Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[UpNorth_Buckeye]

I've said this for years, except with 64 teams. There are 64 Power5 teams right now, plus Notre Dame and BYU, so maybe 72 is the right number (although I would not be adverse to telling ND and BYU to go screw themselves and sticking with the current 64). 80 seems a bit high.

To get to four conferences, you'd have to dismantle the Big 12 and assign their teams to other conferences.

In any event, you have four conferences, each split into two divisions, so there will be eight division winners in all.

The division winners within each conference play for the conference championship. The four conference champions go to the playoff with playoff games to be held at neutral sites (call them bowl games, if you'd like).

So basically you have an eight team playoff with no wild cards or polls or committees or computers deciding anything except seeding among the four conference champions.

ACC = 14 teams
B1G = 14 teams
SEC = 14 teams
XII =10 teams
PAC = 12 teams

There's your 64 right there, but you still have to deal with ND and BYU (unfortunately). Maybe six 12-team conferences (72 teams), with the six conference champs plus two wild cards going to an eight-team playoff.

I personally feel a great solution is going back to the old BCS selection methodology and just take the top eight teams period. Yeah, there was always whining and moaning about #3 and #4 being worthy and #2, but I don't think you'll get that much grief arguing over who's #8 and who's #9...

Just because we're at 64 now doesn't mean everyone in that 64 is safe. Especially teams in whichever conference (Big 12 most likely) crumbles. As I said above in reorganization I wouldn't be surprised to see nd and BYU in and a team like a Kansas and TTU or Iowa stste out.

 

[UpNorth_Buckeye]

As for who I think the B1G would want, I think it would be 100% Texas/oklahoma over ND/someone else. I suppose Texas/ND would be ideal, but I'm assuming Texas/oklahoma is a package deal.

After the last expansion it is obvious TV rules all. We have the east coast now, and we'll never have the west coast. But ND doesn't bring shit in terms of TV money since we already have IN. But we don't have the south, specifically the stste of TX.

 

[buckeyesin07]

This. Right. Here.

There are too many teams in CFB that don't play each other often enough to "select" the clear cut best every year.

You can talk about this conference being [Mark May]ty or that conference being an NFL division, but it's not fact.

If you're a playoff proponent because it's "fair", then the only truly fair way to do it is for conference champs to play each other.

Bingo. Subjectivity has to be removed from the process.

 

[TampaBuckeyes]

I'm not in the "it's fair" camp but I disagree that only conference champs should play each other.

Some nod needs to be given for the years when a conference is loaded and its second best team is a legit title contender.

Every major pro sport does this, it would be crazy to eliminate it from CFB when its a sport with wildly varying degrees of "toughness" among conferences.

I would half disagree. In the NFL, the 8 divisions all send a team. Yes, the NFC South is terrible this year (4-6 Falcons lead), but they aren't just going to say 'Let's take away the south division slot and have to top 2 of the north, east and west the slots because I mean let's face it, they are more deserving.' Yes, there are two wildcard slots, but each division champ still gets a shot at it. In CFB there could very well be the though in the next few years that 2 teams from the pac and 2 teams from the sec are the most deserving. In the end, I agree with you, 6 conference champs (one from outside Big 5), and 2 wildcards.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Just because we're at 64 now doesn't mean everyone in that 64 is safe. Especially teams in whichever conference (Big 12 most likely) crumbles. As I said above in reorganization I wouldn't be surprised to see nd and BYU in and a team like a Kansas and TTU or Iowa stste out.

No way will they cherry-pick teams out of a power conference. Everyone who's in the power 64 will remain there...

 

[matcar]

No way will they cherry-pick teams out of a power conference. Everyone who's in the power 64 will remain there...

Agreed. And there's no way anyone removes Kansas from this. Yeah they suck at football but they are basketball royalty and I suspect that will count for SOMETHING.

 

[UpNorth_Buckeye]

No way will they cherry-pick teams out of a power conference. Everyone who's in the power 64 will remain there...

Must not be very familiar with the collapse of the Big East, huh. Pretty sure all of those teams were not picked up by power conference teams even though they were originally part of one. Similar to what the circumstances would be here with the collapse of the Big 12...

Edit: you have to understand that the Big 12 going to other conferences would be in no way a "merger." It would be a "dissolution" with member teams being free agents picked up by other conferences. Do you think just to not hurt feelings any conference will accept Kansas? And if they do it's just because they want them, for whatever reason they may have (which considering a mediocre football team brings in more than an elite basketball school, in not sure why they would).

Agreed. And there's no way anyone removes Kansas from this. Yeah they suck at football but they are basketball royalty and I suspect that will count for SOMETHING.

UConn says heyyyyyyyyy

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Must not be very familiar with the collapse of the Big East, huh. Pretty sure all of those teams were not picked up by power conference teams even though they were originally part of one. Similar to what the circumstances would be here with the collapse of the Big 12...

Totally familiar with it...look at the teams we just accepted into the B1G. At least Kansas had had two 10-win seasons in the past few decades including a 12-1 record in 2007 (finishing 7th in both polls), while Rutgers has had two 10-win seasons since 1976.

 

[zincfinger]

I'm not in the "it's fair" camp but I disagree that only conference champs should play each other.

