OT: New rules for determining a conf champion?

Submitted by umbig11 on

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10273908/acc-commissioner-john-swofford-favors-title-game-qualifying-redoIf NCAA legislation was adopted to modify the current restrictions there might not be a B1G East or West division or an ACC Coastal and Atlantic. Of course the conferences would have to adapt this strategy but, John Swofford of the ACC is already for it. He is stating greater scheduling flexibility and autonomy. How would a fair schedule be devised with 14 teams over the years? Is this a ploy to get multiple teams from your conference in the playoffs? I wonder how many conference Commissioners are in favor?

Mercury Hayes

January 10th, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^

I mentioned this in a diary earlier this week. Conference championship games do as much to penalize conferences as they do help them. This was more prevalent in the early 2000s when Big 12 teams were playing themselves out of BCS contention by losing in the title game, but there was nearly another example in SEC this year.

Missouri loses in the title game and the SEC almost lost the opportunity for two teams in the BCS. Had Alabama had a non-conference loss they wouldn't have made it.

Similarly in the Big 10, OSU got bumped from the title game by losing to MSU. But if MSU had lost a game to say, Nebraska or Minnesota, I believe they still would have made the title game, but not been attractive at all for the national title game or even the Rose Bowl. Shoot, it is concievable that a team like MSU could have had as many as three or four losses and still ruined OSU's season and taken the spot in a BCS game.

I'm sure there are better examples, but you get it.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

January 10th, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^

What are you asking, exactly?  I don't think you've set the parameters too well here.  Modify the current restrictions how?  Get rid of the rule requiring divisions in order to play a championship game?  It would help if you moved the link out of the tags because that just makes it link back to this site to find discussions with that link in the tags, which obviously is only this one.

umbig11

January 10th, 2014 at 3:33 PM ^

I screwed up the link and just caught it when I read your post. Regarding your question, the ACC would be in favor of no more divisions if the NCAA lifted title game restictions. The title game restictions in place now state that you must have equal divisions and division winners play for the conference title. Swofford is in favor of dropping that system and letting his conference determine who is represented in the title game without divisional structure. He also states that it will give him more scheduling flexibility.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

January 11th, 2014 at 12:18 AM ^

I'm not sure why, but the ACC seems obsessed with having divisions for reasons unexplainable.  They have them for baseball even though there's a year-end tournament, for no apparent reason.  Swofford probably wants scheduling flexibility because the 14-team conference (and the insistence on holding onto cross-division rivalries) means a school visits a school in the other division once every 14 years or so.  That's stupid.  Understandable that Swoff wants to change that.  Why he can't figure out other ways to do so is also stupid.

jmblue

January 10th, 2014 at 3:36 PM ^

I would love to get rid of conference title games.  I hate that the Big Ten champion is determined in an NFL stadium in Indianapolis.  If we have multiple teams sharing the title, so be it.  The playoff selection committee can figure out which is the better team.

 

 

Zone Left

January 10th, 2014 at 4:03 PM ^

This ^^^

The playoff system probably makes a title game less attractive too, given that it's a chance for one more loss against a good team.

I firmly believe there is no system outside of an advanced stats rating system that incentivizes playing strong schedules. If you win every game and are from a major conference, you're in. If you lose one, it's a crapshoot. That is magnified in a playoff. I can't imagine a no loss Michigan or Ohio State not making a 4-team playoff. I can imagine it even less with 8 teams.

joeyb

January 10th, 2014 at 3:37 PM ^

I think they definitely should. I think it would be cool to go back to playing 9 teams with 2 rivals, then just take the top two teams and pit them against each other. It would have solved the issue of having Bama and LSU playing again a couple years ago so that we wouldn't have had the all-SEC title game.

Tater

January 10th, 2014 at 3:47 PM ^

After losing both the title game and the Sugar Bowl, I would imagine that the SEC is sweating bullets right now.  Sportswriters in Michigan are assuming that MSU would have gotten a playoff berth if it had been in effect this year, but the sad reality is that an undserving Alabama would probably have taken Sparty's spot, with FSU, Auburn, Stanford and Bama in the playoff.

Hopefully, the SEC won't automatically be pencilled in for two spots next year.  

I like divisions.  If a team can't win its division, it has no business being in a four-team playoff for a "national" champion.  As it stands now, the division races are qualifying rounds and the championship games are de facto playoff rounds for a national championship.  I like it that way.  

