Figured I'd come out with a few 16-team schedules, at least for football and basketball. Haven't quite figured out olympic sports yet. Figured I'd use the hypothetical of the PAC-12 adding Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. Texas, and Texas Tech.

This allows the schedules to basically be based upon these divisions.

PAC-16 West - Cal, Oregon, Oregon St., Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington St.
PAC-16 East - Arizona, Arizona St., Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas, Texas Tech, Utah

This would further be broken down (for scheduling purposes) into these pods.
PAC-16 Northwest - Oregon, Oregon St., Washington, Washington St.
PAC-16 Golden State - Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
PAC-16 Four Corners - Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
PAC-16 Texhoma - Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas, Texas Tech

And further broken down into media markets for scheduling: Washington (Washington, Washington St.), Oregon (Oregon, Oregon St.), N. California (Cal, Stanford), S. California (UCLA, USC), Oklahoma (Oklahoma, Oklahoma St.), Texas (Texas, Texas Tech)

Now, the overall football schedule is you play everybody in the same division once, plus one team from each of the other two pods, for a total of 9 games. This would set up a 8-year rotation, basically.

The way I did the schedule is that Week 4 is a cross-divisional week, where every team will play out-of-division. Weeks 5-12 are Divisional weeks, where teams will largely play one of their divisional opponents, but also have 1 corss-divisional team (their other one), and a BYE week as well. Week 13 is the big rivalry weekend.

This is what one year could look like for football, first conference game starts week 4.

Week 4 - USC @ Arizona, Arizona St. @ Cal, Stanford @ Colorado, Utah @ UCLA, Washington St. @ Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. @ Oregon, Oregon St. @ Texas, Texas Tech @ Washington

Week 5 - Washington @ Arizona St., Oklahoma @ Colorado, Utah @ Texas Tech, Texas @ Oklahoma St., Oregon @ Cal, Stanford @ USC, UCLA @ Oregon St. (Arizona & Washington St. on BYE)

Week 6 - Arizona @ Oregon St., Colorado @ Texas, Oklahoma St. @ Utah, Texas Tech @ Oklahoma, Cal @ Washington St., UCLA @ Stanford, Washington @ USC (Arizona St. & Oregon on BYE)

Week 7 - Arizona @ Oklahoma St., Texas Tech @ Arizona St., Utah @ Oregon, Oklahoma @ Texas, USC @ Cal, Stanford @ Washington, UCLA @ Washington St., (Colorado & Oregon St. on BYE)

Week 8 - Texas @ Arizona, Arizona St. @ Oklahoma, Colorado @ Washington St., Oklahoma St. @ Texas Tech, Cal @ UCLA, Oregon St. @ Stanford, USC @ Oregon, (Utah & Washington on BYE)

Week 9 - Arizona @ Texas Tech, Colorado @ Arizona St., Texas @ Utah, UCLA @ Oklahoma St., Washington @ Cal, Stanford @ Oregon, Oregon St. @ Washington St., (Oklahoma & USC on BYE)

Week 10 - Utah @ Arizona, Arizona St. @ Texas, Texas Tech @ Colorado, Oklahoma @ Stanford, UCLA @ Washington, Oregon St. @ USC, Washington St. @ Oregon, (Oklahoma St. & California on BYE)

Week 11 - Oklahoma @ Arizona, Arizona St. @ Utah, Colorado @ Oklahoma St., California @ Texas Tech, Oregon @ UCLA, USC @ Washington St., Washington @ Oregon (Texas & Stanford on BYE)

Week 12 - Arizona @ Colorado, Oklahoma St. @ Arizona St., Utah @ Oklahoma, Texas @ USC, California @ Oregon St., Washington St. @ Stanford, Oregon @ Washington (Texas Tech & UCLA on BYE)

Week 13 - Arizona @ Arizona St., Colorado @ Utah, Oklahoma @ OKlahoma St., Texas @ Texas Tech, Cal @ Stanford, UCLA @ USC, Oregon @ Oregon St., Washington @ Washington St.

Week 14 - Championship

You'll notice something about this. You'll notice that if Arizona is on the road for a week, Arizona St. is at home (with the exception of them possibly being on a BYE week), and vice versa. This was deliberate, to allow each media market to have a game within their media market. You'll also notice that within the divisions, each team plays home and away in each media market. This was also intentional.

