B1G/SEC Challenge proposal (FB)

Submitted by Gr1mlock on

So Bielema laid this idea out there, replacing the SEC's annual FCS weekend with a 14 on 14 challenge, same as the B1G/ACC or Big 12/SEC challenges in basketball.   This is obviously pure theory and has no decision makers involved yet, but still curious to hear people's opinions.  I for one would love to see this, especially if they make it alternate home games like in basketball.  Helps every team, gives fans something interesting and new on the schedule, and ensures an extra quality game every year.  

 

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/14163970/bret-bielema-ar…

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SF Wolverine

November 18th, 2015 at 6:08 PM ^

Would be awesome for fans, strength of schedule, and as an example to other conferences to do likewise.  I assume you'd try and pair strength against strength, and that you would do a home and home in successive years, or something like that.  Maybe do an eight-year deal where you might get your home and home in non-consecutive years.

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Padog

November 18th, 2015 at 6:11 PM ^

They should do it with top to bottom seeding based on season outcomes so far. This year it would be:
Ohio State vs Alabama
Iowa vs Florida
Michigan State vs LSU
Michigan vs Mississippi
Northwestern vs Georgia
Wisconsin vs Arkansas
Penn State vs Mississippi State
Nebraska vs Texas A&M
Illinois vs Tennessee
Indiana vs Auburn
Minnesota vs Missouri
Rutgers vs Kentucky
Purdue vs Vanderbilt
Maryland vs South Carolina



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UMFanInFlorida

November 18th, 2015 at 8:10 PM ^

I think the top half are pretty even. Where we'd get burned is the bottom half of the conferences. Don't see any winnable games for the Big Ten after Penn St besides Indiana.

Ohio State vs Alabama - lean to SEC
Iowa vs Florida - coin flip
Michigan State vs LSU - coin flip
Michigan vs Mississippi - lean to BigTen
Northwestern vs Georgia - coin flip
Wisconsin vs Arkansas - coin flip
Penn State vs Mississippi State - lean to SEC
Nebraska vs Texas A&M - SEC
Illinois vs Tennessee - SEC
Indiana vs Auburn - lean to BigTen
Minnesota vs Missouri - SEC
Rutgers vs Kentucky - SEC
Purdue vs Vanderbilt - SEC
Maryland vs South Carolina - SEC

Then again I would have said the same thing last bowl season where the Big Ten fared pretty well.

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funkywolve

November 19th, 2015 at 1:07 AM ^

It's to hard in football to not have your non-conference games scheduled out in advance.  To much money on the table from a home game.  You'd pretty much have to guarantee each team got a home game every other year.  I really doubt you could wait until January/Feruary to figure out the match ups for that fall.  You'd need to schedule these games well in advance.

There's no way Florida would wanto have to go to Florida St as well as a Big Ten school in the same year.  Ditto for South Carolina (Clemson) and Georgia (Georgia Tech).

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bsand2053

November 18th, 2015 at 6:28 PM ^

If so, not interested.  

Also, If all the games are going to be in September that a non starter as well.  If they want to spread out some in the early nonconference and then some in the weird end of season FCS weekend that the SEC has, then fine.

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TheFugitive

November 18th, 2015 at 6:54 PM ^

Arkansas is on the schedule in the near future.  I'm excited for the Washington, UCLA, Texas, Oklahoma games on the dockett

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michiganman001

November 18th, 2015 at 7:12 PM ^

Doesn't bowl season (at least during the BCS era) become like some sort of a B1G 10 SEC challenge. There are usually 3 to 4 games between the top B1G 10 and SEC teams, which might be better because no one cares how 6-6 Illinois would do against 6-6 Kentucky or something for example.

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deejaydan

November 18th, 2015 at 7:15 PM ^

There are games already scheduled, what, like 10 years out with Texas and/or Oklahoma.  There would also be a need to figure out Home and Home, so that was split.  Or do they re-shuffle the rankings every other year?

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chatster

November 18th, 2015 at 8:08 PM ^

I’d be in favor of it, IF both conferences were playing nine games in conference. Then you’d know that only two other out-of-conference games each year might be the home-game, guaranteed-win types.
 
My concern would be that it could prevent Michigan from scheduling home-and-home games with a school like Alabama, Florida, LSU or Georgia within a reasonably short period of time, instead of possibly waiting 14 years before playing each of those schools again. I think that it's much easier to set up the basketball-challenge schedule by matching teams of relatively equal strengths a few months in advance than it would be to do the same for the football challenge.
 
