My stream of thoughts on BG and College Football

[Flipper]

Of course "they" had to earn it...and they did earn it. OSU beat MSU, Minnesota and UW to win the B1G. 'Bama beat LSU, Miss State, Auburn and Mizzou, FSU was unbeaten for two years and Oregon beat Mich State, Utah, UCLA and Arizona. Are you honestly telling me that the MAC champion deserves to be accepted into a playoff system on par with teams that have run that kind of gauntlet? It's unrealistic...if not insane..to think that the designation D1 should deliver that level of entitlement.

What I find amusing is the notion that you need to add more teams and by extension more games tot he process. Those of you who bemoan the fact that college football has become NFL lite should love that...an expanded playoff that makes the game even more like the NFL. Sure TCU got screwed this year....you're never going to construct a system where someone isn't feeling screwed. Fine, throw the MAC champ into the process. I'll guarantee you that there'll be "p5" schools with two or three losses but far better wins that will be left out. and they'll look at the MAC's inclusion as being a joke and nine times out of ten, they'll be right.

The top end of the system has left us behind...it's left 70-80% of it's members behind. Rather than playing Don Quixote by trying to change that system, we'd be far better off working with similarly situated institutions to create a structure that has meaning for us.

[Flipper]

And please understand...I'm not trying to denigrate what we have here. There's a lot of value in what we do..particularly to ESPN. I love our hockey program...I'm very happy for the fans who have stood by that team that was almost ridden to extinction. They are legit national championship contenders. Understand this as well...the frozen four averaged about 700,000 cable viewers last year. Our bowl game had 1.1 million viewers....so there's no questioning that there's value there. The challenge lies not in competing with people who can nuke us off the earth with $$$$, the challenge lies in maintaining the value we have and enhancing it in a smaller universe

[Schadenfreude]

I think if the MAC had to do it all over again. They would proceed much differently. That is in the 60s and early 70s, when the league made the commitment to play big time DI football, what the landscape is now is not what they envisioned. To be honest I don't really know what they were thinking given the small markets most schools are in.

I'm not sure of the exact year when most MAC schools moved up from the small college division (today's Division II) to the major college division (today's Division I) but I believe it was around 1965. At the time, I don't think this was that big a deal. I wasn't even alive then, but my impression is that quite a few of today's FCS conferences were already at the major college level, including the Ivy League, the Missouri Valley and the Southern Conference. In Ohio, I think Xavier and Dayton were both playing football in the university division, for example.

The MAC only became a bit more of an outlier after the NCAA split Division I into I-A, I-AA, and I-AAA (for the non football schools) based, in part, on an average attendance requirement. I suspect part of the motivation was to reduce the number of schools sharing in revenue from the College Football Association, but I don't know this for a fact. Some of the conferences -- including, I believe, the Ivy and the Southern -- embraced the new subdivision. Others, like the Missouri Valley, hung on until the mid 1980s.

I doubt the NCAA bureaucrats who drew up the rules on attendance expected the MAC to make the attendance cut to stay at Division I-A. But, after a hiccup in 1982, the MAC did manage to meet the requirement on an ongoing basis. So did the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (now the Big West; most of the PCAA schools have either dropped football or migrated to the Mountain West). For years, you will recall, our only bowl game was in Fresno against the PCAA, and this was the only game we ever got on national television (ESPN barely qualifying back then).

#MACtion is a heck of a lot better than it was then. We get a lot more TV exposure and our teams tend to be more competitive than they were back in the 1980s.

I'm glad Bowling Green is playing at college football's top level. I wouldn't have it any other way. The chance to play Pittsburgh or Indiana or Purdue or Missouri or Minnesota and win now and again is more rewarding than the FCS playoffs would be, in my opinion. (And if we can ever get the playoff reformed so that it is more inclusive, even better.)

[Schadenfreude]

Fine, throw the MAC champ into the process. I'll guarantee you that there'll be "p5" schools with two or three losses but far better wins that will be left out. and they'll look at the MAC's inclusion as being a joke and nine times out of ten, they'll be right.

