Tom's ND scheduling tweet
For those of you that don't follow Tom on Twitter (I admit I don't since I don't have an account, but he's part of my Google Reader feeds).
Here he says that according to this ND is cancelling its 2013 game with Army. Most teams take 2 years to join a conference and one of the reasons that people thought ND wasn't happening is that their OoC schedule would already be set with all of their none-B10 contracts.
And there's been more smoke around the idea of the Big East actually issuing the "get in or get out" ultimatum to ND. Maybe there's fire.
Let the speculation begin. I sure don't have any insider information.
Note: I did a quick search for the link I posted and a few other keyboards. I didn't find anything so I believe this is new to the board. If not, then I apologize for the mistake.
Very interesting.
Thanks!
Army may be replacing the 2013 game at Yankee Stadium with Syracuse. SU plays Southern Cal in 2012 and Notre Dame in 2014 at the New Meadowlands.
Orange in the Apple baby.
I hope it is just a matter of time before ND joins the Big Ten!!!
be exciting, can you imagine so many college football wins in one conference? :)
But, FWIW, ND does not have an OOC schedule. Or, rather, their entire schedule is an OOC schedule. They need to cancel alot more than Army to make room for a move to the B10 (or any other conference).
What I meant was, I've read that if ND joined the B10 right now, they already have contracts with 4 teams outside of the B10 to play them next year. Thus, if they joined, they would have an out of conference schedule and it would be full. Since most teams like to schedule the equivalent of Delaware State that would be a hurdle to ND joining the B10.
Normally Irish fans could say that playing Navy isn't much harder than DSU but recently that hasn't been the case.
If they do join, who is the 3rd one that we grab at this point?
Cuse or Rutgers most likely.
If Rivals rated a potential fit for the Big Ten these schools would incite the wrath of the three star mafia.
Mike Hart was a 3 star.
I sure hope it would be Pitt. Better school than the others, natural rivalry with Penn State, good basketball program.
Any of the other three would dilute rather than strengthen the league.
If the B10 were to get ND, that would probably do more for getting viewers in NYC and the entire east coast than if we grabbed a team like Rutgers. It's not impossible that the BE did make an ultimatum to ND to "get in or get out" based on the idea that the B10 would then have no strong reason to go for 'Cuse or RU. Thus, I'd expect that it'd be someone from the ACC or the [former B12]. That would indicate the Missouri or Maryland would be the most likely 14th team.
Pitt
Pitt does no good at this point. They are a virtually worthless addition.
Absolutely true. We'd be better off just taking Mizzou and hoping Notre Dame provides some East Coast subscribers
But I can't imagine why Pitt would be more useless than the other teams. The concept of adding east coast markets with Syracuse and Rutgers is a pipe dream, and I'm not sure how much sway Missouri football really has either. Plus, Missouri is the worst academic institution of the four, if I'm not mistaken.
With these four teams in consideration, the superior level of football promised by Pitt will do at least as much to cause viewers to tune in as the dubious geographical advantages of the others. Plus, it would bring, like, a superior level of football. Which is nice.
...As opposed to Rutgers, which has a traditional rivalry with PSU, great football and basketball teams, is within the geographic footprint, and has SO MANY FANS in NYC that it basically controls the NY TV market.
/WAIT A SECOND
I guess it would have to be a New York/New Jersey team such as Rutgers or Syracuse....
I know it is uneven, but i would rather split the money among one less team and not just grab a nobody just to get to an even number. If there is a good fit out there (i.e. TX) great. But what other team is going to result in games we really want to watch and bring $25+ million of incremental revenue? How about we sit at 13 until TX screws up the P10 and decides to move on? I give it about 14 years.
I know that NCAA rules require that for a championship game there must be two divisions of at least six teams. I don't know if NCAA rules specify that the two divisions must have the same number of teams but I'd be willing to bet that such a rule exists.
I doubt that the B10 would be willing to give up a championship game since it alone would bring in 12-15 million dollars (assuming that it's on par with the SECCG).
So, it's possible they'd stop at 13 but I would doubt it.
I doubt it exists. The six team per division rule is likely a by-product of the 12 team per conference rule. I cannot see any purpose in preventing a conference with a 6-team and a 7-team division from having a championship game. Can you come up with one?
I looked up the rule for clarification and you have to have 12+ teams, 2 divisions with round robins, and the championship game is the winner of the divisions.
With 7 and 6 team divisions, there is no way to get all the teams in the conference to play the same number of games without play another team twice.
Definition:
"A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a type of tournament in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn. In a single round-robin schedule, each participant plays every other participant once. If each participant plays all others twice, this is frequently called a double round-robin."
So long as everyone in each division plays all the other teams in the same division an equal number of times, you have a round robin. You are just making stuff up now.
How am I making stuff up? Give me one scenario where you can get every team in the conference to play the exact same number of conference games without any teams playing twice, and have one seven team round robin and a six team round robin.
If you can do that, then I will concede that 13 teams is feasible.
It does not require the same number of cross-division games or even the same number of games within the conference. It is a round robin within each division, with the winner of each round robin squaring off in the championship game.
