Conference Divisions Need to Be Scrapped ASAP
This weekend, so-called champ week, needs to be a culmination of the best in each conference. Instead it's a joke with Pitt, northwestern, and Utah represented.
End the stupid divisions ASAP and bring college football into the light.
How can grassroots fans get this done? Boycott the current set up? Did my best yesterday flipping on bama vs Georgia only when close in 2nd half.
December 2nd, 2018 at 11:58 AM ^
It can get done if the grassroots campaign can pay the hundreds millions of dollars generated by these games
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:00 PM ^
I think the OP is suggesting keeping the games and having it be 1v2 like the Big 12 does.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:00 PM ^
There can still be conference championship games without divisions. Put them all in one division and have the 2 top teams play.
December 2nd, 2018 at 1:56 PM ^
Get back to 10 teams and have them all play each other.
December 2nd, 2018 at 11:59 AM ^
I doubt they realized you changed your channel
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:00 PM ^
Eliminate the American League!
Eliminate the AFC South!
What's the point of the Wild Card game anyway?
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:02 PM ^
One of 2 things should happen, but won't. Rather and a cpuple more teamst to the big ten and end the crossover games and the divisions only play each other at the co ference championship or, which I think a lot of us would prefer more, drop a couple teams and the top 2 teams play for the championship.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:02 PM ^
As it pertains to the College Football Playoff, it doesn't matter. The top 4 get in no matter what they do with the divisions.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:49 PM ^
I submit that the divisions have a significant impact, as they determine one of the major games the committee considers for many top teams.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:04 PM ^
Northwestern performed better than we did against Ohio
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:30 PM ^
Technically, by margin of defeat.
We performed better than they did against Notre Dame, Michigan St, Nebraska, Rutgers, and Wisconsin. And we performed better against Northwestern than they did against us.
Not that any of this really needs to be pointed out -- if you're going to sulk, I won't stop you.
December 2nd, 2018 at 2:01 PM ^
Neutral field vs Away game.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:07 PM ^
Easy solution.
The power 5 conferences each nets about $15,000,000 from these games.
Times the other group of 5 conferences net smaller checks.
I think around $90 million annually ought to do the trick and unburdened you from these games.
Get out your checkbook or start a Go Fund Me.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:11 PM ^
Sorry, still in favor of conf championship game but FREE of stupid divisions...
That's the goal here. Ending big ten east and west and acc etc etc. Top 2 play each year for outright championship.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:38 PM ^
I don't necessarily disagree, but there will still be problems. For example, OSU-Michigan might be a rematch seven days later. The initial rivalry game, in a lot of cases, would simply decide 1st vs 2nd place, which in your format would take away huge stakes from it.
There is also the matter of deciding 3-or-more-way ties. Last year Alabama, Auburn, and Georgia all had one SEC loss. One of those teams would still have been left out. In the case of Alabama, getting left out may have helped, as they avoided an extra loss and won the national playoff.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:09 PM ^
Conferences are too big now -- can't really create a schedule that makes sense when you have 14 teams and only 8-9 conference games. Several teams don't play each other, yet with the CCG we have rematches.
Now that this is a national sport, we need to come up with conference sizes and schedules that actually decide champions instead of being left with all this ambiguity year after year.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:10 PM ^
Conferences would do well to simply go to a mythological champion...after participating in a larger national playoff system.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:20 PM ^
The conference title games themselves are dumb. Most of the time they are either a lopsided matchup or a rematch which just diminishes the importance of the first game. Bama-Georgia was good but a rare exception.
Just scrap them and go to an eight-team playoff, with the first round played on campus in December. The next two rounds can stay as is. To keep the regular season meaningful, require that all eight playoff teams have at least a share of their league title. And you can reserve one spot for a G5 champion. Covers all the bases.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:48 PM ^
This one is interesting. Selfishly, it would result in Michigan getting in the playoff this year and 2016. In fact the Big Ten would get 4(!) teams in the playoff in 2016.
This year's games:
8 Central Florida @ 1 Alabama
7 Michigan @ 2 Clemson
6 Ohio St @ 3 Notre Dame
5 Oklahoma @ 4 Georgia
2016:
8 Colorado @ 1 Alabama
7 Penn St @ 2 Ohio St
6 Wisconsin @ 3 Clemson
5 Michigan @ 4 Washington
Rankings could be slightly manipulated to avoid conference rematches, and home-field advantage may be too much reward for finishing 4th instead of 5th. Although I'd love to see the 2017 case where 5 Alabama travels to 4 Wisconsin in early December.
