To take our minds off of NFL replacement refs (and even as a Bears fan that loathes the Packers with every fiber of my being, I can’t take joy in such an abominable outcome from Monday night’s game), let’s move onto some other news:
(1) Seventh BCS Bowl: Progress for the Little Guys or More Consolidation of Power for the Big Guys? – The powers that be of college football are reportedly going to add a seventh bowl to the top tier of games (widely presumed to consist of the Rose, Cotton, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Chick-Fil-A Bowls) that will be a part of the new playoff rotation and host the highest ranked champion of the “non-contract” conferences (the Big East, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt and MAC). Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com is reporting that industry sources believe that this new seventh bowl will make approximately $20 million per year in TV money. For the sake of comparison, the Rose Bowl will be receiving $80 million per year and the Please Choose a Freaking Site Already So I Can Stop Calling This the Champions Bowl will likely receive the same.
Whether this new seventh bowl is a good deal for what Dodd calls the “Gang of Five” depends upon what starting point you’re comparing it to. This sounds like progress compared to the prospect of simply a merit-based selection process to the “Access Bowls” that will have at-large slots in the new college football postseason (where the Gang of Five could have been frequently completely shut out of any top tier bowl games). However, it’s worse than the current BCS system for that same group since this is effectively consolidating what has been two separate bowl bids (the Big East champ AQ bid and the top 12 non-AQ conference champ auto bid) into one bowl bid. Dodd’s report also suggests that the Gang of Five champ will be locked into this seventh bowl game (hereinafter referred to as the “Gang of Five Bowl”) as opposed to being rotated around among the other Access Bowls, which means that that power conferences can still take up most (if not all) of the slots in those other games. Essentially, the Gang of Five Bowl looks like a mini-Contract Bowl that will need to find another tie-in instead of selecting from the Access Bowl pool, only that it still will be part of the semifinal rotation. (Dodd suggests that a third or fourth place team from a power conference could be interested in that tie-in, while an AP report says that either the Big 12 or Pac-12 could end up sending a team to this game.)
On paper, the Big East ought to be winning this Gang of Five bowl slot in most seasons, but it’s still quite a fall from a money perspective if Dodd’s financial figures are correct. Currently, the Big East is receiving at least $17 million per year for having an AQ bid in today’s BCS system, which is a figure that will almost certainly go down for the conference if the new Gang of Five Bowl is worth $20 million (as that revenue will need to be split up between the Gang of Five conferences and whichever other conference signs a tie-in). However unlikely it might be that Gang of Five school ends up finishing ranked higher than the Big East champ in the future, it’s still not an iron-clad that the Big East has now (or what the other power conferences continue to have). Once again, this scenario is better than the Armageddon situations facing the Big East a week or two ago, but still a downgrade from the current BCS system for them. We could arguably say the same thing about all of the other Gang of Five conferences. Nearly a year ago, when the playoff was still a dream and the talk was merely about “removing AQ status”, I wrote that it was a matter of semantics and the practical effect would be that the Big East and non-AQ conferences were actually going to be the ones being screwed. For the leagues outside of the Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC, the destruction of the BCS system was a “be careful for what you wish for” event and now everyone sees why.
(2) BlogPoll Ballot
Frank the Tank’s Slant Ballot – Week 4
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama Crimson Tide | — |
| 2 | LSU Tigers | — |
| 3 | Florida St. Seminoles | — |
| 4 | Oregon Ducks | — |
| 5 | Kansas St. Wildcats | — |
| 6 | Stanford Cardinal | — |
| 7 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | — |
| 8 | Georgia Bulldogs | — |
| 9 | South Carolina Gamecocks | — |
| 10 | West Virginia Mountaineers | — |
| 11 | Ohio St. Buckeyes | — |
| 12 | Florida Gators | — |
| 13 | Texas Longhorns | — |
| 14 | USC Trojans | — |
| 15 | TCU Horned Frogs | — |
| 16 | Northwestern Wildcats | — |
| 17 | Clemson Tigers | — |
| 18 | Oklahoma Sooners | — |
| 19 | Michigan St. Spartans | — |
| 20 | Louisville Cardinals | — |
| 21 | Oregon St. Beavers | — |
| 22 | Ohio Bobcats | — |
| 23 | Louisiana Tech Bulldogs | — |
| 24 | Rutgers Scarlet Knights | — |
| 25 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | — |
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
It continues to be ugly for the Big Ten in terms of elite teams. This might be Northwestern’s time to shine with a 1995-esque run to the Rose Bowl.
(3) College Football Parlay Picks (odds from Yahoo! and home teams in CAPS)
WASHINGTON (+6.5) over Stanford – There’s some weird juju going on in Seattle this week. I’ll take the points for the home team in the land of rain and caffeine.
Penn State (PK) over ILLINOIS – I’ve seen many debilitating Illini losses like the one that occurred this past Saturday night against Louisiana Tech over the past 15 years. The most frequent response from the team in that type of situation is to head into a complete tailspin for the rest of the season. Both Ron Turner and Ron Zook could never, ever, ever limit the collateral damage of a bad loss to just a single game, so the deck is stacked against Tim Beckman here. Of course, the postseason ineligibility of Penn State and Ohio State is setting up the Big Ten Leaders Division to have Illinois-Indiana on October 27th become a critical matchup for the conference championship. My apologies in advance to the rest of the college football world.
Ohio State (+3) over MICHIGAN STATE – The Buckeyes are really the only team that could possibly be a factor nationally for the Big Ten at this point… except that they aren’t allowed to win anything. It’s unfortunate for the conference since I believe that Urban Meyer is everything as advertised as a coach.
(4) NFL Parlay Picks (odds from Yahoo! and home teams in CAPS)
Browns (+12.5) over RAVENS – Maybe it’s just me, but this feels like a patented Admiral Ackbar “It’s a trap!!!” game for Baltimore.
RAMS (+3) over Seahawks – Rams are much better competitively than their scores would indicate and, if there’s any justice in the world, there are going to be some karmic repercussions to Seattle here.
Bears (+3) over COWBOYS – I’d feel much better about this game if it was being played at Soldier Field, but it still comes down to a tale of two bad offensive lines and which defense can take the most advantage (and I sincerely believe that the Bears have the edge there).
(5) Classic Music Video of the Week: Mo Money Mo Problems by The Notorious B.I.G. featuring Mase and Puff Daddy
This is one of my favorite songs of any genre of all-time with a video that’s a fantastic time capsule of the late-1990s with its Tiger Woods-Fuzzy Zoeller reference in the intro, shiny jumpsuits and a posthumous appearance by the late Biggie Smalls. Speaking of which, if you ever have a couple of hours to kill on Netflix, you could do worse than checking out Nick Broomfield’s 2002 documentary Biggie and Tupac that sets forth the evidence that former Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight was responsible for the deaths of both Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Broomfield essentially looks and sounds like someone that you would expect to see on BBC World News, so it was quite a scene when he challenges Suge face-to-face in a prison courtyard (which was a sequence that the cameraman was apparently too scared to film, so he kept shooting the sky). Hopefully, the Illini won’t play the same type game that they did last week or else I might be flipping this documentary on pretty quickly.
Enjoy all of the games (and may the White Sox hang on for dear life)!
(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)
FRANK THE TANK'S SLANT 
When is your gut reaction of when the 7th bowl would be played?
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If it’s Pac 12 & Big 12 it pretty much has to be Texas, Arizona, or California. I’d guess San Diego or San Antonio.
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I still say it’s Houston. Unlike SD or SA, they have a modern NFL stadium, and they get good local attendance even if schools don’t bring fans.
The only other bowl that can say the same about good local support is the Sun Bowl, and El Paso is well positioned for the B12 and Pac, but they don’t have a modern stadium to generate excessive revenues.
Well, the Fiesta supposedly gets good local support as well, but I imagine they’d prefer to be an access bowl where they get a semifinal a third of the time and B10-Pac a third of the time.
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“what” is your gut reaction? Geez, I am first for once and my big fingers screw up.
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And then the second “when” gets read as “where”, though no way it’s not 12/30.
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GEAUX LSU Fightin’ Tigers!
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I know everyone will accuse me of thinking like Duffman, but I’d have teams that have played 2 good opponents (KSU) ahead of teams that have only played 1 (Oregon, FSU). They can move up later in the year if they perform.
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Frank the Tank loses A LOT of credibility ranking tOSU #11 based on squeaking by the likes of Cal and UAB. I mean, really. And how do you rank Nebraska ahead of UCLA?
Anyone watching just a little Pac-12 football would have Oregon, Stanford, Oregon St., USC, UCLA, and possibly Arizona in the top 25 right now. There is certainly no reason that Baylor, Boise St., Nebraska, or Rutgers should be ranked.
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I know Oregon is a great offense, but an Arizona that just lost 49-0 should be ranked and Rutgers that is the only 4-0 team in the country with 3 road wins shouldn’t??
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I am guessing Rutgers taking 3 on the road against 3 AQ schools was a ranking reward for tougher early season scheduling and I did not see Baylor in Frank’s Top 25. I can see a case for Ohio State where they are and Sparty will test them this weekend. I would probably put UCLA and Nebraska both in over the extra B12 school.
Franks Top 25 by conference :
SEC : #1 Alabama, #2 LSU, #8 Georgia, #9 South Carolina, #12 Florida
B 12 : #5 Kansas State, #10 West Virginia, #13 Texas, #15 TCU, #18 Oklahoma
B1G : #11 Ohio State, #16 Northwestern, #19 Michigan State, #25 Nebraska
PAC : #4 Oregon, #6 Stanford, #14 Southern Cal, #21 Oregon State
ACC : #3 Florida State, #17 Clemson
BigE : #20 Louisville, #24 Rutgers
IND : #7 Notre Dame
NAQ : #22 Ohio, #23 La Tech
I might agree that more PAC and less B12 based on actual games scheduled and played but that seems to be the minority view. I am curious tho why you would pick Arizona over Arizona State for Top 25 Inclusion?
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Frank’s anti-SEC bias is obvious. Georgia and South Carolina are both ranked way too low.
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I would disagree with that characterization of an anti-SEC bias. I’m still a large believer in both Alabama and LSU, which is why I continue to have them ranked as the top 2 as opposed to most pollsters that have dropped LSU in the rankings. As for the rest of the SEC, I see little reason for Georgia and South Carolina to be ahead of 3 teams (Stanford, Kansas State and Notre Dame) that have much more impressive wins at this point, much less consensus top 4 of Alabama, LSU, FSU and Oregon in some order.
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Kansas State looks solid and Note Dame has paid their dues. We will find out a bit more about Stanford tonight. I am still in debate of Southern Cal being over rated than Stanford being Top 10. I give the Cardinal credit for scheduling AQ but Duke was not reaching very far. If it was schedules, Florida would probably be ahead of South Carolina or Georgia right now. They have already played 3 conference games.
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If you base it on actual on the field results so far, LSU is too high. That doesn’t mean LSU isn’t the #2 team, but you have to believe in them to rate them #2. I don’t think S. Carolina is a top 10 team. Georgia is probably about right, give or take a couple spots.
Northwestern, Ohio and Rutgers are the ones I would put much lower.
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@ Frank,
Well my doubt above was well founded! Washington, who was destroyed by LSU, just took down Stanford! That leaves only Oregon and Oregon State as the undefeated teams in the PAC! Final score was 17 – 13. Looking more and more like Oklahoma and Southern Cal are the over rated teams of this season so far.
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Frank, we’ll see how the season turns out, but I think you have Georgia and South Carolina too low.
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Hawks.
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B10 is 4th overall in the Massey ranking compilation, just a smidge behind #3 P12. Not bad for a terrible season.
http://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm
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Hopefully someone seizes the reins and develops into a good matchup for the Rose Bowl.
Last thing I want to see is someone get run over 49-7 by Oregon or USC (or Stanford).
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Be interesting to hear the details here. The AP article makes it sound like this 7th bowl will get the highest PAC-12/Big 12 team outside the playoff. I find it hard to believe the PAC-12 would send their champ here when its not in the Rose Bowl, but I guess it’s not impossible.
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They get the highest Big 12/PAC team outside the playoff after the Rose Bowl and Champions Bowl get their pick.
Same deal as the Orange Bowl has with the Big 10 and SEC (unless ND is highest).
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That’s means they’ll end up with the first choice from one of the 2 conferences somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 the time (depending on the final semi-final rotation). That’s a big leap up for the bowl from what the conference were likely to get on their own. If USC is #6 and the Rose Bowl is a semi-final, that means they’ll be in this.
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Nothing has been confirmed yet, but Delaney has said one of the reasons for adding a 7th game was so the Big 10 and PAC could sign a deal with backup bowl to host a Rose Bowl matchup when the actual Rose Bowl is being used as a semi final.
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That’s what I figured would come out of this and hope it still does. It would seem to contradict some in these reports though. Hopefully that’s just because they are in the early stages. Ideally, the Big Ten vs. PAC-12 could be moved to another bowl and Big 12 vs. SEC could too in years that bowl is a semi-final. ACC and group of 5 could be too, but probably only them and not opponents (unless selected by the committee).
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Another report says a “top” team from the Big 12 or Pac 12, not necessarily the champion. It could end up working like this:
Rose 4 of 6 Pac vs B1G, 2 playoff
Fiesta 2 of 6 Pac vs B1G, 2 playoff, 2 open
Cotton 4 of 6 Big 12 vs SEC, 2 playoff
Sugar 2 of 6 Big 12 vs SEC, 2 playoff, 2 open
Orange 4 of 6 ACC vs best remaining of SEC, B1G, ND, 2 playoff
#7 bowl Best of 5 other guys vs best remaining of Pac or Big 12
#6 bowl 2 of 6 ACC vs best remaining of SEC, Big, ND, 2 playoff, 2 open
This setup really shows that without the 7th bowl, it is much more restrictive for the remaining conferences. They will rarely make the top 4, so they would be limited to those 6 open bowls over 6 years in the Fiesta, Sugar and #6 bowl. And with the B1G and SEC locking up an Orange slot, that extra Pac/Big 12 team might lock up some of those slots.
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Apparently this is part of the reason the SEC and Big 10 are likely to be involved in the Orange Bowl tie-in, so the purpose of this would be to do the same with the Pac-12 and Big 12. Otherwise there’s no reason not to simply mandate that one access bowl spot goes to a team outside the Big Four.
The access bowls are turning into a joke. They’re basically just holding down spots for leftovers to be thrown to when they’re not semifinal games.
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I’ll also add I think the new set-up is a huge win for the current non-AQs and not really a big loss for the Big East. Getting in the top 4 (where being conference champion is supposed to be a factor) is a lot easier a hurdle for both than top 2 (non-AQs and Big East teams in the past would have made it, one year arguably two would have (both Cincinnati and TCU)). Also practically speaking, even with just the 6 bowls, the top 10 (according the committee) were almost always going to get in, which meant Boise State last year wouldn’t have been left out if the committee thought like the AP.
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I wouldn’t say a huge win. Its more of a mixed bag. The gap has grown between the contract and non-contract conferences. We’ve essentially gone back to the era immediately preceding the BCS when everyone else was locked out of any big bowls and things were very restrictive. That is a consequence of allowing the Orange to do a tie-in for their other slot. The other conferences won’t get in the playoff very often, especially with Utah & TCU in contract conferences now.
What they gain is lots more money and an occassional shot at the MNC vs. almost zero chance before. That part is a win.
And while they gain more money and may keep their same % of the take, the actual $ gap is growing enormously. I think there will be big consequences in the sports other than football. I think the Big 5 are already spending about as much as they can productively on football. But they will increase the gap in all the other sports.
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To show the gap, here is last year’s ooc vs. I-A after the bowls:
2011
Big 12 84.3%
SEC 81.4%
B1G 62.5%
BE 56.4%
Pac 52.9%
ACC 48.8%
Ind 48.8%
MWC 47.2%
CUSA 38.3%
MAC 31.1%
SB 28.6%
WAC 24.4%
The MWC drops to 35% if 2011 had the 2012 lineups and is at 33% so far this year and they still have Boise. BE would drop to 53% and they still have Pitt and SU. CUSA is at 16% so far this year, and while the ones leaving for the BE aren’t doing that well this year, neither are their replacements.
From 2005-2011 cumulative (since the BE raid by the ACC)
SEC 76.7%
Big 12 70.9%
B1G 66.5%
BE 63.1%
Pac 12 58.9%
ACC 56.1%
MWC 50.4%
Ind 45.4%
WAC 34.7%
CUSA 31.2%
MAC 24.5%
SB 17.8%
The BE has had a higher winning % ooc than the ACC for the last 6 years and for 4 of the last 6 vs. the Pac 12. The MWC has been higher than the ACC 2 of the last 6 and never more than 9% behind the ACC. Meanwhile the ACC has been closer than 24% behind the SEC only once in the last 6 years (2008 72% SEC, 61% ACC). While this % doesn’t take into account the differences in ooc schedules, its clear that the MWC really was on the verge of turning it into club of 7. But losing Utah, BYU and TCU ended that. And doubling their TV income to $2 million a year while the Big 5 are quadrupling to the $20 million range makes it really hard for them to keep up. The low end of the Pac 10 was getting less than $3 million a year in conference distributions just a couple of years ago.
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I disagree. Actually contrary to how its being portrayed, I think this is the most open the system has ever been to non power conferences. Getting into the top 2 was previously a feat that was almost impossible, but if committee selections look anything like AP polls, then things have opened up a lot. In one year, we would have had both TCU (then Mountain West) and Cincinnati (Big East) in.
For the BCS games, all it takes a couple of opening to guarantee the top 10 in. With just the 6 BCS bowls, as long as 3 of the automatics weren’t outside the top 10, the top 10 were in every single year (and that would be very rare). With the 7th, even if best non-contract champion isn’t ranked they are in. I’ll grant there are some years where this doesn’t work out too (for instance if the Mountain West champ is #13 and the Big East champ is #8, they’d have gotten 2 bids before and only one now), but as a whole, I’d put the non-AQs as the big winner in all of this.
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You’re missing the point that inclusion of a “lesser” potentially into a playoff is low on the list of power conferences concerns, as long as the power and money flows the direction they want. Sort of like scheduling home OOC payday games, but receiving super bonus TV revenue.
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My overall point is that the power conferences haven’t gained ground in this at all. We are a more open system than before rather than less (which is never good for established powers over the long haul). While the Big East arguably is a bit weaker spot (and given greater playoff potential and the number of BCS teams isn’t even a sure thing at this point), the current non-AQ conferences continue to increase access and money. Maybe this isn’t a loss for the power conferences, but it’s definitely a huge win for the current non-AQs.
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If they haven’t gained ground it wouldn’t have happened. Over the last month the “more open” system has been closing up.
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RTR!
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Hook ’em
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Buckeyes
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add
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GBR
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Andy,
“Missouri scored just fine with Franklin in there before he got hurt. And they scored just fine when they brought in Berkstresser. Where they haven’t scored is when Coach Pinkel has tried to make it work with an injured Franklin at QB. The results have been horrendous. If that pattern holds then yeah, Missouri will continue to not score points and they will lose more than they win.
What may be fine to you is not fine in the SEC
Look at the touchdowns by quarter in Mizzou’s 4 games :
Game #1 : 4 : 0 : 3 : 2 = 9 TD’s
Game #2 : 0 : 1 : 0 : 1 = 2 TD’s
Game #3 : 1 : 1 : 1 : 0 = 3 TD’s
Game #4 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 1 = 1 TD’s
In game 2 and 4 (the SEC games) a Mizzou team with Franklin in and uninjured was unable to score. In the 2 SEC games Mizzou got the same number of TD’s as they got in a single PAC game. (2) of those 3 TD’s came in the 4th quarter when the game was already lost. Now you can continue to makes excuses and tell me what you think but it does not matter. In the SEC you have to score early and often to have a hope to win. This happened in neither game which is why both were over by halftime. You can not believe this because in your mind you see a positive score but the damage is already done. It is like playing chess and the other guy is 5 moves ahead before you get there and find they have checkmated you.
If you do not have at least 1 TD in the first quarter or 2 TD’s by the half you are already dead even if it takes another quarter or two before you feel it. I noticed this trend over every MNC the SEC won. They played the best schools in the ACC / B12 / B1G / PAC with 5 different SEC schools and 8 different games. Not one of those teams scored more than 3 TD’s even tho all came in with offenses that could score. I think the Oklahoma team with Sam Bradford set the all time NCAA scoring average record and Florida held them to 2 TD’s! Seriously, just look at the numbers :
1998 : 0 : 1 : 0 : 1 = 2 TD’s ==> Florida State lost by 7 points
SEC team held an ACC team to almost 3 TD’s below their season average
2003 : 0 : 1 : 0 : 1 = 2 TD’s ==> Oklahoma lost by 7 points
SEC team held a B 12 team to over 5 TD’s below their season average
2006 : 1 : 1 : 0 : 0 = 2 TD’s ==> Ohio State lost by 27 points
SEC team held a B1G team to just over 3 TD’s below their season average
2007 : 1 : 0 : 1 : 1 = 3 TD’s ==> Ohio State lost by 14 points
SEC team held a B1G team to just over 2 TD’s below their season average
2008 : 0 : 1 : 0 : 1 = 2 TD’s ==> Oklahoma lost by 10 points
SEC team held a B 12 team to under 6 TD’s below their season average
2009 : 0 : 0 : 1 : 1 = 2 TD’s ==> Texas lost by 16 points
SEC team held a B 12 team to almost 5 TD’s below their season average
2010 : 0 : 1 : 0 : 1 = 2 TD’s ==> Oregon lost by 3 points
SEC team held a B 12 team to 5 TD’s below their season average
2011 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 = 0 TD’s ==> LSU lost by 21 points
Alabama only scored 1 TD to win the game!
