(07-12-2013 04:29 PM)AppfanInCAAland Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 01:20 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:25 AM)TIGER-PAUL Wrote:  http://jacksonville.com/sports/college/2...onferences

There are enough bowls to go around. I am an SEC guy, but I still feel the P5 conferences have access to way too many bowls. Top five or six or five should get in a bowl game. Not every school in the conference...

I'm an FCS/soon lower level FBS guy with App State, so from my perspective, I like and agree with this SEC guy - though admittedly for more selfish reasons. I've always disliked it when 75-80% of a power conference get into bowls or the basketball tournament. I've felt their should be a secondary requirement which would give a slight leg up to the non-P5 schools. Something like minimum .500 conference record. Sure a couple of teams towards the bottom of the SEC are probably better then the third or fourth team in the SBC or CAA, but the difference are at the margins. And who really had the better season deserving a reward - a mediocre team with SEC or BIG 10 resources or a team near the top of a low profile league?

No they are not. Take the three weakest programs from the SEC, let's say Vandy, Ole Miss and Miss St., and put them up against the three best Sun Belt teams and all three SEC teams would be favored. They might not win, but they would be favored.

Of course, your response should be did you see the LA-Monroe games against Arkansas and Auburn? My answer is that is why you play the game. The Razorbacks and WarTigers fell apart in epic fashion last year, but that was an aberration.

This is not an insult to the Sunbelt. I actually think highly of your new tight conference of southern football focused schools and its future can be bright, but you are still have a ways to go before your third or fourth best team is better than the bottom third of the SEC.

(07-13-2013 11:56 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  I find it laughable when people suggest the likes of Mississippi State, Iowa State, Indiana, Wake Forest, Wazzu, etc are in the same category when we all know they benefit from conference affiliation.

That was my point.

I don't think anyone regards Indiana football to be in the same category of quality on the field or media appeal as Michigan football, or Wake Forest football to be the same compared to FSU football, or Washington State football to be the same compared to USC football. I am not sure why you would make that point because I've never seen anyone make those claims.

(07-12-2013 06:04 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 07:15 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The whole article is kinda a fail. It's about how the small conferences are reaping rewards and then discusses how they are on the outside looking in on the bowl and money picture.....how is that news or something that's not known?

I think he's comparing it to back in the day, when there were fewer bowls. Back when there were 15 bowls or so, marginal power-conference teams would go, and non-AQ/lower-FBS/etc teams with good records would be sitting at home.

Now, if a 9-3 Louisiana Tech doesn't go bowling, it's because the AD screwed up and gets fired. Ten years ago, Bowling Green goes 9-3, beats Missouri and Kansas, is ranked for a few weeks, and stays home.

That's why the small conferences like the way things are now. Maybe their bowl is in Detroit or Mobile, AL or Boise Idaho, or maybe it's on Wednesday December 19 on ESPN-U, but there's a bowl.

This is all true, but has nothing to do with the "new" playoff system coming in 2014. In fact, it has nothing to do with the BCS. Most of the new smaller bowls that have benefitted the G-5 conferences owe their existence to ESPN and the ESPN effort to generate more bowl season programming.

(07-14-2013 09:38 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(07-12-2013 04:29 PM)AppfanInCAAland Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 01:20 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:25 AM)TIGER-PAUL Wrote:  http://jacksonville.com/sports/college/2...onferences

There are enough bowls to go around. I am an SEC guy, but I still feel the P5 conferences have access to way too many bowls. Top five or six or five should get in a bowl game. Not every school in the conference...

I'm an FCS/soon lower level FBS guy with App State, so from my perspective, I like and agree with this SEC guy - though admittedly for more selfish reasons. I've always disliked it when 75-80% of a power conference get into bowls or the basketball tournament. I've felt their should be a secondary requirement which would give a slight leg up to the non-P5 schools. Something like minimum .500 conference record. Sure a couple of teams towards the bottom of the SEC are probably better then the third or fourth team in the SBC or CAA, but the difference are at the margins. And who really had the better season deserving a reward - a mediocre team with SEC or BIG 10 resources or a team near the top of a low profile league?

No they are not. Take the three weakest programs from the SEC, let's say Vandy, Ole Miss and Miss St., and put them up against the three best Sun Belt teams and all three SEC teams would be favored. They might not win, but they would be favored.

