Re-Think College Football

[timhisu]

Since every Tom, **** & Harry seems to have an idea for how college football will or should look like in the future, I thought I may as well flesh out an idea I've been thinking about since the Spring.

Re-Think College Football

My idea, unlike everyone's "magic 64" idea that seems to leave out Iowa State, has room for all 120 current Division-1A schools.

 

[cyclones500]

If nothing else, this looks like thorough analysis. I'm going to spend some time to absorb it.

My preliminary guess is it makes too much sense to actually be considered as a model by anyone "in charge." :sad:

 

[CLONEing around]

This was really well thought out and presented. You obviously put a lot of time and thought into it. Well done. Now do yourself a favor and get a girlfriend.

 

[timhisu]

This was really well thought out and presented. You obviously put a lot of time and thought into it. Well done. Now do yourself a favor and get a girlfriend.

Getting married in 3 weeks, but thanks.

 

[ISUCyclones2015]

After reading through it a few times, it seems like a totally legit idea. I am actually highly in favor of it. With all the playoff games that would be happening between the divisions, all the current sponsored bowls would have something to do with themselves in such a playoff scenario.

The Divisions would be hotly contested over and would be the one thing that would send this to the ground... Missouri and Texas A&M being in the 2nd league along with Michigan State, all in the same division would really muck things up. But I would actually love this system to death!!!

 

[shadow]

This is awesome. You should send it to all the major players (media, conferences, etc.). This would be excellent.

 

[timhisu]

This is awesome. You should send it to all the major players (media, conferences, etc.). This would be excellent.

Thanks, mate. Considering a few options at the moment but I'll tweet it to a few local folks to peek at.

 

[cyclone22]

Here comes a long post.
Great work! The presentation of your ideas were phenomenal. This is something a lot of fans would buy into, because it actually uses logic! Here is my feedback:

Pros:
1.) A fair playoff
2.) Regional ties, rivalries, etc.
3.) Constant competition, fighting for top 3 or avoiding bottom
4.) Abilities for achieving/underachieving schools to move up/down, every school has a chance to win title
5.) Opportunities for same big money sponsorship
6.) BCS sucks!

Cons:
1.) One bad year/coaching change/rebuilding, can land you in the cellar for potentially 5-10 years.
2.) Say Texas goes 5-7, and drop. Their fans are not going to be happy having to play in the 2nd league the following year and having a 0% chance of a championship.
3.) That kind of massive overhaul would need the agreement of 120 schools, impossible to suit everybody's needs
4.) Big $$ contracts will keep feeding into B10, PAC12, and SEC etc and those conferences won't dump those, even if they control a new group of teams.
5.)The SEC fans would be against it, because they wouldn't get their media shoe-in into a BCS championship.
6.) Everyone would schedule cupcake out of conference games to ensure staying in division. (this could be solved by forcing the #5 seed in east to play #5 in west etc)

I encourage you to spread this idea around, maybe more people will look at realignment with more logic and creativity.

 

[timhisu]

Here comes a long post.
Great work! The presentation of your ideas were phenomenal. This is something a lot of fans would buy into, because it actually uses logic! Here is my feedback:

Pros:
1.) A fair playoff
2.) Regional ties, rivalries, etc.
3.) Constant competition, fighting for top 3 or avoiding bottom
4.) Abilities for achieving/underachieving schools to move up/down, every school has a chance to win title
5.) Opportunities for same big money sponsorship
6.) BCS sucks!

Cons:
1.) One bad year/coaching change/rebuilding, can land you in the cellar for potentially 5-10 years.
2.) Say Texas goes 5-7, and drop. Their fans are not going to be happy having to play in the 2nd league the following year and having a 0% chance of a championship.
3.) That kind of massive overhaul would need the agreement of 120 schools, impossible to suit everybody's needs
4.) Big $$ contracts will keep feeding into B10, PAC12, and SEC etc and those conferences won't dump those, even if they control a new group of teams.
5.)The SEC fans would be against it, because they wouldn't get their media shoe-in into a BCS championship.
6.) Everyone would schedule cupcake out of conference games to ensure staying in division. (this could be solved by forcing the #5 seed in east to play #5 in west etc)

I encourage you to spread this idea around, maybe more people will look at realignment with more logic and creativity.

Cool comments. I have some responses to your cons:

1) One variation to promotion/relegation is that there is a 1-game playoff between the team to be relegated and the team to be promoted. Winner gets the spot in the top division. That'd give the Texas' of the world one last shot to beat Missouri and stay in the top division.

6) Actually, in my proposal only division games "count" as w/l in the division standings.

I'm actually up working tonight. I'm not usually up this late lol.