Every one of these games was won with a defensive stop, interception, or easy score provided by a defensive play. 2 TD’s is generally not going to be enough to win and high offensive output is no assurance of ability to score against a better SEC defense. I think over time Missouri will play enough in the conference to get higher scores – Just look at Arkansas last season – but not in the first season against Florida or Tennessee. It seems so simple – score early, often, and keep scoring – yet teams just can’t seem to do it. If Mizzou does not have at least 1 TD in the first quarter and 3 TD’s by halftime they are not beating Florida or Tennessee at home.
We will see soon enough if this is the case.
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duffman – I think that what the Mizzou team is finding out about the good SEC defenses (not necessarily Vandy, Ole Miss, UK, or Arky), is the immense ferocious pressure that the DLs & LBs put on the opposing QBs. Heck USCe was lighting up Franklin with mostly 4 pass rushers. The St. Louis Dispatch said in an article after the game, “Quarterback James Franklin even admitted so much after the game, saying he either pulled up, ducked or threw the ball away too quickly because after a while he just expected a Carolina defender to knock him into next week.”
I think that is where the really good SEC defenses really separate themselves from the rest. When your QB is getting hit like a pinata, by the 3rd & 4th qrt they get rattled which leads to turnovers and bad decisions. People always say that the SEC doesn’t have good QBs, but that isn’t necessarily the truth. Just look in the NFL right now and see how many SEC QBs are playing. The problem is that they can’t put up the same type of numbers as the Big 12 & Pac 12 QBs can because of the pressure that SEC defense put on them 5 or 6 games out of their SEC schedules. This year we have several good QBs that will probably play in the NFL (McCarron, Murray, Bray, Driskel, Wilson & possibly Mettenberger), but they will never put up the same numbers as the Big 12 & Pac 12 QBs.
Mizzou and aTm will have to learn that when you pass against the good SEC defenses, you can’t continually use 5 man routes. You have to keep either a RB or a TE in pass protection a lot of the time to give the QB a chance. Last year Arky had some success against most of the SEC teams they played using 5 man routes, until they came up against Bama & LSU who ended up blowing them out. But even in their other games that they won, Wilson still got lit up and suffered a concussion because of the abuse he endured all year.
That is why most SEC guys (including myself) don’t think a pass first spread offense can be very successful in the SEC. The spread that UF & auburn used in their championship runs were run first spreads where Tebow and Cam were basically 230lb-240lb RBs. In the SEC teams run the ball to take pressure off of the QB. Then when they do pass, they can use play action to help slow up the pass rush, and they can keep a RB or TE in to help protect the QB. IMO, that is why we have been so success in those championship games that you laid out. When those QB, who are used to being able to sit in the pocket and go through their progressions, start getting decleated every other time they drop back to pass, it affects their ability to focus down field.
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The SEC doesn’t have good QBs NOW (with a few exceptions). The last two years have been pretty bad. The NFL QBs are from 3 or 4 years ago. You probably are right about the defensive lines being better in the SEC, but you only have to watch other leagues to see the deficiencies in the QBs.
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“The SEC doesn’t have good QBs NOW (with a few exceptions).”
What are you basing that assumption on? I just gave you 6 good SEC QBs (and that’s not included Shaw, Franklin, Manziel, Wallace who are decent college QBs). Just because they aren’t able to throw for 4,000 yards in a season doesn’t mean they are good QBs.
Sorry, but I honestly beleive that if those Big 12 and Pac 12 QBs were in the SEC, they wouldn’t put up the numbers that they do in their conferences. Just look at the QB numbers against the good SEC defensive teams in OOC play and bowl games. As duffman pointed out OU, UT, UO QBs put up huge numbers the years that they played in the BCSCG, yet they couldn’t do it in those games. That is because the QBs end up getting hit like a pinata. Heck UT’s QB couldn’t even make it past the 1st qrt.
If McCarron, Murray, Bray, and Wilson (and possibly Driskel & Mettenberger) were in the Big 12 or Pac 12, they’d put up huge numbers just like the good QBs from those leagues do because they would be passing a lot more, and wouldn’t be getting hit near as often. You may not agree with that, but I honestly do.
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Wow…sorry for all of the typos. I meant “Just because they aren’t able to throw for 4,000 yards in a season doesn’t mean they are not good QBs”, and “You may not agree with it, but I honestly do believe that to be the case.”
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UT’s QB who led them to a 5-7 season in the Big 12 lit up Bama’s D in the title game when he wasn’t turning it over (as he did in the Big 12 as well). McCoy had taken UT on scoring drives the 1st two times they had the ball before getting injured. It wasn’t a particularly big hit. He just got hit in the same place a much bigger hit his freshman year vs. KSU injured him. That KSU hit was scary. The Bama hit was fluky. And with a healthy McCoy UT only scored 13 vs. Nebraska vs. 24 against Alabama. Oregon’s D shut down Cam Newton in the BCS game, unlike the SEC defenses. Georgia Southern scored more on Alabama last year than any SEC team (and it was Alabama trying to run the score up late, not a late GSU TD). Your examples are pretty lacking.
Georgia and Arkansas were the only schools with good QBs last year in the SEC. Everyone else was, at best, adequate. Arkansas was the only SEC offense in the top 50 despite 4 of the 12 ooc games and several SEC teams without fear inducing defenses. The QBs just can’t hit the open man consistently.
Murray’s good and the best in the SEC. I’ve seen him in person several times, but he just doesn’t compare to an RG3, Andrew Luck or Brandon Weeden, to name a few from last year. Wilson’s out (taken out by a Sun Belt defense). Mettenberger and McCarron may have developed into good QBs this year. Mettenberger was expected to beat out Murray his freshman year before he messed up at UGA. We’ll see. Bray hasn’t impressed me with what I’ve seen so far, but I haven’t watched TN much. That’s a pretty limited group. And none of them will threaten for the Heisman unless they show dramatic improvement over the last 2/3 of the season.
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bamatab,
For all the high scoring offense in the B12 and PAC it was a B1G team from Ohio that hung 3 TD’s on a SEC team in the MNC game (something the ACC / B12 / PAC did not accomplish) . The B1G may have taken an early hit in the first 4 weeks but it was not like they were not stopping the non B1G teams (not counting Alabama and LSU who really is on a different level) :
0 : 0 : 0 : 1 = Syracuse vs Minnesota = 7 pt win
0 : 1 : 2 : 2 = Syracuse vs Northwestern (NU napped in the 2nd half) = 1 pt win
0 : 0 : 2 : 2 = Syracuse vs Southern Cal (like NU game the TD’s came late)
Gophers shut down Syracuse and Northwestern did for about 2.5 quarters. Since the Syracuse game the Wildcats limited Vanderbilt and Boston College to 1 TD each for the whole game.
0 : 1 : 0 : 0 = Boise State vs Michigan State = 4 pt win
1 : 1 : 0 : 0 = Notre Dame vs Michigan State = 17 pt loss
1 : 0 : 0 : 0 = Iowa State vs Iowa (2011 ISU averaged 24 PPG) = 3 pt loss
0 : 1 : 0 : 0 = Notre Dame vs Michigan (limiting ND to 1 TD @ ND) = 7 pt loss
0 : 1 : 1 : 0 = Notre Dame vs Purdue (limiting ND to 2 TD @ ND) = 3 pt loss
0 : 0 : 1 : 0 = Oregon State vs Wisconsin = 3 pt loss
0 : 0 : 1 : 1 = Virginia vs Penn State = 1 point loss
Nebraska, Ohio State, and Illinois failed to stop the PAC offenses and paid the price in the national media spotlight. All that being said, the B1G still can stop the other side better than other conferences. While not the level of SEC defense, they may be the next conference behind them. It is why I have strong belief that folks like Sagarin have models that reward offense over defense. Even tho I am fighting the tidal wave of public perception I am surprised some B1G with better math skills never bothers to test the water here and challenge the computers and voters on the national level.
If they say defense wins championships (and this thread seems to point that way for the SEC) why are folks in the BTN bunker not challenging the bloggers who put stuff out to draw hits over responsible reporting and discussion? I am not afraid to stand up for the B1G over the B12 but I can not understand why others seem to give the B12 a pass for empty wins?
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“Your examples are pretty lacking.”
My examples were in regards to the QBs’ play in those BCSCGs. Let’s take a look at the opposing QB numbers in those games starting in the 2003 game (I’ll leave out the 98 game since I think FSU was playing their 3rd string QB).
2003 – J . White – 104 yds, 0 TDs, 2 INTs
2006 – T. Smith – 35 yds, 0 TDs, 1 INT
2007 – Boeckman – 208 yds, 2 TDs, 2 INTs
2008 – Bradford – 256 yds, 2 TDs, 2 INTs
2009 – Gilbert (who you said lit up Bama) – 186 yds, 2 TDs, 4 INTs
2010 – Thomas – 363 yds, 2 TDs, 2 INTs
So out of 6 BCSCGs, only one QB had a decent game. Yet he still threw as many INTs as he did TDs, and had to throw 40 times to get to 363 yrds against the worst defense out of the 6 SEC teams, and was a middle of the pack defense that year.
“UT’s QB who led them to a 5-7 season in the Big 12 lit up Bama’s D in the title game when he wasn’t turning it over (as he did in the Big 12 as well)”
But he was turning it over for 4 INTs, and had only 186 yds passing. Not what I call lighting up a defense.
“Oregon’s D shut down Cam Newton in the BCS game, unlike the SEC defenses.”
Auburn wasn’t blowing out the good teams in the SEC, with the exeption of the SECCG.
“Georgia Southern scored more on Alabama last year than any SEC team (and it was Alabama trying to run the score up late, not a late GSU TD)”
Georgia Southern runs a triple option which Bama hasn’t faced since Saban has been there. Bama spent most of that week prepping for auburn, not GA Southern.
“That’s a pretty limited group.”
You mentioned 5 QB and I added Driskel which you leftout who is looking very good at UF. That is 6 QBs out of 14. Plus I think Franklin proved last year in the Big 12 that he is a decent QB. Shaw is a decent college QB also. Not to mention Manziel and Wallace who look like could be decent QBs once they get a few more games under their belt.
“And none of them will threaten for the Heisman unless they show dramatic improvement over the last 2/3 of the season.”
I never said they would be a threat to win the Heisman. But the reason they won’t is because the SEC teams won’t/can’t throw it enough over a full season to put up the numbers necessary to win it. It’s not necessarily because the SEC doesn’t have talented QBs. I’ll give you that last year the SEC QBs were not as good as some of the other ones. But this year they are, and in years past they have been. They just can’t put up the numbers due to the offenses that are run in the SEC, and because of the defenses that they face at least 5 or 6 games of the 8 games SEC schedule.
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duffman,
“I am not afraid to stand up for the B1G over the B12 but I can not understand why others seem to give the B12 a pass for empty wins?”
I think part of it is because the B1G hasn’t performed all that well this year, so they might be lacking some confidence. Another factor might also be that the B12 is really the only conference that has put up enough numbers (BCSCG appearances, top to bottom team wins, ect.) to be compared to the SEC. Some of the B1G folks may be more willing to give the B12 guys a pass just so that SEC doesn’t look that much better. As an SEC guy, there appears to be an anti-SEC bias on this site. But it’s not just on this site, other conference fans are tired of the SEC and voice it in all of the other media outlets.
But IMO you are right. The reality is that the Big 12 doesn’t play good defense overall. Heck, OU doesn’t even play defense very well these days, and that is what their tradition used to be built on.
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Duff:
I don’t give credit for doing any more than expected for empty wins, basically see those games as only having a negative potential, no mater what conference. I agree defense is critical. However, good offense can differentiate between good and great defense whereas mediocre or bad offense can’t. Point differential is used in Sagarin’s “predictor” ranking so I’d say it accounts for both offense and defense as it is reflected in results, and is a more accurate method OT trying to predict future outcomes. I also don’t have a math degree from MIT so I don’t feel qualified to challenge Sagarin’s methodology.
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However, good offense can differentiate between good and great defense whereas mediocre or bad offense can’t. Point differential is used in Sagarin’s “predictor” ranking so I’d say it accounts for both offense and defense as it is reflected in results, and is a more accurate method OT trying to predict future outcomes. I also don’t have a math degree from MIT so I don’t feel qualified to challenge Sagarin’s methodology.
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@ ccrider55
I was not singling you out in particular if that is what you were thinking. I think with the offense and defense the debate is in public perception and some probable math bias as larger numbers may have an undue influence. I do not have a MIT degree either but my uncle went there for his degrees and I did stay at a Holiday Inn once! Seriously tho, I do wonder about an offense and defense weighting system which we can not test because we can not see how Sagarin constructs his model. Something like Black-Scholes or CAPM at least has public dissection and debate to allow thorough public testing of the value of their use. Maybe I am just a crusty old american but I like things people can play with before accepting it as gospel.
What I was trying to point out in the earlier post was that the B1G may not be as bad as perceived because many teams in the B1G can play defense even if their offense is not wowing John Q Public. The Mizzou guy saying the SEC plays “old man football” gets the media spotlight but it is telling when coming from a B12 school. The B1G could be viewed as even “older man football” in the same view from folks who play / follow just the B12 and PAC. Long term that is not helping the image of the B1G especially as many of the B1G losses were not blowouts and could have gone the other way. This may be even more probable if the venues were switched. If UVA plays @ PSU and TCU plays @ UVA do we see the same results?
I can agree that you and I may not be the most qualified to challenge Sagarin but what about 10 math geeks who also actually watch football enough to understand the game beyond the talking heads or casual fans. Some agreement could made on not releasing his formula to the public but at least verify and test it across the USA. Maybe have a panel that looks like this :
1 ACC math / football geek
2 B1G math / football geek
1 BigE math / football geek
1 B 12 math / football geek
2 PAC math / football geek
2 SEC math / football geek
1 OTR math / football geek
I just sometimes think Sagarin has become the Wizard of Oz of college football with no one allowed to peek behind the curtain to see if it is more smoke than fire.
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bamatab,
“I am not afraid to stand up for the B1G over the B12 but I can not understand why others seem to give the B12 a pass for empty wins?”
I think part of it is because the B1G hasn’t performed all that well this year, so they might be lacking some confidence. Another factor might also be that the B12 is really the only conference that has put up enough numbers (BCSCG appearances, top to bottom team wins, ect.) to be compared to the SEC. Some of the B1G folks may be more willing to give the B12 guys a pass just so that SEC doesn’t look that much better. As an SEC guy, there appears to be an anti-SEC bias on this site. But it’s not just on this site, other conference fans are tired of the SEC and voice it in all of the other media outlets.
What duffman refuses to admit is that good teams can play bad schedules. Would the Patriots suddenly become worse if they played in the BE? Of course not. So why does playing bad teams OOC make a B12 team bad? It’s all about how you play against the teams you play. That’s why MSU and OSU aren’t considered to be great teams this year. They struggled with bad teams last weekend.
Is it bias to believe most of the SEC’s recent titles were the result of cheating (Cam Newton, lying about the need for medical redshirts, etc) and artificially increased depth through oversigning even to the point of player abuse (AL, LSU)? Those teams might have won without those crutches, but we’ll never know.
Is it bias to believe the media, mostly ESPN, artificially inflates the quality of the whole SEC to the detriment of all the other schools?
Is it bias to believe much of the SEC doesn’t follow the same basic ethos as the rest of college sports in terms of how to prioritize academics, student welfare and winning?
If so, then hell yes I’m biased against the SEC.
But IMO you are right. The reality is that the Big 12 doesn’t play good defense overall.
Nobody has ever argued that they do. It’s another strawman argument duffman created.
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Sagarin is hardly the outlier among computer polls. Billingsley has some really strange results. And there’s a Virginia Tech guy with a poll who has a lot of odd results and no history. Sagarin is pretty open about his BCS system. Its basically a variation on the ELO chess system. And all of those polls in the BCS are limited to a 21 point margin of victory. So again, you have an irrelevant straw man argument in talking about offense vs. defense. The Big 12 did better in his BCS poll which had a limited margin of victory.
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Brian – LOL…good grief man. You aren’t sick of the SEC are you. 😉
I really don’t want to get into another big debate about how the bad ole SEC is the only conference that has teams that try and cut corners (i.e. cheats). But if you think the SEC schools are the only ones that do, then you are living in a fantasy world (UNC, OSU, USC, Miami, OU just off of the top of my head come to mind). And really don’t want to get into a debate about oversigning, even though it wasn’t/isn’t violating any NCAA by-laws (just because the B1G instituted a conference by-law that handcuffed their teams isn’t the SEC’s fault).
But to say that Bama (I can’t speak for LSU or the other SEC schools) has abused their players in some way, now I do take exception to that statement. Name one player that Bama actually signed (and that did not commit major rules violations), that did not stay on a equivalent “full” scholarship for their full 4 to 5 years? Saban convincing a player that would never see the field, to take a medical scholarship instead of wasting one of the 85, is not abusing the players. Is it skirting the rules, sure it is. But it is not abusing the players. They still had a full scholarship, and were still able to stay around the team (most were given student manager roles). There wasn’t one player that Saban “removed” from the 85 limit roster, that he didn’t provide him a away to finish his education and be able to remain with the team if he wanted.
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http://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm
Massey computer ranking compilation of 73 rankings has B12 as the #1 conference. I guess they all systematically overrate the B12.
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bamatab, your defense of Satan is interesting.
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bamatab,
“Brian – LOL…good grief man. You aren’t sick of the SEC are you. ;)”
I was sick of the SEC before they were winning the NCG, too, and mostly for the same reasons. At least I’m willing to be up front about where I stand.
“I really don’t want to get into another big debate about how the bad ole SEC is the only conference that has teams that try and cut corners (i.e. cheats). But if you think the SEC schools are the only ones that do, then you are living in a fantasy world (UNC, OSU, USC, Miami, OU just off of the top of my head come to mind).”
Even most SEC fans think Auburn bought their title, so it’s not like I’m on an island here. I’ll never claim only the SEC cheats, but I honestly believe they do it more and are better at it than anyone else. Most SEC fans tell me the same thing, but they assume everyone else is paying their team under the table almost as much. The problem is, most people think nobody else comes close. It’s why so many insiders come out with stories about the SEC outspending others to buy certain recruits. The locker room guy at Miami just became the latest to say it.
“And really don’t want to get into a debate about oversigning, even though it wasn’t/isn’t violating any NCAA by-laws (just because the B1G instituted a conference by-law that handcuffed their teams isn’t the SEC’s fault).”
There’s no point to discussing oversigning. Either you think it’s wrong or you don’t. I clearly do, and you clearly don’t. But as a thought experiment, put yourself in my shoes and guess how you’d feel about watching teams win in what you (now) consider an immoral and unsavory way.
And no, it’s clearly not against NCAA rules although those rules have been changed several times recently to curb abuses by SEC teams (Houston Nutt and a class of 39, teams averaging well over 28 players per year, etc). The new rules still don’t prevent oversigning, though, they just limit it.
What is against NCAA rules, however, is distorting medical conditions to get a player a medical hardship scholarship and free up a spot for a new player. Some teams magically seem to suffer many more career ending injuries than others even in their same conference. Several times more, in fact. And some of those players have said in interviews they felt they could have kept playing.
Then there is the moral cesspool of driving players to quit and/or transfer to free a spot. Even worse is the yanking the promised scholarship at the last second maneuver.
“But to say that Bama (I can’t speak for LSU or the other SEC schools) has abused their players in some way, now I do take exception to that statement.”
I’m not saying Saban locks them in dark sheds or anything.
“Saban convincing a player that would never see the field, to take a medical scholarship instead of wasting one of the 85, is not abusing the players. Is it skirting the rules, sure it is.”
Actually it is breaking the rules, and the doctor that certifies the injury as career ending is putting himself in professional risk theoretically.
And I do consider browbeating a player (who did nothing wrong but fail to live up to a coach’s physical expectations) into quitting football to be abuse. Why should the player miss out on football because the coach screwed up? Forcing him to go to a lesser school is also abuse, not only for hurting his football experience but primarily for forcing him to get a lesser education.
“But it is not abusing the players. They still had a full scholarship, and were still able to stay around the team (most were given student manager roles). There wasn’t one player that Saban “removed” from the 85 limit roster, that he didn’t provide him a away to finish his education and be able to remain with the team if he wanted.”
And that sums up why I can’t stomach the SEC. Everyone knows they’re cheating, their fans even admit it, but they’re fine with it as long as the coach is not completely horrible to people while doing it. That’s not a level playing field for the rest of the country that doesn’t believe that CFB = NFL – paychecks.
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Brian,
“And no, it’s clearly not against NCAA rules although those rules have been changed several times recently to curb abuses by SEC teams (Houston Nutt and a class of 39, teams averaging well over 28 players per year, etc).”
Actually it was the SEC changed their own rules to not allow signing more than 25 recruits a year, not the NCAA.