Now, I didn't take into account certain out-of-conference games, such as the matchup between USC and Notre Dame. This is strickly a hypothetical conference schedule for 16 teams (using the PAC-16 for the hypothetical). Hope you guys like this schedule. I'll post 2 options for a potential 18-game, 10-week conference basketball, with 16 teams later.

It’s a nicely organized schedule. Fortunately, the typical PAC 16 split makes it easy to keep rivals. Add 2 to the SEC, B1G, or ACC adds a bit more complexity requiring locked inter division rivalry games.

I know this is hypothetical but you really don't need to worry about it because Arizona is one who would never go for your scenario. UofA heavily recruits California and does not want to lose the connection by not having any games there for years at a time. On the current rosters in football (37), men's basketball (5), baseball (20), and softball (15) there are 77 players from CA with a grand total of 4 (1 each bsb, sb, 2 fb) from TX in the same sports. Also consider that the state of Arizona does not observe daylight savings time; effectively putting the state in the pacific time zone during DST for more than half the school year and 2 time zones away from Texas.

Even having a south division of Texoma, AZ, LA and a north division of PNW, Bay, Mountain will not work. The football games between the CA schools are protected and that fills the 9-game schedule (7 division and 2 crossover). The other northern teams never play the LA teams and the other southern teams never play the Bay teams.

You also moved Texas-Oklahoma off its traditional week. These are just 2 of the major hurdles I see that will keep any Texoma group out of the PAC. But, I'm no expert.

Trading the pods between divisions would make for a more amenable schedule. Here would be Arizona's possible schedule under such a setup:

Same pod | Other pod in same division | Opposite pod (never shares a division)

Year 1: ASU, @CU, UU | @Cal, Stan, @USC, UCLA | @UO, WSU
Year 2: @ASU, CU, @UU | Cal, @Stan, USC, @UCLA | UO, @WSU
Year 3: ASU, @CU, UU | @OU, OkSU, @UT, TT | @OrSU, UW
Year 4: @ASU, CU, @UU | OU, @OkSU, UT, @TT | OrSU, @UW

And repeat.

Alternately, you could swap the Year 2 and 3 schedules outside Arizona's own pod. This would allow access to the California schools every other year rather than 2 years on, 2 years off.

Now, if there were deregulation of divisions, then every year each school could play their own pod plus 2 from each of the other 3 pods, like so:

Year 1: ASU, @CU, UU | @Cal, UCLA | OkSU, @UT | @UO, WSU
Year 2: @ASU, CU, @UU | Cal, @UCLA | @OkSU, UT | UO, @WSU
Year 3: ASU, @CU, UU | @Stan, USC | @OU, TT | @OrSU, UW
Year 4: @ASU, CU, @UU | Stan, @USC | OU, @TT | OrSU, @UW

Nice post dunstanvangeet. This type of scheduling blows the "travel and time zones" issues out of the water.

The nearly perfect 16-team schedule is the 3-2-2-2 format. Play everyone in the conference at least twice (home and away) in four years. The only issue with this is that you have uneven conference home-away games because of the 9-game schedule. But, the only way to resolve that is to play 8 or 10 conference games.

And, it wouldn't be allowed under current rules...if you want to have a CCG.

8 games is probably too few in a 16-team conference. 10 games would also help to play each conference mate more often, despite divisions, but could greatly impact your conference's CFP chances. You would guarantee more conference losses while the conferences with fewer games likely have more teams with nice and shiny win-loss records.

I wonder if you could make a variation of the pod structure work.

Years 1&2:
Division A = UW, WSU, UO, OrSU | Cal, Stan, USC, UCLA
Division B = UA, ASU, CU, UU | UT, TT, OU, OkSU

Cross-division (each year):
Northwest schools play *one* of Southwest schools and *one* of Mountain schools.
Mountain schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Cali schools.
Cali schools play one of Mountain schools and one of Southwest schools.
Southwest schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Cali schools.

