(02-25-2018 08:56 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:10 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:01 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:14 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:04 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  You're dealing with college football logic here. Going undefeated is good enough in every other team sport but college football logic is about who you played. But not really because the logic evolves to make sure every scenario is taken care of for the same few teams. I'm sure UCF could have played and beaten Alabama and OU and still not sniffed the playoffs this year.

I could live without all conferences getting an auto-bid so long as one outsider is guaranteed as well as Access (at-larges) for others.

Nah. I don't feel like accepting a slightly better variety of 2nd class citizenship. Its a sports league, it should be structured like one. All of our kids should have an equal path to a National Championship decided entirely by their own play. It may be unlikely for UCF to win a NC but it should be decided in the playoff, not in a boardroom.

Thing is, there's nobody at Alabama or LSU or Ohio State that regards themselves as being "in the same league" as Arkansas State or South Alabama or New Mexico State.

Their leagues are their conferences, and they have other conferences they regard as more or less peers. To them, the NCAA classification is basically meaningless.

So harping from folks at North Texas State about "this is crazy! How can we have a system that doesn't allow for the champs of my conference to compete for the national title with the SEC champ like we do it in basketball!?!?!" doesn't resonate in those places at all. They don't see it as "crazy" because the NCAA and FBS isn't their frame of reference in terms of who their peers are and who they are competing with, locally (in-conference) and externally (out-of-conference). NCAA/FBS is just a mildly-useful category for determining what non-peer schools should count for scheduling purposes.

That's just the culture of big-time college football.

Then they should stop pretending they are a sports league and change the name like the WWE did.

College football is "sports entertainment" and not sports. I myself prefer sports.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

What sports do you not consider entertainment?

Ken, you need to stop being an ass or go somewhere else

(02-25-2018 01:10 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:01 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:14 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:04 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 11:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  How about just making this sports league like any other damn sports league in the world and allow all of its conference champions access to the playoffs.

That's it. No extra money, no special deals, no invitations to the special club...just access to the playoffs for each conference like any other sports league where every yeam can make its own fame ON THE FIELD.

No polls, no beauty contests, no sportswriters, no computers...everyone can make it to the top...ON THE FIELD...like sports.

Jeez.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

You're dealing with college football logic here. Going undefeated is good enough in every other team sport but college football logic is about who you played. But not really because the logic evolves to make sure every scenario is taken care of for the same few teams. I'm sure UCF could have played and beaten Alabama and OU and still not sniffed the playoffs this year.

I could live without all conferences getting an auto-bid so long as one outsider is guaranteed as well as Access (at-larges) for others.

Nah. I don't feel like accepting a slightly better variety of 2nd class citizenship. Its a sports league, it should be structured like one. All of our kids should have an equal path to a National Championship decided entirely by their own play. It may be unlikely for UCF to win a NC but it should be decided in the playoff, not in a boardroom.

Thing is, there's nobody at Alabama or LSU or Ohio State that regards themselves as being "in the same league" as Arkansas State or South Alabama or New Mexico State.

Their leagues are their conferences, and they have other conferences they regard as more or less peers. To them, the NCAA classification is basically meaningless.

So harping from folks at North Texas State about "this is crazy! How can we have a system that doesn't allow for the champs of my conference to compete for the national title with the SEC champ like we do it in basketball!?!?!" doesn't resonate in those places at all. They don't see it as "crazy" because the NCAA and FBS isn't their frame of reference in terms of who their peers are and who they are competing with, locally (in-conference) and externally (out-of-conference). NCAA/FBS is just a mildly-useful category for determining what non-peer schools should count for scheduling purposes.

That's just the culture of big-time college football.

Then they should stop pretending they are a sports league and change the name like the WWE did.

College football is "sports entertainment" and not sports. I myself prefer sports.

It's rather arrogant (and delusional) to proclaim that if the SEC isn't really interested in formally competing with the Sun Belt for a national title any more than it is interested in competing with the MEAC for the same that this makes SEC football not a "sport" but merely a WWE entertainment show. As in "Hey Georgia, yes, you beat out Auburn and Alabama and LSU for the SEC title, but because you didn't systematically beat out North Texas State, your season was a bogus WWE charade!" That doesn't follow at all.

