Bryan Fischer ‏@BryanDFischer
RT @ESPN_BigTen: Talked to Jim Delany. Said ADs/coaches only discussing 9- and 10-game league schedule models. No support to stay at 8.

This makes things more fair for the Pac.

socaliganbear;842079244 said:

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Bryan Fischer ‏@BryanDFischer
RT @ESPN_BigTen: Talked to Jim Delany. Said ADs/coaches only discussing 9- and 10-game league schedule models. No support to stay at 8.

This makes things more fair for the Pac.

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Seems reasonable given the additions of Rutgers and Maryland make the B1G a 14-team league, with 2 divisions of 7 teams each.

For any team, the schedule includes:
6 games in an intra-divisional round robin PLUS either
3 cross-division games (9-game model) OR
4 cross-division games (10-game model).

Consequently, any teams misses:
4 cross-division teams (9-game model) OR
3 cross-division teams (10-game model)

You can see the pressures in keeping the league membership to a smaller number rather than a larger number.

FiatSlug;842079250 said:

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You can see the pressures in keeping the league membership to a smaller number rather than a larger number.

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Or to go to a larger number and restore the old Big Ten as one division with few cross division games? One team would have to be the sacrificial lamb and go east though. (I'd assume PSU would be east to start with with their short history).

A 10 game schedule would a really significant change. That is a lot more inventory under the control of the league office and they can really maximize their games/scheduling - probably can move a decent amount of significant games over to the BTN after the renegotiation with ESPN in 2015.

It would also mean teams would not be able to schedule more than 7 home games, and that would be an absolute max because there were be no way to play home and home series and get 7 home games (on average).

I actually think MORE separate LARGE division could create a better CCG in terms of national appeal. That way you don't get a lot of cross division losses that make one team not as appealing - essentially that's hiding the fact that one division is bad until the CCG. It only works if the teams in the separate divisions don't mind the infrequency - looks like for now BT is going the opposite direction.

Glad to see this. I wish the SEC would follow suit. People don't talk enough about why the SEC is in every National Championship game. Perhaps it is because they play each other one less time per schedule, and never leave the conference blueprint to play out of conference. Their big boys don't play each other enough in conference, and rarely play anyone out of conference. No question why they seem to always have several teams with only 1 or 2 losses to end the year. They are good enough at football to challenge themselves a bit more, and I wish they'd get called out on it more.

kad02002;842079337 said:

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Glad to see this. I wish the SEC would follow suit. People don't talk enough about why the SEC is in every National Championship game. Perhaps it is because they play each other one less time per schedule, and never leave the conference blueprint to play out of conference. Their big boys don't play each other enough in conference, and rarely play anyone out of conference. No question why they seem to always have several teams with only 1 or 2 losses to end the year. They are good enough at football to challenge themselves a bit more, and I wish they'd get called out on it more.

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Meh, their scheduling advantage is in addition to them also being extremely good. Either way, Saban has also come out in support of increasing the league games. Looks like its a general feeling.

They were going to stick with the 8 if the Pac 12 - Big 10 package went through, but the Furd and SC had to screw that up. They though if they had that contractual obligation then they were in fact setting up for 9 total "in Conference" type games, and therefore wanted to keep some space open for the Western Michigans of the world.

9 conference games plus an 10th against the Big 10, plus the furd and SC playing ND each year means that they would have had too many tough opponents, so they decided to put the brakes on the Big 10 inter-conference rivalry.

I think the other thing driving this is TV. You want to have product for the big bucks that are being spent - not Arizona vs Northern Arizona. And with the advent of the BCS playoff - losing one now will not kill your chances. So the balance of scheduling more, getting a higher SOS, and increasing TV revenue will make the big boys only play the big boys, to the exclusion of the other guys. This will evolve into a super-league of the top teams only playing the 60 or so other top teams, and the rest falling away. Two tier system.

socaliganbear;842079362 said:

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Meh, their scheduling advantage is in addition to them also being extremely good. Either way, Saban has also come out in support of increasing the league games. Looks like its a general feeling.

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Yes, they are terrific, so I wish they'd challenge themselves a bit more. Some of the teams in that league are offense deficient, with no true identity unless they are crushing an inferior opponent (which is often). Alabama lost against one of the few "system" offenses they played against this year (A&M). They might have been the best team in the Pac this year (talent wise, for sure the best), but they wouldn't have come out unscathed. Oregon might fly by em, and they could get nipped by an Arizona or Arizona State on an "on" day for those teams. Not to mention Stanford, who could have thrown the same punches as them last year.

I guess you can't blame them though for having a great setup to dominate this system. Its why I advocate a 16 team play with automatic bids for every conference. This means that teams can schedule out of conference whatever tough teams they want while knowing that none of the losses will eliminate them from the playoff picture. But it also keeps great emphasis on the regular season - with 10 or 11 automatic bids, you couldn't afford to lose more than 1 or 2 games and hope to get an at large bid.

http://www.thepostgame.com/commentary/201208/better-without-em-northern-manifesto-southern-secession-chuck-thompson-sec-bcs

http://frontrow.espn.go.com/2012/08/research-reveals-strongest-markets-for-college-football-viewership/

There's no coincidence that the SEC always receives a disproportional amount of teams highly ranked in the preseason polls and that SEC country is home to the country's highest viewership for college football. I think the CFB landscape would change quite a bit if all polls did not come out until week 8 like the BCS poll. Preseason highly ranked SEC teams beating each other doesn't prove that the league is better than others especially when they shy away from marquee OOC games. But hey, they are smart in the fact that they have a good model to make it to the NCG.