And there is no doubt in my mind that auburn bought Cam. But I don’t think that the teams like Bama and LSU are giving recruits $200,000 either. Auburn was desperate, and always has been (at least dating back to the Pat Dye days). And back during the Dubose era, Bama was desperate enough to do. But for that kind of money to change hands, the programs have to be desperate. Now do the top SEC programs have boosters that give “benefits”, I’m sure they do. But that happens at all of the big time programs (OSU & Michigan included). The difference maybe that some of the lower tier SEC program may be more willing to do it than in other conferences.
Until the B1G decides to get off their high horse and makes a true commitment to football, they will continue to fall further back. JMHO
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bamatab,
“Until the B1G decides to get off their high horse and makes a true commitment to football, they will continue to fall further back. JMHO”
If being like the SEC is what constitutes a “true commitment” then I hope the B10 never makes one. I want no part of that. I fully agree it’s hard to compete with people willing to do absolutely anything when you have scruples. Such is life.
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duffman, Franklin was in and hurt in quarters 1-3 of the South Carolina game. 0 scores in that game. Then Berkstresser came in in the 4th and scored a TD.
Missouri had 20 pts in the Georgia game. 17 of them were before Franklin got hurt.
In SEC games, 4 quarters with an injured franklin: 2 FGs, 0 TDs. 4 quarters with uninjured Franklin or Berkstresser: 3 TDs and 1 FG. Thus my statement that Mizzou was scoring when we had a healthy QB in there and we weren’t scoring when we didn’t.
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The Georgia game was over by halftime? Missouri led 10-9 at halftime and scored in the third quarter (not the fourth as stated) to take a 17-9 lead. It was late in the third when Georgia took the lead.
Franklin played against South Carolina, but it was clear from comments he made this week that he wasn’t healthy and didn’t feel he could let loose with full confidence in his arm.
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Yeah that was a silly comment by duffman. Mizzou had a very good chance to pull off the win against Georgia until two late turnovers by Franklin sealed their fate.
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Brian #2,
Lets wait and see. I picked Florida and Tennessee to beat Mizzou this year, especially if the Tigers only have one or two touchdowns by halftime (even if Mizzou is ahead at the time) so lets see how it unfolds. Mizzou had home field and a short Georgia team in their favor. The point being that the better SEC teams will force the turnovers which was the point of the data in the first post to Andy. Old man football may not have early scores but the end results are pretty consistent.
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@ Frank,
Thanks for giving Northwestern the love!
Nice to put a MAC school in there as well. If we had props in the past for the MWC, CUSA, and WAC it is time for some MAC exposure.
Baylor vs West Virginia will be our first view of old and new in the B12. Wonder what the visiting Bear fans will think about couch burning and all that hard liquor!
I am going +3 the other way because the Buckeyes have to go play @ Michigan State. First team to 21 probably wins by default if either gets there in the first place. I have a feeling points will be at a premium in this one.
With the Clemson win Florida State should live in the Top 5 till it gets tested again in November.
My game of the week will be Wisconsin @ Nebraska in terms of who begins to emerge from the fallout of the PAC losses. Hopefully the B1G can get some good press from that game on the national level.
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ps, Frank your man basically ripped off the old school Ms. Diana and called it “sampling” !
Guitar and bass on the original was pretty tight. Kids would do well today to put new brass back into the stuff coming out these days. The demise of the horn section is a sure sign the Mayans were onto something about the end of the world! 🙂
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add
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Briain, you say I use a straw man : I say the B 12 since realignment is the Wizard of Oz
(for this data I used college football data warehouse : percentages are rounded)
Listings are based on most games played are first, and least are last
On January 1, 2010 the B12 had 12 teams with a pecking order like this:
Oklahoma = 7 MNC’s
Nebraska = 5 MNC’s
Texas = 4 MNC’s
32% Texas A&M : UT = 37 of 118 / OU = 11 of 30 / UNL = 4 of 14 : 52 of 162
31% Missouri : UNL = 36 of 104 / OU = 25 of 96 / UT = 9 of 27 : 70 of 227
29% Colorado : UNL = 18 of 69 / OU = 17 of 59 / UT = 7 of 18 : 42 of 146
27% Texas Tech : UT = 15 of 61 / OU = 6 of 19 / UNL = 4 of 11 : 25 of 91
25% Texas Christian : UT = 20 of 82 / OU = 4 of 11 / UNL = 1 of 7 : 25 of 100
23% Kansas : UNL = 23 of 117 / OU = 28 of 102 / UT = 2 of 11 : 53 of 230
20% Kansas State : UNL = 15 of 95 / OU = 17 of 92 / UT = 7 of 12 : 39 of 199
19% Baylor : UT = 24 of 101 / OU 1 of 21 / UNL 1 of 12 : 26 of 134
15% Oklahoma St : OU = 18 of 106 / UNL = 5 of 43 / UT = 4 of 26 : 27 of 175
12% Iowa State : UNL = 17 of 105 / OU = 5 of 76 / UT = 1 of 9 : 23 of 190
So you have something that looks like this :
# 1 Oklahoma
# 2 Nebraska
# 3 Texas
# 4 Texas A&M
# 5 Missouri
# 6 Colorado
# 7 Texas Tech
# 8 Kansas
# 9 Kansas State
#10 Baylor
#11 Oklahoma State
#12 Iowa State
Gets replaced by something that looks like this :
# 1 Oklahoma
# 2 GONE
# 3 Texas
# 4 GONE
# 5 GONE
# 6 GONE
# 7 Texas Tech
? ? TCU
# 8 Kansas
# 9 Kansas State
#10 Baylor
#11 Oklahoma State
#12 Iowa State
The wild card is West Virginia but WVU has no MNC’s and this history
Pittsburgh : 40 of 104 = 38%
Penn State : 9 of 59 = 15%
My question to you is this…. Which scenario is more probable?
A) The historic bottom of the B12 becomes Top 25 teams in 1 year
B) The B12 is much weaker than they were on January 1, 2010
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duffman, kudos, that’s solid reasoning.
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Obviously A is more probable because it actually happened.
But I suppose if the Big 12 had added Pitt and Penn State instead of TCU and West Virginia, it would be more likely to perform at a high level this year, right? I’m surprised you were able to find a metric that is even more divorced from actual 2012 team quality than your analysis of off-weeks from the last comment thread, but you appear to have done it.
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jbcww,
Are you a B1G guy? If so imagine if the B1G lost Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Iowa and replaced them with Cincinnati and Boise State? Tell me the following year the B1G football would be better. Look I can buy 1 dog moving up in any given year. I might even buy 2. Accepting that the entire bottom of a conference are actually the Top 25 in the country at the same time stretches the most vivid imagination. Especially when the 4 schools that left were all in the top half of the conference and not the bottom.
Playing no ranked teams and going 30-0 (except even oSu screwed that part up) and then acting like you are the greatest conference is folly at best. Again, polls are like unicorns and actual games are like horses. If 70% of the B12 was Top 25 then why are they not winning the big games and playing the big boys. The B12 has become the “everybody get a ribbon” conference. It has been over a decade since the Sooners won a MNC and fast approaching a decade Since Texas won one. How many MNC games have the other 8 schools in the B12 played in since 1980? If they are so good they are the biggest underachievers in college football history.
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Oklahoma St. was #3 in the BCS and should have played in it last year.
TCU was #3 in the BCS and #2 in the final polls and had less flaws than Auburn or Oregon the year before (Did you like those two teams with no defense?).
Texas Tech and Kansas have been top 10 at the end of the regular season in the last 5 years. And Kansas beat the ACC champ in the Orange when they were at best #3 in the conference.
West Virginia, if not for a season ending upset lost to Pitt, would have been in it a few years back (2007). As their fans are fond of pointing out, they have beaten the SEC, ACC and Big 12 champs in bowls in the last 7 years.
Kansas St. got upset in 98 in the ccg and missed their shot, ending up 3rd in the BCS.
Baylor hasn’t been a threat, but they had a great top 15 season and a Heisman last year.
Iowa St. hasn’t been a threat, but they derailed OSU last year and have been in the top 10 in the last 10 years during the season.
Only FSU, LSU and Ohio St. have made more than the 2 appearances Texas has made.
Among conferences, only the SEC has more appearances than OU has by themselves.
That’s a record the Big 10, Pac 12, ACC and any other conference not named the SEC would envy. For that matter, the SEC would love to have their bottom teams to have had the success the bottom of the Big 12 has had.
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Oklahoma State let La La hang 34 on them and Kansas nailed them for 28! Their opponents hung an average of 25 points on them and they failed to shut out even 1 team. The hardest AQ they played was Arizona who went a whopping 4-8! The fact that they scheduled nobody OOC cost them more than the loss to Iowa State.
TCU was not in the B12 last season and their schedule was considerably softer last season. They played 1 Ranked team and it was non AQ Boise State and they beat them by 1 point. Baylor was the only AQ team they played and they were so good they played in the Poinsettia Bowl before Christmas and beat 8-5 La Tech by a touchdown.
Kanas won 2 games all season and one was an FCS team while the other was a non AQ. Georgia Tech scored 66 on them which meant an ACC team gave them their second worst beating of the season. As bad as they were they still put 28 up on oSu and took Baylor to OT. When your worst can beat you best, chances are your best is not that good!
Texas Tech had the most pitiful schedule in the conference and managed to win only 2 conference games. Squeaking by Kansas was predicted but beating #1 Oklahoma exposed just how not #1 they were.
West Virginia was not in the B12 last season! They got throttled in the 53 Sugar Bowl by then member Georgia Tech and Florida beat the 41-7 in the 1993 Sugar Bowl. They did beat Georgia in 2005 but LSU and Auburn were ahead of them that season. If the #1 Big East was playing the #3 SEC it is not like they played LSU. That season LSU beat Miami 40-3 in their bowl. It is not hard to think WVU would have suffered a similar fate.
I am actually okay with Kansas State as they play solid football under Snyder and they schedule better than the majority of the conference.
Baylor is no football power and Alabama won the Heisman too. They also have 14 MNC’s to the big 0 that Baylor does. I think Alabama is pretty happy not to have a bunch of Heismans as long as they win the big prize.
You are right about Iowa State not being a threat but they knocked out Oklahoma State while Texas Tech knocked out Oklahoma. How pitiful would the SEC be if Kentucky knocked of Alabama when they were #1 and Ole Miss knocked of LSU when they were #5 in the same year! Lord those schools would have died of shame instead of whining about not being in a MNC game.
In the BCS era :
Oklahoma has been in 4 and only won 1!! not something to be proud of
Florida State has been in 3 and won 1
Ohio State has been in 3 and won 1
LSU has been in 3 and won 2
Alabama has been in 2 and won 2
Florida has been in 2 and won 2
Texas has been in 2 and won just as many as Auburn and Tennessee
Based on current membership the ACC has done better than the B12
Keep convincing yourself how good the B12 is while those schools trophy cases keep collecting dust. The schools that left were in the top half of the old B12 not the bottom! No matter how you spin it you can not change that simple fact!
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Duffman, the 53 Sugar Bowl? Explain how the 53 Sugar Bowl has anything to do with any team’s performance today? And conversely, are you suggesting that WVU would be a better team today if they had won the Fiesta following the 88 season? Obviously teams are and should be proud of their accomplishments over the years, but there is zero nexus between how a team performed sixty years ago and what is going on today.
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jbcww,
It was referencing the following comment by bullet :
bullet says: September 27, 2012 at 9:06 pm
West Virginia, if not for a season ending upset lost to Pitt, would have been in it a few years back (2007). As their fans are fond of pointing out, they have beaten the SEC, ACC and Big 12 champs in bowls in the last 7 years.
It was implying that West Virginia had a better history with the SEC than they actually had. At the higher bowl levels you had to go back to the 50’s to find 3 games between WVU and the SEC. If West Virginia was #1 in their conference and they were playing #3 in the SEC for their lone SEC win it is not like they were playing #1 in the SEC that season. During the regular season the west had (2) 7-1 teams. LSU lost to #10 Tennessee in OT and Auburn lost to #7 LSU in overtime. Georgia lost to both Florida AND Auburn with Auburn beating Georgia @ Georgia. West Virginia went on to 6-2 beat Georgia by 3 in the Sugar Bowl.
The problem with the bowls is they are not equal. If the #1 Big East team plays #4 in the B1G it is not the same as #1 in the Big East playing #1 in the B1G. Since the B1G and SEC tend to get lots of teams to bowls it means games get played that should not. I am a big fan of teams needing 8 wins in the regular season to become bowl eligible – and 10 wins for non AQ schools – so the bowl games would have more merit. That UCLA fiasco last year was a good example of why we need fewer bowls.
Last season I would rather see Oregon play Oklahoma State in the bowl than Stanford but the Ducks would not turn down the Rose Bowl. We know how Oregon did against LSU so if Oklahoma State had played Oregon we would have a better feel of how they would have done had they played LSU. Oregon beat #3 Stanford @ Stanford 53 – 30 yet I did not hear the Oklahoma State folks complaining they did not get to play the Ducks! All they got by playing Stanford was the ability to say the #1 B12 school was about even as the #2 PAC school as the game went to OT. Same thing with #2 Kansas State playing #3/#4 in the SEC when they played Arkansas. If your school plays a level or 2 lower in another conference, what does the win really say?
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Duff – while I’m not making excuses for LSU’s loss to UGA in the ’05 SEC CG, here’s a little context. In August of 2005, Louisiana was hit by Katrina. The LSU campus was used as a staging area for the relief efforts in NOLA. The basketball arena and field house were transformed into hospitals. LSU players, served as volunteers in those hospitals, doing whatever needed to be done, such a holding IV bags as not enough stands were available. These same students, many of whom were from NOLA, couldn’t communicate with their family members. Cell coverage was almost nonexistent days after the storm.
LSU’s opener against North Texas was moved to its open date. The second game against a ranked Arizona State team had to be moved to Tempe on a week’s notice. Then came Hurricane Rita. The Tennessee game had to be moved to a Monday night. LSU just pooped out in the 2nd half. LSU went on to win the rest of the regular season without a bye week. By the time they made it to Atlanta, the team was emotionally and physically spent. UGA won and it wasn’t that close. Since the Cap One, Cotton, and Outback Bowls all expected LSU to win the SEC CG, the bowls all made arrangements with other SEC teams. So a top 10 LSU team falls all the way to the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, the SEC’s 5th bowl slot. With a month to rest, LSU played the ACC’s #2 team, which was a top 10 Miami Hurricane team. How appropriate to play Miami in the year of two devastating hurricanes. LSU destroyed Miami that night, and the Hurricanes’ program really hasn’t recovered since.
While the ’05 Tigers may not have won the SEC or the BSC NCG, that’s the team of which I am most proud.
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jbcwv
Duffman has jumped the shark! 53 Sugar Bowl? Claiming UGA, the SEC champ was 3rd best team in 2005 and LSU was better (ccg UGA 34 LSU 14).
The fact that the SEC has no upsets makes you wonder about the bottom of the conference.
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bullet – while UGA was better than LSU on the afternoon of the SEC CG in 2005, the Final AP SEC rankings for that season looked like this:
#6 LSU
#8 Alabama
#10 UGA
#12 Florida
#14 Auburn
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jbcwv – We’ll get to see just where WVU stands in comparison to the SEC in the opening game of the 2014 season. 😉
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jbcwv
Duffman has jumped the shark! 53 Sugar Bowl? Claiming UGA, the SEC champ was 3rd best team in 2005 and LSU was better (ccg UGA 34 LSU 14).
The fact that the SEC has no upsets makes you wonder about the bottom of the conference.
Pointing out the 53 Sugar Bowl was an indication of how rare West Virginia plays the SEC in the top bowls. It took 60 years of history just to find 3 such match ups. In the much shorter history of the BCS the SEC has played the B12 the same number of times. You call it jumping the shark, while I am just pointing out historical context of making such a claim by West Virginia.
Alan pointed out that Georgia was indeed #3 in the SEC despite winning the CCG
Joker, who is currently on the hot seat at Kentucky, took down #10 South Carolina and took a MNC winning Auburn team to the end before losing by 3. Upsets do happen but I am guessing they are not as blatant or numerous in the same year as happened in the B12. Again the 6 worst teams all time in the old B12 suddenly all being world beaters last season is suspect. Last year and this year we have no real outside tests to the claim of B12 leadership.
I have said all along that living where I do puts me at the edge of the B1G / Big East / SEC which may give me a more balanced view. I can see all live, on TV, and in the local media and have ties to all of them. Now that Notre Dame is in the ACC I will now have the ACC more on my radar as well. Living in the diamond means a quick drive to lots of good basketball!
I do find it interesting that you point out a minor point but say nothing on my comment of a B1G without Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Could it be that you have a much more difficult time trying to dismantle the bigger issue?
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ps, Bamatab also pointed out Ole Miss upsetting #1 Florida. The point being is the frequency it happened in the B12 last season. For this to happen either the multiple teams are over rated or under rated. My premise is, and has been, that they were not as good as advertised. I am not saying the B12 did not have good teams, just that the number of them did not justify the the number of spots they held.
This season they have again been able to pad the pre season with lots of cream puffs to keep the perception that the B12 is better because folks will just see 3 extra wins later in the season and forget it was against easy teams. If the other 5 AQ’s seem to schedule better OOC, why is the B12 the only outlier? The PAC plays 9 conference games but that does not stop them from scheduling tougher OOC games?
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Bamatab had to go back to 2008 to come up with an example. You had to go back to 1953. I think by going that far back you have both proven my point. And you seem to have trouble with actual results on the field that don’t agree with your preconceived notions. In 2005, UGA lost 3 close games by a combined 8 points. LSU got stomped in the SEC ccg by UGA, but only lost 2 and didn’t play a hot WV team in a bowl.
And bowl records last year (but you will ignore that)
Big 12 6-2
SEC 6-3 (5-2 w/o BCS game)
Big East 3-2
Big 10 4-6
Pac 12 2-5
ACC 2-6
I usually find what you write interesting, but you are turning into a troll on this particular topic.
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bullet,
Not to say I told you so or anything, but I told you so.
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Bullet:
I’d suggest he may be overly fixated, but not a troll. I also am of the opinion that wins over little sisters of the poor, directional schools of hotel management, and those who’d play their cheerleaders against the Steelers (I exaggerate…sort of) for a payday should be in parentheses.
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Bamatab, very much looking forward to it.
Duffman, I cannot argue against the veracity of your point that yes, indeed, teams with better than average historical records have recently exited the Big 12. I am merely stating that I think your data point is profoundly empty when it comes to analyzing the quality of teams this year. Even if you think it would be a fluke that the historical bottom of the Big 12 is performing well, that hardly rules out that such a fluke has, in fact, occurred.
Also, at the risk of sounding homerish, I would submit that the WVU team in ’05 was better than the Miami team of the same year. Whether it would have beaten LSU is obviously unknown, but I don’t think you can just pencil in a curb-stomping. After all, that’s what Georgia fans and the pundits did before the game, and it didn’t work out that way.
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@ bullet
I went back to Kentucky beating Top 10 South Carolina the year before. That was not 1953. Again, you brought up West Virginia in the first place so I just put your comment in historical context. I have stated that twice now and you still deflect that Bamatab and I gave you 2 different current losses to traditional SEC underdogs.
.
Again, I really believe no team without 8 regular season wins should be in a bowl but that is not going to happen with the money TV can make on even the worst bowl. As I have said on here before because the bowls pick based on things other than rank it still skews bowl parings. The fact that Oklahoma had a Top 10 ranking and played an unranked opponent in 2 consecutive bowls means the viewing public is getting the short end of the stick. Last season a Oklahoma vs TCU would have been better than the Oklahoma vs Iowa mismatch.
as for last 2 years bowls involving B12 schools :
B12 bowl games in 2011 went 3-5
# 7 (11-2) Oklahoma beat unranked (8-4) Connecticut 48-20
#13 (10-2) Oklahoma State beat unranked (7-5) Arizona 36-10
NR (7-5) Baylor lost to NR (6-6) Illinois 14-38
NR (7-5) Kansas State lost to NR (7-5) Syracuse 34-36
NR (7-5) Texas Tech beat NR (7-5) Northwestern 45-38
.
# 3 (12-0) TCU beat #4 (11-1) Wisconsin 21-19 not in B12
#12 (10-2) Missouri lost to unranked (7-5) Iowa 24-27
#17 (9-3) Texas A&M lost to (10-2) LSU 24-41
#18 (10-3) Nebraska lost to unranked (6-6) Washington 7-19
#22 (9-3) WVU lost to unranked (8-4) NC State 7-23 not in B12
Here are the core 5 B12 schools in bowls : 3-2
Oklahoma was not tested with a ranked team and won easily
Oklahoma State was not tested with a ranked team and won easily
NR Baylor Northwestern
This does not look like a pack of giant killers
.
….
.
B12 bowl games in 2012 went 6-2
# 3 (11-1) Oklahoma State beat # 4 (11-1) Stanford 41-38 in OT
#11 (10-2) Kansas State lost to # 7 (10-2) Arkansas 16-29
#15 (9-3) Baylor beat unranked (7-5) Washington 67-56
#19 (9-3) Oklahoma beat unranked NR (7-5) Iowa 31-14
NR (7-5) Texas beat NR (7-5) California 21-10
NR (6-6) Iowa State lost to NR (8-4) Rutgers 13-27
.