I don't understand your disdain for a an FBS playoff structure that includes all conferences. At every other level of college football and in almost every other sport, the MAC already has that same level of inclusion. What many of us want isn't exceptional. It's the norm in every other sport and in every other division.

As to your pro cartel talking points:

(1) If schools are angry they didn't get a wild card when a weaker MAC or Sun Belt or Conference USA or American Athletic or Mountain West school got in: Win your damn league.
(2) Don't sell the MAC short. Once in a while, the MAC representative will come close or win. Look at the history. Since the 1997 expansion, our league has produced a legitimate Top 15 program every few years. Moreover, with an inclusive playoff system, recruiting would be a little easier and the MAC, in all likelihood, would become more competitive.
(3) And in those years when the MAC gets slobbernockered by a No. 1 or No. 2 seed? Fine. Congratulations to the No. 1 or No. 2 seed. You were rewarded for your high ranking by getting a soft first round opponent. It happens all the time in college basketball. It happens in the lower divisions of college football. Why not at FBS?

[footballguy51]

You mentioned TCU getting screwed out of a playoff spot. TCU and Utah were once in the same position we currently are, and then TCU's record would have never qualified them for a discussion in this 4-team playoff. TCU, Utah, Boise State, and Hawaii have all had undefeated seasons, or nearly undefeated seasons, that demonstrated they were top-notch teams, but they never once got a sniff of the big time. NIU's only loss during 2013 was to us, and they magically disappeared from all radars.

By how this plays out, the only way to get into that playoff is to play phenomenal football for several years in a row, pay big bucks to keep your coach (or find the rare one that is wholly committed to staying) and hope for an invitation to a big conference. Basically, you are asking for huge expenditures and throwing up a prayer. Meanwhile, if it was run more like the basketball tournament, we could win the MAC and automatically get into the playoffs without having to spend tens of millions of dollars to do it. Make the playoffs, and you'll make some money. You'll also get more donors and more interested recruits.

Besides, if you want to talk about undeserving teams in a playoff, let's talk about the Carolina Panthers getting into the NFL playoff with a losing record. Philadelphia I'm sure had a problem with that. Heck, KC, San Diego, Houston, and Buffalo I'm sure have problems with a crap team automatically getting in because they were the best of a crap division. But, that's how it's set up. Set up the NCAA the same way, because more often than not everybody will feel as though that conference champion deserves to be in.

[Flipper]

Fine, throw the MAC champ into the process. I'll guarantee you that there'll be "p5" schools with two or three losses but far better wins that will be left out. and they'll look at the MAC's inclusion as being a joke and nine times out of ten, they'll be right.

I don't understand your disdain for a an FBS playoff structure that includes all conferences. At every other level of college football and in almost every other sport, the MAC already has that same level of inclusion. What many of us want isn't exceptional. It's the norm in every other sport and in every other division.

As to your pro cartel talking points:

(1) If schools are angry they didn't get a wild card when a weaker MAC or Sun Belt or Conference USA or American Athletic or Mountain West school got in: Win your damn league.
(2) Don't sell the MAC short. Once in a while, the MAC representative will come close or win. Look at the history. Since the 1997 expansion, our league has produced a legitimate Top 15 program every few years. Moreover, with an inclusive playoff system, recruiting would be a little easier and the MAC, in all likelihood, would become more competitive.
(3) And in those years when the MAC gets slobbernockered by a No. 1 or No. 2 seed? Fine. Congratulations to the No. 1 or No. 2 seed. You were rewarded for your high ranking by getting a soft first round opponent. It happens all the time in college basketball. It happens in the lower divisions of college football. Why not at FBS?

Fine...reality is "pro cartel talking points"....What has the MAC done to deserve a more equal footing...a bigger place at the table when it isn't our table? When you say that including us in a playoff would increase our recruiting profile, you're admitting that we need a crutch to compete.