"Overall, 13 markets have finished a season in the top five over the past 12 years: Birmingham, Columbus, Atlanta, Greenville, S.C., Knoxville, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Memphis,Tenn., Nashville, Louisville, Ky. Norfolk, Va., and Orlando."

SEC scheduling is a joke... the teams are all playing Boise State style football; load up on bad teams, beat a good team, claim greatness.

The football community wont buy it from Boise most years, why do we buy it from the SEC?

It is easy to be good when everyone stsrts ranked, pads 4 free wins, beats up on extremely overrated top 10 teams (that somehow always finish out of the top 25) etc...


I have zero respect for that conference.

Urso27;842079523 said:

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http://www.thepostgame.com/commentary/201208/better-without-em-northern-manifesto-southern-secession-chuck-thompson-sec-bcs

http://frontrow.espn.go.com/2012/08/research-reveals-strongest-markets-for-college-football-viewership/

There's no coincidence that the SEC always receives a disproportional amount of teams highly ranked in the preseason polls and that SEC country is home to the country's highest viewership for college football. I think the CFB landscape would change quite a bit if all polls did not come out until week 8 like the BCS poll. Preseason highly ranked SEC teams beating each other doesn't prove that the league is better than others especially when they shy away from marquee OOC games. But hey, they are smart in the fact that they have a good model to make it to the NCG.

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I've always maintained that the polls shouldn't be released until after Week 1 of the season, and you should be ineligible to be ranked until you play an FBS school. Watch the SEC schedules miraculously get better.

I think you exaggerate a tad.

While SEC teams are prone to scheduling FCS teams, they do not schedule more than one FCS team in a season. They do schedule mid-majors (like MAC teams, WAC teams, etc.), but those schools visit the SEC school, not the other way around.

The real advantage of SEC teams is that they rarely, if ever, leave the states in the SEC footprint. When they do leave the footprint, it's almost always for a bowl game. Notable exception: Tennessee's visit to Berkeley in 2007.

It's a real advantage if the longest trip you have is to Lexington, KY or Gainesville, FL.

So, how is it that SEC teams can get away with this while West Coast schools can't?

The football playing universe in and close to the South is much larger than the universe that is in and close to the West.

Alabama and LSU have somewhat broken from the mold in order to schedule tougher OOC games at the start of the season in recent years.

Alabama, home and home with Penn State and Michigan, upcoming with Va Tech and West Virginia on neutral fields.

LSU played at West Virginia, had a home and home with UDub, has upcoming one scheduled with Arizona State and TCU @Texas, played Oregon@Texas

kad02002;842079337 said:

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Glad to see this. I wish the SEC would follow suit. People don't talk enough about why the SEC is in every National Championship game. Perhaps it is because they play each other one less time per schedule, and never leave the conference blueprint to play out of conference. Their big boys don't play each other enough in conference, and rarely play anyone out of conference. No question why they seem to always have several teams with only 1 or 2 losses to end the year. They are good enough at football to challenge themselves a bit more, and I wish they'd get called out on it more.

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There's definitely an aspect of 'they tend to have the better athletes' to it too.

If winning 7 straight championships was as easy as dropping to an 8 game league schedule and adding patsies, I'd like to think we'd have done it. They still ahve to go to all those title games and win.

Meh, the SEC OOC was much better than the B12 OOC this year. No one made a fuss about them.

SadbutTrue999;842079626 said:

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There's definitely an aspect of 'they tend to have the better athletes' to it too.

If winning 7 straight championships was as easy as dropping to an 8 game league schedule and adding patsies, I'd like to think we'd have done it. They still ahve to go to all those title games and win.

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It's not so much that they won 7 straight, it's that they had the opportunity to play for 7 straight. They get that opportunity because they only play 8 conference games so they often miss the stronger teams on the other side of the conference. Half the teams avoid a loss that the 9th conference game would guarantee. They all get one more opportunity to play SW cupcake A&T state community college for another win.

I don't think the SEC has been dominant as a conference. They have had dominant teams at the top. But those teams get the nod in the national polls because of their W-L record aided by only 8 conference games and because those 8 conference foes get rated higher since they also play fewer conference games.

slider643;842079679 said:

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It's not so much that they won 7 straight, it's that they had the opportunity to play for 7 straight. They get that opportunity because they only play 8 conference games so they often miss the stronger teams on the other side of the conference. Half the teams avoid a loss that the 9th conference game would guarantee. They all get one more opportunity to play SW cupcake A&T state community college for another win.

I don't think the SEC has been dominant as a conference. They have had dominant teams at the top. But those teams get the nod in the national polls because of their W-L record aided by only 8 conference games and because those 8 conference foes get rated higher since they also play fewer conference games.

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^This. Also, those top teams get aided by the fact that they are beating teams within their conference which goes back to the whole BS about preseason polling. Moving up in the polls is usually not by merit but only if someone in front of you loses. That being said, if you lose to another highly rated team you don't drop very far in the polls which is how the SEC has benefited as well.