Year 3&4
Division A = UA, ASU, CU, UU | Cal, Stan, USC, UCLA
Division B = UW, WSU, UO, OrSU | UT, TT, OU, OkSU

Cross-division (each year):
Northwest schools play *one* of Cali schools and *one* of Mountain schools.
Mountain schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Southwest schools.
Cali schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Southwest schools.
Southwest schools play one of Mountain schools and one of Cali schools.

Stack the schedules such that you still play everyone in the conference at least once in 4 years. BUT, the legacy schools play in California at least five times in four years. For instance,

Arizona's PAC schedule
Year 1: ASU, @CU, UU, @UT, TT, @OU, OkSU...@UW, Cal
Year 2: @ASU, CU, @UU, UT, @TT, OU, @OkSU...OrSU, @UCLA
Year 3: ASU, @CU, UU, @Cal, Stan, @USC, UCLA...WSU, @UT
Year 4: @ASU, CU, @UU, Cal, @Stan, USC, @UCLA....@UO, OkSU
...
Year 5: ASU, @CU, UU, @UT, TT, @OU, OkSU...UW, @Stan
Year 6: @ASU, CU, @UU, UT, @TT, OU, @OkSU...@OrSU, USC
Year 7: ASU, @CU, UU, @Cal, Stan, @USC, UCLA...@WSU, OU
Year 8: @ASU, CU, @UU, Cal, @Stan, USC, @UCLA...UO, @OkSU

Arizona's v. California games in 8 years:
20 games, 10 on the road
v. Cal = 5 times, 2x on the road
v. Stan = 5 times, 3x on the road
v. USC = 5 times, 2x on the road
v. UCLA = 5 times, 3x on the road

It would take the full 8 years for Mountain and Northwest schools and Cali and Southwest schools to complete the full home-away rotation against each other.

(02-22-2018 11:43 AM)YNot Wrote:  The nearly perfect 16-team schedule is the 3-2-2-2 format. Play everyone in the conference at least twice (home and away) in four years. The only issue with this is that you have uneven conference home-away games because of the 9-game schedule. But, the only way to resolve that is to play 8 or 10 conference games.

And, it wouldn't be allowed under current rules...if you want to have a CCG.

8 games is probably too few in a 16-team conference. 10 games would also help to play each conference mate more often, despite divisions, but could greatly impact your conference's CFP chances. You would guarantee more conference losses while the conferences with fewer games likely have more teams with nice and shiny win-loss records.

I wonder if you could make a variation of the pod structure work.

Years 1&2:
Division A = UW, WSU, UO, OrSU | Cal, Stan, USC, UCLA
Division B = UA, ASU, CU, UU | UT, TT, OU, OkSU

Cross-division (each year):
Northwest schools play *one* of Southwest schools and *one* of Mountain schools.
Mountain schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Cali schools.
Cali schools play one of Mountain schools and one of Southwest schools.
Southwest schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Cali schools.

Year 3&4
Division A = UA, ASU, CU, UU | Cal, Stan, USC, UCLA
Division B = UW, WSU, UO, OrSU | UT, TT, OU, OkSU

Cross-division (each year):
Northwest schools play *one* of Cali schools and *one* of Mountain schools.
Mountain schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Southwest schools.
Cali schools play one of Northwest schools and one of Southwest schools.
Southwest schools play one of Mountain schools and one of Cali schools.

Stack the schedules such that you still play everyone in the conference at least once in 4 years. BUT, the legacy schools play in California at least five times in four years. For instance,

Arizona's PAC schedule
Year 1: ASU, @CU, UU, @UT, TT, @OU, OkSU...@UW, Cal
Year 2: @ASU, CU, @UU, UT, @TT, OU, @OkSU...OrSU, @UCLA
Year 3: ASU, @CU, UU, @Cal, Stan, @USC, UCLA...WSU, @UT
Year 4: @ASU, CU, @UU, Cal, @Stan, USC, @UCLA....@UO, OkSU
...
Year 5: ASU, @CU, UU, @UT, TT, @OU, OkSU...UW, @Stan
Year 6: @ASU, CU, @UU, UT, @TT, OU, @OkSU...@OrSU, USC
Year 7: ASU, @CU, UU, @Cal, Stan, @USC, UCLA...@WSU, OU
Year 8: @ASU, CU, @UU, Cal, @Stan, USC, @UCLA...UO, @OkSU

Arizona's v. California games in 8 years:
20 games, 10 on the road
v. Cal = 5 times, 2x on the road
v. Stan = 5 times, 3x on the road
v. USC = 5 times, 2x on the road
v. UCLA = 5 times, 3x on the road

It would take the full 8 years for Mountain and Northwest schools and Cali and Southwest schools to complete the full home-away rotation against each other.

