What do the divisions and MOST IMPORTANTLY conference play look like?

This isn't a thread to spout which teams you want in the conference; this is a conversation based on the premise that rumors of a 16 team, service academy + BYU conference may come true.

I want to know how conference play will be fairly and thoroughly accomplished.

Begin.

I think the 3 service academies would have to be in the same division, so they could all play each other every year. But I don't think Army will say yes, even if the BE goes to 16, which I think is unlikely.

All three service academies would want to play each other so they would need to be in the same division rather than cross-over rivals. I like the idea of regional pods:

Academy Pod
Army
Navy
Air Force

Northeast Pod
UConn
Rutgers
Temple

Midwest Pod Pod
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis

Western Pod
Boise State
SDSU
BYU

Ideally these groupings of schools would stay together because they are traditional and/or geographic rivals. I could see an Eastern division consisting of the Academy, Northeast, and Florida schools, and a Western Division consisting of the Midwest, Western, and Texas schools.

The only problem with this is it doesn't split up the FL and TX schools into opposite divisions, which the other schools want so they can recruit both states. However, having crossover games becomes difficult with 16 teams in the conference. If we had a 9-game conference schedule consisting of 7-division, 1-permanent crossover, 1-rotating crossover, it would take 14 years to play everyone in the conference both home and away. By putting all traditional and geographic rivals in the same division as each other you can cut that time in half.

Adding AFA is a stretch but adding Army is just a God awful idea.

(09-19-2012 02:45 PM)jaredf29 Wrote:  Adding AFA is a stretch but adding Army is just a God awful idea.

This.

Good Lord. Army? Make it stop.

(09-19-2012 01:36 PM)Kruciff Wrote:  What do the divisions and MOST IMPORTANTLY conference play look like?

This isn't a thread to spout which teams you want in the conference; this is a conversation based on the premise that rumors of a 16 team, service academy + BYU conference may come true.

I want to know how conference play will be fairly and thoroughly accomplished.

Begin.

No clue what you even mean or want to know (you didn't even post an example yourself).

Only thing that everyone knows WILL happen is that the conf of 12 plus members will be divided up into 2 divisions.

In some years...Division "A" will be more competitive/more difficult/tougher to win than Division "B".

In other years....Division "B" will be more competitive/more difficult/tougher to win than Division "A".

In most years...odds are the team form the EASY division will have a better overall conf record...so they will get to host the Championship Game...and that home field advantage might be the deciding factor in a very close game.

Too many mouths to feed and not enough money to go around to make it equitible to do so. This conference does not need to expand to 23 schools total. BYU only and STOP.

(09-19-2012 03:02 PM)panite Wrote:  Too many mouths to feed and not enough money to go around to make it equitible to do so. This conference does not need to expand to 23 schools total. BYU only and STOP.

Agreed, the more they expand the worse it gets. Stop already.

This is not a thread to criticize the additions or lack thereof. This is based off of the implication in the Brett McMurphy article that they are considering these additions.

If it does come to pass, I'd like to be knowledgeable on how it would work.

If we do divisions, 9 games is at minimum guaranteed, I personally think that it should be a modified round robin format if so. 8 teams per division, 5 intra-division games (thus the round robin), 1 permanent cross-over, and 3 inter-division games. Quite frankly, this is very cumbersome, plus I don't like the uneven numbers present in the rotation (3 cross division games, cycled through 7 available members, assuming -1 for cross over game mean that each team will play each other at worst once every 5 years, still too high in my opinion)

If we do pods... I like the chances better. 3 in-pod games, 6 out-of-pods game, no permanent cross-overs in favor of a high level of intermeshing of games.

That leaves the question of pod content.

It's obvious the regional rivalries should stay together, but what about the service academies? Do we stick BYU with them? Some other team? What about the strength of that pod? If the teams are as weak as they are, the team in that pod will have the easiest ride within their pod.

I think this final fact alone should be why the academies should be separated. Spread the SOS and travel among all the pods

POD 1

Rutgers
Temple
UConn
Army


POD 2?

Memphis
Louisville
Cincinnati
Navy


POD 3?

UCF
USF
SMU
Houston?


POD 4

BYU
SDSU
AFA
Boise

The only pods I feel certain should come to pass are pods 1 and pods 4. Pods 2 and 3 are more... finicky. I guess that is where personal decision lies.

Pod 5

Just go FCS and invest the savings into basketball.

(09-19-2012 03:31 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Pod 5

Just go FCS and invest the savings into basketball.

Quite Frankly, i'd prefer Fresno over army... greatly prefer. It makes things much better. I hope army isn't in talks with us.

(09-19-2012 02:52 PM)NothingButKnight Wrote:  

(09-19-2012 02:45 PM)jaredf29 Wrote:  Adding AFA is a stretch but adding Army is just a God awful idea.

This.

:iagree: I would be shocked to see Army say yes.

Just drop them all and bring the old buddies back.

Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, Southern Miss, UAB, East Carolina, Houston, Tulane, South Florida, Central Florida

Basketball only's: Marquette, St. Louis, DePaul, Charlotte

1) BYU
2) Air Force
3) Army, ECU, Fresno, UNLV, or Umass

I get the generally idea of adding Army as a 16th team. But here's the thing, we don't need Army, and we don't need 16 teams. We need BYU. After that, no one else is needed. After 14, it's adding just to add.

Discussing pods is futile anyway, unless the NCAA changes its current rules.

And I think if we really did go to 16 teams, then that would force us to play 9 conference games.

Pods don't work for football. NCAA requires you to play everybody in your DIVISION to have a championship game. You've got to have two 7 team divisions. This pod nonsense is partially what screwed the CUSA/MWC merger.

Pods certainly make a lot of sense for basketball however.

(09-19-2012 05:13 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  Pods don't work for football. NCAA requires you to play everybody in your DIVISION to have a championship game. You've got to have two 7 team divisions. This pod nonsense is partially what screwed the CUSA/MWC merger.

Pods certainly make a lot of sense for basketball however.

Thats correct, and it isnt correct. Pods can be used, they just have to mimic a two division format. So as long as all the teams in pod 1 and pod 2 play each other---and all the teams in pod 3 and 4 play each other--you have satisfied the NCAA rule book. If you want to have pods 1 and 3 be a division and pods 2 and 4 be the other division the following year---it doesnt matter to the NCAA. Thats how the WAC pods were legal. The only real advantage to pods over divisions is that rotating pods allow you to see teams from the other division far more frequently than a straight traditional 2-division set up would allow.

As long as you can rotate the pods in respective divisions as allowed by the NCAA, then every conference with 16 would adopt that format. Look at how beautiful the PAC-16 was coming together. Imagine that sucker. Perfect geography to mimic an NFL style conference.

But the Big East does not have that symmetry geographically. Memphis and SDSU are on islands. They need to be paired together in the Red/Blue format so long as BYU is 14.