I know we're all crusty old (?) college football fans who don't like to waste time on things that aren't tangibly productive, so here's my question...

Who will indulge me?... and in particular, who will indulge me by identifying themselves (ie, username, nothing else) as readers of this thread who feel comfortable that they understand the concept as its put forward sufficient enough that you think you could ace a closed-book 10-question quiz...?

I don't mean to be coy, but I do have a reason for asking you to PM me, effectively raising your hand that you think you qualify.

(01-06-2015 10:25 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Lurker, I appreciate the intelligent response, and yes even the candor... but I think the fail is on your side of this, as-in, fail to respond to the objective evidence I present that supports the conclusion that the college football industry is incrementally responding to public outcry for a more coherent, rational, and, yes, fair framework for the 128 teams that qualify and participate as FBS.

Look, you, me, and the rest of us approach these things with our own self-interests (or that of the university to which we possess affinity), of course, many of those ultimately economic in nature...

But ultimately I believe history, in the U.S. and most of the civilized world, has shown that there is a inbred respect for equality that may move with the speed of a glacier, but more importantly, it moves with the force of one... not equality of outcomes as your post speaks to (don't think your readers so naive as to not catch that), but equality of opportunity.

As to the rest of the post, my perspective is that your perspective--in particular, the "rip apart voluntary associations and force involuntary associations" part-- is just very resistant to ascending to an actual nuts and bolts discussion, and instead, very quick to make shallow grandiose characterizations, coloring the facts in order to dissuade readers from more than passing thought about the legitimacy of the elements of the concept. Over and over now, I've provided evidence of how, in fact, the flexibility inherent in this plan improves the capacity of a conferences' schools to play more regular football games (what you broadly characterize as "association" as-if it's something more than playing regular football games) with each other. After awhile, anyone of any intelligence paying attention to the thread has no choice but to deem the reticence to deal with that evidence as defensiveness and deflection.

Just sayin.

That's as much as I want to discuss of it in this thread, which is more of an applied one, and how we might project this could all work out a decade or two from now... as opposed to discussing theory/rationale/philosophy as you and other defenders of the high-resource schools' superiority stereotype are want to do... but again, if there's another thread where this more fundamental issue is being discussed, I'd appreciate being directed to it.

Under your plan, any school that goes on a 2 year run can take the place of a school who has for decades participated in the promotion and advancement of their conference. Furthermore; such relegated school would be divested of all its historical associations and be relegated to a lower division who likely is comprised of schools that are neither its academic or athletic peers.

You claim such scheme is merited by equality of opportunity, not equality of results, because such promotion/relegation would be earned on the field. In what way is it not also equality of results when every school has the right to be in a higher conference they have never been a member, and was never invited to join, simply by going on a two year run?

Your plan creates the equality of results by immediately giving every G5 school the same right to be in the higher conference as all of the members in the higher conference, except the lowest ranked team of such conference, by simply going on a 2 year run.

As to your assertion that I do not want a nuts and bolts discussion I offer this. I respect the Central Floridas of college football, but I do not want them in my conference (the SEC) at the expense of Vandy or Kentucky. I doubt many feel differently and such sentiments cannot be discarded.

I also offer this, how does your plan have the moral high ground by giving G5 teams relegation but not FCS teams? Why is it moral to give such to Boise St, Central Florida, etc., but not to North Dakota State and Sam Houston? Do you think the SBC or CUSA would want to be threated by The Citadel or JMU? Moral high ground indeed.

(01-07-2015 11:57 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(01-06-2015 10:25 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Lurker, I appreciate the intelligent response, and yes even the candor... but I think the fail is on your side of this, as-in, fail to respond to the objective evidence I present that supports the conclusion that the college football industry is incrementally responding to public outcry for a more coherent, rational, and, yes, fair framework for the 128 teams that qualify and participate as FBS.

Look, you, me, and the rest of us approach these things with our own self-interests (or that of the university to which we possess affinity), of course, many of those ultimately economic in nature...

But ultimately I believe history, in the U.S. and most of the civilized world, has shown that there is a inbred respect for equality that may move with the speed of a glacier, but more importantly, it moves with the force of one... not equality of outcomes as your post speaks to (don't think your readers so naive as to not catch that), but equality of opportunity.