I never said that the same number of cross-division games is required. I said that the Big10 will never have an uneven number of conference games amongst its teams.
How would you do scheduling? 7 teams in one division and 6 in the other means you can't have the same number of cross-divisional games amongst the teams. Divisions are required for a championship game, which was a major reason for expanding in the first place.
We need even divisions.
Let one team in the larger division play one more OOC game each year and let that team rotate. Is it perfect? No. But neither is bringing in RU or MO just to get to an even number.
Just to be clear, the teams in the 7 team division will play 6 in-division games and 3 cross-division games each year. And 3 OOC games. Except for one team on a rotating basis, which will play one less cross-division game and 4 OOC games.
The teams in the 6 team division will play 5 in-division games, 3 cross-division games and 4 OOC games.
I disagree. Bringing in whoever the Big Ten determines is the best fit of Rutgers, Missouri and Maryland and having an even number of teams is better than having 13 teams. Plus, I think all of those schools are pretty good additions, so whoever ends up being the best out of those would be good in my book.
I agree, if there is a 14th team that makes total sense, bring them in. It certainly makes everything less complicated. I disagree, though, if you are saying just bring in a team to get to 14 even if otherwise you would not want them.
First of all, 6 * 3 = 18 and 6 * 3 + 1 * 2 = 20. You would need to 3 teams to play an additional OOC game.
Second, that gives the 6 teams in one division and the three playing OOC games 8 total games while the other 4 play 9. That will never fly.
Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus TWO plus one, not one plus TWO plus one plus one.
I'm not sure what you are talking about.
\begin{math}
Assuming:
- Teams don't play each other twice in the regular season (that would be stupid).
- Division A has 7 teams, Division B has 6 teams (bylaw 17.9.5.2 (c) requires each division to have at least six schools), each play round-robin.
Questions:
- Can we schedule such that each team in the conference plays the same number of games?
- Failing in the above, can we schedule such that each team plays the same number of conference games as the other teams in its division?
The answer to both is yes, but only if there are either zero crossover games or 42, which would be round-robin for the entire conference (and result in 12 conference, 0 OOC games for each team).
Why? Looking at the requirement for question 2 (for question 1 to be fulfilled, question 2 must be also), we would have each team in division A play, say n crossovers. That means there are 7n crossovers in total. In particular, the number of crossover games is divisible by 7. On the other hand, by considering division B, we can see that the number of crossover games is divisible by 6. Since we have at least 0 crossovers and at most 42 (by assumption 1) & 7 and 6 are relatively prime, the only choices are, in fact, 0 and 42.
Interestingly, the same problem wouldn't necessarily exist for a 15-team conference, since it could be split 9/6 (although this is definitely undesirable, especially since the only other solutions would involve 10 and 8 conference games OR 12 and 11 conference games for teams in the large and small divisions, respectively.
\end{math}
In light of the above, I'd say the only reasonable option (involving a championship game) would be to base the division championship on in-division games only and maybe factor crossover games into a possible tiebreaker.
The question that this all raises is how the MAC does it. They have 13 teams in a 7/6 split, each playing 8 games. However, Miami (NTM) and Akron, both in the East division, didn't play each other last year, so I don't really understand how that qualifies as round robin (this is one example I found, there should be others).
Thank you for explaining what I am apparently incapable of putting into words. At least someone understands it.
there would be no math.
When I was little, I had a big thing for Yvette in that maid outfit.
No, I don't think so. I'm sure there is some way to evenly divide 13 into multiple divisions.
...this is a very interesting development.
The Mac has 13 schools and plays a championship game. They play 8 conference games. Not sure how they do the scheduling though.
Just looked it up, they have one division with 6 and one with 7.
I think if we picked up ND, and stuck them in the other conference so as to play them a lesser-but still meaningful amount, it would bring the UM-OSU more focus. This is a good thing IME.
And it would serve them right for holding out so long that they get stuck in the division without UofM, OSU, and PSU.
wouldn't they want to be in that division? It balances it out so there are now 2 power schools in it instead of 1 and gives Notre Dame a much easier path to the title game.
... has steadily and quietly grown up. Barry Alvarez is the best thing that ever happened to them. Over the past 10 years, WI has been consistently better than people give them credit for. With NE and IA also in that division, the divisions would be pretty even.
We have to go through OSU and PSU; ND has to go through NE, WI and IA. You can move things around until you go nuts, and each year will be different as teams ebb and flow, but I think this is pretty even.
And the best thing is we get to play OSU and PSU every year, which is better than playing WI and IA from a "fun" standpoint. Would it suck to not play ND and NE every year? Absolutely, but we have to put at least two of the elite teams in each division. We cannot play all of them every year unless we eliminate all OOC games and that has its own drawbacks.
ND's record against all BigTen schools in the past five years isn't that impressive. Easier path, relatively speaking, yes...but still a difficult path considering recent history.
I don't think you can look at the last 5 years. You have to assume ND is going to get back to elite status. If not, we should not take them in the first place.