My point is this..you are wasting your time chasing the train when every time you get closer to the train the conductor speeds up. We can bitch and moan about getting a spot in the playoff, but that isn't going to happen and it probably shouldn't because we don't deserve it or we can figure out a way to make the "sub insanity" level of college football work to our advantage

[Falcon137]

There are VERY strong arguments to be made at BG to stop throwing money at the sacred cow of football, and instead funnel it towards hockey & basketball programs that have far more opportunity to do far more for the university than football does. It will never happen, but I don't think it's yet too late. The MAC has some tough decisions to make, and they still seem committed to football, but I cannot say I entirely agree that it's the right decision at this point...

There's no guarantee either of those teams would benefit. There are few public universities the past 20 years with no football that have had sustained success in basketball, VCU, N. Iowa, Wichita State come to mind. Everyone wants to be the next Gonzaga or Xavier. But, it's insane the money the private basketball only schools throw around. Saint Louis endowment was 956 million in 2013, Dayton's endowment is 518 million, Marquette's is 457.8 million. Those programs spend as much on basketball as MAC schools do on football, fill 10,000+ seat arenas, pay their coaches $500,000+ and it's still only good enough to be a top 40ish program every year.

I would say BG has a better shot at consistently becoming a top 30-40 football program before BG basketball could become a consistent top 50 basketball program, even if you spent 5 million a year more on basketball.

Like Flipper said, ice hockey doesn't get you anywhere near the exposure football does and you are still paying for roughly 30 guys to travel 20 times a year, have high expenses, generate no TV money, and you don't get any money from buy games like you do from a Florida or Tennessee in football. There's no magic bullet for any of these programs.

[Flipper]

You want to be TCU? Great, spend the money we don't have....

http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d ... n-football" target="_blank

You can't compare NFL and the Carolina Panthers to this situation..the NFL is dedicated to parity. College football is completely about the destruction of parity amongst everyone but the elites. I know it's not something you want to hear, but it's the truth.

[Schadenfreude]

We don't deserve it

The NCAA basketball tournament must drive you crazy. A 16-seed has never won a game, ever, yet they keep inviting the likes of North Carolina A&T, Southern, Texas-San Antonio, and Long Island to play with the big boys. By your logic, this is really unfair, and they ought to shrink the tournament and stop giving out automatic bids to bottom feeder conferences like the Atlantic Sun and the Big South.

I disagree with your logic. I think every conference deserves a bid in basketball, no matter how low on the totem pole they sit. And I believe the same should apply in football so long as the field is large enough -- and I want a large field.

Every other division and subdivision invites at least 16 teams to their playoff and hands out automatic bids to conferences that want them. No reason we can't do that in FBS.

Will the Big Ten, the SEC, and the other cartel conference hand us that? Not today. I think we all understand that they like the deck stacked in favor of them and against conferences like the MAC. But the four-game playoff was so lucrative you can't help but wonder if they are starting to imagine the dollar signs that would be associated with an eight- or a 16-team playoff. When we get to 16 teams, it starts to get hard to argue against passing some automatic bids around and making it fully inclusive,

(Even though I'm sure you will keep trying.)

[Flipper]

You continue to approach this issue from the standpoint of a entity that has a say...we don't. We shouldn't try to spend the $$$ needed to make us magically competitive with the big colleges, we shouldn't try to convince them to give us their money to make us competitive and we're never going to see a playoff that gets that big because it would cost them money. We don't matter and you aren't going to convince them that we do.

And don't even start with basketball because it is a completely different animal...besides...if more is better, where's the push to add to t he field of 64?

[Schadenfreude]

You continue to approach this issue from the standpoint of a entity that has a say...we don't.

I am doing no such thing. I'm arguing for the way things ought to be. I'm not making a prediction. I'm arguing for my vision of an ideal playoff system. I've been arguing for the same system for 20 years. I might be arguing for it 20 years from now. I'll keep arguing.

You, on the other hand, seem engaged in self-loathing -- the same mentality that had too many of our fans arguing that we shouldn't have even been in a bowl game because the Falcons couldn't beat a West team, or we got skunked by Wisconsin, or whatever the logic.

The heck with that. I prefer aspirational thinking.

The Falcons won the East, so the Falcons deserved a bowl game. Period. That's the system. Since 2001, every MAC division winner has played in a bowl game -- some great teams and some not so great teams -- and that's as it should be so long as we have more than one bowl game to go around. A division title should mean something.

