B1G/SEC Challenge proposal (FB)
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…
November 18th, 2015 at 5:15 PM ^
Sure, why not...
How about we play these games the third weekend in November?
November 18th, 2015 at 5:16 PM ^
Love all the SEC coaches explaining how altruistic they are by scheduling FCS teams.
November 18th, 2015 at 8:40 PM ^
Let's complain about something WE are doing...
November 19th, 2015 at 1:01 AM ^
I have to defend Freeze's comment to some extent. Small schools do indeed rely on those blowout payouts in order to help balance the budget. By removing those games, those programs would face an even larger financial hole. It's not just the Furmans and the HBC's of the world, but also MAC, Sun Belt, CUSA schools as well.
But
That still doesn't explain why Alabama feels the need to schedule a Charleston Southern in the last two games of the season, nor any SEC team scheduling a cupcake right in the middle of the meat of the schedule. It's laughable that Freeze is trying to paint the SEC as the savior of small time college football when in reality Ole Miss is probably the dirtiest of all D1 programs.
November 19th, 2015 at 9:17 AM ^
It's laughable that you truly believe Hugh Freeze is scheduling these schools for anything other than a tomato can W on their resume.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:17 PM ^
That would require SEC teams traveling north of the Mason-Dixie line.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:26 PM ^
And the Mason Dixon too
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November 18th, 2015 at 5:54 PM ^
And the Winn-Dixie line.
November 18th, 2015 at 11:36 PM ^
the Mason Reese line?
Or Mason Reese crossing the line...
November 18th, 2015 at 5:19 PM ^
I would love this. So sick of the SEC.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:19 PM ^
SEC in the big house? Only it it's November and snowing.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:19 PM ^
Wait, the SEC has only one FBS weekend? That's a terribly misleading statement of their extremely weak OOC schedule. Also, the SEC, outside of a couple exceptions, doesn't play P5 true road games (uncertain whether he advocated this). Why it could happen: $$$. Why it won't happen: the weird inertia that surrounds CFB and people in charge of things
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November 18th, 2015 at 6:04 PM ^
CBS proclaims the SEC as the best conference. And this is based on recent domination. But when I look at the coaching that has been at the forefront of the most dominant schools, they all come from the Midwest with roots in the MAC and Big Ten. So how do you account for this phenomenon?
November 19th, 2015 at 8:15 AM ^
Coaching is one thing, talent is another. Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and to lesser degrees Mississippi and the Carolinas have a great deal more high school talent than their midwestern and northeastern counterparts. It's a matter of demographics and culture that most upper midwest schools just don't have.
November 19th, 2015 at 9:09 AM ^
that most SEC schools will enroll players that can barely spell their own names.
Listen to some post game player interviews at SEC schools. Then compare and contrast that to the postgame interviews given by Michigan players. Were it not for football, a lot of the kids playing in the SEC would not be in college. Any college.
November 19th, 2015 at 9:19 AM ^
Careful. Michigan recruited Dennis Norfleet
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November 19th, 2015 at 6:28 PM ^
as opposed to "we aint' here to play school" recruited by ohio st?
simple numbers dictates that a college that rejects 40,000 applicants a year will need to lower its standards to acquire any 4-5 star football players
now a "school" like LSU that filed bankruptcy and has 20% of its budget from the football team...probably doesn't have to lower its standards much
November 18th, 2015 at 7:55 PM ^
Actually, why this won't happen: $$$.
At football rich schools, they make more money by having 2 home games in 2 years against a tomato can than by having 1 game every 2 years against somebody good. Most of the teams in question have very strong schedules as it is and tend to sell out those OOC games. Plus, this would likely take the place the whatever is the hardest OOC game they already have, so all they would be doing is giving up a home game every other year.