#15 (10-2) TCU beat unranked La Tech 31-24
#21 (9-3) Nebraska lost to #10 (10-2) South Carolina 13-30
#22 (9-3) West Virginia beat #14 (10-3) Clemson 70-33
NR (7-5) Missouri beat NR (7-5) North Carolina 41-24
NR (6-6) Texas A&M beat NR (6-6) Northwestern 33-22
Here are the core 6 B12 schools in bowls : 4-2
#1 B12 Oklahoma State = #2 PAC Stanford
#2 B12 Kansas State #5 PAC Washington
#4 B12 Oklahoma > #7 B1G Iowa
#6 B12 Texas > #6 PAC California
#8 B12 Iowas State < #4 BigE Rutgers
Oklahoma State was tested with the second best PAC team and was well matched. Oklahoma had a decided advantage to Iowa for an easier win. Baylor should have beaten Washington by more with the positional edge they had. Texas and California were fairly even matched but Cal was nothing special. Iowa State was playing a higher team and they lost but it should have been expected. The reverse issue is if you just take 8 win teams then schools who pad their schedules get an unfair advantage. Hopefully if we get to this playoff these are the issues that will really be addressed to level the playing field for all!
If this B12 vs SEC champions bowl happens at least we get a direct B12 vs SEC that the Cotton Bowl lost. I thought I read somewhere tho that the B12 had to have 12 teams and a CCG as a condition for this game to take place. Maybe the B12 winner plays the Big East winner the first week of December to make up for the CCG the B12 does not play.
This does not look like a pack of giant killers
.
As for the SEC 5-2 :
#1 SEC vs #2 SEC
#3 SEC < #2 B 12 = SEC Win
#4 SEC < #2 B1G = SEC Loss
#5 SEC < #4 B1G = SEC Win
#6 SEC #8 B1G = SEC Win
#8 SEC < #6 ACC = SEC Win
#9 SEC #4 SEC = B1G Win
# 3 B1G #5 SEC = B1G Loss
# 5 B1G < #1 CUSA = B1G Loss
# 6 B1G < #5 MAC = B1G Win
# 7 B1G < #4 B 12 = B1G Loss
# 8 B1G < #7 SEC = B1G Loss
# 9 B1G < #7 B 12 = B1G Loss
#10 B1G < #4 PAC = B1G Win
As for the PAC, 2-5 = too may losses
As for the ACC, 2-6 = too may losses
.
….
.
@ ccrider55
You are correct. I am not trolling on this specific issue but this is a primary B1G site and B1G schools play better OOC. I am tired of folks ragging on the B1G when they play someone better and lose but give the B12 a free pass when they beat a nobody. To me it smacks of a double standard and it pisses me off. Hence I post about it here. Right or wrong ESPN has a greater vested interest in the B12 than the BTN and sitting silent now will allow this undue influence to grow. When I see Baylor or TCU take down an Ohio State or Florida in a home and home I will change my stance but so far few even question this inequality.
Maybe Bamatab is correct that the rest of the country is so anti SEC they are puffing up the B12 as proxy. I would rather embrace getting Nebraska for the B1G as better than the B12 getting West Virginia and TCU combined. The more the national opinion focuses on the B12 the less focus will be on the B1G. This is not a hard concept to grasp yet it seems we are all drinking the B12 koolaid instead of focusing on the Vernors in the B1G.
bullet never addressed that the B12 lost 4 schools in the top half of the conference and not the bottom. If the B12 had jettisoned Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, and Texas Tech (or a Kansas State without Snyder) instead I would agree that the B12 got better. Instead they lost 4 of their best 6 and everybody says they got better. I am sorry, I just do not buy that dog and pony show.
In short the “new” B12 does not :
a) schedule top schools like the other conferences
b) schedule good B1G / SEC more even tho they are the closest AQ’s
c) have the same power it did prior to this last realignment
d) whines about no MNC shot, but has no extra CCG like the other AQ’s
.
….
.
@ jbcwv
I can actually respect WVU for having Florida State and wish realignment had not gotten in the way of that game. Not only would it have been a strong cross conference game but it would have negated the 2 FCS schools on the early Florida State schedule. I think it was not good for college football in general that this game was not played. West Virginia playing Alabama in the near future is an excellent move on West Virginia’s part. As you and Bamatab look forward to the game so will folks who are not fans specific to either team.
Just to be clear I was saying LSU clobbered Miami in that game and was not implying Miami = West Virginia in that season. I was just saying that LSU team was better than just the Georgia game. As for the fluke of the B12, I can admit the possibility exists, just that the probability appears very low. The problem is with no B1G or SEC OOC or bowl games it was hard to tell and several key B12 teams played the lesser teams of other conferences last bowl season.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8431879/ohio-state-buckeyes-want-beef-schedule-cut-back-mac-foes
I’ll believe it when I see it, but Gene Smith says OSU will cut back on MAC teams due to the playoff. OSU has played 19 MAC teams in the BCS era (basically 5 every 4 years). Now it sounds like it may drop to 1 every 2 or more years.
I actually think that’s a mistake. What OSU should do is play 1 MAC per year, rotating through the 6 OH schools, and then 3 AQs or high non-AQs. Playing OH MAC teams keeps the money in-state and let’s local MAC players play in the Horseshoe. It’s also a chance to work out the bugs before facing a better team.
My preference:
Week 1 – MAC
Week 2 – mediocre AQ (top 50 type program)
Week 3 – major AQ (USC, UT, OU, etc)
Week 4 – solid AQ (top 30 type program)
Some years #3 and 4 may both be more like top 15-20 programs instead of a king and solid program. That works too.
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I’m still waiting for the rematch between OSU and the Yeomen of Oberlin. There’s precedent for an FBS school playing an NAIA team- UTSA just played Northwest Oklahoma State. Maybe they can set it up for the 100th anniversary of the Buckeyes’ last in-state loss.
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I think with these neutral site games in week 1 or week 2 you will see more big games early as the media folks will demand it. just like flex time has replaced the 9-5 crowd the signs point to having bigger games in week 1 and 2 to stay visible.
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I hope OSU doesn’t go for big games week 1 (and really week 2). While I’d prefer having at least 2 games against at least power conference teams, there’s no preseason in college and I’d prefer 2 weeks to gel before playing an Alabama or Florida State or someone.
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It is not a question of what the fans of a school wants anymore it is all about TV wanting big games for those opening weekends. look at this season :
Week 1
T SEC vs SEC conference game
F SEC vs ACC neutral game
F B1G vs MWC game between ranked teams
S B1G vs BigE
S ACC vs ACC conference game
S ACC vs SEC neutral game
S SEC vs B1G neutral game with Top 10 teams
S BigE vs SEC Sunday game of inter conference rivals
M ACC vs ACC conference game
18 high exposure slots : ACC (6) : SEC (6) : B1G (3) : Big E (2) : MWC (1)
Week 2 probably had double the number of slots
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duffman,
There are only a handful of major neutral site games every year. Except for AL, nobody regularly plays one as part of their early OOC schedule.
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Chick – Fil – A does two in the early season
JerryWorld will do 2 early
Reliant is already talking about a game there
They had the game in Giants and ND played Ireland
I can see the PAC playing pacific rim
I think these early games age just going to multiply
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Atlanta may not always do two. They’ve talked about how tough it was to do.
The games may grow, but you’re still talking about going from 3-4 now to 7-10. There just aren’t enough big names to drive more games than that. If you get too many, they lose their specialness and then can’t afford the payouts they need to draw big teams.
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Brian,
Still there were 9 high visibility games in the first week and I can see that growing. 3 key conference games in the first week and many more in the second week shows a shifting trend to fewer early creme puffs for schools looking at exclusive national exposure in the first weeks of the season. Georgia Tech vs Virginia Tech right out of the gate probably drew more interest than they would have later if both had a few losses. The tradeoff for the spotlight tho is the national exposure for the loser. The South Carolina vs Vanderbilt game almost crushed SC right out of the gate but they had thursday night across the entire nation all to themselves. I feel it helped Louisville in the polls to have that slot all to themselves.
I did not list the second week but skimming it I was amazed to see the many conference games that early in the season. Those are not neutral but with all this new contract money you know the TV folks will push for more compelling games every week. I think that is where the 9 game debate comes from as the last week of SEC play is loaded with marquee games but the week before it is just the opposite.
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duffman,
There have always been a few early big games. Always. It’s nothing new. I looked at OSU’s schedule from 1987. Obviously as a B10 team we didn’t play a conference game early, but we played WV, OR and LSU. I looked at LSU, but could only find 1988 easily. LSU played TN in week 2. Playing conference games early is not a new phenomenon, and clearly it hasn’t exploded in the past 25 years. The problem, as always, is that the more big games you put in a given week, the less big the games seem after a while. There are diminishing returns. TV can’t just demand 40 great games in weeks 1 and 2 unless they don’t care what kind of games they get later.
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Brian, I can see part of that but now everybody plays 12 instead of 11. I noticed it when I did the BCS OOC scheduling on Franks previous post. Part of the good schools getting the extra game was putting it in that first week. From around 98 to 04 there were many unequal game numbers from school to school. They may have limited big names but they are creating lots of inventory in that next tier down that will need to be spread out.
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I agree. It’s a reason to add FSU, Miami, GTech, and Maryland, IMHO.
FSU is a powerhouse, Miami will easily return to one given how talent-rich S. Florida is, and GTech is very solid. Adding those 4 will definitely add to the strength of schedule.
BTW, I’ll go in to your questions later regarding expansion, but now that I have a month-old child and am also battling a sore throat, I don’t really have time or the energy to do it now.
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How dare you have life outside of Frank’s blog?!?!
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Great quotes from this article posted to another board. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/story/2012/09/26/proposed-bowl-game-could-feature-pac-12-or-big-12/57846886/1
This one makes it sound like the 7th bowl won’t get first crack at the PAC-12/Big 12 after the playoff/contract bowl.
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It’d be simpler if they told the Orange no. You can sign the ACC, but if you want in, you can’t lock the other side. Its that rush by the bowls to lock things in that’s complicating things, just as it did in the pre-BCS days, when they would even invite teams in October. Even though I like tradition, some just have too high a price and I am willing to see the bowls diminished in favor of a playoff. Their interests are opposed to that of college football as a whole.
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I’m the reverse, I’d rather see the playoff diminished for the bowls (and thus didn’t favor one at all).
That said, locking or not locking the Orange Bowl had nothing to do with tradition. Neither the Big Ten or SEC are traditionally in the game. The Orange Bowl was allowed to lock because it deemed a contract bowl and able to make whatever tie-in wants to. Locking it or not locking it had nothing to do with strengthening or weakening a playoff.
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Locking weakens the rest of the bowls and restricts access. And that is part of the 80s and 90s pre-BCS bowl tradition. It is contrary to what they said they wanted to do, which was to try to match the best teams. What if all the top non-champs are from the Big 12 and Pac 12 in a particular year? Or the Big East has 2 good teams? Its each bowl acting in its economic interest, which is to get the most people into local hotels. That part of the tradition I can do without. And its indespensible as long as you have independent bowls as opposed to conference controlled bowls.
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Well, the B10, SEC, ND, & ACC wouldn’t want to say “no”. Probably not the B12 and Pac either, as they would want to set up side deals themselves. That means a majority of the conferences/teams that matter wouldn’t want to say “no”.
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Exactly, they set up a committee to determine the top 4 slots, but now they want to restrict the committee to ensure access to the Big 5 + ND. I can’t really blame them for doing what makes sense.
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Is the Pac-12 back to Oregon and then everyone else this quickly?
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Also, it’s not too soon to start talking about another SEC rematch in the NC, is it?
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Well Oregon State is still undefeated but they have only played 2 games and their schedule sets up well with the teams they play.
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Just looked at schedule. OrSU has @Az, @BYU, @UW(this weekend shows that’s not a gimmie), @Stanford, not playing Colo this year, and assuming they win those they must win at home (including UO) in order to presumably face USC in the CCG. How is that a schedule that sets up well?
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zeek – I joked about it in one of the previous blogs. Not that I think it will happen, but it would send the non-SEC world into total meltdown.
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Given that Georgia and South Carolina both look better than last year, I definitely think we could be in for a close call; wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Alabama along with LSU or Georgia huddled at the top at the end of the year.
I won’t be surprised though in a year like this. Outside of Alabama and Oregon, I haven’t been fully impressed by anyone else.
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It’s certainly possible that we could see another SEC rematch in the BCS Championship game this year.
What I’d like to see strictly in terms of sheer chaos is for two conference champions to go undefeated with 13-0 records alongside an undefeated Notre Dame team. Now I don’t think ND is going to run the table given its lack of offensive prowess, but the idea of a 12-0 Irish team being cut out from the BCS Championship game by some combination of Alabama or LSU along with Oregon or Florida State would be really funny.
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@cutter – If ND gets through its schedule undefeated this year, that would mean that it would have beaten Michigan State, Michigan, Miami, Oklahoma, Stanford and USC. Even a no name team (much less a Notre Dame team that will get a lot of media love) that gets through that gauntlet undefeated would get a national title spot.
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Frank – I don’t see an undefeated ND jumping an undefeated Oregon. Oregon started off too high in the polls in comparison to ND, and I think their schedule is good enough to keep them ahead of ND (although Stanford’s loss didn’t help them). Now I could see an undefeated ND jump an undefeated FSU since FSU basically only would’ve beaten two teams in Clemson and UF that the voters would be impressed with. It would be a good debate that would rage in the media if you have an undefeated SEC, Oregon, ND, & FSU teams at the end of the year.
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Yeah, I don’t see an undefeated ND jumping an undefeated Oregon (much less an unbeaten LSU or Oregon).
The weakness of the Big 10 this year will make the UM and MSU (and Purdue for that matter) look less outstanding and Miami isn’t anything special this year.
And Oregon would also have to beat Stanford and USC plus Arizona, Arizona St., Oregon St. and Washington teams that could all end up ranked at the end of the year. And after all that they would then have to turn around and win a 13th game in the form of the CCG.
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bamatab, I think you have it correct.
SEC undefeated and Oregon undefeated are to me guarantees to be in the national title game.
I don’t see any way that either gets passed given that the middle of the Pac-12 looks a lot more improved this year over last year in terms of national perception (largely from wins off the Big Ten and Oklahoma State).
I think ND can pass anyone else though for sure.
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*much less an unbeaten LSU or Alabama
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Sorry for another post, but the other possibility is an undefeated Big XII team. I’d bet a 12-0 Texas team (not that I see that happening) would get the nod over a 12-0 ND squad, and I’d put them even money against a 12-0 WVU (especially if Geno Smith wins the Heisman).
As for K-State… I’d probably give Notre Dame the edge but 12-0 K-State squad would have a similar (if not stronger SOS) and closes with a high profile game against Texas so it would be close.
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frug, I’m don’t know if ND would make it over an undefeated Big 12 team or not. With it being ND, it wouldn’t suprise me at all to see them get in over a Big 12 team. I think right now the only sure fire bet is the SEC champ and Oregon if they are undefeated. If either of them have a loss, and there are still more than two undefeateds out there, there is no telling who gets in (although I think FSU would have the worst chance of all of the undefeateds.
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We’ll see. If ND goes undefeated, they could conceivably be beating the champs of the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 this season. Even if people don’t think the human pollsters would give ND credit (and I find that highly unlikely if ND is still undefeated after their Stanford and Oklahoma games – look at 2005 and 2006 with how much the media couldn’t help themselves as soon as ND had a pulse), the computer rankings are going to be off-the-charts for them. I think the humans would only put an undefeated SEC team ahead of an undefeated ND team this year (and the computers might actually favor ND).
That being said, I don’t think ND is going to go undefeated this year.
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@Frank the Tank
If ND beats the champ of the PAC, then by definition Oregon couldn’t go undefeated so that wouldn’t be an issue. The same goes for the K-State, WVU and Texas in the Big XII.
And you keep talking about computers, but I don’t see the computers liking the Irish’s schedule anymore than the Big XII teams or CCG winning Oregon.
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Sagarin from this morning (sunday) :
#2 Texas with the #34 toughest schedule just made Notre Dame moot
Yet here are the actual schedules played!
#9 Notre Dame SoS = 17 :::: 31 + 33 + 35 + 119 = 218 :::: 218 / 4 = 54.5
W # 31 Michigan State
W # 33 Purdue
W # 35 Michigan
W #119 Navy
#2 Texas SoS = 34 :::: 18 + 46 + 100 + 114 = 278 :::: 278 / 4 = 69.5
W # 18 Oklahoma State
W # 46 Mississippi
W #100 Wyoming
W #114 New Mexico
Even Sagarins metrics indicate the Domers are better than Texas yet the final do not indicate it!
@ frug,
Updated: 9/30/2012 9:36:01 AM
Jeff Sagarin NCAA football ratings
COLLEGE FOOTBALL 2012 through results of SEPTEMBER 29 SATURDAY
RATING and PREDICTOR are now bayesian and the ELO-CHESS is also bayesian now.
That excuse is now gone and Notre Dame should be ahead of Texas!
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Duffman, don’t know how Sagarin does his strength of schedule, but for a top team, a more difficult schedule is one that is more likely to pile up losses. Scheduling the #1 team in the country and 2 cupcakes is more likely to give a loss than 3 games against the #50, #51, and #52 teams in the country (3 mediocre AQ teams).
Averaging the strength of each team played isn’t a good measure of schedule strength for the best teams.
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The ratings have been Bayesian all season. When they are no longer then teams all start equal.
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ccrider55,
That is why I put up the post right above you response. As of today it looks at though they have enough data to claim this is a real set of data.
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@duffman
For the first few weeks of the season, the starting ratings have weight
in the process(BAYESIAN), but once the teams are all WELL CONNECTED, then
the starting ratings are no longer used and all teams are started equal… The teams are NOT WELL-CONNECTED and so all three ratings are BAYESIAN.
Check again, they are still including in preseason projections in addition to the actual games play data.
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Duffman:
Sorta ok, if you’re saying next weeks ratings will have enough data. You may be right, but I don’t see anything saying exactly when enough data is available. Did I miss something?
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@m(Ag)
Sagarin does SOS ratings based on how good a team would have to be in order to go .500 against a given schedule.
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@ ccrider55,
I was under the impression that last year it was week 6, as this was the week that should approach that value. Am I not understanding this correctly? As you approach the switch point you should have a smoothing effect as it nears this spot. I view it as a dart board with the rings narrowing between “guess” data and “actual” data. There may be some corrections at the transfer point but the variance should narrow with each passing week.
Going into week 6 may not be perfect, but it should approach the “new” baseline. In essence week 1 has the greatest scatter and it narrows somewhat by week. The first official BCS comes about 2 weeks from today (last year the first BCS was released on Oct 16th) so we should be closer than we were the last week of August.
.
@ m(Ag) ,
I agree that the tougher team should be harder to beat but what if the tougher team has artificial inflation (or a lower value in this case) as Oklahoma State already has 2 losses and they were not losses to an Alabama, Notre Dame, Oregon type of loss. Again, Texas may have a good team, but based on who they have played this is not a given. The Oklahoma State loss to Arizona should keep them far from the #18 slot they occupy. I may just not get this but I fall back to the eyeball test as any given game has wild variance of all the individual moving parts.
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duffman,
“#9 Notre Dame SoS = 17 :::: 31 + 33 + 35 + 119 = 218 :::: 218 / 4 = 54.5
W # 31 Michigan State
W # 33 Purdue
W # 35 Michigan
W #119 Navy
#2 Texas SoS = 34 :::: 18 + 46 + 100 + 114 = 278 :::: 278 / 4 = 69.5
W # 18 Oklahoma State
W # 46 Mississippi
W #100 Wyoming
W #114 New Mexico
Even Sagarins metrics indicate the Domers are better than Texas yet the final do not indicate it!”
What a shock, you’re still badmouthing B12 teams. Try to keep your facts straight, though.
1. You’re using Sagarin’s synthesis ratings that combine his Elo-Chess (BCS) model and his real system that uses the scores. In the BCS system (W/L only), ND is #6 and UT #8. Since you’re only talking wins and losses, those are the numbers you should look at.
2. In his real system, UT is #3 and ND is #11. Perhaps that’s because ND won by 3, 7 and 17 over their good teams (all 30-35) while UT beat #14 by 5 and #41 by 35. UT has a win over a significantly better team (85.72 pts to 78.38 pts) and a much bigger win over a team not much worse than ND’s best (75.45 to 78.38). Computationally, UT should outrank ND.
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LSU’s 41-3 romp over U-Dub a few weeks ago looks a little better this morning.
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I’m thinking we may be looking at something like 2007 again. La-Mo beat Arkansas and almost beat Auburn who almost beat LSU. LSU destroys UW who upsets Stanford. Over the last 5 years there has been a remarkable lack of in conference upsets in the SEC. We may not have an unbeaten this year. If I was to pick the two teams most likely to go unbeaten right now, one would wear red and one would be from Louisiana-Ohio St. and Louisiana Tech. And neither has any chance of being in the BCS title game. The Big 12 is very balanced. There are a lot of teams who could challenge Oregon in the Pac 12. FSU definitely has flaws. Could be a good year to have a 4 team playoff instead of the current system.
