JRsec
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RE: Who actually has had competitive success following realignment?
(07-25-2020 10:15 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (07-25-2020 07:35 AM)Thiefery Wrote: (07-24-2020 09:52 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (07-23-2020 09:38 PM)Mav Wrote: A&M has had Manziel and has been mediocre otherwise.
A&M has averaged 8.3 wins per season in the SEC, and their worst season has been 7 wins with a best of 11, and no losing seasons. They have gone to a bowl all eight seasons with a 5-3 bowl record.
In their last eight seasons in the Big 12, TAMU averaged 6.75 wins a year, a low of 4 wins and a high of 9, and three of the eight seasons were losing seasons, they went 1-5 in bowls during that time**.
So I think it's fair to say they have improved since joining the SEC.
** One thing that seems to have helped with bowl records is the change in conference. TAMU was 0-3 vs SEC teams in bowl games as a member of the Big 12, it is 3-1 in bowl games vs the Big 12 as a member of the SEC.
It helps when the SEC commish gets to hand pick the matchups for bowl season after the Sugar Bowl selection.
Well, the SEC is often at a disadvantage in the non-NY6 bowls, because it usually puts multiple teams in the NY6, which means weaker teams get bumped up to better non-NY6 bowls. For example, last year the Big 12 put two teams in the NY6, the SEC put four teams in. So that means down the bowl ladder, if a bowl is supposed to be "SEC #3 vs Big 12 #3", what happens is it ends up being SEC #5 vs Big 12 #3. That has happened a lot in the CFP and BCS era.
(07-25-2020 08:55 PM)bill dazzle Wrote: (07-25-2020 04:44 PM)quo vadis Wrote: (07-25-2020 03:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: (07-25-2020 03:00 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote: First of all, this just shows how weak the Big Least was, and secondly, ALL of those those schools who moved have come out ahead because they are laughing all the way to the bank.
Everyone wants to rag on the Big East but they actually had a pretty good record in BCS Bowl games.
The Big East’s big flaw was that it lacked major tent pole programs that could drive television value.
Yes, the Big East was actually a Real AQ conference on the field, even from 2005 - 2012 when it was a reduced eight-team league lacking any tentpole programs. And not just in BCS bowls, but overall as assessed by stuff like Sagarin conference rankings.
For example, here are the Big East's conference rankings from 2005 - 2012, the year USF, Cincy, and Louisville joined. For 2005 - 2008 these are Sagarin rankings, as Massey Composite does not have rankings those years. From 2009 - 2012 they are the MC rankings:
2005: 6
2006: 2
2007: 4
2008: 5
2009: 2
2010: 6
2011: 5
2012: 5
Overall average .... 4.375
So notice that (1) while the Big East was sometimes last, it was only last two of the eight years. Heck, it finished *second* as often as it finished last. Also (2) The Big East was always in the AQ group, it never finished behind a non-AQ conference. Overall, the Big East was clearly a bona-fide AQ conference on the field.
Big East was indeed derided as the "Big Least" during that time, but that perception was wrong.
Were you living in Baton Rouge during this time you note, Quo? Basically nobody in the South that I talked to during this span considered the Big East football a "bona-fide AQ conference on the field," as you note. They considered BE football clearly inferior. Nashville already had lots of Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and SEC fans by the early 2000s, and the fans of programs in those leagues I talked to (and I talked to lots, and still do) had modest respect for Big East football.
That's not to suggest I agreed with them or that the Big East wasn't an AQ. But back then, and relatively speaking, Big East football was not much more respected than AAC football is now by these type fans. And though their perception may have been "wrong," as you note, if 99 percent of them perceived BE football as glaringly infererior ... it becomes the reality.
The Big East, like Notre Dame to a certain extent, faded in power as the print media that favored them due to circulation numbers in those regions faded. As the media became wholly electronic and national in scope regional circulation didn't mean as much as the ability to draw a crowd nationally. So the new goal was national eyeballs on the tube for advertising, instead of circulation of regional newspapers which were syndicated.
So there was a massive shift away from hyping smaller private schools with very regional alumni bases to hyping larger state schools with massive alumni bases, and hyping schools with historical brand recognition. And that methodology has worked so well that the historical brands with a few exceptions have monetized themselves even more effectively creating an even larger gulf between themselves and the rest resulting in a self perpetuating cycle of brand boosting, ad revenue to their carriers, more money, more exposure, and more brand boosting until the nation is fatigued with them. What has saved Notre Dame while relegating the former Big East powers to the archives of those no longer relevant, is Notre Dame is a historical brand with a national audience.
So now that College Football is reduced to Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Alabama, with the ACC's rise of Clemson as the would be fresh face, and now that the SEC can muster a fresh face often enough to make it seem legitimate, and Notre Dame can string together a run often enough to remain an alternative, the new network driving force is to consolidate the brands so they play each other more often in an effort to drive revenue maximizing games. And by the process of elimination this is supposed to bring fresh faces back into contention.
So from the time of the "Big East" those schools have not substantially changed in quality, they've just been abandoned by their failing press and their names have been lost in the fervor for national darlings and instead of dying on the field they have slowly died from lack of exposure.
There are no, and never have been, power conferences. What are called power conferences are those which group more nationally recognized brands together. And those which group the most are rewarded the best, hyped the most for ratings, and are therefore naturally inclined to get the best recruits which also want the most exposure in hopes of getting the most tube time and therefore the best signing bonuses when they turn pro.
And guess what (this is addressed to Bill Dazzle)? They are going to come from those teams that have the most people watching them and have the most exciting venues, which make the products being advertised nationally seem cooler than those of their competitors.
What the SEC bellyached about for years was the AP selection of the national champ. Why? It wasn't about the best football team in America, it was about the football teams in America which sold the most newspapers, and those weren't in the South. When the BCS was instituted the perceptions of who had the best teams shifted dramatically because of that 7 year run of titles by the SEC. The CFP hasn't really changed that.
When that happened the West Coast simply tuned out. The Big 10 got serious about competing, and Florida State and Clemson became the anti-SEC darlings and Oklahoma was tossed into that mix as well with hopes for Texas.
Now I'm sure it is not lost on you but, the message should be indelibly clear. "Power" conferences don't exist. Those with the best collection of "Power" schools make enough to retain power schools. Those who don't are encouraged to relocate. And none of it is about football. It's about ratings, which have replaced circulation, and nothing has changed except that regions matter less and national draw matters more. Beauty pageants were once in the Spring and football was in the Fall, and there wasn't a dime's bit of difference between in effect and both were wholly commercial.
(This post was last modified: 07-26-2020 12:43 PM by JRsec.)
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