My stream of thoughts on BG and College Football

[zete]

If the play off system were to be expanded, it would probably/maybe curb the regular season? Most of the time, I for one, look forward to our non-conference schedule more than MAC games,

[zete]

James Michner wrote a book several years ago (Sports in America) making mention of college football & basketball being minor leagues of the NFL and NBA. The college ranks do a wonderful job of greening the professional teams' future stars and sorting out the D Tredwells of the world. Thus, I would think at some point, the NBA and NFL would officially earmark top leagues as schools where their future players should be and then subsidize those schools financially - a new entity, or a marriage long overdue. The athletes could attend classes preparing them for something other than what the curriculum traditionally offers. Sort of a loose rendition of college life, but offering no degree. On the other hand a degree track could also be pursued. The other conferences could again resume without the monstrous gap that is now so evident. Minor league baseball has a minor league system in place working quite; well apart form institutions of higher learning.

[Flipper]

You can mantain whatever you want...you can say we're D1 because we fill 85 scholarships until doomsday. It doesn't mean we're on a level playing field. We don't demonstrate enough quality on the field to warrant an automatic bid in any likely playoff scenario. We haven't demonstrated the financial commitment necessary. Someone brought up TCU and Utah. Utah ponied up (IIRC) more than double the money we were paying Urban Meyer. Wake Forest pays Clawson a multiple of what we pay Dino. They play n Saturdays...we play in Wednesdays in front of 12 people because ESPN tells us to. Stack up all that against the number of scholarships.....I don't see a strong argument ofr including us. It's a moot point any way because the current set up of four teams battling it out on New Year's day in the traditional bowl games is a cash cow. Adding teams and games to the point where a MAC or a sunbelt or a CUSA or an AAC school is an auto bid just dilutes the concept.

Yes...we have a defacto super insane might as well be the NFL division of college football. We are not a part of it. I want no part of it. Other than the weeknight games...I like our niche. It suits our history and financial realities fairly well....

[Schadenfreude]

We don't demonstrate enough quality on the field to warrant an automatic bid in any likely playoff scenario.

The gulf is just as big between some of these low major basketball programs playing in 2,500-seat gyms -- programs that are way inferior to ours -- and Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, or Syracuse.

Again, I don't understand how you can be all for 1 versus 16 basketball games but against giving every FBS conference a bid. What's the difference?

In college basketball, they give every conference a bid, no matter how outclassed, and they let around 20 percent of Division I in the playoffs. Why is it so unreasonable to argue for every FBS conference access and to expand to the field from 3 percent to 13 percent?

Play the games and decide the championship on the field. Give everyone a chance. We should all be for that.

[Flipper]

Basketball and football are not comparable....bumping the NCAA's to 64 didn't add to the calendar. It was three weekend deal before, it's a three weekend deal now...you bump this thing out to 16 as many have suggested and it becomes a three week process just to get to the final. You tell Urbie or Saban that they have to beat the MAC or the SunBelt winner and another outside the top 4 team to make the final four and they're going to tell you to get stuffed because they beat tougher teams than that....by far...to win their conference. They're already a top four team...why do they have to beat teams worse than the teams they already beat to make it. Does basketball seem more fair? Perhaps as a mental exercise you could say yes. The sport has a history of settling it's business with tournaments. Football does not have that history. Even at the HS level where the footballlayoffs are pretty open...they still aren't as open as they are in basketball.

Has that "fairness" helped the MAC even one little bit? we were a one bid league when the field was 32..we're a one bid league when it's 64 and we haven't won the damn thing even once. I don't think the conference has nearly the talent it did in the 70's and 80's.

Consistently put up seasons like 2003 when the MAC had three really good teams in Miami, BG and NIU and a couple of pretty good teams in UT and Marshall and I'll say "hell yes, we deserve to be on a 16 team system or an 8 team system as well". We aren't there so why pretend we are?

[Schadenfreude]

Basketball and football are not comparable....bumping the NCAA's to 64 didn't add to the calendar. It was three weekend deal before, it's a three weekend deal now...you bump this thing out to 16 as many have suggested and it becomes a three week process just to get to the final.

A three week process to get to the championship... Just like in FCS, Division II, or Division III.... or, as it happens, about the same amount of time between the conference championship games and New Year's Day now.