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bullet – I’m fine with 2007 all over again. By the way, last year LSU’s first SEC road test was a hard fought, close win at Miss State. When Bama won the the BCS NCG in ’09, they survived at Tennessee due a blocked FG attempt. In 2010, Auburn came back from a huge deficit to win the Iron Bowl, and only beat LSU by 7 at Auburn. Just because there haven’t been monumental upsets in the SEC doesn’t mean that the lower ranked or 2nd tier teams don’t get up for the top teams and give them their best shot, and that that the top teams haven’t been challenged. Last week, Auburn was playing for their season and possibly Chizik’s job. My Tigers, with their QB’s first road start, took Auburn’s best shot and survived. I don’t know if LSU will be championship team this year with all their injuries to key starters, but the mark of a champion is gutting out a win after you’ve been punched in the mouth and when you don’t play your best.
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Alan – And don’t forget the 2008 season when Ole Miss went to the swamp and beat the #1 ranked Gators, which prompted the corny (well i thought it was at least) Tebow speech.
BTW…I had decided focus on the FSU/CU and OU/KSU games last Saturday. Then I noticed on the ticker the LSU/barn score (plus one of my auburn friends kept texting me about it). So I was then forced to switch over and watch the 2nd half of the game LSU/barn game, and missed most of the OU/KSU game (I still caught some of the FSU/CU game). I wasn’t real happy you guys let them force me to watch that game. 🙂
But in regards to the game itself, as it turned out, it wasn’t the best matchup for you guys. They were able to take advantage of your OT being out, and were able to hit the QB enough to rattle him. It’ll be interesting to see if UF & USCe will be able to do that in the coming weeks.
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What’s been remarkable in the SEC is how rarely those games turn into actual upsets. You almost have had a straight #1-#12 with very few disruptions to that order. Auburn/S. Carolina might have been the only one last year.
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of coure you think that but you have a serious case of burnt orange blinders, too.
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And what about what Les Miles said after?
http://insider.espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8392486/washington-huskies-play-spoiler-pac-12-espn-magazine?cid=co3912084
“That team is good,” he said. “They have a great coach. They’re going to get it in gear and beat somebody big this year. You watch.”
That was the last thing he said at the press conference after that game. He may be the most misunderstood coach of all time, but he’s probably one of the few surprised.
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Despite a big game on paper, the Big 12 came out the big loser in last Saturday’s TV ratings.
The top 15 matchup of OU-KSU drew a measly 1.7, well below USC-Stanford and UCLA-Nebraska in the prior two weeks.
This could be a big eye opener for the appeal of the new Big 12 outside of its tiny geographic footprint.
FOX…OU vs KState….1.7 rating
ESPN…Arizona vs Oregon (midnight game here) 2.1 rating
ABC…FSU vs Clemson…3.2 rating
NBC…Notre Dame vs Michigan…4.0 rating
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I think Fox has to build up something of a following for its Saturday night football matchups. A lot of people are going to default to ABC, CBS, or NBC.
Of course, it’s going to be interesting to see how the Big 12 and Pac-12 do manage to build up Fox’s broadcast college football following.
It’s worth noting though that USC-Stanford pulled in way bigger ratings (twice as big) last week.
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Notre Dame is irrelevant… lol
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Brian #2 – I would be a little wary to draw conclusions based off of just one game. Oklahoma – KSU was up against both FSU-CU and ND-UM. That’s pretty tough competition. They still had 2.8 million viewers compared to the 3.9 million viewers Stanford-USC had the week before. It appears that total viewership for the 8ET(ish) time slot was up this week from previous weeks.
http://deadspin.com/5946691/
[Holy cow, 3.5 million people watch Spongebob?]
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Remember that some people have kids & women make up half the population.
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I’ve been wondering about the future of the Big East lately. For reference here are the Big East schools:
Non-Football Only:
DePaul
Georgetown
Marquette
Providence
St. John’s
Seton Hall
Villanova
All Sports:
Cincinnati
UConn
Louisville
Rutgers
USF
Temple
UCF
Houston
Memphis
SMU
Football Only:
Boise St
Navy
SDSU
The Big East will be a 17 team basketball league and a 13 team football league (barring expansion).
I keep wondering, now that Notre Dame is gone, what is in the Big East for the Catholic non-football schools? Is the Big East brand still worth that much? I imagine they don’t care about playing the new members in basketball at all (except for maybe Memphis or Temple) but probably do care about playing Cincinnatti, UConn, and Louisville. Are games with UC, UConn, and UL in what eventually will be an 18 team basketball league worth the games in Florida and Texas? Do they recruit FL and TX enough to actually want to play down there?
We spend a lot of time here talking about institutional fit. What is the institutional pattern (i.e. the Big Ten is large Midwestern research schools) for the Big East? The more I think about it, it would surprise me to see in a year or two the succession of the Catholic schools from the Big East. I know, it’s a been predicted for years, but I don’t see the pull of UC, UConn, and UL being that strong especially since any one of those three would jump to the Big 12 or the ACC in a minute. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Creighton, St. Louis, St. Bonaventure, St Joeseph, Xavier looked at to be part of a new Catholic all sports league. Especially if the basketball contract comes in below expectations for the Basketball side.
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As long as the Big East can hold UConn and Louisville the Catholic schools are still better off financially sticking with the hybrid.
If those two bolt (or maybe just one) the Catholic schools would almost certainly break off.
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Cincinnati has a big catholic population as well and their catholic high school football feeds hand in hand with Louisville.
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I’d agree that Louisville and UConn, in particular, are enough to keep the Catholic schools in the Big East. As disjointed as the Big East looks on paper when look at all of the partial members included, the basketball membership actually does have a commonality where all of them are schools that are located in large urban markets (with the exception of UConn). That’s why the Catholic members were accepting of schools like UCF and SMU as all-sports members but don’t want to touch a non-large market school like East Carolina.
If the Big East loses both Louisville and UConn, then I think it’s more compelling for the Catholic schools to split off. As of now, though, both the football and basketball sides of the Big East need each other more than ever. Regardless of what the Big East’s status might be for football, the conference is still going to be considered a power conference for basketball purposes.
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Agreed. For all the focus on the Catholic schools, they need the basketball powers in the Big East.
Memphis joining helps stabilize that aspect as well. And you’re 100% right that going for large market schools played a factor there. That’s where it’s at for college basketball/recruiting/TV/exposure.
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jj,
They are coming to your city! 🙂
Sparty on!
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They should have stayed away. Tough one. Hope remains. If the receivers could consistently hold on we’d be ok. Refs blew us a td on that fumble too. Oh well. Still a chance for Indy.
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1 point loss is the toughest but you guys did not look bad on the national stage. A play here or there and you have the win. Mark has got you guys in a good spot and Ohio State can not play after the season. Notre Dame is probably going to stay ranked high and the Buckeyes just go higher. I think Boise State won so that helps you on the SoS. Still in the hunt for a solid post season.
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Baylor-WVU going for all-time total points record? This game is out of control
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63-56; it’s all just touchdowns.
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Will the busses bringing the defenses arrive soon?
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It’s the Big XII baby! They don’t need no stinkin’ defenses.
And if you need any more evidence right now Texas and Oklahoma St. have combined for 35 points and it’s still the first quarter.
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It’s not even the Big 12 only today though.
Northwestern set a school record at 700+ yards today.
Miami-NC State had fireworks with an ACC record passing yardage.
And even the SEC had UGa-Tenn going for 51-44.
There were plenty of games with huge offensive output across the country today. The Big 12 though seems set to outdo everyone as far as offenses just ignoring defenses.
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zeek,
I think with the Georgia vs Tennessee several of the scores were on defense or caused by the defense getting good position. I think all the Baylor vs West Virginia were offensive. I was watching the Indiana game so I did not see it but they keep showing the highlights.
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Nice to see Indiana fans show up with pretty good turnout. Looks like Northwestern will get the win tho. Aside from that second quarter it was a pretty good game to watch. Looks like the Gophers now have a loss. Frank I was watching the IU vs NU game but it looks like a rough day for your guys today based on the score updates. Time for basketball!
5-0 for Northwestern, still have to see what happens to Buckeyes.
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I noticed when I was there that Indiana was one of the better traveling teams to Evanston. They always seemed a lot more in number than schools like Minnesota and Wisconsin even when they had poor seasons.
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Well, Minny is much farther away while Indiana is close by. Are Badger fans so spoiled now that they don’t travel? Bucky’s turnout at non-Rose bowl games in recent years has been disappointing, and they definitely turned much better back when I was in school. I still remember the opposite side of Dyche being all red when NU played Wisconsin in ’95 (to be precise, I remember a lot of sad faces in all-red as NU laid a 35-0 beatdown on Bucky the Rose Bowl year).
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Yeah, I’m talking about the 2000s; it was definitely noticeable that Wisconsin was one of the weaker travelling teams. I’m not really sure why though, they had some pretty good teams but didn’t come down to Evanston.
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I think the game day environment at Evanston has something to do with it.
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Sun Belt claims another AQ victim!
Middle Tennessee beats Georgia Tech 49-28
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Interesting week. Except for the teams playing ranked teams, EVERYONE in the top 25 was unimpressive. But so far only 2 upsets.
Alabama pedestrian 33-14 win over Ole Miss who lost 66-31 to Texas 2 weeks ago.
LSU 38-22 over Towson (Kent 41 Towson 21)
Oregon struggling against WSU who lost to CU last week.
FSU unimpressive win vs. USF.
UGA 51-44 shootout vs. TN
S. Carolina down 17-7 to a bad UK team at half before pulling away in the 4th.
Stanford lost to unranked UW.
TCU struggled against SMU 24-16, who lost 48-3 last week.
Clemson had a pedestrian 45-31 win over BC.
Oregon St. behind Arizona in 4th.
UL scored late to beat winless USM 21-17.
Boise won 32-29 over New Mexico.
VT ranked in coaches lost in closing seconds to Cincy.
All the games involving teams ranked in at least one poll were close.
Ohio St. 17-16 over MSU
UNL 30-27 over WI
and then the Big 12 shootouts
WVU 70 Baylor 63 (its not basketball season yet)
UT 41 OSU 36
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bullet
Alabama was burning clock and not running up the score, however their defense limited Ole Miss to just 14 points. The Texas defense only limited Ole Miss to 31 points! Texas had a week off and Oklahoma State still put 36 points on the longhorns. Either Oklahoma State is slightly better than Ole Miss or Texas has no defense and their lofty ranking is suspect. Both possibilities are also possible as Oklahoma State lost by 3 TD’s to Arizona and both historical cellar dwellers (oSu and OM) have yet to win an AQ game.
I will defer to Alan on LSU and Towson but the Tigers crushed the Huskies 41-3 and the Huskies beat #8 Stanford this week and Stanford beat #2 Southern Cal the week before. Oregon State stated slow but they finished 51-26 against the Cougars. The bigger question is when was the last time the Beavers were 3-0 against ranked AQ schools when 2 of them were on the road? Looking at the schedule it is not impossible to see a 6-0 Beaver team. The PAC has 2 unbeaten teams and 5 more PAC teams have only 1 loss.
Not sure what to think about the ACC yet but Florida State is 5-0 and Miami is 3-0 in conference play. The hurricanes have undefeated Notre Dame and undefeated Florida State still on their menu. Could it be the best football team in Florida in the ACC is in Miami? I watched a good chunk of the VT vs UC game and the Bearcats dominated most of the game even if the score did not reflect it. The Bearcat defense looked like a swarm of angry bees for most of the game which was played in a very pro Hokie crowd. The Louisville game was @ Southern Mississippi in a torrential rain and soaked field. How either team moved the ball and scored at all is a mystery.
As for the real mysteries. The Sun Belt claimed another AQ win via Middle Tennessee! Michigan State and Ohio State showed how to play defense and have been penalized in the polls while Baylor and West Virginia showed neither has ANY defense and both will continue to get computer and voter love. #15 TCU beat SMU in a near home game 24-16, #24 Baylor beat SMU at Baylor 59-24, and unranked TAMU beat SMU @ SMU 48-3. If the B12 is not over rated how do you explain this divergence of polls to actual games played!
At least Georgia vs Tennessee relied on defensive scores and plays to drive the score up. In that game you saw about 10 punts and almost as many rushing touchdowns. The West Virginia vs Baylor game saw 3 total punts in the entire game and 13 passing touchdowns! Maybe I am old school for wanting to see college football instead of arena football. Boise State was a surprise to win at all. They should have lost last week except for a late defensive touchdown that covered the fact their offense failed to put a single point on the scoreboard.
The biggest question for my week is why were (3) Big 12 teams not playing when not a single school in the conference has gotten to 5 games played? The schedules played do not indicate a difficulty to warrant so much rest. At least there is some comfort that College Game Day graced the B1G for Sparty vs the Buckeyes over 2 ranked B12 schools that were playing a historic game as conference mates for the first time. Must make West Virginia feel welcome that Texas and Oklahoma did not push for such conference promotion that Florida vs TAMU got. 😉
If College Game Day passes West Virginia vs Texas and visits Dallas for Texas vs Oklahoma it will send a massage to Morgantown on who matters in the B12. 🙂
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The Big 12 doesn’t have a championship game. This gives them 2 off-weeks during the season. With the season 1/3 of the way through it makes sense to take the first one about now.
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Oh, and Duffman, you don’t need to talk about offense/defense in the WV/Baylor game to make your point.
Baylor was down at the half to an FCS team (albeit a very good one).
Baylor had a close victory over LA-Monroe, which puts them about equal with Auburn and slightly better than Arkansas. Nobody was thinking about ranking either of those schools last week.
Why does anyone think Baylor is a good team this year?
An even better question is how the coaches have WV ahead of Kansas State, even if it’s by one spot. KSU has victories over Miami in the ACC and Oklahoma in the Big 12. WV has victories over Maryland in the ACC and Baylor in the Big 12. Who really thinks WV has done better so far?
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@ m(Ag)
On September 23, 2012 (before College Game Day announced) both were ranked
#9 = West Virginia in AP Poll
#7 = West Virginia in USA Poll
#25 = Baylor in AP Poll
#24 = Baylor in USA Poll
.
On September 2, 2012 (before College Game Day announced) look at the ranks
#24 = Florida in AP Poll
#23 = Florida in USA Poll
NR = TAMU in AP Poll
NR = TAMU in USA Poll
.
College Game Day went to College Station to see the historic SEC game but did not go to Morgantown to see higher ranked teams have a historic B12 game. If West Virginia had played Oklahoma or Texas in Morgantown I am betting the bus would have been in Morgantown and not East Lansing. I think West Virginia and Baylor are way over rated but I am not going to complain too much because ESPN has set the media fanfare for future Dantonio vs Meyer clashes. First game between the two was close and the off season stuff turned up the heat.
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UF is a much bigger brand than WV, TAMU is a much bigger brand than Baylor and the SEC is a bigger brand for than the B12. Of course ESPN favors UF/TAMU over WV/Baylor.
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WV is ahead of KSU because they looked so good in the Orange Bowl last year. Same reason LSU is still so highly ranked. LSU was good last year, so they are ranked highly this year even though they haven’t looked very good the last 2 weeks. People still think they will be good. Polls are not about only what has happened on the field. Sometimes they flat out ignore it.
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Duff – I’m clueless about the LSU Towson game, as I’m in Baltimore for the Orioles/Red Sox series. GEAUX O’s! I do know that it was raining during the LSU game and that their were several uncharacteristic fumbles. LSU running backs rarely fumble, until last night. Hopefully, my Tigers took Towson too lightly and were looking forward to Florida. If not, I’m worried.
But the Orioles are in 1st place with 4 games to go. I’ll worry about LSU tomorrow.
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Duffman, I wasn’t previously aware that TX and OK are the entities that choose the location for Gameday broadcasts. Incidentally, Gameday is not going to Austin next week, so I guess Oklahoma must have pulled the rug out from under Texas in some form of behind-the-scenes machinations we’ll never know about.
Also, it was heretofore not known to me that defensive scores counted more than offensive ones. I’ll be sure to contact Dana Holgorsen forthwith via telegraph and remind him of this important information.
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Because of that, you might suggest he not take Geno Smith to Austin next week!
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jbcwv,
I understand your point but it seems to move around via conferences with some degree of probability. Having half the CGD’s at SEC locations in a given year is improbable but having it skip a conference entirely seems equally unlikely. This coming week looks like Georgia and South Carolina but that does not negate that some point they will site a B12 game or 2 this season and historically UT and OU got the majority of the B12 exposure.
The basic point is the Baylor vs WVU game offered a pairing of ranked teams in the new B12 which would have been an excellent showcase. Granted TCU and KU was the first game I believe but given the history of Kansas football, especially from last season, that would be a higher risk game. If CGD bypasses both the 2 new schools (especially as they are currently ranked) it appears as less than welcoming of the new members. I am not saying UT or OU makes policy for ESPN but with the LHN now up and running I would guess they have closer contacts than most.
Look where where it has been so far :
Week 1 = B1G and SEC
Week 2 = SEC and SEC (first SEC 14 game)
Week 3 = SEC and SEC
Week 4 = ACC and ACC
Week 5 = B1G and B1G
Week 6 = SEC and SEC
The PAC and B12 have not had a site yet this season. Week 7 Top 25 looks like this:
LSU vs South Carolina = already had multiple SEC
Stanford vs Notre Dame = NBC game
Texas vs Oklahoma = ABC game
After that it drops off pretty quick so it is not way out to think the other B12 may fall behind the probability window. Gameday was there for the Nebraska vs Wisconsin game and the TAMU vs Florida game so why not for a B12 school? Now both the new members have already played their first conference game without such exposure. Do you not find that at least a little bit odd?
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Duffman, I find it unfortunate from a personal perspective because of my interest in Big 12 football. I imagine ESPN has some kind of methodology they use to choose where to go in any given week. I can’t blame them for choosing the SC-Georgia game this weekend because both of those teams are ranked higher than Texas or West Virginia. But you make it sound as though there is some conspiracy between TX/OK and ESPN to screw West Virginia out of some exposure that would be coming otherwise.
While I’d love to believe that such conspiracies would be necessary to deprive the Mountaineers of this sort of exposure, the truth of the matter is that Gameday’s trip to Morgantown for the LSU game last year was its first and only to date (and recall that during that week, there was still a high probability that WVU would be stuck in the Big East with Rutgers and CUSA 2.0). If WVU and K-State can both win their next couple of games (a big if), there’s a high chance that one will be a top-5 matchup, and I might be more miffed if ESPN picks something else. But I hardly think WVU-Baylor was a shoo-in or that it is remotely surprising ESPN went elsewhere.
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I think we’re making the College GameDay choices a little too complicated here. Essentially, there has to be a very compelling reason for College GameDay to be anywhere other than where the ESPN/ABC “A” announcing team (Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit) is that week, which is normally the Saturday Night Football telecast or the best game that the ESPN family is showing (along with allowing for Herbstreit to not have to jump onto a plane immediately after GameDay ends). If it’s not an “A” team game, then GameDay is next most high profile game that’s being shown on the ESPN networks (which is usually the weekly prime time SEC game on ESPN as is the case with Georgia-South Carolina this week). Someone else might have time to research this to confirm, but the main exceptions to that general rule that I’ve seen are (1) really high profile SEC games on CBS or Notre Dame games on NBC or (2) the annual “novelty” GameDay trip (e.g. an Ivy League game, one of the service academies, etc.).
Thus, I don’t think that ESPN is against Big 12 games at all, but rather Big 12 games that are on the Fox networks (which apply to Baylor-WVU yesterday and Texas-WVU this week). ESPN doesn’t have any interest to pump up any game on newbie Fox at this point, so I think they’re consciously avoiding them at least this year. (Granted, I don’t think WVU-Baylor really had the national appeal to be a GameDay site anyway compared to a game involving a king program like Ohio State, while the Georgia-South Carolina is a better matchup rankings-wise than Texas-WVU. On an objective national interest level, ESPN’s choices were the right ones regardless of the fact that they’re the network showing those games.) Games on CBS and NBC are less problematic for GameDay because they’re already so established as homes for college football.
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jbcwv,
I have said often I am not a fan of conspiracy per se but that the objectives of one is sidestepped by another. Again, what I am trying to understand is why WVU vs Baylor was not College Game Day this past weekend. I am just looking at in historical context.
Nebraska joins the B1G and their first B1G game is College Game Day
TAMU joins the SEC and their first SEC game is College Game Day
TCU joins and their first game is Kansas (not ranked)
WVU joins and their first game is Baylor (both ranked)
Again, I am happy to see Sparty get CGD because I would favor the B1G exposure but I must question why the B12 did not push ESPN for exposure of the first game. New school and ranked team seems like a no brainer. If we find a trade was made for a historic game (Baylor @ West Virginia) to insure the Red River Rivalry gets the slot for the B12 instead it seems like somebody dropped the ball here. Fox and ESPN have swapped (the Kansas vs Texas game last season) in the past so it is not like a test case has already been done.
As Frank states it is pretty cut and dry except in “compelling” situations. A game such as this must be seen as “compelling” in the context of the “new” B12. The RRR happens every year in the B12 but the first game between Baylor and WVU was a one time historic event. I just wonder why it did not happen? Especially after reading about the economic and exposure benefits TAMU got for their game this year.
.
Thus, I don’t think that ESPN is against Big 12 games at all, but rather Big 12 games that are on the Fox networks (which apply to Baylor-WVU yesterday and Texas-WVU this week).
@ Frank,
I was actually suggesting the opposite in that ESPN would work to make this happen, especially if Texas (because of the LHN / ESPN connection) gave its blessing. Citing the FOX / ESPN swap last year when it was a lesser game with less historic context. Again, Baylor and Texas are IMG schools so pushing for CGD in Morgantown would have been extra publicity for the B12 (which would help FOX and ESPN) for the day. Am I not being clear in how I am stating this issue?