As to the rest of the post, my perspective is that your perspective--in particular, the "rip apart voluntary associations and force involuntary associations" part-- is just very resistant to ascending to an actual nuts and bolts discussion, and instead, very quick to make shallow grandiose characterizations, coloring the facts in order to dissuade readers from more than passing thought about the legitimacy of the elements of the concept. Over and over now, I've provided evidence of how, in fact, the flexibility inherent in this plan improves the capacity of a conferences' schools to play more regular football games (what you broadly characterize as "association" as-if it's something more than playing regular football games) with each other. After awhile, anyone of any intelligence paying attention to the thread has no choice but to deem the reticence to deal with that evidence as defensiveness and deflection.

Just sayin.

That's as much as I want to discuss of it in this thread, which is more of an applied one, and how we might project this could all work out a decade or two from now... as opposed to discussing theory/rationale/philosophy as you and other defenders of the high-resource schools' superiority stereotype are want to do... but again, if there's another thread where this more fundamental issue is being discussed, I'd appreciate being directed to it.

Under your plan, any school that goes on a 2 year run can take the place of a school who has for decades participated in the promotion and advancement of their conference.

...and... as inconvenient as it might be to say... saliently... has not only sunk to a #8 finish, but lost their head-to-head game against the promotable team.

Important to also be clear that the same school that is relegated has the same opportunity to be promoted.

Important to also be clear... there probably are interlopers to the thread who wouldn't understand otherwise... that we're not talking about replacing the team as a conference member, but specifically that the promoted team is taking the relegated one's scheduling slot.

(01-07-2015 11:57 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  Furthermore; such relegated school would be divested of all its historical associations and be relegated to a lower division who likely is comprised of schools that are neither its academic or athletic peers.

"All its historical associations"... no. Overstatement.

"Relegated to a lower division"... yes... most essentially, Silver Division schools have only 1 of the 8 playoff slots available to them.

"Neither its academic or athletic peers."... yes and no... there are a variety of ways that schools are measured academically, including AACU status, Carnegie status... so, that's going to vary... and athletics?... well, this is where your superiority stereotype has to confront reality... those schools are not only FBS, but being the #8 school that lost head-to-head against the Silver champ strongly suggests that however you want to measure that relegated school... Sagarins or otherwise... they BELONG in that Silver Division.

...out of time, but will address the rest soon enough...

(01-07-2015 11:57 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  You claim such scheme is merited by equality of opportunity, not equality of results, because such promotion/relegation would be earned on the field. In what way is it not also equality of results when every school has the right to be in a higher conference they have never been a member, and was never invited to join, simply by going on a two year run?

"Equality of opportunity... because such prom/rel would be earned on the field."... kinda yes, kinda no... I'm still not sure we're on the same page.

Follow me through this and see: Equality of opportunity means that every team that qualifies to play in FBS has an objective (so, yes, earned on the field) path to the sport's highest honor. It does not mean that every team has the same path--Gold members get 28 of the 32 playoff slots, Silver only 4. But there is a path nonetheless, and that would be the case even if there was no prom/rel mechanism (thus, the word "because" is where I got stuck in reading your reply).

(01-07-2015 11:57 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  Your plan creates the equality of results by immediately giving every G5 school the same right to be in the higher conference as all of the members in the higher conference, except the lowest ranked team of such conference, by simply going on a 2 year run.

"The same right to be in the higher conference." No.

Please indulge me. Precision matters here.

They are not forced upon any of the five contract conferences. Rather, precisely, they may earn the right to ascend to one of those conferences' slots.

"Simply going on a 2 year run." Two points.

First, in addition to repeating as champs of the division, there again is the need to actually defeat on the scoreboard that #8 Gold school (... who, by the way, has the opportunity to avoid being that school actually relegated after all, ie, by defeating whoever ends up as #8 in their division that same season).

And, second... again... with reference to the need for the non-con5 team to defeat the potentially #8 team head-to-head... I understand the choice of the word "simply" for its nuance, but in fact, if we look at history, it's not been quite that common for schools to repeat as champs within their conferences. But too, stickler for balance that I try to be, I also acknowledge that how "easy" it might be will vary from division to division according to the mix of schools slotted into a division.

