Afternoon Kickoff 7/13
With all the talk of the BCS issues and conference expansion (the latter mostly thanks to Joe Paterno), what would the ideal college football landscape look like?
Neill Woelk of the Boulder Daily Camera checks in with his plan, which involves 64 teams leaving the NCAA to form their own football league, made up up eight conferences of eight.
Likely to happen? No. But it's the offseason, and this kind of thinking can be fun when news is slow.
So, if I could have any kind of plan for college football, here's what it would be.
-The new landscape would have no effect on conference tie-ins for all other sports, including basketball.
-I have little interest in international soccer, but I absolutely love the idea of promotion and relegation. We've listened to Sen. Orrin Hatch and others talk about the unfairness of the BCS and how it supposedly blocks the smaller conferences from getting fair shots. Well, there is no better way to be fair to the little guys than by incorporating relegation.
-Division I in football gets split even more (not that I-A isn't already unofficially split). Five conferences, 12 teams each make up the top level of college football. Each would also have a 12-team second tier. With 120 current 1-A teams, it works out perfectly. For the most part, I tried to keep current conferences intact, although the Big East had to dissolve.
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Atlantic
Atlantic: Boston College, Clemson, Maryland, N.C. State, Rutgers, Wake Forest
Coastal: Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
Second Tier: Army, Buffalo, Connecticut, Duke, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Marshall, Miami (OH), Navy, Ohio, Temple
Great Lakes
North: Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin
South: Illinois, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue
Second Tier: Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Cincinnati, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Indiana, Kent State, Northern Illinois, Syracuse, Toledo, Western Michigan
Great Plains
North: Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska
South: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech
Second Tier: Air Force, Arkansas State, Baylor, Colorado State, Houston, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, SMU, Southern Mississippi, Tulsa, UTEP
Pacific
North: Boise State, BYU, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, Washington,
South: Arizona, Arizona State, California, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Second Tier: Fresno State, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, New Mexico State, San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State, Washington State, Wyoming
Southern
East: Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee,
West: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State
Second Tier: Central Florida, Louisville, Memphis, Middle Tennessee, South Florida, Troy, Tulane, UAB, UL Lafayette, UL Monroe, Vanderbilt, Western Kentucky
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Schedule: Eight conference games, including the five other teams in your division and three from the other. Four non-conference games: two against other top tier teams, two against second tier teams.
Playoffs: Each conference plays a title game with the winners of the two divisions. The five conference winners make the playoffs, along with three wild cards determined by some lousy BCS-like formula. The current bowl system can stay in place with non-playoff teams.
Relegation/Promotion: The last place team in every division gets relegated to the second tier of the conference. Ideally, the second tier gets broken up into divisions as well, with each division winner getting promoted to the top level.
So there you have it. This will most likely never happen, and clearly I have too much time on my hands. Either way, relegation would make things interesting and the little guys would have no reason to complain anymore. And we'd have playoffs. Playoffs?
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Quick hits:
-Last week, ESPN released its 2009 college football announcer pairings. It's a shame that the top two pairings will be on at the same time (Musberger-Herbstreit-Salters and the new Nessler-Blackledge-Andrews group), but it's also nice to see Sean McDonough back in a more prominent role with the 3:30 ABC games. And everyone needs to relax about his new partner Matt Millen. He really is a good color man, regardless of what has happened with the Detroit Lions.
-In other ESPN TV news, here's this year's slate of Thursday night games. A lot of great games in there, especially Oregon-Boise State on opening night, Clemson-Georgia Tech and North Carolina-Virginia Tech. The season can't come soon enough.
-The sad state of college football scheduling... It'a amazing that this even has to be said:
"In football, we should have one BCS-type opponent on our schedule every year," Alleva said. "If that means going on the road, that's something we've got to look at doing every once in a while."
A road game? Every once in a while? Bold move...
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Video of the Day:
The ending to one of the greatest college football games ever:
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