Obviously, the competition the SEC (and B1G, ACC, etc. - and the Sun Belt too, for that matter) has within itself for its championship is very meaningful and based on sports competition, as is their CFP format for determining a national champion.

Plus, from a bigger POV, since it's always been this way, all you are really saying is you don't like and never have liked college football. That's fine, my wife doesn't either, but then there's no real point to you posting about a sport you don't like. I don't go to curling forums to post about curling.

(02-25-2018 01:25 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  Imagine if the NFL announced that the playoffs would now only consist of half of their divisions. They decide, for instance, that the AFC West is weaker so its teams just won't be allowed to participate in playoffs anymore.

People would be up in arms, because its stupid. Its really stupid.

Yet somehow people defend it in CFB like its a rational way to run a sports league.

Its not healthy for the sport. Its becoming like the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.

You keep missing the point: To the SEC, PAC, B1G, etc. ... they aren't in a "league" with the Sun Belt and C-USA, etc. They don't see them the way the NFC East sees the AFC West, as a mutual peer.

As I tried to explain, the big-time level of college football isn't organized around NCAA/FBS classification, it's organized around the major conferences, which have arrangements with each other to settle results between them, in this case the CFP. It's always been that way, and was even quasi-formalized by the supreme court in 1984, when it ruled that conferences, not the NCAA, controlled media rights to football.

If competing for an NCAA title is of paramount import to Arkansas State, you can always reclassify yourselves as FCS and compete for that kind of title. To folks at LSU and Oregon, that isn't important to them.

Trust me, I have e.g. plenty of friends and colleagues who are affiliated with Florida, which has won both football and basketball national titles in recent memory. Not a single one regards their BCS titles as any less legit than their NCAA hoops titles. Not even a wee bit.

(02-25-2018 09:20 AM)JHS55 Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 08:56 AM)ken d Wrote:  What sports do you not consider entertainment?

Ken, you need to stop being an ass or go somewhere else

There's actually a kind of logic to the division between football and basketball in terms of how the titles are decided. E.g., if the hoops title was decided by a BCS/CFP type system that basically excluded the G5 and FCS schools, it would have far less legitimacy, because of the nature of the sport: In basketball, because there are only 5 guys on the court at any one time, and they play both ways, if you have one special player, he can take over a game and beat a team that has much better overall talent. We've seen that, e.g.:

Steph Curry took Davidson to the Elite 8, where they barely lost to eventual champ Kansas.

Larry Bird took Indiana State to the national title game.

David Robinson took Navy to the Sweet 16.

So if a G5 school or even an FCS school happens to luck in to a special player, for that year they truly will be a "national power" level team, and thus must be included in any playoff. Had the NCAA tournament been structured in 2008 or 1979 such that Indiana State or Davidson couldn't compete against the Big 10, SEC, PAC teams, the tournament would have been missing an important team with a real chance to win it all.

But that's not the case in football. A single special player can't make that kind of difference because of the number of players involved.

Put it this way: Put Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers - not their college selves, but their right now, NFL-MVP level selves- on to the Davidson or South Alabama football teams, and those teams would still have zero chance to beat Alabama or Clemson. They'd be better than they are, sure, but Rodgers and Brady, as amazing as they are in the NFL, would still be helpless against the major powers thanks to the lack of talent around them.

But put the current, NBA Anthony Davis or Steph Curry or Kevin Durrant on to Georgia Southern or South Alabama hoops teams, or even Davidson and Indiana State, and those teams would suddenly be very good, good enough to be a real challenge for anybody, even the very best teams.

(02-25-2018 10:42 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:25 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  Imagine if the NFL announced that the playoffs would now only consist of half of their divisions. They decide, for instance, that the AFC West is weaker so its teams just won't be allowed to participate in playoffs anymore.

People would be up in arms, because its stupid. Its really stupid.

Yet somehow people defend it in CFB like its a rational way to run a sports league.

Its not healthy for the sport. Its becoming like the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.

You keep missing the point: To the SEC, PAC, B1G, etc. ... they aren't in a "league" with the Sun Belt and C-USA, etc. They don't see them the way the NFC East sees the AFC West, as a mutual peer.