 

[synapticwave]

Unless you can convince current power players that this will make them more money or be more stable, then it's a waste of your time to think about. Since you're a CS guy hopefully you'll get this but, everything you presented is just "implementation details" what really matters to the system is: will this make more money. And more specifically, will this make more money for the few key players that currently control the SEC, Big10, Big12, Pac12 and ACC. Present a market analysis of how this is financially better than the current model and how, over time, this protects the big player's interests and then you're getting somewhere.

 

[edr247]

This makes way too much sense to ever be accepted.

Will need to read it a few more times. Really good analysis, btw.

 

[NATEizKING]

I love the promotion/relegation of the EPL. It has withstood the test of time and is a great system for the most popular league in the world. I am not sure how it would pan out at the collegiate level and how the profit sharing would work. As proposed before, I think the better system would be to have the bottom two teams drop and the top two teams be promoted with no playoff. Teams earn that spot during the regular season by their play in the current EPL. Having an off game in the playoff should not cost them a spot to a team that had an off season. Allowing for two teams to move up and down would give those teams would mean one terrible or one good season would not determine your destiny for the next 10 years.

Edit: I don't mean no playoff, just no bottom team vs. top team to switch division playoff game.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Impressive........I bookmarked it to read more in depth, but on it's face, it's very well conceived.

 

[HFCS]

MLB baseball is the American sport that would most benefit from the more fair and efficient European soccer model.

Of course it's even less likely than college football though. MLB is a sport where you see teams pretty much tanking a season from the front office, can't do that with a relegation system.

The best thing about relegation for college football is it would be a TRUE penalty for cheating without killing a program. If we had a system like this, Ohio State, UCS and Auburn could all be starting in the D division as punishment for being professional football teams. In Italy recently a few of the biggest teams in world soccer were busted for paying refs and got relegated down, it would be like the Yankees having to play in Omaha and DesMoines for a season.

If Ohio State and Auburn want to cheat, then they can play in the MAC and Sun Belt equivalent the next year and be completely irrelevant for a year or two because of it.

 

[HFCS]

Unless you can convince current power players that this will make them more money or be more stable, then it's a waste of your time to think about. Since you're a CS guy hopefully you'll get this but, everything you presented is just "implementation details" what really matters to the system is: will this make more money. And more specifically, will this make more money for the few key players that currently control the SEC, Big10, Big12, Pac12 and ACC. Present a market analysis of how this is financially better than the current model and how, over time, this protects the big player's interests and then you're getting somewhere.

European soccer is pretty profitable and ticket prices are very high lately. That's pretty much what this is. The model itself is not untested.

 

[edr247]

As for "is this profitable", well, you could figure out a way to do the revenue for the "Premier League" TV deal. Isn't that the biggest issue here? TV deals?

 

[jburke]

Since every Tom, **** & Harry seems to have an idea for how college football will or should look like in the future, I thought I may as well flesh out an idea I've been thinking about since the Spring.

Re-Think College Football

My idea, unlike everyone's "magic 64" idea that seems to leave out Iowa State, has room for all 120 current Division-1A schools.

the super conference crap is an idea totally made up by ESPN and other media outlets in their response to their pure demise for BCS, all institutions need to stand up and save the purity of this game....

 

[getcloned]

European soccer is pretty profitable and ticket prices are very high lately. That's pretty much what this is. The model itself is not untested.

Very nice work. This should get some attention.

 

[247cy]

This is great, if for no other reason than it shows another example ISU is not total garbage in football. Sagarin rankings show that to be the case, and validate my thoughts that ISU would not be a cellar dweller in FB if added to the Big 10.

I've thought the promotion/demotion is a great concept for a while and would add excitement as all teams have something to play for even if they are not playing for the top of the "Premier" division.

One thing I think should be part of this is WHERE the playoff games would take place. I think you have to do home field advantage (like NFL) until you get to the final game (or at least the semi-finals). I don't think the average football fan will have the $ to travel and fill a stadium at a neutral site more than one weekend a year.

 

[jdoggivjc]

It's certainly a very creative idea. I can tell a lot of thought went into this., and it shows - you have a solid, workable system.

Here's an idea that came to my mind, however - what about 5 24-team conferences broken down into 4 divisions of 6, 2 upper, 2 lower. At the end of the season you can have a "championship week" where the first place teams in each division play for conference championship. Then the last place team in the upper division plays the first place team in the lower division for the spot in the upper division (similar to how it works in Bundesliga). Then base your playoff model however you want. This way you keep some of the "new tradition" of conference championship games while having a new structure overall. Plus, if a school like Texas has a bad year, it gives them the chance to stave off a crippling relegation, while making a lower division team prove they belong by beating an upper division team instead of just being the best available of crap teams bound to be re-relegated the next season.

I haven't nearly thought this out as much as you have, so it's nowhere near as polished as yours, it's just a thought of the top of my head...