The Rest of College Football

[Hannibal]

You've got to have 16 to do pods. It would work, but also with problems of its own. Even if the SEC went to pods, you'd have big issues over strength of schedule and balancing that out with preserving rivalries. Would Florida be in a pod with Tennessee and Georgia? Wouldn't they almost have to be? But that means Missouri would probably end up in a shit pod with Vandy and Kentucky. If you don't do them geographically, then you end up with some kind of gerrymandering arrangement similar to the idiocy that the Big Ten has now.

What really needs to happen is that the people who run these conferences need to realize that with a 12-game regular season, the optimal size of a conference is 10 or 12. Expanding to 16 does nothing but redistribute and ultimately destroy value.

[Hannibal]

In 25 years, this will be looked at as either the era where the game truly went to shit, or it will be looked at as a period of temporary insanity that the game thankfully was pulled out of.

[hack]

In 25 years, this will be looked at as either the era where the game truly went to shit, or it will be looked at as a period of temporary insanity that the game thankfully was pulled out of.

Well said.

[WM Wolverine]

My major dislike of expansion (10+ team conferences) is that M will be playing Penn State, Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue & Illinois less often that they otherwise would... M didn't have a real rivalry with any of the above but playing them so little makes it feel much less like were in the same football a conference...

If you're going to be a 14-team conference, you need to play 9 (or more) conference games period. SEC would rather beat up on Sun Belt and Div I-AA schools than play another conference game where they'd risk losing...

Once you get to ~14 team conferences, it feels like you have two conferences, especially when you designate one cross-division game a rivalry game.

[Dr. Strangelove]

You've got to have 16 to do pods. It would work, but also with problems of its own. Even if the SEC went to pods, you'd have big issues over strength of schedule and balancing that out with preserving rivalries. Would Florida be in a pod with Tennessee and Georgia? Wouldn't they almost have to be? But that means Missouri would probably end up in a shit pod with Vandy and Kentucky. If you don't do them geographically, then you end up with some kind of gerrymandering arrangement similar to the idiocy that the Big Ten has now.

What really needs to happen is that the people who run these conferences need to realize that with a 12-game regular season, the optimal size of a conference is 10 or 12. Expanding to 16 does nothing but redistribute and ultimately destroy value.

Yeah, exactly, you need 16 to do pods.

How could the SEC split them? Depends on who they add. But right now I would think the west pod could be LSU, A&M, Missouri, and Arkansas.

[entropy]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- NCAA president Mark Emmert believes another round of conference realignment could be sparked by schools trying to position themselves to play in a proposed four-team college football playoff.

Emmert spoke on a variety of issues during a stop at the Big 12's annual meeting Thursday, including the growing gulf between "haves" and "have nots," the loopholes that exist for student-athletes to transfer, and the concussion epidemic in all level of sports.

Still, it was college football's postseason that dominated discussions.

While a four-team playoff is being worked on by college football officials, how the teams are picked and how a new format affects the rest of the postseason is still to be determined.



“
If there's going to be significant movement by FBS institutions over the course of the summer, it will be driven by that.
” -- NCAA president Mark Emmert, on how a playoff could lead to more realignment

"If there's going to be significant movement by FBS institutions over the course of the summer," Emmert said, "it will be driven by that."

Big 12 administrators said this week that they support a four-team playoff model in which participants are chosen by a selection committee, rather than a complicated formula such as the BCS standings, which are based on computer rankings and polls.

The Big 12 also has said it favors playoff semifinals occurring outside of the current bowl structure, even though some conferences prefer to keep intact some of its historic relationships between bowls and leagues.

The Big 12 and SEC recently announced a partnership for their own bowl game, tentatively called the Champions Bowl, which will pit their champions against each other -- or the next-best team from each league if the champions are playing in the proposed playoff.

"There's a laundry list of issues," Emmert said of the playoff structure. "Is it going to be part of the bowls? Isn't it? How do you handle the allocation of money? How do you pick four teams? Do you play on campuses or not?"

Emmert also cautioned that a playoff could deepen an existing gulf between high-resource schools and those with limited financial means, pointing out Michigan has been a football power almost since the game was invented, "and I would imagine it would remain so."

"When you go back and look at history, the financial differences have always been there, but some universities have huge competitive advantages through history and geography and decisions they've made over decades that are in some ways insurmountable," Emmert said. "It just reinforces some of those inherent advantages that some universities have had for a century."

In other news, Emmert said there has been no consensus on an overhaul of transfer rules.

Some administrators want to close loopholes that allow student-athletes to transfer without sitting out a year provided they have graduated from their previous institution, along with ending a waiver system for athletes to participate immediately for certain hardships.

"Some people think transfers are too restrictive, others think it's too easy, and some think it's just right," Emmert said. "There's a lot of things going on."

Emmert said it's a balancing act between supporting schools that have provided significant financial commitments to a student-athlete with the rights of the athlete, especially when regular students are able to transfer at will and coaches can leave freely for other jobs.

Emmert said that about 40 percent of men's basketball players are not at their original school at the end of their sophomore year, and the instances of players transferring between four-year institutions is 10 or 11 percent -- still a number that represents hundreds of players.

"You don't want a coach to do his recruiting by sitting on his couch and watching TV and saying, 'Oh, that kid looks unhappy sitting on the bench. I'm going to recruit him,' " Emmert said.

The president also said the NCAA continues to emphasize the welfare of student-athletes, especially given recent news about the health of players once their careers are over.

The epidemic of concussions in the NFL and even college football has garnered most of the attention, but Emmert also hears from former student-athletes who have bad knees or other lasting injuries from their playing days in a variety of sports.