You tell Urbie or Saban that they have to beat the MAC or the SunBelt winner and another outside the top 4 team to make the final four and they're going to tell you to get stuffed because they beat tougher teams than that....by far...to win their conference. They're already a top four team...why do they have to beat teams worse than the teams they already beat to make it.

I really haven't given a hoot about what Urban Meyer has to say since Dec. 12, 2002. I seriously don't care about his fragile ego or whatever it is you imagine ails him.

I can't emphasize this enough: I seriously don't care what Urban Meyer thinks.

Not all.

Not one bit.

[basketball] has a history of settling it's business with tournaments. Football does not have that history.

Not unless you count the NFL, the CFL, the USFL, the XFL, FCS, Division II, Division III, or the NAIA. For what it's worth.

Consistently put up seasons like 2003 when the MAC had three really good teams in Miami, BG and NIU and a couple of pretty good teams in UT and Marshall and I'll say "hell yes, we deserve to be on a 16 team system or an 8 team system as well". We aren't there so why pretend we are?

But we produce that level of talent every few years. It was only three years ago that Northern Illinois was a legit top 15 team playing in the Orange Bowl. We had Marshall as a Top 10 program in 1999. We had Miami in 2003. Every few years, it happens. And none of these teams can get into the post season under the current system, no matter what they do on the field. That isn't very fair.

We can do better. College football can have a more interesting exciting post season -- a system where a Central Florida, or a Bowling Green or a Fresno State or a Colorado State can go on a run and maybe shock some people in December. It would be just as much fun as watching the NCAA tournament. The power conferences would still be able to hog up most of the bids. They'd get the best seeding. But it would be more fair than what we have now.

[Globetrotter]

Fair? What's fair about be given something you didn't earn?

But you would earn it with a championship.

[Globetrotter]

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.
D emphasizing football and moving forward with basketball may have been a better direction to take. But way too late to turn back - isn't it?

As much as I love BG football, I wouldn't at all be upset if they decided to just move down at this point. They cannot compete on the largest stage, aren't given an opportunity to compete on that stage. They're nearing the need for a major infrastructure investment on the stadium which needs work. Coaches salaries are escalating at an absurd rate to ensure that we will never compete on that largest stage. All the while we're taking tons of cash from the general fund to try and slow the widening gap between us and the haves.

Meanwhile we've got a good endowment for hoops, a young up & coming head coach, and a brand new arena. Hockey has a renovated arena, and program on the rise as well.

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...

I think it's just a matter of time. I was upset, a few years back.

[daspollak]

This is why I want to see an 8 team play-off. You still get the big boys in by winning their conferences, the G5 can grab one slot for their best team, and still two wild cards to make scheduling a tough OOC worth it. This will keep it from feeling watered down like the NCAA tourney, give a little hope for a Cinderella, and give us one more week of great football. No system is perfect, but a system where at least 3/4 of the schools have no shot of the ultimate prize is ridiculous.

Quick side note since we are bringing up the NCAA tourney for basketball. A few years ago the school I taught at invited some of the basketball players from Winthrop to talk about school and basketball, and how students need to work hard. I got to chat with them before for the assembly, and I asked them "Would you rather play in the NCAA tourney, or win the NIT?"

They responded, "Play in the tourney. When you are in it you have a shot, no matter how small it might seem." To me that is all any school asks for, is a chance. Right now the current college play-off doesn't provide that. Until they reclassify the divisions, you need to at least come up with a system that at the start of the season every team can say I have a chance.

[Flipper]

You do have a chance...the same chance as the rest of D1...finish in t he top 4.

I don't care how they do it in hoops...FCS...D2, 3 or 56. We're talking about big money college football. How a conference that has gone more than a decade without placing a team in the top ten can demand to be given a shot at a four or eight team playoff is beyond me. You have a better chance of jumping to the moon than you do of getting the NCAA to agree to a 16 team playoff and frankly...given the recent play of our conference..we wouldn't deserve that more years than we would. "Our conference champ should go"....the ten team Big 12 can make that argument...we can't. The notion that winning our little conference championship should guarantee you anything more than a ring and trip to a nice bowl game is so far out of touch with reality it makes my head spin.