Related... what might be more disturbing to you, Lurker, is that every fifth year there would be an obligation for one of the SEC teams to take a turn at playing in a Silver Division for a season... ie, due to there being 65 con5 teams. (The illustration/specimen chart shows the ACC placing Wake in that circumstance for that first season.) Enduring relegation might never occur, but single season relegation is built-in in order to keep nice, even 8-team boxes standard throughout.

(01-07-2015 11:57 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  As to your assertion that I do not want a nuts and bolts discussion I offer this. I respect the Central Floridas of college football, but I do not want them in my conference (the SEC) at the expense of Vandy or Kentucky. I doubt many feel differently and such sentiments cannot be discarded.

One more time... they would not be in the SEC... rather, again, they could, though, take one of the SEC's Gold slots.

And to your broader point, I'd previously said this (... forgive the copy and paste plz)...

Quote:End game, prom/rel in this context is going to add some drama to the season, but if history isn't lying to us, it will be fairly rare; and when it does occur, it will be merited... merit being the root word of merit-ocracy, of course... didn't I read that meritocracy word somewhere here lately?

It is interesting to me that some people will come to this topic thinking they're arguing for free market principles, when in fact, it is so absurdly clear that to the contrary they're arguing for protectionism... don't force us into a forum where we actually have to compete... we so much prefer to maintain the status quo and protect our access to the national championship just by virtue of being members of the country club...

...Besides that, the reality is, as painful as it temporarily might be, this theoretical relegated program that is given so much concern here, in terms of its long-term health, probably needs to have not just the wake-up call, but the benefit of playing a lower-resource group of schools, allowing it to catapult back up to stronger health than it could attain in its previous condition.

It happens in life among individuals... bottoming out, and going on to flourish... it happens in business, too. Many well-regarded economists believe that the best thing that could have happened to the U.S. auto industry in 2008/09 would have been bankruptcy--that GM and Chrysler would have recovered much more rapidly in that context where they had some legal protections and without government impositions.

(01-07-2015 11:57 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  I also offer this, how does your plan have the moral high ground by giving G5 teams relegation but not FCS teams? Why is it moral to give such to Boise St, Central Florida, etc., but not to North Dakota State and Sam Houston? Do you think the SBC or CUSA would want to be threated by The Citadel or JMU? Moral high ground indeed.

Let me start with this because I don't want to be misread. To be precise, this master plan is not validated out of an argument that there is a "moral high ground" that demands it. People and time and attitudes will determine if that becomes the case. It isn't yet.

All I've alleged is that there are trends, some of which we can see in the greater society that have also filtered into this domain of college football.

There is a trend toward a desire for equality of opportunity. And, there is a trend of distaste for injecting human opinion into the calculation for determining a true national champion (and thus, a preference for objective, on the field results).

The concept puts those together with (a) respect for the 10 existing conferences' authority; (b) respect for the existing football calendar that essentially is limited to the end of the traditional Summer term and the beginning of the Spring; © where the pursuit of a national champion comes into any policy conflict with the pursuit of conference champions, preference for those mechanisms/policies/clauses that serve to produce the most legitimate national champion; and, (d) the fortuitous math of 128 FBS teams.

Okay, now to your point... indeed, this point also has already been broached (previous thread), so forgive the copy and paste...

Quote:

(12-12-2014 07:47 PM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  Now you just have to incorporate a pathway to move up for schools from Alaska, Delaware, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont to achieve the "fairness" you so desperately seek.

Yep. Didn't specify that part b/c I didn't anticipate anyone really caring about FCS schools in general, regardless of their location, having a pathway to FBS. But yeah, I do.

There are some different options on that front, but the one that seems to me makes most sense is to place a clause out there that any school that finishes last in their Silver division 2 years in a row is subject to being relegated to FCS, pending an applicant from that school's region petitioning to move up. I would set the bar at 2 years because that would be emblematic of a school that has indeed hit rock bottom and deserves to be receive scrutiny.