Also, this easy game is likely necessary for 1-2 teams per conference to make a bowl. Like Auburn or Indiana this year. If Auburn played somebody good and lost this year in place of Idaho, they miss a bowl. And that costs the conference money. It's in the conference's best interest to get as many teams bowl eligible as possible, which is why these 14 team leagues like the Big Ten and SEC aren't in a hurry to go to 9 conference games like the Pac-12 did, even though it's the best thing to do.
November 18th, 2015 at 10:26 PM ^
next season? And isn't that the reason our challenge series with the PAC-12 fell through? Further, those lower tier bowl games are money losers for the schools. Schools may schedule with an eye towards being bowl eligible, but it's not for the $$$.
November 19th, 2015 at 6:51 PM ^
Are you seriously denying the impact of $$$ in scheduling? Seriously? The entire reason for the 12th game was $ and despite excitement it generated at the time, schedules have gotten WORSE since then. I mean just do the math...
$65 x100,000 for a home game, plus luxury boxes, and a cut of concessions and parking, minus $300k payday to UNLV = $8 million roughly?
$80 tickets for a P5 opponent, minus $1 million payday to byu/oregon st, minus 2,000 empty seats = $8 million?
$80 tickets for P5 opponent alabama, divided by 2 cause home and home = $5 million?
Now the first two are acceptable so that's why those games are on the schedule. As for alabama, the real question is will be priority point "donations" for tickets and the tv deal offset the $3 million loss AND the risk of losing the game to a much better opponent?
The answer is there is room for 1 marquee OOC game a year before diminishing returns kicks in, due to limited primetime tv slots and limited fan wallets for priority points, so that's the most we've gotten since like 2003
November 18th, 2015 at 5:21 PM ^
This needs to happen. This would help allow teams to prove themselves like Iowa this year or allow teams to show how bad they are msu this year. so we could get a better picture for the playoff rankings.
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November 18th, 2015 at 6:21 PM ^
be proving anything we don't already know about them by beating, lets say Missouri or Kentucky?
November 19th, 2015 at 6:54 PM ^
no, but on occasion they'd have to play alabama etc, so on those years we would know a lot more, just like next year they play Michigan
In the end, law of averages means every team in both conferences would have *some* legit opponents every year. That's just not the case right now
This is why if i were scheduling czar i would force every P5 team to play 4 games, one vs each conference, against P5 teams every year. Law of averages means they'd have 2-3 legit opponents more than now, and it'd be damn easy to pick a 4 team playoff
November 18th, 2015 at 5:22 PM ^
With only 3 non conf games go forward it reduces flexibility too much. Would still like to have home and homes with the Texas, Oklahomas, UCLAs, etc.
Wouldnt mind it for 6 years or so however - really a shame we never play LSU GA Auburn in home and homes.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:36 PM ^
The SEC's in-conference scheduling is really crazy.
They have 7 team divisions and 8 conference games with one fixed cross-over game. It both means teams very rarely play teams in the other division and makes for longterm competitive imbalance. It's surprising that the teams locked into a really difficult cross division game (particularly Tennessee with Alabama, but also Florida with LSU and vice versa) aren't pushing to expand the conference schedule to 9 games and do away with the FCS games.
November 18th, 2015 at 6:41 PM ^
They would go fewer if they could not add more. More games in conference necessarily means more losses to conference teams when they can play OOC like Florida vs Michigan when they can go for a win without hurting the conference.
November 19th, 2015 at 6:57 PM ^
i hope you don't want notre dame back on the schedule then, because just like 1999-2014 it destroyed any variety in the schedule. Not that i find it a legit excuse to not play those teams still, but that's just reality. Even lloyd carr admitted as a coach "Is notre dame on the schedule?" when asked about other opponents
I am very much looking forward to texas/arkansas/oklahoma/washington/ucla, and very much dreading ND. Plus they were bastards when ending it last time
November 18th, 2015 at 5:28 PM ^
Michigan vs Florida at Jerry's World in 2017, then a home & home against Arkansas in 2018 & 2019. It would be fun to see but the SEC has to come up here as well. LSU is traveling to play Wisconsin next year in Green Bay.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:54 PM ^
they've played in State College and even Minneapolis reently.