This is an interesting approach. It's more complicated than a straight up 3-2-2-2, but it might placate the current non-CA Pac-12 schools. Of course, it also means the Texoma schools play in CA less often and vice versa. It may be more prudent to go with the simpler approach to help ensure the Texoma schools even come aboard. In some ways, the Pac needs UT more than the other way around.

The problem with the more simple approach is that all the non-California legacy PAC schools would go 2 years at a time without a single conference game in the state of California. That's likely a deal killer for 8 of the current PAC 12 members.

Of course, the better scenario appears to be CCG deregulation, which would allow for the 3-2-2-2 format.

(02-22-2018 01:51 PM)YNot Wrote:  The problem with the more simple approach is that all the non-California legacy PAC schools would go 2 years at a time without a single conference game in the state of California. That's likely a deal killer for 8 of the current PAC 12 members.

Of course, the better scenario appears to be CCG deregulation, which would allow for the 3-2-2-2 format.

I am strongly in favor of deregulating CCGs. With super-conferences, there exists an inability to play schools regularly with divisions. 16 is an odd duck because it actually isn't too terribly difficult. 14 continues to prove to be a weird number. Beyond 16 gets a little harder.

3-2-2-2 is essentially (doesn't have to be) the 4 pods of 4 format. Play every school in your pod. Play 2 schools in each other pod (switching the 2 annually).

North: Washington, Washington St, Oregon, Oregon St
West: California, Stanford, USC, UCLA
South: Arizona, Arizona St, Utah, Colorado
East: Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St

With the PAC it is simpler. With other conferences (B1G, SEC, ACC) it becomes more difficult due to rivalries. You could do a 3-2-2-2 but not pods (each schools has a set 3 annual rivals).

---
With 18, you get either:
10 games: 3 annual rivals, 7 schools every other year
8 games: 5 annual rivals, 3 schools every 4 years
---
With 20 you get either:
7 games: 3 annual rivals, 4 schools every 4 years
10 games: 7 annual rivals, 3 schools every 4 years
---
With 22 you get 9 games: 5 annual rivals, 4 schools every 4 years
---
with 24 you get either:
8 games: 3 annual rivals, 5 schools every 4 years
9 games: 7 annual rivals, 2 schools every 8 years
11 games: 7 annual rivals, 4 schools every 4 years
---

I won't go higher or do any more combinations. My preferred for each are bolded.

(02-22-2018 01:51 PM)YNot Wrote:  The problem with the more simple approach is that all the non-California legacy PAC schools would go 2 years at a time without a single conference game in the state of California. That's likely a deal killer for 8 of the current PAC 12 members.

Of course, the better scenario appears to be CCG deregulation, which would allow for the 3-2-2-2 format.

The deregulation scenario was actually the simpler approach I was referring to. Sorry I wasn't clear.

(02-22-2018 02:42 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 01:51 PM)YNot Wrote:  The problem with the more simple approach is that all the non-California legacy PAC schools would go 2 years at a time without a single conference game in the state of California. That's likely a deal killer for 8 of the current PAC 12 members.

Of course, the better scenario appears to be CCG deregulation, which would allow for the 3-2-2-2 format.

I am strongly in favor of deregulating CCGs. With super-conferences, there exists an inability to play schools regularly with divisions. 16 is an odd duck because it actually isn't too terribly difficult. 14 continues to prove to be a weird number. Beyond 16 gets a little harder.

3-2-2-2 is essentially (doesn't have to be) the 4 pods of 4 format. Play every school in your pod. Play 2 schools in each other pod (switching the 2 annually).