At that point, it would fall back to the FCS school having met current attendance standards, and perhaps some additional standards that make direct on-the-field and off-the-field comparisons between the FCS applicant and the lagging Silver program. I would not want it left to a committee, which then ends up being a political tug-of-war, but rather a matter of pre-set standards either having been met or not.

Notably, this compares somewhat but not completely to the Gold/Silver mechanism because (a) there is no way to anticipate that the two teams would ever meet on the field, and moreover (b) by NCAA by-laws there is only an actual difference between FBS and FCS schools; there is no NCAA by-law difference between contract and non-contract schools. That distinction merits a somewhat higher expectation and scrutiny for FCS schools moving up to FBS.

All kosher?

Again, I'm very cautious and don't want to seem condescending or disrespectful as sometimes is a natural hazard of written deliberations like this. We're all passionate about our schools and our conferences and what we genuinely believe. One thing I truly appreciate about this board b/c there are those that you can't say this about... at least in my experience, people can strongly disagree, but for the most part, it doesn't devolve into the ditch of personal attacks. That things can be kept at a reasonable level of civility and intelligence speaks well of the people who participate here.

sturt - I guess the hard thing for me to get past is where you keep seeing these "trends" toward this model. I don't see ANY of those trends at all. Once again, the public desire for a playoff (which is certainly high) is completely separate from the public desire to throw current conference structures out the window.

At the same time can talk about hypothetical structures all day, whether it's promotion/relegation, different playoff formats, conference realignment, etc. However, to me, it still comes down to whether there is any reason whatsoever for the entities that actually have *choices* to choose this route. It's all too easy for people to throw out proposals (and I've seen many different ones on this board and on my blog over the years) that mandate the entities that have control to suddenly unilaterally give up that control because of some outside force. ("The government will step in and start taxing athletic departments if the power conferences don't start sharing more! The public will demand equality and FORCE conferences to start taking in schools that they wouldn't want in a million years!") That's great that the schools in the MAC and Sun Belt might love it, but the reality is that it's irrelevant.

THERE IS NO MAGICAL OUTSIDE FORCE IN COLLEGE SPORTS. You keep ignoring or passing off the new NCAA autonomy rules, but how else can you interpret this than the 5 power conferences are (a) formalizing the fact that they are separate from everyone else (which we all knew before but wasn't structurally in place from a governance perspective until now) and (b) the small conferences are actually agreeing to it?! THE POWER CONFERENCES CONTROL EVERYTHING. It's not just political power that they have (which you had mentioned above) - the power conferences have financial power, fan base power, TV market power, academic power and now governance power. The CFP and NCAA Tournament are worth billions of dollars because of the participation of the power conferences. Without those power conferences, those games are worth about as much as the FCS playoffs and NIT. You're severely downplaying how much more the power conferences (even the weaker members) are bringing to the table financially and how little of the non-power conferences are contributing by comparison. As a result, the only way any proposal gains any base-level credence with me is if the proposer can explain why on Earth would the Big Ten and SEC would agree to it. Without that, we're basically having the college sports equivalent of a "If my aunt had balls, then she'd be my uncle" type of discussion. I see your argument again and again that the winds will are supposedly going to change to the point where the Big Ten and SEC will actually be *forced* things against their will, but I just don't buy it at all with all of the autonomy rules getting implemented (much less the money disparities). The Big Ten and SEC (along with their fellow power conferences) are going to be dictating the rules for a loooooooooooong time (not just the next 10 or 20 years that you seem to be suggesting). I don't have an issue with you proposing a promotion/relegation-type system as a mental exercise (which is all well in good) - I certainly throw out hypothetical stuff from time-to-time to get a discussion going. I'm just completely perplexed that you seem to actually believe in your heart of hearts that there's actually some type of trend out there where this could happen in reality.

We can use the old "Nothing is 100% certain! Anything is possible!" catch-all for hypothetical arguments, but your proposal is as close to 100% certain to not happen as you can get. Conference autonomy and completely voluntary association to be with schools with whoever they want for whatever reasons that they want (whether it's academics, TV markets, geography, institutional fit, attractive cheerleaders, etc.) is absolutely fundamental. Saying that the Big Ten and SEC don't want to kill off the NCAA as of now doesn't mean that they wouldn't absolutely kill the NCAA if there was even a hint of other schools attempting to tell them who ought to be in their conferences (and they SHOULD kill off the NCAA if that were to be the case, as forcing schools upon them that they don't want to associate with is patently objectionable).