I cannot understand the kind of thinking that wants to apologize for the bowl game we earned on the field. I also can't understand the instinct to argue against a playoff system that would give us a legitimate path to the national championship game. Argue it's unlikely, or whatever, but I don't see how you could be genuinely against it, given our situation.

[hammb]

I'm not saying that we have a say, because I know that we don't.

But I disagree with the notion that we don't deserve a shot at the title. So long as we're division 1A then we should be allowed to compete. I don't at all propose we spend the dollars to try and get out of the MAC and become another TCU. The odds of that are huge, and would likely be a waste of money. But so long as the MAC, Mountain West, Sunbelt, and hell Vanderbilt and the like are part of Division 1A by the NCAA definition I feel the NCAA should sanction a tournament that involves all of its members. It does so in every other sport it sanctions, except for this one.

Now, I'm in agreement that we'd likely be fodder for the big boys most years. I disagree that we'd never compete though...there have been some damned good MAC teams in recent years...similarly for Utah, Boise, etc.

Like Schad said, I don't expect it in the least. I think it's FAR more likely that the upper tier does something to eliminate the facade that we're even in the same Division as them. Like Flipper said, there is some value in what we play right now, and it can continue even if it is not part of the money tournament. Until that happens, I will always believe every team committed to 85 scholarships and D1A football should be given a chance to compete for the national title.

[Dayons_Den]

I stand with Schad on this one. Great points and I've been arguing the same points for some time as well.

If it's good enough for Elon and Wisconsin-Eau Claire it should be good enough for Louisiana-Lafayette and Western Michigan!

[Flipper]

Great...have fun playing Don Quixote...or finding a universe where what you think things that should be yours ...whether you deserve them or not...will be yours. Here in the real world, I don't see a conference that sees winning two out of five "lesser" bowl games as being a great leap forward having a legit claim to a shot.

I'd much rather spend my mental masturbation minutes on something more realistic.....

[hammb]

Great...have fun playing Don Quixote...or finding a universe where what you think things that should be yours ...whether you deserve them or not...will be yours. Here in the real world, I don't see a conference that sees winning two out of five "lesser" bowl games as being a great leap forward having a legit claim to a shot.

I'd much rather spend my mental masturbation minutes on something more realistic.....

Where is this whether you deserve them or not stuff coming from? What does a conference need to do to deserve something in your eyes? As far as I'm concerned it IS deserved because we have committed to playing 1A football by the rules laid out by the NCAA. We provide 85 scholarships. We meet the attendance requirements (regardless of what accounting voodoo allows us to meet them, it's within the rules). We play the requisite home games, etc. By every rule the NCAA has currently put forth we play Division 1A (or Bowl subdivision, whatever the hell they want to call it now) football.

By doing so we DESERVE to be a part of whatever championship methodology the NCAA were to enact.

As it stands (likely because of the stuff I just mentioned) the NCAA just looks the other way and doesn't sanction a championship.

Until the NCAA creates a division 1 We spend more than the GDP of most third world countries on football subdivision, I will continue to maintain that all D1A conferences should be given a shot. Within the current system that uses arbitrary judging and perception to figure out who the top 4 teams are do I think we deserve a shot? No, of course no MAC team is in the top 4. But I feel that the NCAA should enact a system that is NOT arbitrary and all teams are actually allowed to earn a shot at a title, and in that system it must include all conferences. At least until they change the rules to boot us out entirely (which is the route I see this going).

I don't personally see football and basketball as greatly different as is being argued either. Both sports have a top tier that are heads and shoulders above the rest. Both sports have a top tier that spend insane amounts by comparison to the lower tier. Both sports have certain universities that bring in far more revenue than others. The only real differences are A) The timeframe to run a tournament due to recover time, and B) the ability teams to compete due the NBA's 1 & done rules. The result is still the same...the big boys pretty much always win the title, regardless of the runs made by lower tier teams. But everybody watches and loves the cinderella stories that occur, and I don't see why the same couldn't be true for a football team.