte, ECU, Temple.
But schedule crossover games to get at least 2 teams ranked. Will we play 8 or 9 conference games? OOC schedule should include High G5 or Low P5, and Middle to High P5 and probably a warm-up win with Low G5.

(06-20-2022 06:59 AM)goodknightfl Wrote:  Of course there will be divisions. this is America for God's sake.