(01-07-2015 04:48 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  sturt - I guess the hard thing for me to get past is where you keep seeing these "trends" toward this model. I don't see ANY of those trends at all. Once again, the public desire for a playoff (which is certainly high) is completely separate from the public desire to throw current conference structures out the window.

First, I appreciate the persistence--whether intended or not, I take it as an implicit sign of some degree of respect that you'd invest your time in the topic as you continue to do.

Second, I again think we're again missing each other. Again, let me try to be precise.

There is NOT a "trend" toward this model. Heck, no one even knows about it for there to be a trend towards it, right?

Here is what there is a trend toward (again).

There is a trend toward equality, or maybe a better term is inclusion. Without rehearsing a couple of paragraphs of evidence (again), I'll just say it this concise way: in 1998, Tulane and its president Scott Cowan beat loudly on the glass ceiling keeping their undefeated team from playing in a bowl game appropriate to their achievements... and today in 2014, there would be automatic access to Tulane to play in the Rose Bowl or any of its peers. (If you were alive and paying attention in 1998, you KNOW that's a purty-damn significant leap that can't legitimately be brushed off.)

And less detectable, more subjective on my part, there is a trend that the college football loving public desires for everything to be settled on the field that possibly can be settled on the field where this national championship thing is concerned. People are uncomfortable with opinions and votes dictating... for every other sport known to mankind, there is an objective path to become champions for every team that has met the criteria to be in whatever league they are a part of.

Think of any of it... is there any other sport where you would be comfortable with an election having bearing on who gets to compete? "Hey, let's elect who should get into the NFL playoffs next year... after all there are some small market, low-resource teams that really shouldn't have the same access as everyone else!"... think that would fly?

Even in March Madness, where, yes, there is a selection committee, the objective path is still there--if you win your conference, you're in... those guys are just deciding on the at-large teams and on the seeding... they can't prevent Butler from getting in if Butler earns the spot.

Okay, and last, I do not perceive a public desire to "throw conference structures out the window." That's the downfall of virtually ever realignment concept coming and going. So, you are right to maintain that conferences want and should have autonomy as to who they consider to be a member.

Where priorities collide is in this, and since you brought them up earlier, let's just use Boise as our guinea pig...

Whereas Arizona was considered a legitimate contender for a playoff slot, as you said, no one said a peep about Boise.

Here on the other side of the bowls, it can be realized that if Arizona actually received some legitimate "peep," maybe Boise woulda/shoulda/coulda as well... and why didn't they?

Yes, it's because Boise didn't gain the standing they might otherwise have deserved had they'd played a schedule more like Arizona's.

Note that it's NOT simply because they're not a member of one of the con5 conferences that they didn't get to play such a schedule...

Rather, it's PRECISELY because the schedules are glued to conference membership in such a way that it squeezes them out of any opportunity to do so.

So, if put to a vote on the priorities... either preferring (a) inclusion/equality of opportunity for all FBS, or (b) maintaining conferences' mandate that all members each season play 8-9 games exclusively among themselves... which would win out?

I'd go with "b" myself... I bet you would, too.

There's a reason why people haven't been all over this thread saying "why didn't I think of that," and/or "we need to get this concept in front of the FBS authorities as soon as possible!"

So I grant you that point... and if you're genuine, you have to grant me this one... forgive me if you've heard me bring it up before...

Unless you're really young and just didn't know, it's only been in the last 10 years really that the trend toward equality of opportunity with regard to same-sex marriage took root. Now, I'm personally for legalized tax-advantaged status for people who take care of each other on the basis that if they don't, the government has to... so it serves the government's purposes to do that, but not limit it to people on the basis of romance... I'm NOT a fan of the whole equality thing as a legitimate rationale... but regardless, my point is that one can't know without exceptional time travel how trends might grow over a few years or a couple of decades and push boundaries that not so long ago seemed impenetrable... and of course, this particular issue helps illuminate the point b/c it specifically highlights how the whole equality mantra seeped into the public conscience and today it's barely even making the news when a state legalizes it.