North: Washington, Washington St, Oregon, Oregon St
West: California, Stanford, USC, UCLA
South: Arizona, Arizona St, Utah, Colorado
East: Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St

With the PAC it is simpler. With other conferences (B1G, SEC, ACC) it becomes more difficult due to rivalries. You could do a 3-2-2-2 but not pods (each schools has a set 3 annual rivals).

---
With 18, you get either:
10 games: 3 annual rivals, 7 schools every other year
8 games: 5 annual rivals, 3 schools every 4 years
---
With 20 you get either:
7 games: 3 annual rivals, 4 schools every 4 years
10 games: 7 annual rivals, 3 schools every 4 years
---
With 22 you get 9 games: 5 annual rivals, 4 schools every 4 years
---
with 24 you get either:
8 games: 3 annual rivals, 5 schools every 4 years
9 games: 7 annual rivals, 2 schools every 8 years
11 games: 7 annual rivals, 4 schools every 4 years
---

I won't go higher or do any more combinations. My preferred for each are bolded.

You bring up a good point. If you abandon divisions, you can have a 14-team conference in which you can play all the other schools in 2 years. You can have an 8-game schedule by protecting 3 rivals and alternating between half the other 10, or you can have a 9-game schedule by protecting 5 rivals and alternating between half of the other 8. You could achieve something similar by using pods to swap schools between divisions, but that works a lot better with 8-team divisions than 7-team ones.

For a 14-team conference like the Big Ten, a pod arrangement might involve trading 2 pods of 3 schools between the divisions every year or every 2 years. Like so:

Core East: Maryland, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers
Pod 1: Michigan, Indiana, Purdue
Pod 2: Michigan State, Illinois, Northwestern
Core West: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin

The Michigan schools of course have a protected annual crossover.

Here's the SEC:

Core Eastern: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
Pod 1: Alabama, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Pod 2: Auburn, Mississippi State, Ole Miss
Core Western: Arkansas, LSU, Missouri, Texas A&M

Alabama and Auburn are protected.

The ACC is messy:

Core Atlantic: Duke, NC State, North Carolina, Wake Forest
Pod 1: Florida State, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Pod 2: Clemson, Georgia Tech, Louisville
Core Coastal: Boston College, Miami, Pittsburgh, Syracuse

FSU/Miami and UNC/UVA are protected.

PS: With 18, you can have a 9-game schedule: 5 protected rivals and a 3-year rotation of 4 of the other 12.

For Basketball, I've come up with a possible schedule. The basic format of this is that you'd play all teams from your pod twice, and then play everybody else once, for an 18-game schedule. This would set up a two year rotation, basically. This would be done over 10 weeks.

There are two weeks where your school would have a BYE on Thursday, and play your rival on Saturday.

The first one would match teams from the same media market as travel partners. So, if you play one on Thursday, you'd play the other one on Saturday. This would cut down on travel costs. For simplicity, I'm going to list media markets against eachother on this schedule.

The schedule goes:

Week 1 (POD Games): Mountain @ Arizona, Texas @ Oklahoma, S. California @ N. California, Washington @ Oregon
Week 2: Arizona @ Oklahoma, Washington @ Mountain, N. California @ Oregon, Texas & S. California on BYE/Rivalry
Week 3: Oregon @ Arizona, Mountain @ Texas, S. California @ Washington, Oklahoma & N. California on BYE/Rivalry
Week 4: N. California @ Arizona, Oklahoma @ S. California, Oregon @ Texas, Mountain & Washington on BYE/Rivalry
Week 5: S. California @ Mountain, Washington @ Oklahoma, Texas @ N. California, Arizona & Oregon on BYE/Rivalry
Week 6: Arizona @ Washington, Oklahoma @ Mountain, Oregon @ S. California, Texas & N. California on BYE/Rivalry
Week 7: Texas @ Arizona, Mountain @ Oregon, Washington @ N. California, Oklahoma & S. California on BYE/Rivalry
Week 8: Arizona @ S. California, N. California @ Oklahoma, Texas @ Washington, Mountain & Oregon on BYE/Rivalry
Week 9: Mountain @ N. California, Oklahoma @ Oregon, S. California @ Texas, Arizona & Washington on BYE/Rivalry
Week 10: Arizona @ Mountain, Oklahoma @ Texas, N. California @ S. California, Oregon @ Washington
Week 11 & 12: PAC-16 Tournament

I've set this up again to spread out the games within each Pod. At every pod, if one media market is playing at home, then the other media market is playing away (or on a BYE/Rivalry), and vice versa.