As I tried to explain, the big-time level of college football isn't organized around NCAA/FBS classification, it's organized around the major conferences, which have arrangements with each other to settle results between them, in this case the CFP. It's always been that way, and was even quasi-formalized by the supreme court in 1984, when it ruled that conferences, not the NCAA, controlled media rights to football.

If competing for an NCAA title is of paramount import to Arkansas State, you can always reclassify yourselves as FCS and compete for that kind of title. To folks at LSU and Oregon, that isn't important to them.

Trust me, I have e.g. plenty of friends and colleagues who are affiliated with Florida, which has won both football and basketball national titles in recent memory. Not a single one regards their BCS titles as any less legit than their NCAA hoops titles. Not even a wee bit.

You keep repeating how things are. WE KNOW HOW THINGS ARE. We are discussing how things OUGHT to be if this was rational. Yes...we KNOW that LSU and Florida and Oregon like the current weird farce that favors them. Got it. No need to keep explaining that to us.

Now back to the discussion of what a healthy college football subdivision SHOULD look like. LSU's preference for the current monopoly aside.





Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

(02-25-2018 10:59 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 10:42 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:25 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  Imagine if the NFL announced that the playoffs would now only consist of half of their divisions. They decide, for instance, that the AFC West is weaker so its teams just won't be allowed to participate in playoffs anymore.

People would be up in arms, because its stupid. Its really stupid.

Yet somehow people defend it in CFB like its a rational way to run a sports league.

Its not healthy for the sport. Its becoming like the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.

You keep missing the point: To the SEC, PAC, B1G, etc. ... they aren't in a "league" with the Sun Belt and C-USA, etc. They don't see them the way the NFC East sees the AFC West, as a mutual peer.

As I tried to explain, the big-time level of college football isn't organized around NCAA/FBS classification, it's organized around the major conferences, which have arrangements with each other to settle results between them, in this case the CFP. It's always been that way, and was even quasi-formalized by the supreme court in 1984, when it ruled that conferences, not the NCAA, controlled media rights to football.

If competing for an NCAA title is of paramount import to Arkansas State, you can always reclassify yourselves as FCS and compete for that kind of title. To folks at LSU and Oregon, that isn't important to them.

Trust me, I have e.g. plenty of friends and colleagues who are affiliated with Florida, which has won both football and basketball national titles in recent memory. Not a single one regards their BCS titles as any less legit than their NCAA hoops titles. Not even a wee bit.

You keep repeating how things are. WE KNOW HOW THINGS ARE. We are discussing how things OUGHT to be if this was rational. Yes...we KNOW that LSU and Florida and Oregon like the current weird farce that favors them.

You don't get it, because it's not a farce, or at least if it is, you have failed to explain why. For my part, i haven't merely said "how" things are, i've explained WHY they are that way, a big difference. So here's your chance:

Explain why e.g. the Sun Belt champ not having a formal, systemic chance to compete with the SEC champ for a national football championship makes Alabama's national championship any more of a farce than the MEAC champ not having that same opportunity does.

This space reserved ............................

(02-25-2018 11:07 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 10:59 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 10:42 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:25 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  Imagine if the NFL announced that the playoffs would now only consist of half of their divisions. They decide, for instance, that the AFC West is weaker so its teams just won't be allowed to participate in playoffs anymore.

People would be up in arms, because its stupid. Its really stupid.

Yet somehow people defend it in CFB like its a rational way to run a sports league.

Its not healthy for the sport. Its becoming like the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.

You keep missing the point: To the SEC, PAC, B1G, etc. ... they aren't in a "league" with the Sun Belt and C-USA, etc. They don't see them the way the NFC East sees the AFC West, as a mutual peer.

As I tried to explain, the big-time level of college football isn't organized around NCAA/FBS classification, it's organized around the major conferences, which have arrangements with each other to settle results between them, in this case the CFP. It's always been that way, and was even quasi-formalized by the supreme court in 1984, when it ruled that conferences, not the NCAA, controlled media rights to football.

If competing for an NCAA title is of paramount import to Arkansas State, you can always reclassify yourselves as FCS and compete for that kind of title. To folks at LSU and Oregon, that isn't important to them.