To wit... I grant you that that would be the preference in 2014. I even grant you that it is reasonable to discount the possibility of the equality trend growing to affect the 2025 or 2035 competition framework of college football.

But assuming you are a reasonably humble and intelligent person (and I do), you need to grant that even as you discount it, it wouldn't be the first time that 10-20 years made all the difference in an environment and, by association, on public priorities... ie, it's just not the same as the idea of your aunt growing balls... you truly can't rule it out b/c you have the integrity to acknowledge trends have bubbled up before and taken things farther than at one time they could be imagined... and you realize you can only accurately prognosticate and plot out societal conditions so far.

I suppose I would only add this... going back to the NFL thing...

Consider if we had the situation that the large-market NFL teams had access to the playoffs that the small-market teams did not... and maybe that people were okay with it at first... but then, increasingly small-market teams began to not just be competitive but actually defeated some large-market teams...

Think the big-market teams... ie, the "power" ones by virtue of their far greater economic weight... would perpetually be able to get by with the excuse/reason that they prefer to play each other in the regular season, and its just too bad that their preference impedes the small market teams from being playoff-eligible?

For awhile, maybe. Perpetually? I don't see it.

Yeah, it'd be somewhat easy to defend Dallas wanting to always play Washington and a couple of other teams maybe... but do they really have to play San Francisco?... do they really have to play New Orleans?... do they really have to play Green Bay?... and, relevantly, it's easy to defend Ohio State wanting to play Michigan... but do they really have to play Minnesota?... do they really have to play Northwestern?... do they really have to play Maryland?...

Returning where I began... again, all this concept is is an (not even "the") answer to the question, if we were to see college football re-shaped by these conditions (preference for equality of opportunity, and preference for objective/on-the-field results dictating who participates in the playoff), what might a coherent master plan look like?

(01-07-2015 04:48 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  THERE IS NO MAGICAL OUTSIDE FORCE IN COLLEGE SPORTS. You keep ignoring or passing off the new NCAA autonomy rules, but how else can you interpret this than the 5 power conferences are (a) formalizing the fact that they are separate from everyone else (which we all knew before but wasn't structurally in place from a governance perspective until now) and (b) the small conferences are actually agreeing to it?! THE POWER CONFERENCES CONTROL EVERYTHING. It's not just political power that they have (which you had mentioned above) - the power conferences have financial power, fan base power, TV market power, academic power and now governance power. The CFP and NCAA Tournament are worth billions of dollars because of the participation of the power conferences. Without those power conferences, those games are worth about as much as the FCS playoffs and NIT. You're severely downplaying how much more the power conferences (even the weaker members) are bringing to the table financially and how little of the non-power conferences are contributing by comparison. As a result, the only way any proposal gains any base-level credence with me is if the proposer can explain why on Earth would the Big Ten and SEC would agree to it...

So, you say I've avoided... and you're correct, I've really really wanted to not deal with the philosophical stuff here... it's interesting to me and you and maybe 2-3 other people, and I just had hoped to keep this thread focused on the concept, period.

Guess that's not working out so well... hehe... so, yeah, hopefully given all of the substance written over the last day or two, you can see I'm giving in, and addressing things I'd previously preferred to speak to in another thread... but anyhow...

So now, may I say you've avoided something, too? ...and that it is relevant to what you just said above... that is this...

Talk to me please about why you believe the contract conference gods haven't already called down lightning from on high and ended the whole charade... you seem to take this view that everyone else in the pool is an illegitimate interloper, right?... so, why do this?... are they just so very altruistic?... why not just keep virtually ALL of the money, virtually ALL of the TV time, virtually ALL of the national regard for themselves? What's your theory on that... in that, be sure to include how we went from virtually zero non-con5 schools in bowl games, to a few, to several, and these days to an automatic bid major bowl bid... did they WANT it that way? Was that by design? If so, why? If not, given that their tentacles control it all, where did they slip up and how did they let that happen?

It's important because 20 years ago, had someone said, "Yeah, but I bet if Boise had gotten to play Arizona in a major bowl game"... the easy reply would have been, "We're basically having the college sports equivalent of a "If my aunt had balls, then she'd be my uncle" type of discussion." Do you get that? I think you do. But I don't know why it's taken this long to address it. (Or, if you did and I just read over top of it, please forgive and repeat yourself, and I'll try to pay better attention.)