And if you need any more proof of how whack-a doodle this whole system has gotten...the Big 12 has ten teams, the Big Ten has 14. These people can't even count and you expect them to accommodate the "MAC conference"?

[Globetrotter]

It doesn't matter if he is right or not. What matters is that everyone with power agrees with him.

[hammb]

You do have a chance...the same chance as the rest of D1...finish in t he top 4.

My issue, and the reason I want to see a fair and equitable way to do this, is we do NOT have that chance. A MAC team could go undefeated with wins over major P5 schools and there is no way in god's green earth they would ever end up in the top 4. None, zero, zilch. For the exact reasons that OSU got in over TCU/Baylor, no MAC team will ever have a shot in hell at that top 4. And not just the MAC. Boise, Utah, or any other non P5 team will ever have a shot either. For this reason I think this system is actually FAR worse than the BCS...at least in the BCS we had an opportunity to get into the premier games, that doesn't exist now.

My issue with the system is that it is arbitrary and allows a committee to decide. That committee when it can make an argument at all will ALWAYS side with the teams that stand to bring in the most revenue.

The only way to remove the arbitrary nature is to grant conference champions a fair shot. I agree with your premise that it's beyond a pipe dream that will never happen. But that does not make it right to me.

[footballguy51]

You do have a chance...the same chance as the rest of D1...finish in t he top 4.

My issue, and the reason I want to see a fair and equitable way to do this, is we do NOT have that chance. A MAC team could go undefeated with wins over major P5 schools and there is no way in god's green earth they would ever end up in the top 4. None, zero, zilch. For the exact reasons that OSU got in over TCU/Baylor, no MAC team will ever have a shot in hell at that top 4. And not just the MAC. Boise, Utah, or any other non P5 team will ever have a shot either. For this reason I think this system is actually FAR worse than the BCS...at least in the BCS we had an opportunity to get into the premier games, that doesn't exist now.

My issue with the system is that it is arbitrary and allows a committee to decide. That committee when it can make an argument at all will ALWAYS side with the teams that stand to bring in the most revenue.

The only way to remove the arbitrary nature is to grant conference champions a fair shot. I agree with your premise that it's beyond a pipe dream that will never happen. But that does not make it right to me.

Just a quick side-note, Utah is a P5 team now. Utah plays in the PAC-12. TCU is in the Big 12. Boise, on the other hand, is quite often better than 75% of the P5 teams, but they are not a P5 team and will forever be excluded from a ranking in the top 4.

[Falcon137]

I would be happy with an 8 team playoff where the power 5 got their champions in, the group of 5 had a representative, and there were 2 at large spots. The lower level schools should have their chance, because like in basketball, every year there is a team good enough to beat 85% of the power schools. Marshall proved it a few years in the MAC, Miami in '03, pick your favorite Boise team.

Everyone should have a chance to win a title. But, Flipper is right, no MAC team is coming within 30 points of any of the 4 teams that played in this years playoff. However, the AAC, MWC, CUSA, MAC, and Sun Belt will always produce at least 1 team good enough to compete with them.

Alabama vs Boise State
Oregon vs Mississippi State
Florida State vs TCU
Ohio State vs Baylor

[Schadenfreude]

You do have a chance...the same chance as the rest of D1...finish in t he top 4.

My issue, and the reason I want to see a fair and equitable way to do this, is we do NOT have that chance. A MAC team could go undefeated with wins over major P5 schools and there is no way in god's green earth they would ever end up in the top 4. None, zero, zilch. For the exact reasons that OSU got in over TCU/Baylor, no MAC team will ever have a shot in hell at that top 4. And not just the MAC. Boise, Utah, or any other non P5 team will ever have a shot either. For this reason I think this system is actually FAR worse than the BCS...at least in the BCS we had an opportunity to get into the premier games, that doesn't exist now.

Boom. I agree 100 percent with this, with the obvious caveat (already pointed out) that Utah is now in the Pac 12. But fill in the blank on that: Fresno State, Hawaii, New Mexico... none of these schools have a chance to make the championship tournament in August no matter what they do on the field and no matter how aggressively they try schedule non conference opponents three years ahead of time.