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@duffman
The reason is WVU and Baylor aren’t anywhere near as big a TV draw as Nebraska and Florida, especially since that Nebraska game was #8 vs. #7 Wisconsin.
Plus, both those games (along with OSU-MSU) were on ESPN, while Baylor-WVU was a Fox game and Gameday always favors ESPN games.
And just because Texas has a deal with ESPN doesn’t they have any influence on where Gameday goes on a game they don’t aren’t even in.
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Duff,
1. The Texas games are FOX prime time – unlike to have most favored status by ESPN and not worthy of GD.
B. oSu averaging 50+ points per game dating back through last year, so well under their average.
C. Against the vaunted secsecsec defense, Texas scored almost double what the Tide did. Texas was at home home and the Tide travelled to the Grove. No Strike that. Texas on the road Bama in T-town.
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The ranks of the undefeated week 5 :
AQ schools 20 of 72 = 27.8% of population : 20 of 124 = 16.1% of total
Big 12 (5) of 10 => 50.0%
4-0 = Kansas State, Texas, Texas Christian, Texas Tech, and West Virginia
SEC (6) of 14 => 42.9%
5-0 = Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana State
4-0 = Florida and Mississippi State
Big East (3) of 8 => 37.5%
5-0 = Louisville
4-0 = Rutgers
3-0 = Cincinnati
IND (1) of 4 => 25.0%
4-0 = Notre Dame
B1G (2) of 12 => 16.7%
5-0 = Northwestern and Ohio State
PAC 12 (2) of 12 => 16.7%
5-0 = Oregon
3-0 = Oregon State
ACC (1) of 12 => 8.3%
5-0 = Florida State
.
Non AQ schools 3 of 52 = 5.8% of population : 3 of 124 = 2.4% of total
WAC (2) of 7 => 28.6%
5-0 = Texas San Antonio
4-0 = Louisiana Tech
MAC (1) of 13 => 7.7%
5-0 = Ohio
Sun Belt (0) of 10 => 0%
CUSA (0) of 12 => 0%
MWC (0) of 10 => 0%
.
Undefeated pairings for week #5
Louisiana State @ Florida
Georgia @ South Carolina
West Virginia @ Texas
.
….
.
AP Top 25
SEC (6) = #1 Alabama, #4 LSU, #5 Georgia, #6 S Carolina, #10 Florida, #20 Miss St
PAC (6) = #2 Oregon, #13 USC, #14 Oregon St, #18 Stanford, #23 Washington, #25 UCLA
B 12 (5) = #7 Kansas State, #8 West Virginia, #11 Texas, #15 TCU, #17 Oklahoma
B1G (3) = #12 Ohio State, #21 Nebraska, #24 Northwestern
ACC (2) = #3 Florida State, #15 Clemson
BigE (2) = #19 Louisville, #22 Rutgers
I ND (1) = #9 Notre Dame
Dropped : Michigan State / Boise State / Baylor
.
USA Top 25
SEC (6) = #1 Alabama, #3 LSU, #5 Georgia, #6 S Carolina, #11 Florida, #19 Miss St
B 12 (6) = #7 W Virginia, #8 Kansas St, #9 Texas, #13 TCU, #14 Oklahoma, #24 Tx Tech
PAC (4) = #2 Oregon, #12 USC, #17 Oregon St, #18 Stanford
BigE (3) = #16 Louisville, #21 Rutgers, #23 Cincinnati
ACC (2) = #4 Florida State, #15 Clemson
B1G (2) = #20 Nebraska, #22 Northwestern
I ND (1) = #10 Notre Dame
MWC (1) = #25 Boise State
Dropped : Michigan State / Oklahoma State / Wisconsin / Baylor / Virginia Tech
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Week 5 :
ACC : AQ = 4-4 : NAQ = 1-2 : FCS = DNP : OFF = ONE :: U = Florida State
ACC (3-3) : B1G (DNP) : BE (1-1) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) : IND (DNP)
CUSA (DNP) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SB (0-1) : WAC (1-1) : FCS (DNP)
B 12 : AQ = 3–3 : NAQ = 1-0 : FCS = DNP : OFF = THREE :: U = FIVE teams
ACC (DNP) : B1G (DNP) : BE (DNP) : B12 (3-3) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) : IND (DNP)
CUSA (1-0) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SB (DNP) : WAC (DNP) : FCS (DNP)
BE : AQ = 1-1 : NAQ = 2-0 : FCS = DNP : OFF = FOUR :: U = UC, UL, and Rutgers
ACC (1-1) : B1G (DNP) : BE (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) : IND (DNP)
CUSA (1-0) : MAC (1-0) : MWC (DNP) : SB (DNP) : WAC (DNP) : FCS (DNP)
B1G : AQ = 5-5 : NAQ = 1-0 : FCS = DNP : OFF = ONE :: U = Northwestern / Ohio St
ACC (DNP) : B1G (5-5) : BE (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) : IND (DNP)
CUSA (1-0) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SB (DNP) : WAC (DNP) : FCS (DNP)
IND : AQ = DNP : NAQ = 1–1 : FCS = 1-0 : OFF = ONE :: U = Notre Dame
ACC (DNP) : B1G (DNP) : BE (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) : IND (DNP)
CUSA (DNP) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (1-0) : SB (DNP) : WAC (0-1) : FCS (0-1)
PAC : AQ = 5-5 : NAQ = DNP : FCS = DNP : OFF = TWO :: U = Oregon / Oregon St
ACC (DNP) : B1G (DNP) : BE (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (5-5) : SEC (DNP) : IND (DNP)
CUSA (DNP) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SB (DNP) : WAC (DNP) : FCS (DNP)
SEC : AQ = 4-4 : NAQ = 1-0 : FCS = 1–0 : OFF = FOUR :: U = SIX teams
ACC (DNP) : B1G (DNP) : BE (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (4-4) : IND (DNP)
CUSA (1-0) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SB (DNP) : WAC (DNP) : FCS (1-0)
.
Best schedulers = B1G and PAC : 5 CG’s / 2 OFF
Worst schedulers = B12, BE, and SEC : 3 and 4 OFF
.
Observations :
The B1G has 2 undefeated teams – the good
Ohio State can not play for a MNC – the bad
B1G hopes for undefeated = Wildcats – the ugly
The B12 showed again they are over rated at this point
– West Virginia showed no defense and was rewarded with #8 / #7
– Kansas State stayed put (I might move them up) #7 / #8
– Texas won on a questionable TD with no defense and got #11 / #9
– TCU beat 1-3 SMU and other nobody’s yet, and sits at #15 / #13
– Oklahoma is 2-1 and still sits at #17 / #14
– Texas Tech made the Top 25 just in time for the Oklahoma game
Kansas State might be slightly under rated but the rest are over their games played
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out of conference vs. FBS so far:
Big 12 17-3 85.0%
SEC 22-7 75.9%
Pac 12 16-8 66.7%
Big 10 26-13 66.7%
Big East 12-9 57.1%
WAC 12-11 52.2%
ACC 13-12 52.0%
Ind 5-7 41.7%
SB 9-17 34.6%
MAC 11-21 34.4%
MWC 9-18 33.3%
CUSA 5-31 13.9%
Interesting points:
The Big 6 aren’t doing dramatically different than the past couple of years.
Big 10 perception has been hurt more by close wins than actual losses. They are still close to their normal ooc %.
Big East schedules similar to Big 10, SEC and Big 12 (and maybe even easier), but nevertheless, does better than they get credit for.
WAC is having a great year, in their last year.
Sun Belt is having far and away their best year.
MAC is on a pace to do better ooc than they have in over 10 years.
MWC is suffering from the losses of TCU, Utah and BYU. They have fallen from a clear #7 into the pack.
CUSA is having a horrible year. FCS schools are 10-87, 10.3%, not much worse than CUSA.
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The Big Ten is suffering from no signature wins for the conference. Northwestern, Minnesota, and Ohio State got 12 of the OOC wins, with the best opponents a 2-2 UCF, 1-3 Vandy, 1-3 Syracuse, 1-4 Cal, and a 1-3 BC.
Combine the lack of quality wins with the overall competitiveness in MAC games, and it’s easy for fans of the other AQ conferences to doubt the Big Ten is competitive with any of the other AQ conferences.
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What signature OOC win by an ACC team did I miss?
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Clemson over Auburn and NC State over UConn.
Oh, wait…
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The ACC has nothing they can point to so far. However, the Big Ten has used up its chances for the year, while the ACC has at least 4 chances remaining to get a better win:
1) Miami v. Notre Dame
2) GT v. Georgia
3) Clemson v. South Carolina
4) FSU v Florida
Beating ND is something 3 Big Ten teams failed to do, although a Miami victory would also help KSU and the Big 12’s reputation.
Noone expects GT to beat Georgia now, but those last 2 games definitely give the ACC a chance to make a statement. Of course, these are also chances for the SEC East teams’ reputation to take a hit.
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The ACC loads up on games against AQ programs better than any league, and only the Pac-12 even compares. But the only thing that we’ve learned from that schedule (outside of Tallahassee and Upstate South Carolina) is that the ACC stinks! Big Ten fans should take solace in the idea that anything their league can do bad, the ACC can do worse. Ugh!
I do think the Big East deserves a lot of credit at this point of the season. That league has taken its share of on and off field beatings like no other league besides the WAC, especially in the past 13 months. They also are in their third straight season with zero preseason top 25 teams. Yet here that league is with Louisville, Rutgers, and Cincinnati all undefeated with perfectly respectable resumes. None of those three are scheduled to leave the league, either.
At any rate, I would love to see Florida State survive its very mediocre schedule and set itself up for a date with Alabama in Miami, by I’m getting the feeling that Alabama will win that contest handily no matter who it’s against. They’re the most dominant team I can recall since at least Miami in 2001, and maybe Nebraska in ’95. It’s early, but man, it just seems like they are a cut above EVERYONE else.
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I don’t think anyone is a cut above anyone this year. Alabama really struggled moving the ball against Ole Miss. Texas, which is still trying to find a QB and an offensive identity, moved the ball totally at will against Ole Miss, unlike anything they have done since Vince Young was QB. Alabama’s strength is not their offense, but if Ole Miss can slow them down so much, it says they are vulnerable. I’m thinking noone gets through the SEC undefeated this year.
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Texas’s defense has been awful.
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No, Baylor and WVU have been awful. Texas has been inconsistent, giving up too many big plays. On pass coverage they have at least been in position to miss tackles (which they have done way too frequently). In that Baylor/WVU game, it was sometimes hard to find the defender unless it was a really broad camera angle.
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You’re setting the bar pretty low there.
No, Texas doesn’t give up 70 pts per game, I’ll give you that.
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Michael,
I think Miami is the one slipping below the radar but with the best shot at boosting the ACC until you get to Florida Sate vs Florida at the end. Miami has already played Kansas State and that is their only loss so far. If they win in Chicago vs Notre Dame and follow up with a win against Florida State they would have a compelling argument as a solid backup for keeping the ACC in view. Miami getting 3 ranked opponents (Kansas State, Notre Dame, and Florida State) beats Florida State getting just Clemson (who melted down last january) and Florida State.
Not saying it will all fall in place but it is an interesting possibility.
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Most of these comparisons are relative to historical expecations. In recent years, the ACC has been the weakest of the Big Five leagues. It has nowhere to go but up. But the Big Ten is usually a solid #2 to the SEC, so that makes its performance this season much more shocking.
The Big East has always been a clear cut above the other mid-majors and was never on par with the lowly WAC. But the Big East has suffered a pretty big comedown, once considered a peer of the Big Five, and now kicked out of that group.
Louisville and Rutgers don’t have “perfectly respectable resumes.” Rutgers’ only quality win is vs. Arkansas, which is 1-4 and lost to Louisiana-Monroe. Louisville’s only quality win is a squeaker over North Carolina, a school that is seldom good at football. These are the typical resumes of “good” Big East teams: cleaning up against not-very-good competition.
Cincinnati beat Virginia Tech, and that looks pretty good right now, but the Bearcats have played only three games, and their other two wins (Pitt, Delaware State) just don’t tell you very much.
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Big Ten isn’t usually a solid #2 to the SEC in anything but attendance, ratings, and money. On the field they’re usually behind the SEC and the Big 12 and sometimes the Pac 12.
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Not on money. Right now the SEC is temporarily #5. B1G is #1 on money. And from the mid-90s to about 5 years ago, the B1G and SEC were very close most years on who was 1 and who was 2. Sometimes the Big 12 or Pac 12 would be #1 or #2, but most years it was between the B1G and SEC with neither being dominant. That has not been the case the last 5 years or so.
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@ bullet
How do you get they are #5?
Last year the SEC got ~20 million per school which already puts them near the top. As they retain Tier 3 that adds 5 – 10 million per school. What other conference is currently getting 25 – 30 million per team? The B1G is the only one I can think of. Texas has the LHN but the rest of the conference is not getting that kind of $$$$.
Forbes and others show the top 20 football schools in money are dominated by the B1G and SEC. I think Southern Cal is the only PAC school that made the list and Texas and Oklahoma were the only B12 schools in that group. I am trying to remember if an ACC school made the list.
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On average TV revenue over their contract they are #5, for now.
Big 12 is $20 million
Pac 12 is $20.8 million
Big 10 is around $20.7 million
ACC’s pre-ND contract is $17.14 million
SEC is $17.08 million splitting 12 ways and around $14 splitting 14 ways, but they haven’t revised their contract for the extra teams yet or finalized their Tier 3 deal. So temporarily they are #5.
Of course in these figures, ACC is all in. B1G doesn’t include BTN profits. Pac 12 figure doesn’t include PTN profits. Big 12 and SEC don’t include their current individual Tier 3 deals.
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When your contract is signed for more years you can have a greater average and still be making less each year. From what I’ve seen the Big 12 is still less than the SEC year-to-year at the moment.
However, the old members have extra cash from not giving the new members full payouts yet, while dividing up the buyouts the 4 fleeing members paid. So they likely have more in the short term than anyone.
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People are comparing contracts of differing lengths with different start and end points.
I’ve posted this before, but here is the best I can come up with for a comparison. SEC is still #2 until data says something different.
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bullet,
They are not temporarily #5, nor have they been as far as the scope of discussion
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/02/18/sec-schools-rake-in-nearly-20-million-in-2010-11/
This past years payout was just short of 20 million and that did not include the Tier 3 numbers which add another 5 – 10 million per school. All along the B1G and SEC have been the top of the food chain. We have discussed these standings since Frank first started talking realignment.
The ACC / B 12 / PAC are all in the beginning of their contracts so the numbers may not be that high yet as these contracts are graduated and the numbers are averages. The B1G and SEC have hard numbers based on actual checks written and IRS documents verified. The ACC and PAC cover all 3 Tiers so the numbers are max. The B1G and SEC have conference networks or solid Tier 3 to bump their numbers. Only about 3 B12 have been able to get large values on their Tier 3 so that would not be the majority of the conference.
In short, at this time the B1G and SEC well above the others.
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Duff – Be aware that a conference distribution (the number that article gives) isn’t all TV money. It includes things NCAA tournament credits, reimbursements, bowl money, etc.
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The SEC is near the beginning of their contract as well. Only the Big 10 is near the end. They are differing lengths, but have gotten more similar. The ACC would probably be a million less if you didn’t include their 4 year extension.
Conferences distribute based on different things, so distributions can be comparing apples and oranges as well. For example, the ACC holds a share of TV money out for the conference. Others pay directly for conference costs and officiating fees (see the Missouri and A&M settlements with the Big 12) or pay for it through the conference getting part of the sponsor money. Some share some portion of gate receipts (at least the Big 10 does). And these distributions don’t reflect the new deals. SEC shows a $5 million jump with their new contract in 2009. ACC’s new contract started in 2011 and the distribution chart doesn’t show 2012. The Big 12 will get a bump next year with the recent deal with ESPN.
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Again, as I said above-“on average TV money over the life of their contract” and “temporarily” for those who missed that point.
Big 12 is $2.6 billion 2012 to 2024-25 with 10 schools.
Pac 12 is $3.0 billion 2011 to 2022-23 with 12 schools.
SEC is $3.075 billion 2009 to 2023-24 with 14 schools (again, for the time being, until their deals are re-worked-and there’s no guarantee it will be done before this year’s distributions are calculated).
ACC is $3.6 billion 2011 to 2026-27 with 14 schools (without ND-and is quoted as $240 million a year, so it probably ignores the 1st year 2011)
Big 10 is a variety of deals:
BTN 112 million per year 2007-2031/32
ABC 100 million per year 2006-2016/17
CBS 12 million per year 2011-2016/17 (basketball)
Fox 24 million per year 2011-2016/17 (football ccg-I’ve seen estimates from 20 to 25 million, but one was specific $145 million/6 years, so I’ve gone with that)
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@ bullet,
I believe the SEC reported no drop in school revenue with the addition of TAMU and Missouri. This would indicate each school would get the same and the other 12 schools would not suffer a reduction. I think this was an early point in the realignment discussions so your assertion that the old number was now divided by 14 instead of 12 seems incorrect. If you can provide a link to dispute this, please feel free to link it.
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@Duffman
This is the 1st year with A&M and Missouri. They don’t expect a drop in revenue and almost certainly will end up somewhat ahead. BUT, they have no deal yet and if they don’t get one done by the end of the fiscal year, they will experience a drop. In that case, I’m sure ESPN will make it up the next year, but the SEC isn’t there yet. There is no deal yet to pay them a dime more than the $205 million average (55 CBS, 150 ESPN) they are getting now. In fact, CBS is balking about paying more. There will be a lot of pressure from the presidents on Slive to get a deal done and get the revenue flowing.
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At some point last summer Mike Slive mentioned in passing that they had a temporary agreement with the networks, presumably one that simply increased the rates this year by 14/12.
I’m guessing the permanent agreement will involve the SEC network, realigning the schedule (everyone assumes the last week of the season will be Mizzou/Arkie and LSU/A&M, while the week before will probably have more interesting match-ups than currently) and the rumored change to 9 conference games.
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m(Ag)
It sounded like a 14 / 14 split as the SEC indicated no “buy in” for TAMU or Missouri.
say 2011 = 20 million per team
20 x 12 = 240 million
20 x 14 = 280 million
That agreement was probably in place before either school was added and was a simple addendum to the original deal. All schools would receive what they got last year with no shrinkage in the net pie for the 12 original schools. We will know for sure by the end of the season.
I think the issue is what will the new long term contract be worth if the SEC does pass a unified Tier 3 deal. Outside of football season the Tier 3 would provide lots of original programming for the rest of the year. The conference has valuable franchises in multiple sports from multiple teams across the conference.
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bullet, if you want to use some silly technicality to point out that right at this moment the SEC isn’t making as much, go right ahead.
But you know and I know that will be over very soon.
All of us here know the SEC will likely be #1 in money, and if not, then they’ll be basically tied for #1.
They may even end up #1 by a wide margin in a couple of years.
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Your points are historically wrong. The Big East and ACC led the way in the early 90s before football became more dominant. Immediately after the breakup of the CFA, the Big 10 and Pac 10 had a joint contract and led the way. The SEC’s move up financially is more recent.
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“I think the issue is what will the new long term contract be worth if the SEC does pass a unified Tier 3 deal. Outside of football season the Tier 3 would provide lots of original programming for the rest of the year. The conference has valuable franchises in multiple sports from multiple teams across the conference.”
Clearly the spring and summer will receive some quality content due to the SEC’s strong baseball and softball programs, but I think SEC basketball is about to take off as well. The SEC is recruiting extremely well in basketball this year, with programs such as South Carolina, LSU, and Tennessee landing high profile recruits, in addition to typical mainstays like Kentucky and Florida.
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SEC basketball has been historically underappreciated due to UK dominance. But it has been a down period the last few years. Georgia, Tennessee and the whole west have been down. 2 years ago, all the tourney teams were from the east. S. Carolina and Florida have not been as good as they were (Florida has a couple national titles under Donovan).
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bullet,
The problem with SEC basketball is the demise of “colorful” coaches like Nolan Richardson, Dale Brown and Wimp Sanderson. Pearl was a throwback to that but he did not last. Not sure if the SEC has a Mad Hatter in basketball anymore.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-0929-depaul-united-center–20120929,0,7457194.story
Of interest to Frank
DePaul officials are in serious discussions with the United Center to move their men’s basketball games downtown from the Allstate Arena, a source told the Tribune.
DePaul annually plays about 16 home games in suburban Rosemont, where it has played for more than 30 years. The possible move, which would provide students a shorter trip to games from their Lincoln Park campus, could come as early as next season, according to the source.
…
DePaul spokesman Greg Greenwell issued a statement that did not deny the possibility.
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@frug – Yes, I saw that. There’s also a proposal where Rahm Emanuel is looking to use funding that’s available for McCormick Place expansion on a new arena in the South Loop:
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120928/BLOGS02/120929739
Either the United Center or McCormick Place would be a vast improvement over the Allstate Arena. Even though the United Center is massive on paper with 21,000 seats, a more intimate atmosphere can be created by closing off the 300-level and just selling seats in the lower bowl (around 12,000 seats, which is the right size for DePaul basketball at this point).