Trust me, I have e.g. plenty of friends and colleagues who are affiliated with Florida, which has won both football and basketball national titles in recent memory. Not a single one regards their BCS titles as any less legit than their NCAA hoops titles. Not even a wee bit.

You keep repeating how things are. WE KNOW HOW THINGS ARE. We are discussing how things OUGHT to be if this was rational. Yes...we KNOW that LSU and Florida and Oregon like the current weird farce that favors them.

You don't get it, because it's not a farce, or at least if it is, you have failed to explain why. For my part, i haven't merely said "how" things are, i've explained WHY they are that way, a big difference. So here's your chance:

Explain why e.g. the Sun Belt champ not having a formal, systemic chance to compete with the SEC champ for a national football championship makes Alabama's national championship any more of a farce than the MEAC champ not having that same opportunity does.

This space reserved ............................

I have explained it many times, including in this thread. I even gave an analogy. I can point to hundreds of other sports leagues with the same system. Go listen to Mike Leach's explanation on YouTube. There are many other people, even on this board, who have explained it...for years.

You have a playoff, in this subdivision, that excludes half of its member conferences from access to its playoffs and championships before a game is played. I'm not aware of any other sports league that uses that system...because it is, on its face, absurd.

The MEAC champ is not a team in this subdivision. MEAC is not an FBS conference.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

(02-24-2018 08:31 PM)msm96wolf Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 08:02 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 07:39 PM)msm96wolf Wrote:  You need a network willing to pay for the product.

No you dont. You need a fanbase willing to pay the freight via "in stadium: generated revenue. The P5 makes the vast majority for their athletic department budget from ticket sales, concessions, parking, and donations. Thats where the G5 has to get better. The schools that build their fan support to the point where it generates sufficient revenue to support the athletics department will be fine regardless of tv. Of course, extra TV revenue would be great, but its not needed and its possible that being too concerned with keeping TV happy for minimal dollars might actually be counterproductive when it comes to growing the fan base revenue. I think the most of the G5 is actually in that category right now.

AC,
I have to disagree. The TV and CFP money is what has made the difference in wealth. Just in the ACC, the private schools don't bring in what some G5s bring in attendance. If your statement was true, ECU would be having no issues. They have one of the most loyal fan bases around.I would assume most higher G5 schools should already have this revenue stream as well. If they haven't, I doubt any conference marketing program will change that.

You disagree? With what? Again, my statement was the G5's must build their fan support to the point that the revenue generated from ticket sales, concessions, parking, and donations, is sufficient to properly fund the athletic department. I also said all G5's have to get better at that. Neither of those statements are arguable. Are there some P5's that ely in TV money? Of course, but that's because they have allowed their budgets to balloon well over a typical G5 budget.

The fact is the G5 has zero control over what TV will pay them. They have to rely on revenue streams they can control. Secondly, you act like the G5 has lost revenue somewhere. They havent. They have never had any significant revenue from TV in cmparison to the P5 since the mid-1990's.

The key for the G5 has been school subsidies. As long as the school perceives that the marketing value of being FBS is worth the subsidy cost, the subsidy will continue.

(02-25-2018 01:01 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:14 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:04 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 11:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 10:30 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Well, you know, Louisville, Rutgers, and TCU have all joined the club in the last 10 years, and when i was young, Miami and FSU were nothing.

The system has never provided more exposure for those in the G5 than it does now. 20+ years ago, Arkansas State would appear on national TV basically never, not just in a given year but any year. Now, it happens at least once a year if you make a bowl.

You just have to build your value. That's what USF is trying to do.

How about just making this sports league like any other damn sports league in the world and allow all of its conference champions access to the playoffs.

That's it. No extra money, no special deals, no invitations to the special club...just access to the playoffs for each conference like any other sports league where every yeam can make its own fame ON THE FIELD.

No polls, no beauty contests, no sportswriters, no computers...everyone can make it to the top...ON THE FIELD...like sports.

Jeez.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

You're dealing with college football logic here. Going undefeated is good enough in every other team sport but college football logic is about who you played. But not really because the logic evolves to make sure every scenario is taken care of for the same few teams. I'm sure UCF could have played and beaten Alabama and OU and still not sniffed the playoffs this year.

I could live without all conferences getting an auto-bid so long as one outsider is guaranteed as well as Access (at-larges) for others.