As to the balance of your comment above, I think you know my opinion is that the contract schools are realizing that the on-the-field results are seriously imposing on their capacity to maintain their country club privileges. It's becoming far too routine... the trend is that non-con5 teams are defeating con5 teams at a rate that, if left unchecked, a football version of a Butler might evolve. (One might argue that it already happened with TCU, except that they let TCU in the door just-in-time.)

Their problem isn't going to be resolved, though, by throwing more money at the athletes--they're ALREADY getting the HS seniors considered the best, so there's not really any opportunity there to change the trend... the talent pyramid is just too wide and there's just too much development that occurs between ages 18-22 to make any in-roads in that respect.

Further... again... to eliminate the lower-resource schools from the "league" that is FBS doesn't help for much the same reasons that eliminating all below-the-income-median U.S. workers wouldn't help those above it... among other downsides, the "lower class" would just end up being the current con5's lower-resource schools.

So what else can they do?

I'm not really certain, and the national columnists that I've read on the topic don't appear to be all in agreement on it either. I try not to pretend to know things that I don't know. Maybe there is something they can do, but it just seems very unlikely to me based on two factors...

One, that they can't keep NFL-potential talent from getting to the non-con schools... there's just too much of it out there...

And two, there's always more HS seniors who've been told that they have NFL-potential talent than who actually have it, and the problem for the con5 schools on that point is, all of those guys want their chance to show their stuff... and so the proliferation of college football broadcasts--which is controlled by entities EVEN BIGGER than the con5 conferences--seriously infringes on the country club set's ability to cinch off other legitimate challengers from surfacing, ie, DE-LEGITIMIZING the right of maintaining special standing for the entire 14 of a given 14-member league when only a few have actually earned that special standing.

Oh yeah, and if you figure out how that 8-team playoff thing can occur within a framework that decides everything on the field, I'm still interested... THAT is actually even more to the intended point of the thread, fwiw.

(01-03-2015 02:59 PM)Underdog Wrote:  The word "Division" accurately communicates what you’ve proposed:

Ya know... I agree, except that I keep coming back to the notion that "division" just throws people off in the aspect that they're predisposed to think of divisions as being permanently assigned.

I'm edging toward a different term, something less traditional and more descriptive, yet still concise... "competition pod" just has too many syllables.

I'm back to "grid"...




And another internal debate I'm having... and bring up in case someone wants to chime in with their wisdom... is whether to modify how the actual January slotting process is conceptualized...

I'd had it that the conference with the most slots within a given region would have the latitude to slot their teams first, followed by the one with the second most and so on. But I'm contemplating whether that should, instead, be something that alternates from season to season. Or, maybe it should just be completed in a totally blind way, with none of the conferences having any knowledge of where any of the other conferences are slotting their teams. *head-scratching*

(01-07-2015 10:49 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  I know we're all crusty old (?) college football fans who don't like to waste time on things that aren't tangibly productive, so here's my question...

Who will indulge me?... and in particular, who will indulge me by identifying themselves (ie, username, nothing else) as readers of this thread who feel comfortable that they understand the concept as its put forward sufficient enough that you think you could ace a closed-book 10-question quiz...?

I don't mean to be coy, but I do have a reason for asking you to PM me, effectively raising your hand that you think you qualify.

Okay, forget the 10-question quiz.

I was never going to give one anyhow, but just thought that was a good premise for separating those who had a grasp on the fundamental elements of the master plan from those who only read enough to find something they didn't like and then glossed over everything else.

The thread has had almost a couple thousand views, and the one before this one which contained similar elements had a few thousand more. I'm looking for some astute volunteers who like the idea of playing conference commissioner for their own conference, and perhaps more. Time commitment probably more than a half hour but less than an hour. PM me.

Earlier, I'd pledged to put together a comparison of some of the Silver Division schools' 2014 schedules with a rational "Master Plan" schedule were it to be enacted for 2015.

I picked Colorado State, Northern Illinois and East Carolina out of the bunch for no particular reason. So here ya go...