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Thoughts on MAC eliminating divisions?

Pac-12 just announced they're ending divisions for this season already

I've been begging for dynamic divisions for years now. Especially for the Big Ten. Michigan as is plays ... Maryland and fricking Rutgers ... every year. And Minnesota only once on occasion. From now until when the sun goes supernova and Earth is a dead rock flying off into the abyss, Michigan will never have a quarter the storied rivalry with Maryland and Rutgers as they do Minnesota.

So yeah. Anything that kills divisions is good by me.

I haven't seen anything formal about this but I've seen speculation that various conferences are making division changes BTW.

Are you on Twitter? All the football writers I follow are reporting this news

I'm too old for twitter, instagram, etc.

Tony4BG wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 7:14 pm Thoughts on MAC eliminating divisions?

Pac-12 just announced they're ending divisions for this season already

I think divisions are great and every conference with at least 12 teams should have them. Pitting the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in a table of 12 teams or more a "championship game" just seems asinine to me. (In fairness, I think the postseason basketball tournaments are pretty silly, too.) It seems pointless. We already know the best team. Just look at the top of the standings!

The American League and National League split into two divisions when they reached 12 teams. The NFL has had divisions since the early 1930s. They just make sense.

Divisions give more teams more to play for. Without divisions, MAC football teams can only win a title every 12 years. With them, they can win a division title every six. That's just better. Plus, at least schools can play a full round robin within their division. Schedule imbalances might be more of a factor without divisions.

Schadenfreude wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 7:59 pm

Tony4BG wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 7:14 pm Thoughts on MAC eliminating divisions?

Pac-12 just announced they're ending divisions for this season already

I think divisions are great and every conference with at least 12 teams should have them. Pitting the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in a table of 12 teams or more a "championship game" just seems asinine to me. (In fairness, I think the postseason basketball tournaments are pretty silly, too.) It seems pointless. We already know the best team. Just look at the top of the standings!

The American League and National League split into two divisions when they reached 12 teams. The NFL has had divisions since the early 1930s. They just make sense.

Divisions give more teams more to play for. Without divisions, MAC football teams can only win a title every 12 years. With them, they can win a division title every six. That's just better. Plus, at least schools can play a full round robin within their division. Schedule imbalances might be more of a factor without divisions.

Let me clarify. Anything that kills divisions as they are is fine by me. Divisions in and of themselves are not necessarily bad but unmaintained they lead to competitive imbalance and lack of equal scheduling. Last time BG played Ball State? 2015. Unbelievable.

I like the idea of dynamic divisions. New divison each year based on prior year's results. But if that is too much I'm ok with swaps. Such as NIU / Akron swapping places and Kent / WMU swapping (last and first of each division and do that each year). Anything to add more balance and less massive gaps in a series.

MarkL wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 10:30 pm Let me clarify.

Thanks.

As far as cross divisional games: I'm surprised to hear we have gone so long without playing Ball State. Toledo's inability to get Miami on the schedule every three years also seems odd.

I'm all for the MAC eliminating divisions. Get the two best teams in the championship game every year.

Divisions are dumb..

Part of the issue is rivals not being in the same division. Toledo and BG are in different divisions thus having them play each year causes Ball state and Miami to not see BG or Toledo respectively as often. I think that would slightly improve w/o divisions.

The Athletic reporting MAC is not interested in eliminating divisions

I’m all for seeing Ball State and the directionals a little more often than we do.

I am a big fan of the pod idea that has floated around but I don't think it works well thanks to buffalo and the 3 Michigans. However it is a fun idea so I played around and made a few scenarios

Idea 1/2: 4 pods of 3, play both other teams from your pod then 2 out of 3 from the other 3 pods. Impossible to keep all rivalries together since there are 5 sets. Could have a mac final 4

Idea 3/4: 3 pods of 4, play the 3 teams in your pod then play 3 of 4 from the other two pods for 9 conference games. No idea how this would work for the Mac title but figured I would play around with it plus I love our pod for idea 4

Idea 1
Pod 1: Buffalo, Kent, Akron
Pod 2: Bg, toledo, ohio
Pod 3: Miami, Niu, ball,
Pod 4: Michigans

Idea 2
Pod 1: buffalo, Akron, Kent
Pod 2: bg, toledo, emu
Pod 3: ohio, Miami, ball
Pod 4: cmu, wmu, niu

Idea 3
Pod 1: buffalo and Michigans
Pod 2: bg, toledo, Akron, Kent
Pod 3: ohio, Miami, niu, ball

Idea 4
Pod 1: buffalo, Akron, Kent, ohio
Pod 2: bg, toledo, emu, Miami (think this would be fun)
Pod 3: ball, niu, cmu, wmu

I've always likes the pods idea. You're always going to lose some rivalries but it should result in more randomness.

Here's how I'd do it ...
1. BG / UT / NIU
2. Ball State / Miami / Ohio
3. Michigans
4. Akron / Kent / Buffalo

Ball State is an oddity in that I don't think they have any serious rivalries they'd sob over missing. I feel like NIU / UT is a rivalry worth keeping, and our recent history with NIU makes it worth a yearly IMO. We'd miss the annual Miami game but I'd make that trade for NIU in order to ensure Miami / Ohio is preserved.

And here's how to do a championship. You schedule 7 regular season games. The two others in your pod + 5 others. Then the final week is a pseudo playoff. 1s play 1s, 2s play 2s, etc. Do your best to ensure everyone gets 4 homes and roads, so there might need to be some flexibility for winging it some in scheduling week 8. Then the winner of the 1s meet in Detroit. It's not perfect and the ADs would hate it for the unpredictable regular season finale but its creative.

The Mac has to be creative. This is a fun idea that all conferences would watch to see if it's successful. They have the opportunity to be the first to 4 pods but they sadly won't be.

I like my idea 2 best however no problem with yours. I know from my brother cmu has been a pain for niu the last decade although the niu toledo game was always huge for the division. I leaned more with geography and I like having another close game for us with emu even though there is zero history.