I actually like the McCormick Place proposal even more. It would obviously be optimal to have an arena in the Lincoln Park area, but considering that they’ve been talking about that for 3 decades and land in that area has become only more constrained and expensive during that time, it’s probably time to put that fantasy to bed. From DePaul’s standpoint, the funding is there for McCormick Place almost immediately with the amenities of existing parking structure and a new Green Line station being built. I can also see Rahm’s rationale for this proposal. I lived in Chinatown for awhile (about 1 mile directly west of McCormick Place) and there is definitely a gap in commercial development (or at least conventioneer/tourist/family-friendly commercial development) in the area between McCormick Place and the Chinatown Red Line station. That gap is particularly glaring considering how many business visitors come to McCormick Place specifically while they are in town and they need to either take a cab (or take a not-so-safe walk) to Chinatown or other parts of the city. From an urban planning perspective, I can see that the city would want to use a new arena as a catalyst to get more upscale restaurants and bars into that area and to connect the McCormick Place complex to Chinatown to the west and the rest of the more developed South Loop to the north.
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@ Frank,
Not to totally derail but since this is about college basketball. What are your pre season thoughts for Illinois basketball? State of the program and early predictions on key games.
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http://lubbockonline.com/sports-red-raiders/2012-09-29/hance-shares-tech-moves-behind-scenes-during-big-12-storm#
In an interview last week, [Texas Tech Chancellor Kent ] Hance shared some of the steps Tech took and some of what he was thinking during the turbulent times.
■ Tech began as early as 2007 reaching out to top administrators at schools outside the Big 12, laying the groundwork in case of a league collapse.
■ In the summer of 2010, Hance thought Tech was going to join the Pac-10 Conference, but the feeling lasted only a day.
■ While he had no issue with Dan Beebe personally, Hance felt the former Big 12 commissioner didn’t lead strongly enough during the crisis.
■ The craziest rumor might have been one that had Texas going to the Big Ten Conference. That, or Texas Tech to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
■ Hance likes West Virginia being part of the Big 12, but he thinks Louisville makes even more sense — and still might.
■ No amount of fan dissent can convince Hance that Tech is not better off working with Texas and being in the same league as the Longhorns. That sentiment, of course, was not shared by Texas A&M, which used Texas’ establishing the Longhorn Network as a reason to bolt for the Southeastern Conference.
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Texas beats Nebraska again. http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2012/10/ncaa-week-5-texasosu-on-fox-beats-abcs-saturday-night-football/
It was the first time Fox had beaten ABC. That was good news for the Big 12 as last week’s ratings for KSU/OU were drawfed by ND/Michigan and FSU/Clemson.
For the Big 10, Ohio St./Michigan St. was still the top draw of the weekend.
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Nielsen’s overnight ratings for the 18-49 demo had it the other way around with ABC beating Fox. Which is surprising since Wisconsin isn’t ranked and Nebraska was ranked in the 20’s.
http://www.examiner.com/article/wisconsin-nebraska-tops-saturday-tv-ratings-over-texas-oklahoma-state
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Neither WI or Okie St. were ranked in the AP Poll. OSU was 22 and WI 23 in the coaches poll.
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If its the same metric, college football skews old and/or young. Ratings were 2.8 and 2.6 overall (per sportsmedia) vs. 1.1 and 1.2 on the 18-49 (the Nielsen).
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ESPN and the Big Ten are claiming the outright win
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To go off bullet’s link, MSU/OSU beat Tennessee/Georgia pretty decisively (3.6 vs. 2.8).
I wonder how much CBS’s ratings advantage over ABC in the afternoon timeslot in recent years was due to the weeks in the early season (when CBS had enticing SEC matchups while ABC had a bunch of dreck to choose from). For instance, last week, CBS had SCarolina vs. Mizzou while the B10 game that ABC had was Temple@PSU. The week before that, CBS had ‘Bama/Arkansas while the B10 game on ABC was Navy@PSU.
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When ESPN let CBS air the LSU-Alabama game in prime time last year, they negotiated that ESPN would get the first pick ahead of CBS for 2 weeks this year. According to Matt Sarz media blog, the SC/Mizzou game was the first weekend (ESPN picked the LSU/Auburn game ahead of CBS). The second weekend ESPN has first choice is the weekend after this. It was announced yesterday that ESPN picked the SC/LSU game, while CBS picked the Mizzou/Alabama game.
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On another board, someone was pointing out there will be a lot of interesting matchups in primetime this weekend. I don’t remember so many primetime games before. Everyone seems to want a piece of the evening viewers. Looks like we’ll have to eat in and have the TVs on different channels. This weekend per ESPN’s website:
7 ESPN Georgia-South Carolina
7 Fox W. Virginia-Texas
7 ESPNU A&M-Ole Miss
7:30 NBC Catholics vs. Convicts
8 ESPN2 FSU-N. Carolina St.
8 ABC Nebraska-Ohio St.
8 CBS Sports Hawaii-San Diego St.
Who gets the best ratings will be interesting. I’m guessing NBC. When they are winning, people watch. But I don’t recall NBC testing primetime very often, so that could lead to different results.
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Mr SEC points out that the SEC is giving up many of its day games to get on TV. Now LSU has traditionally had a lot of night games, but they were the exception. Schedule week after next:
12:21 Eastern Auburn/Ole Miss SEC network
3:30 Alabama/Missouri CBS
6:00 Florida/Vandy ESPNU
7:00 UK/Arkansas FSN
8:00 S Carolina/LSU ESPN
9:00 TN/MS St. ESPN2
9:15 A&M/La Tech ESPNU
This could have a long term negative impact on attendance. There are people driving from around the state to those games and it makes it hard to go without staying overnight.
The MAC is sacrificing their already weak attendance with the Tuesday and Wednesday night games in order to get exposure.
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I think it is a huge stretch to assume extra night games would have a negative impact on attendance. The SEC has the most passionate fan base in the entire country, and night games are generally regarded as more prestigious than games that start at 11:00am/12:00pm. I don’t think anyone in the SEC is complaining about more primetime ESPN games for the SEC, except maybe sportswriters that have less time to prepare their post-game articles for the morning paper.
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Mr. SEC is a group of 3 bloggers, not newspaper sportswriters. I think if you drive 3 hours from South Georgia to Athens or Mobile to Tuscaloosa, you would rather not have the game end at midnight. I know driving from Houston to Austin which was only 2.5 hours, it was tiring when you were getting home at 1 after a 7pm start. You tend to see more people leaving early on the night games. The bulk of the fans live closer (Athens to Atlanta is no big deal), but there are a substantial number who head across state. All you have to do is look at the flags in the windows on the weekend.
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I am aware of what MrSEC.com is; I was suggesting that the only people who would really complain about more primetime, nationally televised games would be sportswriters, and certainly not the fans themselves. My point was in jest, as you have to stretch pretty far to try and build an argument that these high-exposure games would be anything but positive (which is why conferences are trying to emulate the SEC’s previous dominance over night games).
Yes it will be tougher to drive back home at night if you are not from the area, but if your commute is significant then you would simply stay in a hotel overnight. Night games are nothing new to college football, and certainly not to SEC fanbases.
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Night games aren’t new, but they have been fewer and further between (except LSU who always does a lot).
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In my experience, a lot of SEC fans prefer night games. There is a lot of reasons for that. You get more time to tailgate, the atmospheres are usually better at night (probably due to the longer tailgating/drinking time), and because it is a lot cooler during the 1st half of the season (2:30 games can be brutal during the 1 month and a half of the season). Yeah the longer drives suck, but the atmospheres are a lot better at night (at least at Bryant-Denny).
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Who would be your Top 25 from this data?
I removed team names and conference names to limit bias
Try to go with just this data and no peeking on who the actual teams are
Pool = 42 teams with the following terms and conditions:
CON = Conference game
FBS schools are listed by conference affiliation
FCS schools are listed by generic FCS label
LOSS is denoted in BOLD
H = HOME / A = AWAY / N = NEUTRAL
Records after CON shows current W-L of opposing team
Teams with 2 or more losses are not included
.
Group #1 = Undefeated, 5 games played, 0 FCS = 4 teams
AA 5-0 => N B1G 2-2 : H CON 3-2 : A CON 1-4 :::: H SunB 4-1 : H SunB 1-4
AB 5-0 => A CON 3-2 : H CON 3-2 : H CON 1-3 :::: H MAC 1-3 : A SunB 1-4
AC 5-0 => H CON 3-2 : A CON 1-3 : A CON 1-4 :::: H CUSA 3-2 : H CUSA 0-4
AD 5-0 => A CON 3-2 : H PAC 1-4 :::: H MAC 3-2 : H CUSA 2-2 : H CUSA 0-4
.
Group #2 = Undefeated, 5 games played, 1+ FCS = 6 teams
BA 5-0 => H CON 2-2 : A BigE 1-3 : H SEC 1-3 : H ACC 1-3 :::::::: H FCS 1-3
BB 5-0 => H CON 3-2 : A CON 2-3 :::: H MWC 3-2 : H SunB 2-3 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
BC 5-0 => H PAC 3-1 : A CON 1-3 :::: H SunB 2-3 : A WAC 0-5 :::::::: H FCS 2-2
BD 5-0 => H ACC 3-2 : H SEC 1-4 :::: A SunB 1-4 : A CUSA 0-4 :::::::: H FCS 0-5
BE 5-0 => A B1G 3-2 : :::: A CUSA 2-3 : H WAC 1-4 : A MAC 0-5 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
BF 5-0 => H CON 4-1 : H CON 3-2 : A BigE 2-3 :::::::: H FCS 2-3 : H FCS 0-4
.
Group #3 = Undefeated, 3 or 4 games played, 0 FCS = 5 teams
CA 3-0 => A CON 4-1 : A CON 3-2 : H B1G 3-2
CB 4-0 => A B1G 3-2 : H B1G 2-2 : H B1G 3-1 : N CON 1-3
CC 4-0 => A CON 3-1 : A CON 3-2 : H CON 1-4 :::: H MAC 2-3
CD 4-0 => A ACC 2-3 : A B1G 2-3 :::: A CUSA 1-3 : H CUSA 1-4
CE 4-0 => A CON 2-2 : A SEC 3-2 :::: H MWC 2-3 : H MWC 1-3
.
Group #4 = 1 Loss, 4 or 5 games played, 0 FCS = 4 teams
DA 4-1 => H CON 3-0 : H B1G 4-1 : A CON 1-4 :::: H CUSA 1-3 : A CUSA 1-4
DB 3-1 => A CON 3-1 : H CON 3-1 : H ACC 4-1 :::: H WAC 4-1
DC 3-1 => A CON 3-1 : H CON 1-4 : N BigE 1-3 :::: H MWC 1-3
DD 3-1 => A B1G 3-2 : H IND 3-2 :::: H MAC 3-2 : A MWC 2-3
.
Group #5 = Undefeated, 3 or 4 games played, 1+ FCS = 7 teams
DA 3-0 => H ACC 3-2 : H CON 2-2 :::::::: H FCS 1-3
DB 4-0 => A CON 2-1 : H ACC 4-1 :::: H SunB 2-3 :::::::: H FCS 0-5
DC 4-0 => H CON 3-1 : H ACC 2-2 :::: H CUSA 2-3 :::::::: H FCS 3-1
DB 4-0 => A CON 2-3 : A SEC 1-4 :::: A CUSA 0-4 :::::::: H FCS 3-1
DE 4-0 => A CON 1-3 : H ACC 3-2 :::: A CUSA 1-3 :::::::: H FCS 0-4
DF 4-0 => H CON 3-1 :::: H MWC 2-3 : A WAC 2-2 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
DG 4-0 => H CON 1-3 :::: A SunB 3-2 : H SunB 1-4 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
.
Group #6 = 1 Loss, 5 games played, 3 – 4 AQ’s played = 5 teams
EA 4-1 => A B12 4-0 : H CON 3-2 : A CON 2-3 : A CON 1-3 :::::::: H FCS 3-2
EB 4-1 => A SEC 3-2 : H CON 2-2 : A CON 1-4 : H B1G 2-3 :::::::: H FCS 4-1
EC 4-1 => A CON 5-0 : N SEC 1-3 : A CON 1-3 :::: H MAC 3-2 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
ED 4-1 => A SEC 5-0 : A SEC 1-4 : A CON 2-3 :::: H CUSA 0-4 :::::::: H FCS 0-5
EF 4-1 => A B1G 3-2 : H B 12 1-3 : A IND 0-4 :::: H MAC 2-2 :::::::: H FCS 3-2
.
Group #7 = 1 Loss, 5 games played, 2 AQ’s played = 6 teams
FA 4-1 => A PAC 4-1 : H CON 3-2 :::: A SunB 1-4 : A CUSA 0-4 :::::::: H FCS 0-5
FB 4-1 => A PAC 3-1 : A CON 3-2 :::: H SunB 1-4 : H CUSA 0-4 :::::::: H FCS 2-2
FC 4-1 => A CON 3-2 : H BigE 1-3 :::: A MWC 1-4 : H MAC 2-3 :::::::: H FCS 3-2
FD 4-1 => A B1G 3-2 : H PAC 2-2 :::: H MWC 1-4 : A MWC 1-4 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
FE 4-1 => H BigE 2-3 : A PAC 1-4 :::: A WAC 2-2 : A MWC 1-3 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
FG 4-1 => A PAC 3-1 : A IND 1-3 :::: A MWC 2-3 : H MWC 1-4 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
.
Group #8 = 1 Loss, 4 games played, 1-2 AQ’s played = 5 teams
GA 3-1 => A SEC 5-0 : H CON 3-1 :::: H MWC 2-3 :::::::: H FCS 1-4
GB 3-1 => H CON 4-0 : A B1G 3-2 :::: H CUSA 4-1 :::::::: H FCS 2-2
GC 3-1 => H CON 4-0 : H CON 1-4 :::: A CUSA 1-3 :::::::: H FCS 2-3
GD 3-1 => A IND 4-0 :::: H CUSA 2-3 : H MAC 0-4 :::::::: H FCS 4-1
GE 3-1 => A CON 4-0 :::: H CUSA 1-3 : A SunB 2-2 :::::::: H FCS 2-2
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EDIT : group #4 and group #5 both have the letter D as their group marker. I was using cut and paste and missed making the correct alteration. If you want to call group #5 as an H marker instead of D that works.
As a side note I was surprised at which schools perception changed when clustered into these groups. Segregation via FCS and non AQ markers was interesting.
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I’m partial to team CE and would put them #1 in my own biased poll.
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After all, they did beat one of those overpowering SEC defenses like Tennessee and Georgia!
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So you bring bias and a mono centric view to a discussion. I had to go back and look at who CE was and it all makes sense now. Looks like bullet is in that category as well and yet both are on a B1G board. I am amused but not surprised.
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duffman,
“So you bring bias and a mono centric view to a discussion.”
Pot, meet kettle.
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Brian,
This is a B1G blog so defending the B1G goes with the territory.
What I find more interesting is nobody was picking a Top 25 list when the team names and conferences were removed. I was going out of my way to eliminate bias in the thread.
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duffman,
“This is a B1G blog so defending the B1G goes with the territory.”
It doesn’t have to, but I wasn’t talking about your opinion of the B10 anyway.
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Actually, you have turned into an SEC proponent lately.
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bullet,
I have taken the side of the modern model which is 12 teams and a CCG. The ACC, B1G, PAC, and SEC have all moved to this majority for better or for worse. Only the B12 seems to be going the other way. Currently the SEC is the power conference in the eyes of the general public and will remain there until somebody beats them in the MNC. This means the current course of debate is to push the B1G to the #2 spot in the interim if it means using the SEC to attack another conference pushing for the #2 spot at the same time. As the ACC has only 1 undefeated team left and the PAC has 2 it makes logical sense to go after the threat with the most undefeated teams left behind the SEC, especially when there is such imbalance.
If it means using the SEC as the stick to beat sense into the masses to allow the B1G not to be lost in the B12 koolaid then I am happy to use said stick. The B1G is penalized for losing better OOC games yet the B12 is rewarded for scheduling weaker ones. If the SEC is not used to stir the pot then the B12 will be accorded rewards they have not earned the way other conferences have. Using the SEC to shame the B12 into a 12 team model or scheduling better OOC games will help the interest of the B1G long term as it forces the B12 to stop hitting from the ladies tees and hit from the tees all the other conferences do.
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For all the talk about competition between the networks, I find it interesting they are almost all getting a piece of the A10:
http://www.atlantic10.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/100212aaa.html
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Mighty Ohio St. is will be playing a home and home against a Little Sister of the Poor*
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8453630/ohio-state-buckeyes-tcu-horned-frogs-play-home-home-series
*Ok they are a major now, but it’s still pretty funny
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Well Gee actually had to fire Tressel instead of the other way around and it sounds like he might have to give up his bowties too.
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😦 I would much rather have Tressel still than Gee. Will always miss the sweatervest.
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beats bowties.
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To be fair, he never called TCU a little sister of the poor. He said that teams in the Big Ten and SEC went through murder’s row schedules not playing little sisters of the poor. The comment was directed at TCU’s strength of schedule, not TCU itself. It was still a bad comment though.
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Rumor has it Mizzou will be scheduling a home and home with Purdue in 2015 and 2016. They already have a home and home with Indiana scheduled for 2013 and 2014.
Mizzou will have played a B1G school 14 times in 20 seasons.
Recent Mizzou vs B1G home and homes:
Ohio State in 1997 and 1998
Michigan State 2000 and 2001
Illinois 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
It makes sense for Mizzou to schedule B1G schools for non-conference games. They play all of their conference games in the south now, but there are a lot of Mizzou alums in the B1G region, especially around Chicago.
Also, Mizzou recruits Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan for football fairly often. They may do this more as they recruit less in Texas and look to other areas for players. The thinking is some kids may want to play in the SEC while still living in the Midwest, and so they might look at Missouri for that reason.
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Then why play an Indiana school????? There are no football recruits there. Mizzou should be playing them for basketball.
Its interesting that the Pac 12/Big 12 scheduling deal fell apart and now Big 10 schools, instead of doing Pac 12 scheduling individually, are scheduling schools other than Pac 12. 1st Ohio St., now Purdue.
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a) close travel
b) Could play neutral site Indy / St Louis rotation
c) good chance for wins by Mizzou with a tougher conference schedule
d) AQ opponent instead of non AQ means better SoS for playoff
It would be interesting on how many living Mizzou alumni now call the state of Indiana home.
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Mizzou doesn’t seem to do too many ‘buy’ games (although it did manage to get Syracuse for a ‘buy’ game this year), probably because of its small stadium for an SEC school. Looking at there future schedule, they’ve scheduled home/away series with UCF, Toledo, Memphis, and Wyoming, to go along with Indiana.
Playing a lower level Big Ten team is probably good for fan interest and easy travel without providing a challenge that should be too difficult for their team. Playing Indiana schools in particular is probably appealing to recruits in Illinois, Missouri’s border state with a large number of recruits. U of Illinois cancelled the Missouri series a few years back.
I’ll be interested to see if they add a series in Texas in the future to help keep up recruiting in the area up, even as they increase their presence in Florida/Georgia.
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Mizzou starts construction on a second level that will add 12k seats to Memorial Stadium after this season. It should be done in 2-3 years. After expansion Mizzou’s stadium would rank 4th in the Big Ten behind only Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State, although Nebraska is expanding again.
I think Mizzou would like to play some of their old Big 8 rivals, or games agains the Texas schoosl, but they all seem to be boycotting Mizzou b/c we “betrayed” the Big 12 by joining the SEC.
Like I said we’ve traditionally played at least one Big Ten team most years. Purdue isn’t the best choice but it also isn’t the worst. I’d be happy to see us gradually go through the list and play all of the Big Ten schools one by one and then start the cycle again.
Like I said, there are tons of Mizzou alums in Chicago. Purdue is about 2 hours from Chicago so it makes sense from that angle.
Mizzou recruits the Chicago area somewhat too, so this might help exposure in Chicago some.
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Memorial Stadium expansion plans:
http://jeffcity.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photos/2012/06/26/Stadiumweb_t670.jpg?b3f6a5d7692ccc373d56e40cf708e3fa67d9af9d
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Andy – that’s a nice looking expansion.
Construction crews will stay busy in the SEC over the next fews years with LSU, Mizzou, Miss State and Ole Miss all expanding, and the Aggies doing an almost complete rebuild.
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ACC going back to 8 conference games with Notre Dame agreement:
http://www.theacc.com/genrel/100312aae.html
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Interesting. I guess the schools with OOC rivals pushed back.
Also, they are keeping the two partners for MBB which UNC and NC-State will continue to play twice a year annually (which was not going to continue prior to adding ND) and they will use the previous year’s top 12 by RPI to select the Big-ACC challenge participants (which means the Big Ten will probably never win the thing again).
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With their cross-division every year rivals, like the SEC, they will only be facing the other 6 cross-division teams at home once in 12 years.
I think you are right about the schools with ooc rivals. FSU definitely was not fond of the 9 game conference schedule.
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I would have liked to see an arrangement like this:
Pitt and BC play 9 conference games every year. The 2 schools alternate playing ND in 2 year stretches.
The other 12 teams rotate:
4 teams (2 from each division) play 8 conference games and ND.
8 teams (4 from each division) play 9 conference games.
These 12 schools would always have 9 games determined by the conference. One year in three they would play ND and 8 conference games, the other 2 they would play 9 conference games.