Of course, your response should be did you see the LA-Monroe games against Arkansas and Auburn? My answer is that is why you play the game. The Razorbacks and WarTigers fell apart in epic fashion last year, but that was an aberration.

This is not an insult to the Sunbelt. I actually think highly of your new tight conference of southern football focused schools and its future can be bright, but you are still have a ways to go before your third or fourth best team is better than the bottom third of the SEC.

Would they still be favored if they had to play every game against the Sun Belt on the road, at the Sun Belt team's stadium?

(07-14-2013 10:32 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-13-2013 11:56 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  I find it laughable when people suggest the likes of Mississippi State, Iowa State, Indiana, Wake Forest, Wazzu, etc are in the same category when we all know they benefit from conference affiliation.

That was my point.

I don't think anyone regards Indiana football to be in the same category of quality on the field or media appeal as Michigan football, or Wake Forest football to be the same compared to FSU football, or Washington State football to be the same compared to USC football. I am not sure why you would make that point because I've never seen anyone make those claims.

But what people do make claims about is Washington State football vs Nevada football, or Indiana football vs Ball State football, or Duke football vs ECU football--the bottom echelon power conference programs vs the top echelon of lower-FBS.

You could assemble data and make a case that the top 10 lower-FBS programs are better than the bottom 10 power conference programs. You could also assemble data and make a case that the top 10 lower-FBS programs are essentially interchangeable with the bottom 10 power conference programs.

If you set aside a few outliers (BYU, Boise, UConn, ECU; Duke, Wake Forest, Northwestern, Vanderbilt) you could make a case that the top of lower-FBS isn't competitive with the bottom of the power-conferences.

So yeah, it's not whether Minnesota or Indiana is competitive with Michigan as a program. It's how they compare to Northern Illinois.

(07-14-2013 04:04 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(07-14-2013 10:32 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-13-2013 11:56 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  I find it laughable when people suggest the likes of Mississippi State, Iowa State, Indiana, Wake Forest, Wazzu, etc are in the same category when we all know they benefit from conference affiliation.

That was my point.

I don't think anyone regards Indiana football to be in the same category of quality on the field or media appeal as Michigan football, or Wake Forest football to be the same compared to FSU football, or Washington State football to be the same compared to USC football. I am not sure why you would make that point because I've never seen anyone make those claims.

But what people do make claims about is Washington State football vs Nevada football, or Indiana football vs Ball State football, or Duke football vs ECU football--the bottom echelon power conference programs vs the top echelon of lower-FBS.

......................

So yeah, it's not whether Minnesota or Indiana is competitive with Michigan as a program. It's how they compare to Northern Illinois.

What is the point of comparing the media viability or on-field competitiveness of Minnesota and Northern Illinois? I mean, if an analysis were to show that Minnesota > NIU on both counts or NIU > Minnesota on both counts, what are the implications?

I can't think of any.

(07-14-2013 07:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-14-2013 04:04 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(07-14-2013 10:32 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-13-2013 11:56 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  I find it laughable when people suggest the likes of Mississippi State, Iowa State, Indiana, Wake Forest, Wazzu, etc are in the same category when we all know they benefit from conference affiliation.

That was my point.

I don't think anyone regards Indiana football to be in the same category of quality on the field or media appeal as Michigan football, or Wake Forest football to be the same compared to FSU football, or Washington State football to be the same compared to USC football. I am not sure why you would make that point because I've never seen anyone make those claims.

But what people do make claims about is Washington State football vs Nevada football, or Indiana football vs Ball State football, or Duke football vs ECU football--the bottom echelon power conference programs vs the top echelon of lower-FBS.

......................

So yeah, it's not whether Minnesota or Indiana is competitive with Michigan as a program. It's how they compare to Northern Illinois.

What is the point of comparing the media viability or on-field competitiveness of Minnesota and Northern Illinois? I mean, if an analysis were to show that Minnesota > NIU on both counts or NIU > Minnesota on both counts, what are the implications?

I can't think of any.

There are those that claim that the GO5 teams should be separate from the P5 teams because they aren't competitive. Which isn't true, at least not as a blanket statement. The top GO5 schools are competitive with the middle or bottom P5 schools. In Boise's case, competitive with pretty much all the P5 schools. And if the P5 schools had the guts to play GO5 teams on the road, they'd lose more of those games. You can argue that it's due to finances - fine, but it doesn't change the fact that they would lose more games playing on the road.