Nah. I don't feel like accepting a slightly better variety of 2nd class citizenship. Its a sports league, it should be structured like one. All of our kids should have an equal path to a National Championship decided entirely by their own play. It may be unlikely for UCF to win a NC but it should be decided in the playoff, not in a boardroom.

Thing is, there's nobody at Alabama or LSU or Ohio State that regards themselves as being "in the same league" as Arkansas State or South Alabama or New Mexico State.

Their leagues are their conferences, and they have other conferences they regard as more or less peers. To them, the NCAA classification is basically meaningless.

So harping from folks at North Texas State about "this is crazy! How can we have a system that doesn't allow for the champs of my conference to compete for the national title with the SEC champ like we do it in basketball!?!?!" doesn't resonate in those places at all. They don't see it as "crazy" because the NCAA and FBS isn't their frame of reference in terms of who their peers are and who they are competing with, locally (in-conference) and externally (out-of-conference). NCAA/FBS is just a mildly-useful category for determining what non-peer schools should count for scheduling purposes. But there isn't any more anxiety that if they (e.g., say Georgia) wins the national title that it be via a process that means the systematically and formally beat out the Sun Belt champion, any more than that they beat out the CIAA or MEAC champion. Sun Belt champ isn't any more who they are competing against to them than the MEAC champ is.

That's just the culture of big-time college football.

Which is why I call the CFP the College Football Invitational. Its not really a championship. Its really little different from the 1940's mythical championships that were determined entirely by poll results. The only difference is instead of an entire nation judging all of college football, 13 P5 hacks do it and they added 3 extra exhibition games to make some money. Can you imagine if the Olympics had a 13 man committee to decide who gets to compete in each event. The top 4 in world would be ranked in each event by the selection committee. Oh, and all the selection committee members would be from Russia, Iran, N Korea, and China. Strange how suddenly the US athletes would never seem to crack the top 4.

I have no issue with tv contracts. TV will pay for what makes them money. I also don't care about a share-the-wealth plan.

All I care about is a rational playoff system with conference champs all having access. Its not unreasonable to expect what every other sports league does.

If you have that then the market will even the rest of it out over time naturally.

More good players will see a G5 route to the playoffs as opposed to sitting on LSU's bench. Some will take that route.

If a team like Boise or UCF has a two three year run in the playoffs then tv will pay their conference more and their seeding will improve naturally. If not, they won't.

A P5 bottom dweller or two might decide at some point that they have a better shot at playoff success by moving to a MAC or an AAC.

Just making the playoff into a regular sports model would make the sport a lot healthier.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

^ What about a playoff that takes the conference champ of conferences with teams in the Top 25?

(02-25-2018 01:09 PM)McKinney Wrote:  ^ What about a playoff that takes the conference champ of conferences with teams in the Top 25?

A poll. Why do we insist on some sort of beauty contest or opinion poll or committee? This is sports. You can judge all that when you seed the playoff just like other sports.

Injecting the poll back into it just adds the subjectivity back in.

All conference champs, every players fate is in the hands of them and their teammates on the field. No computers, no old coaches, no sportswriters, just players.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

(02-25-2018 01:16 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:09 PM)McKinney Wrote:  ^ What about a playoff that takes the conference champ of conferences with teams in the Top 25?

A poll. Why do we insist on some sort of beauty contest or opinion poll or committee? This is sports. You can judge all that when you seed the playoff just like other sports.

Injecting the poll back into it just adds the subjectivity back in.

All conference champs, every players fate is in the hands of them and their teammates on the field. No computers, no old coaches, no sportswriters, just players.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

Name one league with more than even a quarter of the 130 FBS teams.

(02-25-2018 01:30 PM)McKinney Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:16 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:09 PM)McKinney Wrote:  ^ What about a playoff that takes the conference champ of conferences with teams in the Top 25?

A poll. Why do we insist on some sort of beauty contest or opinion poll or committee? This is sports. You can judge all that when you seed the playoff just like other sports.

Injecting the poll back into it just adds the subjectivity back in.

All conference champs, every players fate is in the hands of them and their teammates on the field. No computers, no old coaches, no sportswriters, just players.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

Name one league with more than even a quarter of the 130 FBS teams.