If the playoff was champions only, it would make more games relevant and take politics out of the equation.  And that is exactly why the "big boys" won't let it happen.

mgobaran

January 10th, 2014 at 4:07 PM ^

MSU was #4 & Stanford was #5 when they played the Rose Bowl. Stanford was favored, but the polls said MSU was the better team. Don't think the playoff would have taken a 2 loss Stanford over a 1 loss MSU this year, but idk...

swan flu

January 10th, 2014 at 4:06 PM ^

1) The idea ofhaving the top two teams in the conference play for the title while not mandating every team plays all the teams in their division BUT STILL KEEPING THE DIVISIONS is like getting married, living seperately, filing taxes seperately, dating other people, but staying married.

 

2) The danger of not having a title game, as some here have suggested, is that the idle Big Ten team gets passed by a conference champion.  IIRC, This is why the Big Ten wanted a title game in the first place.

charblue.

January 10th, 2014 at 4:33 PM ^

doesn't necessarily improve your conference's chances now that the BCS isn't strictly speaking a beauty contest, because let's say you have a Michigan-Ohio scenario like 2006 where they faced each other as undefeated teams and then Michigan lost. Even if Michigan dropped to a fourth ranking after the loss, it would still qualify for the NC tournament. 

I think when you introduce the idea of a tournament, you take away the need for perfection to find the top team and its competitors. For example, does the conference championship games in basketball help or hinder rankings and NCAA tournament seedings? 

In some cases, yes, and in other cases, no, they make no difference at all. People are going to argue this point incessantly next year. It will be the counter argument that favors the BCS process and challenges the four-way title hunt. 

Some teams will want to play  conference championships to improve their bowl status as well. 

JamieH

January 10th, 2014 at 4:41 PM ^

Either you have divisions or you don't.  The whole point of a title game is to split a large number of teams into two polls of teams that you can give equal or at least semi-equal schedules so that you can compare them, and then have the champs of the two divisions play each other for the title.

 

The conference title games should just be the defacto first round of the playoffs.  You should have to win your conference title game to get into the playoff.

French West Indian

January 10th, 2014 at 6:02 PM ^

People need to understand that if they want a legitimate national champion then that implies a taxonomy based on geography.  Ideally you'd slice the country up into 4 quarters and they place those 4 champions into a playoff.  That is a system that has legitimacy because it draws across the full national spectrum.

That's also why the SEC rematch championship game was such bullshit, it simply reiterated a regional champion by excluding the rest of the nation.  And if we are going to just start pairing teams based on who-we-think-is-the-best, then we might as well just have that matchup on Labor Day & be done with it.

Granted the situation isn't ideal as there are 6 major regional conferences (instead of 4) but those 6 conference champions should be the only teams under consideration for playoff spots.  No mulligans for a team that couldn't win it's division (even if we all think it's the best team ever).

The path to glory should be clear; win your division (ideally with a spotless record); win you conference championship; then you dance with the other big boys and if you win that then your resume is beyond reproach.

But if we are crowning national champions who can't even win their own state (or division or whatever) then the whole thing loses legitimacy because how many other teams could argue that they might have won if they were granted the mulligan too?  It kicks the whole thing back into grandstanding & politics and, in that case, we might as well just go back to the old days of voting without the contrived matchups & faux playoffs.

jdon

January 10th, 2014 at 7:54 PM ^

very well said...

 

personally I would rather get rid of the preseason games before conference play (or limit it to two games).  we should play 8 conference games and then begin a  playoff...

I would like to see either 32 teams in round robin format.   It would add six weeks to the season but if you elimated preseason it would all be the same, and from thanksgiving on would rule!

Imagine the top 32 teams split into 8 divisions with three weeks of knock down drag out fights to make the final 8!

jdon

 

MonkeyMan

January 11th, 2014 at 11:47 AM ^

I would only add that to get into a conference championship game- only conference wins matter, not non-conference wins- everybody plays everybody in their division. I don't want teams scheduling non-conference creampuffs to up their chances of getting in the conf CG.

trueblueintexas

January 10th, 2014 at 10:22 PM ^

So Swofford creates this very large conference creating scheduling issues and then hopes the NCAA changes the rules for who gets into the playoff so they can have more scheduling flexibility? Have we all taken crazy pills? It's like an addict that can't help themselves.
It's pretty simple. Play all the games you have to play, some group of experts takes all that info into a closed room and decides who the best 4 are. Maybe the Big 12 will end up being the smart ones for making their best teams only play 12 games instead of 13.