Women's basketball would likely reverse this schedule, so that if the Arizona schools was playing at the Mountain schools for Men's basketball, then the Mountain Schools would be playing at the Arizona Schools for women's basketball.

The problem I have with a 3-2-2-2 schedule is with the conference championship game. So, do you take the two best teams record wise in the conference? What happens if those two teams are only having the good records because they have played nobody.

Theoretically, Arizona in the Four Corners Pod could avoid USC, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Texas, and Oklahoma, while Arizona St. would have to play all of those.

So, you have Arizona being a much better chance of going into the conference championship because they happened to draw lucky on Oregon St., Washington St., California, UCLA, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

And then you have a team from the Northwest (say Washington) which draws Arizona St., Colorado, UCLA, California, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

There again you'd have a pretty good chance of getting through those unscathed.

But if those two teams met (Washington vs. Arizona), then there'd be no team in the championship game that ever played USC, Stanford, Texas, and Oklahoma., which all beat up on eachother to ensure that none of those teams made it.

That's the problem that I have with the 3-2-2-2 system and CCG deregulation.

At least with the 7-2 schedule, you're guarenteed to have teams in the championship game that have played each and every team.

(02-22-2018 06:24 PM)dunstvangeet Wrote:  The problem I have with a 3-2-2-2 schedule is with the conference championship game. So, do you take the two best teams record wise in the conference? What happens if those two teams are only having the good records because they have played nobody.

Theoretically, Arizona in the Four Corners Pod could avoid USC, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Texas, and Oklahoma, while Arizona St. would have to play all of those.

So, you have Arizona being a much better chance of going into the conference championship because they happened to draw lucky on Oregon St., Washington St., California, UCLA, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

And then you have a team from the Northwest (say Washington) which draws Arizona St., Colorado, UCLA, California, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

There again you'd have a pretty good chance of getting through those unscathed.

But if those two teams met (Washington vs. Arizona), then there'd be no team in the championship game that ever played USC, Stanford, Texas, and Oklahoma., which all beat up on eachother to ensure that none of those teams made it.

That's the problem that I have with the 3-2-2-2 system and CCG deregulation.

At least with the 7-2 schedule, you're guarenteed to have teams in the championship game that have played each and every team.

That sort of competitive imbalance can just as easily happen with two divisions as well.

Also, if you're doing 3-2-2-2, that would indicate that the pods are in fact separate divisions. This means it'd be a 2-round playoff among the 4 division champs.

(02-22-2018 06:30 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 06:24 PM)dunstvangeet Wrote:  The problem I have with a 3-2-2-2 schedule is with the conference championship game. So, do you take the two best teams record wise in the conference? What happens if those two teams are only having the good records because they have played nobody.

Theoretically, Arizona in the Four Corners Pod could avoid USC, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Texas, and Oklahoma, while Arizona St. would have to play all of those.

So, you have Arizona being a much better chance of going into the conference championship because they happened to draw lucky on Oregon St., Washington St., California, UCLA, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

And then you have a team from the Northwest (say Washington) which draws Arizona St., Colorado, UCLA, California, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

There again you'd have a pretty good chance of getting through those unscathed.

But if those two teams met (Washington vs. Arizona), then there'd be no team in the championship game that ever played USC, Stanford, Texas, and Oklahoma., which all beat up on eachother to ensure that none of those teams made it.

That's the problem that I have with the 3-2-2-2 system and CCG deregulation.

At least with the 7-2 schedule, you're guarenteed to have teams in the championship game that have played each and every team.

That sort of competitive imbalance can just as easily happen with two divisions as well.

Also, if you're doing 3-2-2-2, that would indicate that the pods are in fact separate divisions. This means it'd be a 2-round playoff among the 4 division champs.

Which would mean another week (or starting another week earlier) for the traditional 9-game conference schhedule, with 3 non-conference games.