I’d also like it only IF it could be arranged as mid-season games in October that would be played before a bye week for each school. In effect, that would give each school a break in their respective conference schedules, and a week to recover from having played what could be a difficult out-of-conference game.
 
IF this could be done, I’d consider having each school have home games in alternate years. The games could be staggered, so that seven games could be played on one weekend and seven games would be played the following weekend. I’d try to make sure that the Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Mississippi schools would not each be playing at home on the same day. I'd also try to make sure that the teams that have to travel still would have at least seven home games on their schedule, but I realize that it might be very difficult to work that out.
 
In the following example for the first year, I’ve matched an Eastern division school with a Western division school, giving four Big Ten East schools and four SEC East schools home games; and the kickoffs would be staggered an hour apart from 12:00 noon through 6:00 PM. 
 
LSU at Michigan - Week One - 6:00 PM
Texas A&M at Michigan State - Week Two - 12:00 Noon
Wisconsin at Tennessee - Week One - 5:00 PM
Georgia at Iowa - Week Two - 4:00 PM
Vanderbilt at Northwestern - Week One - 3:00 PM
Purdue at Kentucky - Week Two - 1:00 PM
Minnesota at Missouri - Week One - 2:00 PM
Auburn at Maryland - Week Two - 5:00 PM
Penn State at Alabama - Week One - 12:00 Noon
Rutgers at Ole Miss - Week Two - 2:00 PM
Mississippi State at Indiana - Week One - 1:00 PM
Ohio State at Arkansas - Week Two - 6:00 PM
Florida at Nebraska - Week One - 4:00 PM
Illinois at South Carolina - Week Two - 3:00 PM

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DrAwkward

November 18th, 2015 at 9:20 PM ^

I don't know that I want my conference to dignify those corrupt goons from the SEC by playing them in an organized challenge. The PAC 12 is closer to the B1G in terms of institutional integrity and academic prowess, so they would be a better fit.

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Perkis-Size Me

November 18th, 2015 at 9:35 PM ^

Would never happen. I've seen maybe 3-4 SEC teams decide to come across the Mason Dixon line to play a game. Bama, Mizzou, LSU, and Arkansas when they play us in a few years. Everyone else is either "you'll play us down here in our backyard, or we won't play at all."

Could you ever imagine the likes of Ole Miss coming up to Ann Arbor? Or Auburn? Or Florida? When was the last time their teams left the south for anything?



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NittanyFan

November 18th, 2015 at 10:43 PM ^

It'll never happen, but it's fun to draw up the theoretical match-ups.

"Geographic" pairings: Nebraska vs. Texas A&M, Illinois vs. Missouri, Indiana vs. Kentucky

"Private school" pairing: Northwestern vs. Vanderbilt.

"The only 2 schools who ever left the ACC" pairing: Maryland vs. South Carolina

"One HC is related to both schools, and damn these match-ups look pretty darn fun even regardless of that" pairings: Michigan vs. LSU, MSU vs. Alabama, Ohio State vs. Florida, Wisconsin vs. Arkansas

"Good schools but not at their 20-year-ago level" pairing: Penn State vs. Tennessee

"Other pretty good looking match-ups" pairings: Iowa vs. Georgia, Minnesota vs. Auburn

"Shoot, there still are some schools left over, they must play each other" pairings: Rutgers vs. Mississippi State, Purdue vs. Ole Miss.

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dmuthalovinmase2

November 19th, 2015 at 1:48 AM ^

Would be fun to see this conference match up played in the first week in October. That would give an absolute clarity of which conference is better, make a shit ton of money, dominate the headlines andthe SEC schools can still have their FCS schools to beat on in September

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Other Andrew

November 19th, 2015 at 5:49 AM ^

Way back in 2007 when a Tennessee fan urged me to do so.

He said he'd heard of similar proposals before and saw how it would be a good idea. However, he also said it would likely be impossible to implement for various reasons. And if the B1G and Pac-## couldn't do it after agreeing to the concept, how would one expect to convince all these SEC teams that won't travel to get on board?

Great that Bielema is saying it, but don't get your hopes up.

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Finance-PhD

November 19th, 2015 at 7:52 AM ^

For the top teams, they can do kickoff games at the various NFL stadiums with maybe the SEC/B1G champs playing in Indy then Atlanta with every other year it being the runner ups in that stadium. For the lower tier teams (we could count up the stadiums to see how many are left) play home every other year.