Tennessee also has an upcoming home and home with OSU nad they did play at ND once late in October, I believe.
November 19th, 2015 at 7:02 PM ^
LSU is the one team down there i can give some marginal credit to. They played at washington and syracuse too. Still, i think the bad blood over the les miles non hire will prevent this
November 18th, 2015 at 5:28 PM ^
Only if we get to play BERT every year and we go 5 wide outs, no TEs or FBs, no huddle, and run about 80 plays a game. Then play Kingsbury's comments on loop afterwards.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:32 PM ^
SEC schools have been demanding home field advantage since the Civil War.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:34 PM ^
I would throw in a vote in favor of this. Would give some clarity at the start of each season which conference is stronger top to bottom.
November 19th, 2015 at 3:25 AM ^
Would give better clarity if we did it in mid-November.
Or the teams did it in December (1st or 2nd week), for all the teams that were not in their conference championship game, based on conference or division standings.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:39 PM ^
Not sure if I'd like to be locked up with an SEC game every season, but it would be cool if half or so of the teams in each conference played in a given year.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:40 PM ^
didn't we kind of do this with the Pac-12?
IIRC, most years as far back as I can remember, B10 teams played a Pac 8/10/12 team.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:43 PM ^
Going to death valley, the plains, Athens, the swamp, Neyland etc. would be cool.
November 18th, 2015 at 6:20 PM ^
would love to those southerners come play in some yankee November snow
November 18th, 2015 at 5:50 PM ^
Won't happen because ten SEC teams would have to travel north to play.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:51 PM ^
This is good in theory, especially at the top of the conference. The problem would be at the bottom when you get matchups like Rutgers vs Kentucky and Illinois vs Vandy. This would make it harder for the crappy schools to get bowl eligible and/or make some money. They would be forced to give up more natural OOC rivalries that might draw some fan interest.
November 18th, 2015 at 6:00 PM ^
Vandy v. Northwestern is pretty natural.
Kentucky v. Indiana
Illinois v. Missouri (which is already a BB rivalry)
EDIT: Did not know that Illinois-Missouri FB had a Wikipedia rivalry page, lol...they haven't played all that often in FB niut they are kind of natural rivals.
November 18th, 2015 at 6:24 PM ^
is a basketball rivalry, they used to (and maybe still do) play each other in St. Louis and the United Center. Big deal to them.
November 18th, 2015 at 8:40 PM ^
one another in BB and yes, it does get intense.
November 18th, 2015 at 6:55 PM ^
the Illinois-Michigan rivalry.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:56 PM ^
The Maryland-Vanderbilt game that would surely ensue would go down in history as the only game that ended in mass blindness being the result. "Do not look directly into this inside run....", they said. The crowd did not listen. They were warned, for the fine print on the tickets listed the appropriate protective gear.
It is an interesting idea, in all seriousness. I would love to see an SEC team wonder why there was so much dandruff blowing around in a Big Ten stadium, only to hear, "No, no it isn't dandruff..."
November 18th, 2015 at 6:00 PM ^
yes but only if when the big ten is at home its in November. sick of those bitches down south not playing some man ball.
November 18th, 2015 at 6:01 PM ^
When they expand the playoff to 8 teams I'll be all for this. Until then, I see little incentive to schedule tough match ups early season like we have against Florida in 2017, and like we had this year against Utah.
November 18th, 2015 at 6:02 PM ^
Wasn't there an agreement between the big 10 and PAC12 a few years back and then they canceled it?
November 18th, 2015 at 6:14 PM ^
becaue at the time they played 9 conference games and the B10 played 8 conference games.
Still, I always though that was kind of an informal thing; the only Pac8/10/12 team that I can recall hasn't played Michigan in the regular season is USC (that might include the 2 Arizonas as well...and they weren't always members of the conference).