But even selecting the divisional/pod champion. The way it would be set up, to maximize exposure in each media market, would be that Arizona would probably have completely different opponents than Arizona State (cross-pod wise). That means that they'd share a continuing of 3 common games, and those common games would be only about 33% of their total games. That means 67% of their record comes from non-guarenteed games, which means that 67% of your schedule matters on who you face, and who you miss. With a 12-team, 2-six divisions, you are currently at 5 games, out of 9 from your division. That means that only about 44% of your schedule is dependent upon who you miss, and who you play. And with that, you only have a 1/3 chance of missing an opponent.

With a 3-2-2-2, that means that only 33% of your games are guarenteed, and 67% of your schedule is subject to who you miss. You also have a 50% chance of missing an opponent.

With a 7-2 schedule, 78% of your schedule would be guarenteed games, which means only 22% would be subject to who you miss, though you do have a 75% chance of missing the opponent.

Also, I haven't actually seen the idea of the 4-team playoff for the division championship. Most people I've seen have just said take the two best records, no matter where they are.

A 4-team playoff might work to alliviate this (by forcing the 4 divisional champions to play), but that's not what people have been proposing. They either want to get rid of divisions altogether (and just take the two best teams), or they want to just take the two-best pod champions.

(02-22-2018 07:24 PM)dunstvangeet Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 06:30 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 06:24 PM)dunstvangeet Wrote:  The problem I have with a 3-2-2-2 schedule is with the conference championship game. So, do you take the two best teams record wise in the conference? What happens if those two teams are only having the good records because they have played nobody.

Theoretically, Arizona in the Four Corners Pod could avoid USC, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Texas, and Oklahoma, while Arizona St. would have to play all of those.

So, you have Arizona being a much better chance of going into the conference championship because they happened to draw lucky on Oregon St., Washington St., California, UCLA, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

And then you have a team from the Northwest (say Washington) which draws Arizona St., Colorado, UCLA, California, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma St.

There again you'd have a pretty good chance of getting through those unscathed.

But if those two teams met (Washington vs. Arizona), then there'd be no team in the championship game that ever played USC, Stanford, Texas, and Oklahoma., which all beat up on eachother to ensure that none of those teams made it.

That's the problem that I have with the 3-2-2-2 system and CCG deregulation.

At least with the 7-2 schedule, you're guarenteed to have teams in the championship game that have played each and every team.

That sort of competitive imbalance can just as easily happen with two divisions as well.

Also, if you're doing 3-2-2-2, that would indicate that the pods are in fact separate divisions. This means it'd be a 2-round playoff among the 4 division champs.

Which would mean another week (or starting another week earlier) for the traditional 9-game conference schhedule, with 3 non-conference games.

But even selecting the divisional/pod champion. The way it would be set up, to maximize exposure in each media market, would be that Arizona would probably have completely different opponents than Arizona State (cross-pod wise). That means that they'd share a continuing of 3 common games, and those common games would be only about 33% of their total games. That means 67% of their record comes from non-guarenteed games, which means that 67% of your schedule matters on who you face, and who you miss. With a 12-team, 2-six divisions, you are currently at 5 games, out of 9 from your division. That means that only about 44% of your schedule is dependent upon who you miss, and who you play. And with that, you only have a 1/3 chance of missing an opponent.

With a 3-2-2-2, that means that only 33% of your games are guarenteed, and 67% of your schedule is subject to who you miss. You also have a 50% chance of missing an opponent.

With a 7-2 schedule, 78% of your schedule would be guarenteed games, which means only 22% would be subject to who you miss, though you do have a 75% chance of missing the opponent.

Also, I haven't actually seen the idea of the 4-team playoff for the division championship. Most people I've seen have just said take the two best records, no matter where they are.

A 4-team playoff might work to alliviate this (by forcing the 4 divisional champions to play), but that's not what people have been proposing. They either want to get rid of divisions altogether (and just take the two best teams), or they want to just take the two-best pod champions.

Two-round conference championships are most likely coming sooner or later. The power conferences will prefer that to expanding the CFP.

For 4-team divisions, you could just base standings on the 3 in-division games. Admittedly, that's a bit more of a crapshoot than the current 5 or 6 in-division games in most P5 conferences.