Teams like Bama will do a home and home like they did with Penn State but looking at those schools they are far more likely to play a team with the neutral field payout.

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Other Andrew

November 19th, 2015 at 9:52 AM ^

I think part of the reason fans would want this is for the sake of the Home and Home. The Tennessee fan that suggested it to me wanted to visit Big Ten Stadiums, not FedEx field or whatever.

Plus getting that many NFL stadiums lined up would only add to the logistical problems.

I think the three main challenges are:

1) Schools schedule their own games out of conference, and there's not much a conference can do to force them to schedule particular teams

2) So many games are scheduled so far in advance. The second one can be managed with a bit of patience of course.

3) The most compelling way to make this happen would be via TV $$$$$$$. And that gets very complicated given that it's the home team that sets up the rights. You'd think that ESPN/CBS/SECN/BTN would want to make it happen as well, but the devil would be in the details on how they choose which games go on which network.

All of this is surmountable, but it would take a lot of work and arm-twisting to make it happen. Beilema's not going to be the one to do it.

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drzoidburg

November 19th, 2015 at 6:05 PM ^

as to your #1, no, the conference recently passed rules that a P5 opponent is mandatory and no FCS games. The individual teams have some leverage, but so does the conference 2) it wouldn't be difficult to cancel say army in 2019, as the mid majors have little bargaining power. There's probably rarely a large fee 3) again, this could be overcome by allowing a joint negotiation with the various networks, probably espn, as games for both conferences are on that network and part of the network identity already. It would be the same as basketball challenges I agree that only customer demand for better games could make this happen. If florida fans stop attending the shit shows in november, it can happen

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Blarvey

November 19th, 2015 at 11:11 AM ^

I have been proposing something similar only inter-conference if the mega conferences ever happen (if they haven't already). For example, if the B1G ever grew to two 9 or 10 team divisions, the top two teams would face each other in the conference championship game and then the next top two teams would face off, then the two #3 ranked teams and so on. Have the games played Friday and Saturday of CCG weekend. It may only make sense to do the top three or four teams.

The biggest problem playing between conferences is that it could not rely on preseason rankings to get fair matchups. Right now the SEC bias in polls and such put teams like Georgia and Auburn in the top 10 right off the bat. If Bielema's idea of having some week, maybe later in the season as the week for such games, I think it would have to be based on conference or poll ranking rather than an early AP ranking.

His idea is great though and I wonder if some of it is Jeff Long speaking through him, or at least planting the seed. ADs and fans know you have a lot more to lose than gain by playing cupcakes. The Big 12 was punished for it last year. The closest thing to it on the schedule 20, 30, or 40 years ago was something like Navy or Tulane. The OoC was all SWC, Pac 10, ACC, and big independents. The same was true then as it is today: The last poll is the only one that matters. If you lose an early OoC game then you are probably still ok as long as you win the rest of your games. If you don't, then you aren't a good team anyway and don't deserve a shiny record.

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drzoidburg

November 19th, 2015 at 5:59 PM ^

Sorry but i don't like your idea because it would totally kill P5 games on campus, what few of them exist. Games like oklahoma/TN just would never happen if the playoff amounts to autobids only I also don't agree that there's more to lose than gain by playing SW missouri state or whatever, if you're a team like florida. You get roughly the same $ times two and way lower chance of a loss, which always seems to be punished more than a win vs cupcake. In addition, there's lower chance of injury. There's a reason these games are so out of hand. The only thing can undo is by actually making it worthwhile, such as the alabama-michigan game in dallas, where both teams made as much $ as a home game. That is exceedingly rare though, screws over the students who can't travel, and even then, it effectively killed one team's season I think a "challenge" week *could* overcome some of these obstacles, but it all depends on if the SEC is too cowardly, which to this point i mean...they're playing FCS teams in november, so yeah, they're cowards

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drzoidburg

November 19th, 2015 at 5:52 PM ^

which week are you referring to? Cause ole miss had like 4 of these and all the other teams 3 each. And yeah, i consider playing all but like 2-3 non P5 fbs teams the equivalent of fcs. Then again vandy vs rutgers seems worse than watching a sun belt game Anyway, overall i would love the idea, anything to create more quality matchups. It's incredible to think that after 130+ seasons, Michigan has never faced teams like LSU, and a marketable "challenge" week is about the only way they'll ever play on campus. Sadly it would take 10+ years to take off due to existing schedule commitments, unless all 28 teams agreed to cancel some

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