Expansion: Sharpening the Blade to Kill the Golden Goose?
As cultural and geographic factors erode in determining conference affiliation (Texas and A&M neither geographically or culturally fits in the PAC-10), have we started down the road to one "Superconference" consisting of only the richest teams in college football? Isn't the logical next step to the expansion game assembling the 20-30 richest programs and closing the doors to the rest?
As a potentially unintended consequence of the conference expansion game, something that will be exacerbated as the number of viable "contenders" decreases, the distribution of talent across teams will equalize. Given that very few 4 or 5 star players attend schools on the "outside", and fewer "inside" teams are available, each of the "inside" teams will have more star players to choose from. As the players disperse to different schools so as to ensure playing time, the talent differential between teams significantly decreases. While this may promote a competitive league, it also looks a lot like the NFL. College football is played by the same set of rules, but is great for its differences from the NFL. Anything that makes CFB more like the NFL in terms of culture and game play, should be carefully considered.
Finally, as a very random aside, if the best athletes in the US played soccer, we'd all be reminisching today about National Hero and Great Patriot Charles Woodson, the unbeatable goalie.
While you're looking into the future, can you tell me which lotto numbers to play?
Doesn't seem totally impossible, given that college football has always been a sport where only a handful of teams have even a remote shot at being considered for a national title at the start of each season.
One thing I do like about major expansion is the possibility of having a warm-weather team from the south or west coast have to bundle up and play at the Big House, the 'shoe, or Happy Valley in December when the snow's driving down and life sucks (think the '08 UM-NW game *shudder*).
As far as soccer goes, I'm glad I'm an American and that we have a much better version of football. Yesterday was the first day in the biggest tournament in the sport...and nobody won, just tied. What an awesome thrill-ride of an athletic event. Not bashing on soccer too hard, it's just not for me. And I still refer to Charles Woodson as a hero and unbeatable lock-down cover corner.
Expansion: Yielding more and more tortured analogies?
Are you really opposed to losing the bottom half of the MAC, Sun Belt, WAC, and C-USA?
I mean, those schools currently are bad, historically have mostly been terrible, and probably shoulnd't be fielding D-1 FBS football teams. They have poor attenadance, and usually serve as the appetizers to Big 6 conference teams.
Agreed, a SuperMechagodzilla conference means expanded conference place and less room for the Div-II schools on the schedule and things like that.
If next Sept we're playing Nebraska instead of EMU, more people are going to watch that game, more people will tune in and more advertising dollars will be commanded.
Even better with 4 super conferences, we're set up for a +1 playoff (4 conference champions) or an 8 team, 3 round system. This means all the focus on going undefeated to get into the BCS Championship game goes away. Your goal is to win your conference, not schedule a bunch of cupcakes to pad your stats in Sept. So OOC scheduling might get better.
FBS needs to be split.