Is the purpose of the playoff to identify "the best team" or is it to identify the team that "proved it on the field"? Those are not the same thing, and if the purpose is to identify the team that "proved it on the field", wild-cards should never be allowed in the playoff. If the purpose is to identify "the best team" regardless of who "proved it on the field", then I'm not sure what the advantage of the playoff is relative to the old bowls-and-polls scenario.

 

[UpNorth_Buckeye]

Totally familiar with it...look at the teams we just accepted into the B1G. At least Kansas had had two 10-win seasons in the past few decades including a 12-1 record in 2007 (finishing 7th in both polls), while Rutgers has had two 10-win seasons since 1976.

My post above (I had back-to-back posts and you responded to the first one) states exactly why we took Rutgers. Money. Money. And...money. If Rutgers was in the Midwest there's no chance in hell they're in the B1G. So Kansas would have to bring some type of value to a conference. B1G wouldn't take them since they wouldn't bring nearly large enough of a market especially with Nebraska already in. But who knows, maybe an ACC that already has a basketball vibe to it and wants that part of the country in their market would take them.

Edit 1: I guess I'm not saying it's impossible, but the chances are very real that some teams from the Bug 12 get left out, especially if it goes to 16 team conferences, 64 total.

Edit 2: I would also say/agree that it would be very difficult to see for current members of surviving conferences to be left out. Like an Indiana or Purdue. Was more so referring to bottom feeders in the Big 12. And it's also reliant on, to an extent, that ND and maybe BYU are to join a conference. If not then I could see all teams surviving. But even if the independents don't join there's always a chance a non power 5 team makes more sense. Like a Cinci or UCF for example.

 

[woofermazing]

I see no good reason they'd approve it. The big 12 can do a round robin and play everyone else. They have zero need of a championship game unless they expand. Why would the NCAA give them special treatment?

More parity with respect to playoff access. We have to see how much the committee values that extra game though, they could have a competitive advantage without a CCG for all we know.
I don't think the big 12 wants to expand anytime soon even if it would get them a ccg. There just aren't any legitimate candidates that wouldn't dilute conference revenue.

 

[kujirakira]

I'm not in the "it's fair" camp but I disagree that only conference champs should play each other.

Some nod needs to be given for the years when a conference is loaded and its second best team is a legit title contender.

Every major pro sport does this, it would be crazy to eliminate it from CFB when its a sport with wildly varying degrees of "toughness" among conferences.

EDIT*****

My proposed solution remains an 8 team playoff, 5 major conf champs, 3 WC

BCS style rankings are for seeding purposes

Higher seed gets home field up to championship game (come on up SEC teams, the weather's great)

Is that why they do it? Or are they doing it just as a cash grab method of extending the post season?
The committee/BCS/whatever bowls already provide a means to reward excellent teams that didn't make the cut.

If you couldn't win your own division - you're not a playoff contender. We already know you're not as good as another team. Especially with CCGs, it just means the head-to-head game and CCG was utterly and completely meaningless.
I don't buy "other sports do it, so we have to as well" -- I like CFB precisely b/c roughly a third (NFL) to a half (NBA & NCAAB) of the field doesn't get handed a free pass to enter a tournament that decides the champion. There is little point in watching any of those sports until playoffs.

 

[kujirakira]

As for who I think the B1G would want, I think it would be 100% Texas/oklahoma over ND/someone else. I suppose Texas/ND would be ideal, but I'm assuming Texas/oklahoma is a package deal.

After the last expansion it is obvious TV rules all. We have the east coast now, and we'll never have the west coast. But ND doesn't bring [Mark May] in terms of TV money since we already have IN. But we don't have the south, specifically the stste of TX.

ND is already in the ACC for all intents and purposes. WVU is another clearcut target for them if the B12 crumbles.
PAC, SEC, and B1G will fight over UT/OU combo... I don't think B1G caves on some core stuff Texas will demand to win that battle, and don't really offer "rivalry" matchups like PAC (see below) or SEC (Aggy, Ark) could.
IMO TTech is safe b/c of the State they're in -- in the end, I think PAC, B1G, and SEC will have a footprint in that state. PAC targeting TTech could be the next thing to kick off conference expansions.
Rice is a darkhorse for B1G as plan-B or C. Assuming PAC takes TTech, and Texas doesn't choose B1G... I'm not sure the conference would bite on religious schools TCU, Baylor, or SMU. Wouldn't be surprised to see Texas go SEC and OU PAC and then have cross-conf rivalry like UF-FSU / Georgia-GTech / USC-ND. I'm not sure the B1G bites on OU without Texas either. That would leave something like Rice and UVA for the B1G, and then ACC adding their pick of Mid Majors (UConn, Temple, Marshall, Tulane, Memphis, ECU, Cinci, UCF, USF)

 

[Woody1968]

I would like to believe that we could do better than Rice!

 

[kujirakira]

Given how Baylor, TCU, and Aggy have all recently demonstrated it's possible to shine a turd into gold with money and publicity in the State of Texas... I think the B1G would stick to it's MO of prioritizing an institution that fits their academic research profile. Rice is a top-20ish Research University and member of AAU... things TCU, Baylor, SMU can't say (and while two of them would be sexy picks based off the last couple years, before that they were bottom feeders.)
Success in that State seems to be predicated on hype more than anything else. They're even worse than Florida in that regard -- whoever has the hot hand and publicity gets the recruits and wins games.