(07-15-2020 01:33 PM)Shox Wrote: (07-13-2020 11:28 AM)Shox Wrote: Getting Army on board would be a huge win for the AAC. If extending them an olive branch this year's helps build a bridge to that then let's do it. Long term the idea below would work great.
Army in the East, Navy in the west. Get to 12 teams and only require the two schools to play their division opponents plus one game vs the other division. That gives them 6 conference games a year. Schools would only have to play two triple option teams twice a decade. If either Army or Navy goes undefeated and is the highest ranked CFP team in their division they can play in the Conference Championship game. Army and Navy both going undefeated in conference and being the highest ranked in their division....Never going to happen so don't bring it up.
Benefits
-Allows Army and Navy to maintain a national schedule
-Allows Army and Navy to schedule 3-4 "winnable games" a year allowing them to keep their win totals up and reach bowl eligibility.
-Gives the ACC mega street cred. It's going to make a lot of people nervous at the top when the AAC rattles their saber to Congress about the academies not getting a shot at an auto qualifier.
You don't have to play them twice if they were in the AAC, read the above.
No thanks.
Navy joined the BCS auto-qual Big East in 2012 for the strategic goal of being on the correct side of the next big restructure. When the CFP structure took automatic inclusion away from the Big East / American, Navy stayed the course. Institutionally Navy is all in on the P6 campaign and that's part of why Gladchuk is Aresco's BFF on such topics.
So we're not going to want to step back to a halfway status.
I think the idea that service academies get automatically included in the next restructure gets WAY overstated in these discussions on this board. If patriotism was enough, we wouldn't have felt the need to join the BigEast/AAC. On the political side, there is actually risk in the service academies looking like football factories - from BOTH sides of the aisle.
I like your appreciation of the national nature of Navy's program, and lack of schedule variety is the biggest negative for Navy fans of our current membership. However, the AAC is a good place to be for consideration of that national aspect. With the new plebes finishing their 14 days of isolation, Navy has announced the incoming class. The press release called out nine states: "Alabama and California produced the most recruits with six each, while Maryland (four), Hawai'i (four), Florida (four), Texas (four), Mississippi (three), Virginia (three) and Ohio (three) were also well represented." Maryland and Virginia are local turf, and Hawaii is the Niumatalolo factor. Florida, Texas, and Ohio are in the AAC footprint; Memphis provides exposure in Mississippi (Tennessee itself is important to us, just a slow year for that pipeline). I guess I'm saying that full football membership in the AAC remains a good thing for exposure for the national nature of the program.
And pragmatically, I LIKE the idea of the AAC providing us an advantage over Army and Air Force in recruiting etc. No desire to equalize that advantage.
As far as the specifics of 2020 and helping Army out, meh. My personal concern is that they keep their stuff in one sock and stay healthy as a team and a Corps so that we keep the game on December 12th.