"Obviously, our responsibility is to do everything we can with current understanding of health and welfare to maximize the safety of student-athletes," he said. "I don't know 20 years ago what the level of science was in understanding injuries, and I sure don't know what it was 40 years ago. But what we can do is say, 'Look, what's our best understanding of injuries today, and what can we do to maximize the welfare of our student-athletes?'

"It was a common occurrence to have eight, 10, 12 kids a year die in the early 1900s playing college football. The NCAA was formed in part to say, 'We can't have that.' And today, if we had anything like that happen, we'd go appropriately berserk."

[Dr. Strangelove]

A problem with the superconference scenarios is that right now they all assume the ACC folding but the Big12 surviving. That makes it pretty unclear where the Pac12 is going to get another 4 teams from.

[entropy]

Boise state... I bet some big12 teams would leave..

[WM Wolverine]

We'll have to wait and see what transpires of the FSU/Clemson issue. It sounds like Texas doesn't want any competition in the Big XII, so they'll stay at 10 unless the money is too good to pass up adding them...

ACC is a distance #5 in $ (their contract will look awful in after the Big XII and B10 sign new deals) but on the field I think they COULD be competitive. Clemson, VT, Miami, FSU is stronger than the Pac 12's top four and the Big XII's top four. They more than anything, need FSU to play at a higher level and be the dominant team they should be. VT, Clemson shouldn't be needing to play in their BCS bowls they keep losing, FSU should be in those instead if Bowden didn't hang on so long.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The elite schools in the Pac12 will not agree to add Boise State. Nor BYU

[hack]

4 super conferences easily become 8 conferences once the playoffs are expanded. That sounds reasonable to me. A shame that process will disrupt some traditional rivalries, but that's how it goes...

[THE_WIZARD_]

The PAC-12 would love to expand to 14 or 16...but only if Texas is one of the additions. Boise will not be one of them. BYU won't be either. Texas and OU would be their top 2 on the realistic wish list...but that only happens if the B12 nosedives again (which could happen if they don't get back to at least 12 teams and super-conferences begin to be the norm). Most of what will happen will be predicated by what FSU and Clemson do. I don't see the SEC adding them because Florida and South Carolina don't want them. I think they either stay put or join the B12.

[entropy]

if I was the ACC, I'm destroying the BE now and pushing for ND... ND probably wouldn't happen, but it would put them ahead of the Big12.

[THE_WIZARD_]

ND ain't joining the ACC as a full member...in fact I don't think they join ANY conference as a full member. ND Football still thinks they are the shnizzle.

[entropy]

Florida's Machen says playoff foundation is set


BY VAHE GREGORIAN • vgregorian@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8199 | Posted: Friday, June 1, 2012 12:30


DESTIN, Fla. • To hear Florida president Bernie Machen tell it, the foundation of a revolutionary four-team college football playoff already is being poured.

"We're going to do a playoff, a four-team playoff, with the top four teams, and the semifinals in the bowl system and the championship (game) bid out," Machen, chairman of the Southeastern Conference board of directors, said after he emerged Thursday evening from a meeting of the SEC's presidents and chancellors. "I think we're all together on that."

Asked if he meant the SEC or the major collegiate conferences, Machen smiled and said, "I think they're all coming around. We're pretty in sync with the Big 12 right now, and I think they've come out in that way.

"The group that's got to get real, the Big Ten's got to realize that the world is going in a different direction."

Specifically, Machen was referring to one of the dividing lines on the movement: Should any form of playoff be made up of the top four teams, however they are determined, or strictly of league champions?

The SEC, which has produced the last six football national champions and had two of its teams in last season's national title game, is adamant that the playoff consist of the top four teams.

"We won't compromise on that," said Machen, a Webster Groves native.

And when the SEC formally declares a public stance on the matter at the conclusion of its spring meetings today, it also apparently will have a black-and-white take on the notion that the plus-one model would be an acceptable form of playoff.

Under that format, the two teams to play in the national title game would be selected after the bowl games are played.

"It will get no traction with us," said Machen, later adding, "I don't see how the plus-one would work."

Not that the SEC is inflexible on the entire movement.

"I don't know if we know what happens if somebody says no, but it really does have to be a consensus model to work ...," he said. "I just don't foresee a strong-arming kind of solution. I think we're all going to have to, if necessary, compromise and get something we can all live with."

As for just what the SEC might be willing to compromise on?

"I'm not going there," Machen said, playfully. "You don't start with a compromise; you start with what you think is the best deal for your fans and your university. But I'm reasonably hopeful we'll get there."

The implications of the new system, which will be put in place in 2014, could extend beyond merely a radical change at the top of the sport.

That was trumpeted recently when the SEC and Big 12 reached a five-year agreement starting in 2014 for their champions to meet if they aren't in the four-team playoff.

Perhaps most notable about the announcement was that it featured no specific bowl affiliation, signaling both that it's up for bid and that a new era is at hand.

"In 2014, the slate is wiped clean,'' Machen said. "What are there now, 35 bowls? That will be what, a half a dozen, four to six, let's say, tied up in the playoff and the BCS. So what's going to happen to the other 26 bowls? I think everybody will be looking for connections and relationships. I think we start all over once we set the BCS and the playoff.''

Mizzou chancellor Brady Deaton was unable to attend the meetings because he had to attend to an unspecified matter on campus.
.

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Posted in Mizzou on Friday, June 1, 2012 12:30 am Updated: 10:35 pm. | Tags:
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