We have 10 conference champions. Its not hard.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

(02-25-2018 11:49 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The key for the G5 has been school subsidies. As long as the school perceives that the marketing value of being FBS is worth the subsidy cost, the subsidy will continue.

I think at most G5 schools, there is an understanding that being FBS isn't worth it for marketing value. It doesn't pay for itself in terms of more/better enrollment or anything like that. It might bring in some of that, but the costs exceed the value.

School admins defend FBS because it strokes their own egos. It allows them to hob-nob at various meetings with admins from "power" schools, which is good personally for their careers, it allows them to take free vacations at school expense to the bowl games, stuff like that.

It also strokes the ego of big donors, to the extent that G5 have big donors. E.g., a big donor might want the school to be FBS for the same ego reasons - so he can feel quasi-equal to the alums at his country club who attended P5 institutions when they are talking football, and so he can also get to travel to the bowl games with perks for being a donor and the like. So he donates more to the school than he otherwise would.

But again, it doesn't add up to actually paying for FBS, which is why student subsidies are needed. Students pay for the ego-gratification of the big donors and administrators.

There is only so much air time.

That time and effort goes largely to the P5 because of the returns.

(02-25-2018 04:31 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  The national title though was awarded by the polls. It wasn't until later on that the bowls actually affected the national title race, as the champion would be awarded before the bowls initially, which explains some quirky things and why a few champions actually lost their bowls games.

Yes, the polls eventually gave in and acknowledged the power of the bowl games by picking the poll winners after the bowl games.

And the system still bends to the power of the bowl games. What we have now is just a minor tweak on the traditional bowls with a "plus-one" game tacked on afterwards. In many ways the bowls are more influential than ever, because every coach and diehard fan now thinks their team "deserves" a bowl game just for going 6-6. So the group who wants to preserve the bowl system -- and not have a 16 or 24 team playoff that would pretty much kill the bowl games -- includes all those coaches and ADs of teams who see the "DXL Frisco Bowl" or the "AutoNation Cure Bowl" as a huge accomplishment warranting greater job security or a contract extension. All of the FBS coaches and ADs whose teams are not perennial top-10 material fear that a larger playoff would mean that more coaches and ADs would get fired for never making the playoff. Having 38 bowl games is their security blanket.

(02-25-2018 01:55 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 11:49 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The key for the G5 has been school subsidies. As long as the school perceives that the marketing value of being FBS is worth the subsidy cost, the subsidy will continue.

I think at most G5 schools, there is an understanding that being FBS isn't worth it for marketing value. It doesn't pay for itself in terms of more/better enrollment or anything like that. It might bring in some of that, but the costs exceed the value.

School admins defend FBS because it strokes their own egos. It allows them to hob-nob at various meetings with admins from "power" schools, which is good personally for their careers, it allows them to take free vacations at school expense to the bowl games, stuff like that.

It also strokes the ego of big donors, to the extent that G5 have big donors. E.g., a big donor might want the school to be FBS for the same ego reasons - so he can feel quasi-equal to the alums at his country club who attended P5 institutions when they are talking football, and so he can also get to travel to the bowl games with perks for being a donor and the like. So he donates more to the school than he otherwise would.

But again, it doesn't add up to actually paying for FBS, which is why student subsidies are needed. Students pay for the ego-gratification of the big donors and administrators.

No Quo, G5 football actually is more money.

In 2016 the MAC received $32 million from ESPN. 10 million from its conference TV deal and 22 million from its participation in the CFP. Without G5 status the MAC would have received next to zero money from ESPN.

Then I guess you could say well the MAC is earning more from ESPN so they must be spending more. Kent State just hired a new coach for 460k per year. If they were in FCS as a larger school in that subdivision they might be spending 250k on an HC.

For spending just a few hundred thousand more in coaching, Kent State is pulling in close to 3 million more in TV money. That doesn't even count more marketing money, advertising all of which is much larger as a G5 program.

G5 really is better than FCS and not just an ego thing.

(02-25-2018 02:02 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 04:31 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  The national title though was awarded by the polls. It wasn't until later on that the bowls actually affected the national title race, as the champion would be awarded before the bowls initially, which explains some quirky things and why a few champions actually lost their bowls games.

