The Rest of College Football

[iam416]

WM was saying they do, but they don't win like the schools you mentioned.

Recruiting + subpar coaching = FSU
Recruiting + good coaching = Alabama

[Hannibal]

Yep. But, if you wanna win big, you have to have both, IMO. There are always exceptions (Dr. Tom, e.g., won without ridiculous recruiting; Petey, IMO, won without top level coaching -- that's far more debatable, tbh) -- or, say, Mack Brown, who rode talent to a BCS Title.

IMHO Petey was a legitimately great coach. You're right about Mack Brown though. Guy is the most obvious example ever of winning with brute force recruiting.

[Rocky Bleier]

WM was saying they do, but they don't win like the schools you mentioned.

Recruiting + subpar coaching = FSU
Recruiting + good coaching = Alabama

Gotcha. Still, I do see the traditional powers going after the same 4 and 5 star kids. Overall, I think those recruting services do a pretty good job.

[entropy]

But remember, stars mean nothing. It's just coincidental that Alabama, USC, and LSU win with highly rated players.

and cheating... and cheating..

[WM Wolverine]

Petey was a good defensive coach and could only score points when he had a good OC and had great talent.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The ACC came out with its new divisions today. Once Pitt and Syracuse join, they are going to a 9-game conference schedule. Divisons look like this:

Miami
VT
Virginia
UNC
Duke
Georgia Tech
Pitt

FSU
Clemson
Wake Forest
NC State
Maryland
BC
Syracuse

[WM Wolverine]

Cross division rivals?

[The Oracle]

I don't know, maybe it's me, but what kind of conference is it when you don't play almost 1/3 of your opponents?? Just seems stupid.

[Dr. Strangelove]

WM, crossover partners are as follows:

FSU-Miami
Clemson-Georgia Tech
NC State-UNC
Wake Forest-Duke
BC-Virginia Tech
Maryland-Virginia
Syracuse-Pitt

They'll play seven teams every year. The remaining six teams they'll only face one home/away every six years.

[WM Wolverine]

What I hate most about divisions (Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota, MSU, Neb), you play your 'division' every year yet you play teams in the other division (e.g. M vs Wisc, PSU, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois) maybe 4 out of 10 years.

I'd like to trade some of those games vs the former for the latter.

[Rob F]

The ACC came out with its new divisions today. Once Pitt and Syracuse join, they are going to a 9-game conference schedule. Divisons look like this:

Miami
VT
Virginia
UNC
Duke
Georgia Tech
Pitt

FSU
Clemson
Wake Forest
NC State
Maryland
BC
Syracuse

crossover partners are as follows:

FSU-Miami
Clemson-Georgia Tech
NC State-UNC
Wake Forest-Duke
BC-Virginia Tech
Maryland-Virginia
Syracuse-Pitt

They'll play seven teams every year. The remaining six teams they'll only face one home/away every six years.

So FSU only plays VaTech a total of 2 times over each 6-year time frame, same with BC vs. Miami, the way you describe it. That sucky scheduling illustrates just exactly why I don't want the B1G to expand further to 14 teams.

[Wild Hoss]

I don't like that the NCAA mandated divisions...I really don't see what business it is of theirs. Conferences should be able to determine their champion and structure however they see fit.

For some leagues it works fine, and while we'll get used to it in the Big Ten I'm not sure such a limited structure really works well. I would have preferred one or two permenant rival games and have the remaining 6-7 games on some kind of rotating basis. Surely some group of nerds at Northwestern could have drawn up an acceptable scheduling algorithm.

[whodean]

I'd like to see the schedule contain all conferences games except maybe one.

[Rob F]

I'd like to see the schedule contain all conferences games except maybe one.

I'd like to see more conference games, too---although at best under that scenario, it would have to be a 10 game B1G/2-game non-conference slate. No way would the B1G go to 11 conference games, as that would make it 6 home/5 road every other year, and vice-versa.

Problem with even going to 10 conference games would be that most B1G teams would lose a home game each season. In Michigan's case, that would mean that instead of a total of 14-15 home games over each 2-season stretch, we'd instead have 13 home games per every 2 seasons (assuming that we continue to keep ND on our schedule most years). Giving up home games would be tough to sell to most AD's.

[UMStan White]

Brandon would give up a home and away series against another BCS conference team, such as ND and instead every year he'd bring in some tomato can to play, gouging the fan base. It's just like in the pros where season ticket holders have to buy two home exhibition games to go with their 8 home game tickets.