RE: Summertime Exercise with + REP for the prize.
My P4 consists of 18 teams each in two divisions, with no protected crossovers. Division champions are based only on the 4 home / 4 away division schedule. All divisions (including the G6) have nine teams.
My goals in deciding how to create the divisions were: (1) Keep them as geographically tight as practical (2) Minimize the number of rivalry games OOD, (3) include all the schools with any realistic chance of winning a national championship tournament, and (4) Make the four conferences as evenly matched strength wise as practical given the other three goals.
I apologize in advance to the fans of the four current P5 teams who I relegated to the G6, and the four FBS teams relegated to FCS. I just couldn't make it work for you. I only promoted one FCS school (James Madison) which I needed to make a rational division in CUSA.
I decided to take Notre Dame at their word that they don't want to be in a conference. They remain the only independent team in FBS.
For those fans who would prefer not to have to rub shoulders with conference mates they consider academically inferior, I say get over yourself. We are talking about the athletic department here, not the chemistry department.
My P4, with each conference's 8 year average Sagarin power rating in parentheses, are as follows, with FCS moveups or startups in the past 20 years printed in blue. Schools are listed in order of their Sagarin rating.
SEC (78.9)
East: Alabama, LSU, Florida State, Mississippi State, Baylor, Florida, Ole Miss, South Florida, Memphis
West: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Texas, Houston, SMU, Rice
ACC (75.9)
North: Penn State, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, North Carolina, NC State, Pitt, Duke, Maryland, Virginia
South: Clemson, Georgia, Auburn, South Carolina, Miami, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Central Florida, East Carolina
PAC (75.5)
Coastal: Stanford, Oregon, Southern Cal, Washington, Boise State, UCLA, California, Washington St, Oregon St
Southwest: Utah, Arizona State, BYU, Arizona, Texas Tech, San Diego St, Air Force, Colorado, Colorado State
B1G (74.5)
East: Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Louisville, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Purdue
Prairie: Wisconsin, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, Minnesota, Iowa State, Kansas
I would expect these conferences to use their autonomy to allow a four game conference championship tournament. The winner of each division would host the runner up in the other division for a chance to play a neutral site championship game the next week.
The dreaded G6 looks like this:
AAC: Navy, Boston College, Syracuse, Temple, Cincinnati, Wake Forest, Rutgers, UConn, Army
MAC: Northern Illinois, Western Michigan, Toledo, Ohio, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Buffalo, Miami (O), Kent State
CUSA: Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, James Madison, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Liberty, Charlotte
Sunbelt: Arkansas State, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Troy, Louisiana, Coastal Carolina, LA - Monroe, South Alabama, Georgia State
Mtn West: Utah State, Nevada, Fresno State, Wyoming, San Jose State, Hawaii, New Mexico, UNLV, UTEP
Southwest: Louisiana Tech, Tulsa, Southern Miss, North Texas, Ut San Antonio, UAB, Tulane, Texas State, New Mexico State
I identified a dozen rivalry games that would have to be played out of division (OOD). These are:
Alabama - Auburn
Florida State - Miami
Florida - Georgia
USF - UCF
Georgia Tech - Duke
Oklahoma - Nebraska
Texas - Texas Tech
North Carolina - Wake Forest
Pitt - Syracuse
Stanford - Notre Dame
Southern Cal - Notre Dame
Vanderbilt, Tennessee
I would imagine the P4 would not object if the G6 conferences wanted to pair off and match their champions in a post season game before the bowl season starts. I'd guess they would pair off in the order I listed them.
EDIT 5/12:
My preference regarding media contracts is that the P4 negotiate with ESPN, Fox, CBS, et al as a single entity, a la the NFL. A certain number of games could be carved out for individual conference networks (which already exist), and others to be retained by individual schools. But first dibs would be spread among all the networks to maximize revenue, which would be shared equally among all 72 teams.
To increase the inventory of attractive games, I would start the regular season one week earlier. Not only does this give every team an additional bye week, it also allows increases the number of available regular season time windows by 7%.
And, I would restrict bowl qualifying wins to those against FBS opponents only. For schools with large enough home attendance to want to always play 7 home games, they could do this while playing two P4 opponents OOD home and away, plus two G6 buy games, since all divisions play 8 games. Some of those P4 opponents may be from their own conference.
EDIT 5/16
To the point of not excluding anyone from the P4 with a realistic chance of winning a national championship tournament, the highest ranked team not included based on 8 year avarage Sagarin rating is Navy at #52.
(This post was last modified: 05-16-2018 09:23 AM by ken d.)
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Summertime Exercise with + REP for the prize.
![[Image: 829e1726d0aa14d8a79d4e06d8c4c874.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/82/9e/17/829e1726d0aa14d8a79d4e06d8c4c874.jpg)
[/i] Maybe this time it will let me use colored fonts.