Yes, the polls eventually gave in and acknowledged the power of the bowl games by picking the poll winners after the bowl games.

And the system still bends to the power of the bowl games. What we have now is just a minor tweak on the traditional bowls with a "plus-one" game tacked on afterwards. In many ways the bowls are more influential than ever, because every coach and diehard fan now thinks their team "deserves" a bowl game just for going 6-6. So the group who wants to preserve the bowl system -- and not have a 16 or 24 team playoff that would pretty much kill the bowl games -- includes all those coaches and ADs of teams who see the "DXL Frisco Bowl" or the "AutoNation Cure Bowl" as a huge accomplishment warranting greater job security or a contract extension. All of the FBS coaches and ADs whose teams are not perennial top-10 material fear that a larger playoff would mean that more coaches and ADs would get fired for never making the playoff. Having 38 bowl games is their security blanket.

The security blanket for the smaller P5 coaches and ADs has become the massive salaries which have become so high to the point where the school cannot afford to fire them.

The realization is becoming greater at these P5 schools that they cannot compete with the heavyweights. The BCS era offered a glimmer of hope and the smaller P5 programs expanded their stadiums in hope of reaching parity with the heavyweights but they just can't justify 8-10 million dollar salaries half as big as the TV money they are receiving for head football coaches.

The faustian bargain of enormous coaching salaries is key to job security.

(02-25-2018 12:02 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:01 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:14 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 12:04 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 11:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  How about just making this sports league like any other damn sports league in the world and allow all of its conference champions access to the playoffs.

That's it. No extra money, no special deals, no invitations to the special club...just access to the playoffs for each conference like any other sports league where every yeam can make its own fame ON THE FIELD.

No polls, no beauty contests, no sportswriters, no computers...everyone can make it to the top...ON THE FIELD...like sports.

Jeez.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

You're dealing with college football logic here. Going undefeated is good enough in every other team sport but college football logic is about who you played. But not really because the logic evolves to make sure every scenario is taken care of for the same few teams. I'm sure UCF could have played and beaten Alabama and OU and still not sniffed the playoffs this year.

I could live without all conferences getting an auto-bid so long as one outsider is guaranteed as well as Access (at-larges) for others.

Nah. I don't feel like accepting a slightly better variety of 2nd class citizenship. Its a sports league, it should be structured like one. All of our kids should have an equal path to a National Championship decided entirely by their own play. It may be unlikely for UCF to win a NC but it should be decided in the playoff, not in a boardroom.

Thing is, there's nobody at Alabama or LSU or Ohio State that regards themselves as being "in the same league" as Arkansas State or South Alabama or New Mexico State.

Their leagues are their conferences, and they have other conferences they regard as more or less peers. To them, the NCAA classification is basically meaningless.

So harping from folks at North Texas State about "this is crazy! How can we have a system that doesn't allow for the champs of my conference to compete for the national title with the SEC champ like we do it in basketball!?!?!" doesn't resonate in those places at all. They don't see it as "crazy" because the NCAA and FBS isn't their frame of reference in terms of who their peers are and who they are competing with, locally (in-conference) and externally (out-of-conference). NCAA/FBS is just a mildly-useful category for determining what non-peer schools should count for scheduling purposes. But there isn't any more anxiety that if they (e.g., say Georgia) wins the national title that it be via a process that means the systematically and formally beat out the Sun Belt champion, any more than that they beat out the CIAA or MEAC champion. Sun Belt champ isn't any more who they are competing against to them than the MEAC champ is.

That's just the culture of big-time college football.

Which is why I call the CFP the College Football Invitational. Its not really a championship. Its really little different from the 1940's mythical championships that were determined entirely by poll results. The only difference is instead of an entire nation judging all of college football, 13 P5 hacks do it and they added 3 extra exhibition games to make some money.

Well, that's not entirely true. E.g., if the AP poll were to pick a champ who differed from the CFP champ, they might be regarded as a legit "split champ" or something, and that is chosen by national media.

Also, it is a real championship, in that it is the formal championship format decided on by the membership. In that sense, it's no difference from the Super Bowl being the championship decided upon by its members, the NFL franchises. It's not like some Alien Force is imposing this process on the schools.