(04-18-2021 10:35 PM)hammannja Wrote: I agree that an AAC play-off auto-bid is 6-8+ years away at best barring a Big 12 implosion (which is incredibly doubtful even if Texas and Oklahoma leave . . . and each has their Texas Tech/Oklahoma State problem if they try to leave). I also agree that a G-5 auto-bid likely only happens with an 8-team play-off (if even then). An AAC New Years' game auto-bid, however, is much more realistic even without a designated anchor bowl.
The most likely current path to college football play-off expansion is a 6-team play-off.
Of course, the problem with a 6-team playoff is that it gives an extra advantage to the teams that get the first round bye, making it hardly a fair competition.
Imagine a NCAA tournament with a pause in the action, rather than a standard quarter-final (elite eight) round, and with the two lowest-ranked teams simply being eliminated and with the top two teams getting a bye. Nobody would tolerate that, but that's exactly what a 6-team playoff would amount to.
Moreover, anything beyond a 4-team CFP is going to require an extra weekend. At that point, it makes more sense - - both in terms of competitive interest and in terms of viewership and income-earning potential from the standpoint of the NCAA - - to have all of the remaining playoff teams playing both weekends.
Thus, an 8-team playoff would be a much more satisfactory development. It would be fairer, it would generate more viewership income, and there is no down side to doing it, any more than there was a down-side to adding an entire additional round to the NCAA tournament.
Quote:As to autonomy, it seems so unlikely. The other 5 conferences got autonomy by the implicit threat that they would split away from the NCAA. The AAC can't make that threat.
The problem with that argument is that it ignores the fact that the NCAA set a precedent when it granted autonomy status to the 5 conferences.
Now that the precedent has been set, there are legal reasons why it would be difficult for the NCAA to prevent autonomy status from being granted to any conference that meets the same legal criteria that the 5 conferences met.
It wouldn't matter how such a decision would be made, because the decision itself would not be legally justifiable.
Quote:That leaves the AAC and possibly the Big East as the only new conferences that might want autonomy and this would entail a vote of the whole NCAA membership (or at least the Division I membership).
That's not necessarily the case. There are many other possibilities.
You mentioned one of them - - the Big East might also apply for autonomous status, and the next conference that does so might be the first of many.
Another possibility is that a group of FBS conferences might pool their resources and apply for autonomous conference status for all the FBS conferences.
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You mentioned the possibility of a vote by all the conferences - or all the D1 conferences, but
it is by no means clear that they will be satisfied with the continuation of the current two-tiered system, which favors the P5 conferences.
The possibility can't be ruled out that they might vote to extend the same autonomous privileges to all the D1 conferences, even if the P5 conferences were to renew their threat to bolt. At some point, they might decide that it's better to call their bluff.
The NCAA would not die. The NCAA tournament would still be highly popular. All 27 non-P5 conferences could be represented by both their regular season and tournament champions, with at least 12 at-large bids.
If the P5 conferences want to play their own basketball tournament, so be it. They've already grabbed 34 of the 46 at-large spots, as it is, so there wouldn't be much of a change.
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Any of these things could happen, and any of them could enable the AAC to obtain autonomous status. We'll all be staying tuned, no doubt....
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Quote:Aresco asked the NCAA in 2013 to create criteria for gaining autonomy. I don't think it has happened, which means that it is unlikely to happen.
That is a logical (actually illogical)
"non sequitur", because the fact that it hasn't happened doesn't necessarily mean that it won't happen.
All we know is that there has been no public announcement of criteria being provided, per the AAC's request, hasn't happened
yet. Perhaps there was a private response or conversation that we don't know about.
Regardless, the Commissioner has made it clear that the AAC is still in the process of working toward autonomy status, and that it's probably going to take at least another year or two before it will be ready to apply for autonomy status. This suggests the possibility that the Commissioner may received some feedback indicating that the American still has a ways to go before autonomy status criteria would be met.
The statement "I don't think it has happened, which means that it is unlikely to happen" could also be considered
a type of (inverse) "post hoc, ergo propter hoc"
type of argument of the form:
"Event B happened after event A; so therefore, A must have caused B."
However, in this case, the argument is that "event B (a detailed response to the request)
didn't happen after event A, and therefore, if event A happens again, event B again
won't happen, because something about event A (e.g., the request itself) resulted in event B not happening."
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The point is none of us really know any of the details of what has transpired, so it's best not to jump to any conclusions at this point.
What we do know is that the Commissioner has stated that the effort to obtain autonomous status is an ongoing one, and that he has a good enough understanding of the criteria to know that it will probably take several years for the conference to meet the full criteria for autonomous status.
Requesting a list of criteria from the NCAA may well have been nothing more than a necessary step in order to build a legal case, rather than having been seriously intended to generate an itemized list of criteria. The actual criteria are not difficult to ascertain.
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The criteria for autonomous status probably require the following:
*Replacement of UConn FB, BB, and olympic sports.
*Expansion to 14 teams per sport, which would require the backing of a major network (presumably ESPN).
*The expansion discussions would almost certainly require obtaining an agreement by the network to sponsor an application and negotiation for autonomous status for the expanded conference.
At the tortoise-like pace of change that we have become accustomed to, these criteria might take several years to meet. Realistically, the AAC may not be able to obtain autonomous status until 2031 or 2032, when the 12-year broadcasting deal is due to expire.
Most AAC fans would probably be ok with that kind of a timetable.
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