December 2nd, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
We wouldn't have been in the playoff in 2016 because we finished 7-2 in league play while OSU/PSU were 8-1. But we might have been this year.
Keep in mind, one of the eight spots is reserved for a G5 team, so you have to be in the top seven and have a share of your league title.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:51 PM ^
Which campus?
December 2nd, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
The higher-seeded team's.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:21 PM ^
Rather than having a conference champion week, I would rather expand the playoffs to 8 teams. Make sure the champion of each conference are represented.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:23 PM ^
How would you boycott divisional play in a conference? I mean, I am asking that it in all seriousness. It certainly wouldn't be through refusing to watch more than a portion of a game, or indeed refusing to watch a game altogether.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:25 PM ^
I wish conference championships games were contingent.
No rematches. Oklahoma vs. Texas shouldn't have been played. It already had been played.
Saves some games for the 8 playoff.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:26 PM ^
I know I’ve always wanted us to play Ohio State in back to back games every year...
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
Yeah - that's only one of the problems with this plan.
The annoying thing here is that everyone thinks the "system" sucks in a year where the results weren't perfect. The point of a conference championship game is to determine the champion. Michigan had their chance against OSU, and they lost. Washington St had their chance against Washington and they lost. Yes, it's odd that some of the division winners this year were mediocre teams, but that's an anomoly, not the norm. Chill out.
December 2nd, 2018 at 12:40 PM ^
I'm working on a side project pertaining to this idea exactly. Keep an eye on the Board near the end of December. People seemed to like the Defensive stats post from a while ago, but I'm working on something a bit more controversial that should lead to a good discussion.
December 2nd, 2018 at 1:13 PM ^
Prefer no conference championship game and have an 8 team playoff. Take the best record from each conference, tie breaker is ranking. This still leaves 3 at large spots for deserving teams.
December 2nd, 2018 at 1:31 PM ^
If it's done for th BIG10, we need to stop the OSU/UM final game tradition for obvious reasons.
December 2nd, 2018 at 1:32 PM ^
Why? Under the divisions, if one division has the two best teams in a conference, they already play each other. Why should Ohio State have to play Michigan again the very next week and beat them twice in a row to win the conference?
December 2nd, 2018 at 1:46 PM ^
Exactly. If we had won last week then had to play Ohio again I don’t think OP would be singing the same tune.
December 2nd, 2018 at 1:43 PM ^
Don’t be a pussy and let’s just beat Osu
December 2nd, 2018 at 1:48 PM ^
Never happen.
It's all about the money.
December 2nd, 2018 at 2:07 PM ^
The big ten west is a complete joke, and pretty much has been since the start of this but if the playoff committee is going to have emphasis on winning it it’s not going away. As Michigan fan though it really doesn’t matter to me what they do if we can’t beat Ohio state the last game of the year every year who cares you are not going anywhere important or meaningful after that happens no matter how things are aligned
December 2nd, 2018 at 2:19 PM ^
Why not an 8-game regular season and 64- team tournament?
December 2nd, 2018 at 2:53 PM ^
Go to 11 teams, with 10 game conference round robin, then play 1 v 2.
December 2nd, 2018 at 4:59 PM ^
Keep the divisions and stop organizing them by geography. All teams fly to their games, so what's an extra hour in the sky? Conferences should have the option to reorganize the divisions every 3-4 years to maintain competitive balance.
December 2nd, 2018 at 8:36 PM ^
• Realign yearly for competitive balance. Schedules should be set two years in advance for planning.
• Only play games that count toward conference record against teams in your division.
• Before conference season starts, each team plays one team from opposite division that does not count against conference record. This may be a rivalry game, if rivals are not in same division that season.
• On Conference Championship Saturday, all teams play. 1 vs 1 for championship, 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, etc. Except for championship game, adjust pairings to avoid rematches of pre-season crossover games.
• A formula based on final division standings or rankings can be used to move teams from one division to the other.
• This plan will enable conferences to expand to 16 teams or more.
December 2nd, 2018 at 5:05 PM ^
I don't really like the conference championship games, especially when they are rematches. If Michigan had beaten OSU this year, rather than being Big Ten Champs by virtue of being the only team to go undefeated within the conference, they'd have had to replay a 4 loss team that they already beat. That's all kinds of bullshit.
December 3rd, 2018 at 7:56 AM ^
So you would play the game 2x?
December 3rd, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
Well if we did we would’ve just played OSU again this weekend, which would’ve been interesting to say the least.