Alternately, base the ranking on something like RPI to take into account SOS. SRS also accounts for MOV.

The ideal size for a conference is 9 or 10. Anything more is cumbersome and creates scheduling headaches, too many mouths to feed, and regional differences. In the future these big conferences are going to split up.


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(02-22-2018 02:32 AM)AZcats Wrote:  I know this is hypothetical but you really don't need to worry about it because Arizona is one who would never go for your scenario. UofA heavily recruits California and does not want to lose the connection by not having any games there for years at a time. On the current rosters in football (37), men's basketball (5), baseball (20), and softball (15) there are 77 players from CA with a grand total of 4 (1 each bsb, sb, 2 fb) from TX in the same sports. Also consider that the state of Arizona does not observe daylight savings time; effectively putting the state in the pacific time zone during DST for more than half the school year and 2 time zones away from Texas.

Even having a south division of Texoma, AZ, LA and a north division of PNW, Bay, Mountain will not work. The football games between the CA schools are protected and that fills the 9-game schedule (7 division and 2 crossover). The other northern teams never play the LA teams and the other southern teams never play the Bay teams.

You also moved Texas-Oklahoma off its traditional week. These are just 2 of the major hurdles I see that will keep any Texoma group out of the PAC. But, I'm no expert.

The only way you could do it is a east-west split, with the old PAC-8 being the west division. As far as your argument about the recruitment, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Arizona and Arizona State would get more access and exposure to one of the hottest recruiting bays there.

As far as moving Texas-Oklahoma off of it's traditional week, honestly I made this schedule in generic terms (Literally naming the teams A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K L, M, N, O, and P), and just assigned them names. Of course we could very well do it in such a way that Texas-Oklahoma would probably be a certain week (honestly, any of the weeks 5-12 could be moved around to other weeks to accommodate it). Like I said, I mainly made this based upon how it would look, and used the PAC-16 as an example. You could probably look at applying this towards any other 16-team conference as well.

Haven't quite figured out a potential baseball's schedule yet (since Colorado doesn't sponsor Baseball, it's not as easy to figure out a 15-team schedule than it is doing a 16-team schedule).

(02-23-2018 12:06 AM)dunstvangeet Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 02:32 AM)AZcats Wrote:  I know this is hypothetical but you really don't need to worry about it because Arizona is one who would never go for your scenario. UofA heavily recruits California and does not want to lose the connection by not having any games there for years at a time. On the current rosters in football (37), men's basketball (5), baseball (20), and softball (15) there are 77 players from CA with a grand total of 4 (1 each bsb, sb, 2 fb) from TX in the same sports. Also consider that the state of Arizona does not observe daylight savings time; effectively putting the state in the pacific time zone during DST for more than half the school year and 2 time zones away from Texas.

Even having a south division of Texoma, AZ, LA and a north division of PNW, Bay, Mountain will not work. The football games between the CA schools are protected and that fills the 9-game schedule (7 division and 2 crossover). The other northern teams never play the LA teams and the other southern teams never play the Bay teams.

You also moved Texas-Oklahoma off its traditional week. These are just 2 of the major hurdles I see that will keep any Texoma group out of the PAC. But, I'm no expert.

The only way you could do it is a east-west split, with the old PAC-8 being the west division. As far as your argument about the recruitment, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Arizona and Arizona State would get more access and exposure to one of the hottest recruiting bays there.

As far as moving Texas-Oklahoma off of it's traditional week, honestly I made this schedule in generic terms (Literally naming the teams A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K L, M, N, O, and P), and just assigned them names. Of course we could very well do it in such a way that Texas-Oklahoma would probably be a certain week (honestly, any of the weeks 5-12 could be moved around to other weeks to accommodate it). Like I said, I mainly made this based upon how it would look, and used the PAC-16 as an example. You could probably look at applying this towards any other 16-team conference as well.

Haven't quite figured out a potential baseball's schedule yet (since Colorado doesn't sponsor Baseball, it's not as easy to figure out a 15-team schedule than it is doing a 16-team schedule).

Maybe they can substitute Northern Colorado baseball.