Posted on 12/01/2019 4:19:50 AM PST by C19fan
Problem is, those games literally fund those FCS schools' athletic departments.
Like I said, if you can’t fund a football team on your own, drop football, or drop down a division.
That goes for the other sports too, go the club team route and play schools nearby to save money.
I agree with you: ND has to have an opportunity to be considered. My comment was abbreviated, so a lot of details were omitted. You have correctly pointed out one of those 'details'.
You have also offered a perfectly reasonable method to correct that and thereby include ND. Here is another option:
1) Establish 16 conferences, using the existing conferences as the basis of the plan.
2) These conferences would all have two division of 7 or 8 teams. That would total 224 to 256 schools.
3) Participation in the NCAA Football championship would require any participating schools to join a league (Sorry ND, your either with us, or against us).
4) Round One of the playoffs would be the 16 conference championship games, which would mean 32 teams are eligible for the title.
5) Existing bowl games would select from teams other than the 16 participants in the title play off games.
Obviously this would require a major shake-up and will never happen. But I stand by my comment: If you can't win your league, you do not deserve to be the National Champion.
I think that there should be a better system. Football season should not be five months long.
I was thinking in terms of a system that wouldn’t require such a shake-up. Of course there will still be a lot of debate as to who are the best teams for the at-large spots, but that’s by design. That’s part of the fun. I also like that it would add the opportunity for a non Power-Five school like Memphis, a chance, and that amongst those schools there will be a lot of interest as to which school is on top from week to week.
And just as with the Basketball tournament, if you are left out, it means you were pretty much at best only about the 60th best team in the country, so you really have nothing to complain about.
The season is too short for everyone to play each other, so there will always be inequities where good teams from strong conferences get left out over regular-season losses, or great teams in marginal conferences get overlooked.
That is my point. It is polarizing longterm and the rich get richer and the poor will fold and not be able to play because they cannot afford compete.
Here's an interesting question:
If all three of these teams are going to be in the playoffs no matter what happens next week, then what incentive do they have to play hard to win their conference title games at all?
They might actually do themselves a favor by getting a "mini-bye" week and giving their starters the week off, no?
They couldn't beat SEC teams in order to get to the next level.
Once they brought in personnel, scheme(and attitude)in order to not only compete with, but beat the SEC at their own game...then beating UofM(and the rest of the B1G for that matter), and their antiquated style of football/inferior talent, has become a breeze.
Either adapt, re-invent the wheel...or fail.
OSU, Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Oklahoma, Auburn(a few others)get it...
UofM (many others) don't.
That said, the pool of talent is shrinking, limited by players opting out after freshman/sophomore years for NFL $$$, not to mention recent health hazard concerns down to the high-school level. Worried about their own product the NCAA is looking at(even implementing)player compensation. Not sure if that'll help or hurt the product, as agents/talent scouts send all their best ($) prospects to elite programs(only)to showcase their talents to a wider, more lucrative TV audience.
Again...adapt, re-invent the wheel...or fail.
I could see Clemson doing that to a degree, since I don't think Virginia will put up much of a fight.
More likely they'll just try to get a big lead early, and put it in cruise control. Now the LSU-UGA game could be interesting. I think UGA will give them a game. UGA needs to make it close to have a chance of making the playoffs. Maybe LSU will do their SEC brother a favor.
At least Rutgers is in the B1G and lose, or you can PewConn (UConn) and lose to G5 teams...UConn, please fire Randy Edsall!!
I don’t like seeing the SEC becoming the Big 12.
UGA’s problem is that loss to a bad South Carolina team.
Any team that loses to Muschamp should automatically be ineligible to win a Natty.
One other thing here ...
The flaw with this approach is that a team can win a conference championship with multiple out-of-conference losses in the regular season. So the approach you are proposing means conference champions with losses against BAD teams can actually be rewarded, while those with losses against GOOD teams can be punished.
So if, for example in a hypothetical season, #1 Alabama loses to #2 Georgia in the SEC title game, Alabama is not eligible for the playoffs ... while Ohio State WOULD be eligible if they win their conference championship despite losing to East Crapstain State and Barack Obama University.
That whole thing doesn't make any sense at all.
My solution is to schedule every year, two out-of-conference games between teams that finished in the top 25 the previous year. Kind of how the NFL bases their schedules on how you did the previous season.
So each team has to play two really tough opponents. They host one of the games, and would have to travel to the other.
So you would have the prospect of an SEC team having to go play a game up north in the month of November.
You could have written that statement about UGA and a marginal regular-season opponent in almost any season in recent memory.
UGA really has no bearing on any of the playoff scenarios. That team hasn't won an important game since Herschel Walker was a Dawg ... and he's almost 58 years old. LOL.
That’s an interesting idea. However, it’s worth noting that the NFL scheduling process has become almost irrelevant because teams turn over their rosters so quickly in the era of the salary cap and loose free agency rules. That scheduling process actually meant something when teams could be contenders for several years — even a decade — at a time. Now, it’s basically just a crapshoot because last year’s record has almost no bearing on how well a team will do this year.
WE HAVE A WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.