For the ACC title, you could either not count cross-divisional games at all, or you could count ND as a cross-divisional game for all schools except Pitt and BC.
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Interesting that it doesn’t appear to affect the value of the ESPN deal.
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I can’t imagine them not having discussed this first with ESPN. Maybe it simply cuts the increase from adding ND.
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I thought of that, but does anyone know if the renegotiation with ESPN actually required them to provide an increase inventory of conference games? Even with an 8 game conference schedule the ACC is still going to play 56 conference games which is more than the PAC or the Big XII play and they just got big deals.
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I don’t know about ‘required’, but I believe the 9 game schedule was announced well before the ESPN renegotiation was finalized, so it was probably implied.
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Kevin says:
October 3, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Interesting that it doesn’t appear to affect the value of the ESPN deal.
The best games are the SEC vs ACC cross rival games. ESPN owns both sides already so content does not change for them.
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“Interesting that it doesn’t appear to affect the value of the ESPN deal.”
I don’t see why it would. The world isn’t dying to see more Duke-BC and Wake-Pitt games. If most ACC schools replace the 9th conference game with an OOC game vs. an SEC, B10, B12, or Pac team, ESPN probably would prefer that.
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There goes any chance of the B10 going to 9 games.
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The 14 team leagues are the ones who really need to do it. If the B1G used KISS, 8 would work very well.
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Actually, 8 works very well even with the present alignment. The only rivalry that would restored by going East-West would be Iowa-Wisconsin, and I don’t that is enough to outweigh splitting up the Alpha Dogs of the conferences evenly.
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With KISS and no permanent rivals, you could see every team in the other division twice in 4 years, instead of twice in 5 years, which is a slight improvement.
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I know I’m repeating myself, but I’d really like these negotiations between networks and the AQ conferences to require them to play 10 AQ games: 8 conference games and 2 games a year against other quality opponents. The TV contracts would be more valuable (making up for the loss of 1/2 a ‘buy’ game per year), the schools could schedule themselves according to their needs, and we’d get more connectivity between the conferences.
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The SEC needs 9 conference games. Auburn/UGA and Bama/Tennessee are too big to give up. And playing 2 times in 12 years just isn’t enough to feel like one conference. I think its destabilizing over a long enough time. Even the Pac broke apart at one point in time, even though most of them got back together.
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Trading off 9 games for the SEC OOC games seems like long term trouble. The following games have more value than a 9th SEC conference game.
Florida vs Florida State = most valuable game on FSU schedule
South Carolina vs Clemson = possible highest value on Clemson schedule
Georgia vs Georgia Tech = high value on Ga Tech schedule
Kentucky vs Louisville = High value on both
Throw in the the Chick-Fil-A games (now it looks like 2 will be the norm) and you have some valuable properties for the ACC and SEC over mid to low level SEC games. Sure Alabama vs somebody in the #9 slot looks good but what value exists if the #9 game is Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State, or Ole Miss?
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Unrelated to conference size. From wiki: “Following a “pay-for-play” scandal at several PCC institutions (specifically California, USC, UCLA and Washington), the PCC disbanded in 1959.”
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ccrider55,
I have always taken the position that the PAC schools were the most corrupt in the country but they always seem to skate off with less stigma and punishment because they offer large numbers of eyeballs and revenue streams.
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@ccrider
Yes, unrelated to conference size, but the point is that a long time conference with the most logical geography and good markets broke apart. Pac schools have fewer options than any other major schools, but it still broke apart.
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duffman,
“Trading off 9 games for the SEC OOC games seems like long term trouble. The following games have more value than a 9th SEC conference game.”
Value to whom? And according to whom?
“Florida vs Florida State = most valuable game on FSU schedule”
Why should the SEC care about it’s value to FSU?
“South Carolina vs Clemson = possible highest value on Clemson schedule”
Why should the SEC care about it’s value to Clemson?
“Georgia vs Georgia Tech = high value on Ga Tech schedule”
Why should the SEC care about it’s value to GT?
“Kentucky vs Louisville = High value on both”
Compared to what?
9th games this year could be #5 UGA #4 LSU and #6 SC vs #1 AL (or #10 FL vs #1 AL). Any one of those might be more valuable than the 4 OOC games combined.
Besides, you don’t have to drop the OOC games to have 9 SEC games. It is allowed to play 10 AQ teams.
“Throw in the the Chick-Fil-A games (now it looks like 2 will be the norm)”
They have 1 in 2013 and 2015 and 2 in 2014 so far. There is no evidence of 2 games being the norm.
“and you have some valuable properties for the ACC and SEC over mid to low level SEC games.”
Again, why would the SEC care about the value to the ACC?
“Sure Alabama vs somebody in the #9 slot looks good but what value exists if the #9 game is Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State, or Ole Miss?”
A few top games more than makeup for the rest. AL is missing UGA, SC and UF this year, LSU misses UGA, and all of them are top 10 teams. ! top 10 match-up would probably earn more than the rest combined.
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A 9th conference game would be more valuable than the ‘buy’ games teams schedule now. I would prefer 9 conference games + 1 AQ game to what most teams do now (8 conference games + 1 AQ). I will not be disappointed if they go to 9 games.
But if teams were pushed to schedule 2 AQ OOC games I think it could be more profitable and provide better TV. Alabama might schedule Michigan + UCLA in a year for recruiting exposure and schedule strength (for the new committee system). Replacing one of those with an SEC team will get you Georgia one year and Vanderbilt the next.
It’s pretty evident we’d get less interesting match-ups in the ACC if they went to 9 games. FSU has Florida every year; they just finished a series with Oklahoma and were going to start a series with West Virginia. Clemson has South Carolina every year; they’ve played Auburn recently in addition to that and have an upcoming series with Georgia. Those secondary series will likely go away if they return to 9 games and replaced them with less interesting conference match-ups.
And if Alabama and Georgia wanted to schedule each other one year for one of their ‘non-conference’ games, they’d be permitted to do that, too.
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Bullet:
A brief interruption as the importance of rules and integrity within the conference was worked out. Nobody joined another conference. Broke up? Technically yes, but not exactly the same as today’s changes. Is aTm, UN, Utah, WVU, or any of the multiple recent changes likely to be forgiven and forgotten, restoring the former status quo within five years?
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Brian,
On a year to year basis the cross conference games are more valuable to the ACC than SEC based on venue size and travel fans. It is not a question of what the SEC or ACC want it is about what the networks want. Media money is driving all this more than anything and they want things that make money. It is not exactly rocket science to figure out Florida State vs Florida is more valuable that probably anybody else on the FSU schedule. If ESPN has both the ACC and SEC then they have the media on both the home and the away.
If the SEC east already plays all the other east teams that means you are limited to just teams in the west. If Florida is already paired with LSU that means the odds are greater they will get a weaker game as their second game. That means a Mississippi or Mississippi State type game over a Florida vs Alabama lest you have a repeat in the CCG of a regular season game. At the same time it may mean Alabama gets Kentucky or Vanderbilt as their 9th games for the same reason.
Look at this year and Ohio State as in their own division they play not a single ranked team. The Gators played Tennessee when the Vols were in the Top 25 and still must face 2 Top 5 teams in their own division, 1 Top 5 team in the other division, and a Top 5 cross conference game in Florida State. I think asking them to play Alabama on the other side is a bit of a stretch. LSU faces a similar schedule on their side. You can argue Alabama gets a pass but it is only because Tennessee is in a down period. In a normal period having Alabama and Tennessee would be a long term matchup of #1 and #2 in the SEC. It seems like Auburn vs Georgia and Alabama vs Tennessee have the same conference value of an Ohio State vs Michigan type game.
Look at it this way say Florida vs Ohio State :
#3 Florida State and #20 Michigan State
#4 Louisiana St and #21 Nebraska
#5 Georgia and Michigan
#6 S Carolina and Penn State
Texas A&M and Wisconsin
Tennessee and Purdue
Missouri and Illinois
Vanderbilt and Indiana
Kentucky and Cal
La La and Miami of Ohio
BGSU and UCF
Jacksonville and UAB
If going to 9 means swapping Florida State for and easier AQ like Virginia or Illinois I am not so sure ESPN would be real happy getting a lower draw school.
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@ccrider
The 4 Cal schools and UW split off from WSU and the Oregon schools for 5 years for some of them while Idaho got left behind forever. Its certainly not out of the realm of possibility of that type of thing or the MWC split from the WAC happening. And the larger the conference, the more likely it is to happen. With the MWC/WAC, expansion diluted revenues and rivalries, while the MWC schools were the major revenue producers. Every conference above 12 (the number for a ccg) has that dynamic. With political bodies, they’ve found once they get above 7 it gets harder to get things done. With every increase you increase the possibility of factions. It doesn’t mean the BE/CUSA/SEC/ACC will split up in time, but it definitely increases the possibility (of course, the 1st two will, probably in the next 10 years).
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m (Ag),
I don’t disagree, I would just point out that the own both ends of a 9th conference game while the OOC series they only get to televise half the time. From a conference standpoint, the 9th game has more value. Individual school may not all agree, though.
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duffman,
“On a year to year basis the cross conference games are more valuable to the ACC than SEC based on venue size and travel fans.”
Yes. But why would the SEC care about their value to the ACC? You were talking about the SEC in your comment.
“It is not a question of what the SEC or ACC want it is about what the networks want.”
Just because you keep saying that doesn’t make it true. If it was, all the AQs would play 9 conference games plus elite OOC games.
“You can argue Alabama gets a pass but it is only because Tennessee is in a down period.”
AL is missing all 3 top 10 teams from the East. Yes, I’d say they are getting a pass. So is GA by missing AL and LSU.
“In a normal period having Alabama and Tennessee would be a long term matchup of #1 and #2 in the SEC.”
So what? It is teams from this season that play, not all the past years.
“It seems like Auburn vs Georgia and Alabama vs Tennessee have the same conference value of an Ohio State vs Michigan type game.”
That’s funny, You have any more jokes like that?
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It evens out. If you get an extra conference game the SEC can air Alabama@Missouri one year and Missouri@Alabama the next (although likely in non-consecutive years). If instead Alabama plays a UCLA and Missouri plays Purdue, the SEC will have Purdue@Missouri one year and UCLA@Alabama the next. The SEC gets the same amount of games to air either way.
The conference game might be a bit more valuable to advertisers in the regional area, but the non-conference games will get more eyeballs nationally as fans inside and outside the conferences want to compare the competition. That can also be helpful in getting more demand for conference networks outside their territory. If we would have 6 SEC vs. Pac 12 games and 6 SEC v. Big Ten games each year, that would provide a boost for both the Pac 12 and Big Ten TV packages in SEC territory and the SEC TV packages in the rest of the country.
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Tthe Longhorn game vs. Ole Miss was a good example. If Texas was playing a bottom-dwelling Big 12 team it would have received little national attention. If a top team from the SEC East (say Georgia) was playing Ole Miss it would have received little attention.
Because it was an SEC-Big 12 match-up, it’s still being written and talked about weeks after it would have been forgotten by everyone who isn’t a fan of the 2 teams.
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m(Ag),
No offense, but who is writing or talking about the UT/MS game? I don’t know anyone in real life who watched it and certainly I haven’t read anything about it beyond the day after the game. Does anyone outside of TX and MS really care about that game?
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brian,
Like it or not we are in the age of the network over the conference. The ACC was “coached” by ESPN in adding Pitt and Syracuse last year just confirms what we have all hedged about on here for some time. I actually tend to agree that expansion was not the best for the actual fans but I also pointed out that neither you or I can stop the folks at the top. I may tend to type conference names when I really mean their media rights holder but maybe that is just me wishing for a time now past.
I am unsure why you do not view Ohio State vs Michigan in the same vein as Alabama vs Tennessee. Both Alan and Bamatab have brought up the importance of this game an I respect they know more about their teams than I do. Alabama is #1 all time in the SEC and Tennessee is #2 all time. Both have had down cycles but both have shown the ability to continue to win over time. Both have large stadiums with strong followings and multiple coaches who have shown an ability to win both in conference and at the national level. I have no problem accepting they are the SEC’s version of the Ohio State vs Michigan rivalry.
Georgia may not play either Alabama or Auburn but they still could face either in the CCG. Having to face Florida, South Carolina, and a state rivalry with Georgia Tech is not exactly a walk in the park. In the age of conferences that no longer play every team it becomes almost impossible to say who will be good in the other division when a team must actually play them. Just 2 years ago Auburn won the National Championship and I believe they are the fixed partner of Georgia.
Right now the best shot at a MNC in the B1G is Northwestern. They could find themselves in the MNC game without the benefit of playing a single ranked team all season. Would you use the argument against Georgia if it also meant Northwestern was eliminated on the same grounds by media outside the B1G? The ACC, BE, B12, and PAC are all trying to squeeze their team into the MNC game which will not help the B1G if they succeed.
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duffman,
“Like it or not we are in the age of the network over the conference.”
No we aren’t, and I’m not going to accept your premise just because you keep repeating it. If the networks are all powerful, why doesn’t the B10 play November night games? Why don’t they play on weekdays? Networks offer money for products. They’ll pay more to get their way on scheduling issues, just like people will pay more to get a car with all the features they want. Not everyone takes the networks up on it, just like not all car companies will do everything you want.
“I am unsure why you do not view Ohio State vs Michigan in the same vein as Alabama vs Tennessee.”
Because OSU/MI is one of the top 3 national rivalries and a great ratings earner every year and AL/TN isn’t. It’s like comparing MI/MSU to OSU/MI. AL/TN is an important rivalry, but it’s not on the same level as AL/AU or OSU/MI.
“I have no problem accepting they are the SEC’s version of the Ohio State vs Michigan rivalry.”
That’s your problem.
“Georgia may not play either Alabama or Auburn but they still could face either in the CCG.”
First, UGA/AU is a locked rivalry so I’ll assume you meant LSU. Second, what’s your point? Do they deserve to be there if the difference is that SC lost to LSU and UGA didn’t because they didn’t have to play them?
“Having to face Florida, South Carolina, and a state rivalry with Georgia Tech is not exactly a walk in the park.”
GT sucks and is OOC. beyond that, I fail to see any relevant point you are making.
“Right now the best shot at a MNC in the B1G is Northwestern. They could find themselves in the MNC game without the benefit of playing a single ranked team all season. Would you use the argument against Georgia if it also meant Northwestern was eliminated on the same grounds by media outside the B1G?”
I don’t remember using an argument against UGA, all I said was they lucked out by missing AL and LSU. I’d certainly agree that NW hadn’t played any elite teams if that turns out to be the case. Facts don’t change just because of the conference. I don’t care if NW makes it. It’d be a nice story and all, but I’d only campaign for them to make it if the alternative was another conference game in the NCG.
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Brian –
“Because OSU/MI is one of the top 3 national rivalries and a great ratings earner every year and AL/TN isn’t. It’s like comparing MI/MSU to OSU/MI. AL/TN is an important rivalry, but it’s not on the same level as AL/AU or OSU/MI.” from the 20s – 70s it was. The winner of that game usuually ended up becoming the SEC champ. That was the one game that Coach Bryant would usually circle at the beginning of the year, and was the only game that he would pass out cigars to the players after a win (imagine if a coach tried that in this day and age). But with the rise of UGA in the 80s, UF in the 90s, LSU in the 2000s, and expansion overall; that has not been the case more often than not. But it is still UT’s biggest rivalry game, and is 1a for most true Bama fans. During the late 90s and through the mid-2000s, it probably surpassed the Iron Bowl for most true Bama fans due to the bad blood that developed because of the Means case that ended with Bama going on probation (Fulmer was a secret witness in that case). But now the Iron Bowl has moved back ahead because the hatred between the two school is at an all-time high. Personally given a choice, I’d choose to keep the Bama/UT game over the Iron Bowl because of the bad blood. But it is still a huge game for the two fan bases, and I don’t see either team giving it up. If the SEC does eventually do away with the permanent cross-divisional games, I hope that Bama and UT decide to continue the annual game, even if it has to be a non-conference game.
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bamatab,
“Because OSU/MI is one of the top 3 national rivalries and a great ratings earner every year and AL/TN isn’t. It’s like comparing MI/MSU to OSU/MI. AL/TN is an important rivalry, but it’s not on the same level as AL/AU or OSU/MI.” from the 20s – 70s it was.
Yes, that’s true. But that’s over 3 decades ago. AL/TN isn’t at that level now which is all that’s relevant to the discussion we were having.
During the late 90s and through the mid-2000s, it probably surpassed the Iron Bowl for most true Bama fans due to the bad blood that developed because of the Means case that ended with Bama going on probation (Fulmer was a secret witness in that case). But now the Iron Bowl has moved back ahead because the hatred between the two school is at an all-time high. Personally given a choice, I’d choose to keep the Bama/UT game over the Iron Bowl because of the bad blood. But it is still a huge game for the two fan bases, and I don’t see either team giving it up. If the SEC does eventually do away with the permanent cross-divisional games, I hope that Bama and UT decide to continue the annual game, even if it has to be a non-conference game.
I agree with all of that. But that doesn’t make AL/TN on par with OSU/MI and you know it. Since that was my point, I fail to see what you arguing with me about.
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Brian – My point was the reason for the lack of interest outside of the Bama & UT fanbase in the “Third Saturday on October” game is due to the fact that other teams started being yearly SEC title contenders and expansion. Well guess what, its getting pretty close to a decade since the OSU/UM game has decided the B1G champ. Plus with the addition of Neb, PSU, and the recent success that Wiscy & Iowa have had, the OSU/UM game has already started to lose some of its luster outside of the B1G. That is one of the disadvantages of expansion. To be honest, last year was the first year in several years that I even watched some of the OSU/UM game (and I didn’t even start watching it until the 4th qrt when I figured out it was actually a close game). The OSU/UM is starting to be endanger of being view just like the Bama/UT game outside of the B1G fanbase.
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bamatab,
The networks disagree with you. The B10 was told that’s their most valuable game and the national ratings show it’s one of the best annual games on average. Of course it’s been down the last few years. OSU stunk last year and MI was horrid under RichRod. But it was #1 vs #2 in 2006, so it hasn’t been that long since it mattered. OSU could have spoiled MI’s chance at the CCG if MSU had lost their last game last year, too. Before that, MI could have spoiled OSU’s seasons.
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I think it is pretty reasonable actually. I would actually be cool if it went all AQ for all 12 games to really get connectivity across all 6 conferences. Separate FBS into FBS I – the AQ schools, and FBS II – the non AQ schools. Have an 8 team playoff for FBS II schools and a 4 team playoff for the FBS I schools.
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After further review… Nebraska (and Wisconsin) beat Texas (and Oklahoma St). Sorry bullet. 🙂
Data via Nielsen and Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand. Viewership numbers represent approximate number of persons tuned to a given program;
[snip]
Saturday, Sept. 29:
NCAA football; Mississippi at Alabama (ESPN): 3.5 million viewers
NCAA football; Wisconsin at Nebraska (ABC): 4.3 million viewers
NCAA football; Texas at Oklahoma State (FOX): 3.8 million viewers
Law & Order: SVU, rerun (NBC): 4.0 million viewers
http://deadspin.com/5948724
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Mike,
Upon further review Oklahoma State beat Texas
http://newsok.com/source-big-12-apologizes-to-osus-mike-gundy-for-botched-call-on-texas-td/article/3715427
Wonder if the B12 will put an * next to the game in the record books
🙂
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Upon further review, Mike Gundy is full crap
“Reports that the Big 12 acknowledged a blown call and issued an apology to Oklahoma State are inaccurate,” the Big 12 tweeted on Wednesday.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8457537/big-12-conference-disputes-newspaper-report-apology-oklahoma-state-cowboys-mike-gundy
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Well Colorado needed a 5th down vs. Mizzou in 90 to get an MNC. Maybe this is the positive break Texas needed to get an MNC in 2012.
Note that this is an anonymous source saying there was an apology, so its not certain how much of this is factual.
I’ve seen some angles from behind the play that looked like he scored and some from in front that look like he didn’t, so I’m not sure. I haven’t seen any angles from the goal line, so the replay officials did get it right in letting the call stand. It wasn’t certain he didn’t score and it seems pretty certain OSU didn’t have possession of the fumble when the play was dead. After everyone stopped the OSU player reached in and grabbed the ball. It wasn’t clear if it was just sitting there or if the UT player just had it loosely.
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Question-are the overnights estimates and this the final?
Interesting that what was viewed as a noncompetitive game with the defending MNC and #1 team in the country, got beat by two competitive games. Something for schools to think about in their ooc scheduling.
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NCAA football; Mississippi at Alabama (ESPN): 3.5 million viewers = SEC vs SEC
NCAA football; Wisconsin at Nebraska (ABC): 4.3 million viewers = B1G vs B1G
NCAA football; Texas at Oklahoma State (FOX): 3.8 million viewers = B12 vs B12
bullet,
Not sure I understand your point? All 3 games were conference games. Of the 3 nobody probably sees Mississippi in a BCS game but it will get broadcast because they are playing #1 and that is the draw. How does this affect OOC scheduling based on just these 3 games?
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You figure the #1 team in the nation and defending MNC will be the biggest draw. Instead, 2 games viewed as more competitive drew better. People aren’t as interested in watching blowouts.
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bullet,
Overnights use a limited number of markets (big cities) while the final numbers consider the whole country. Sometimes that leads to big changes as flyover country doesn’t always agree with the coasts.
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http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/id/45303/8-game-schedule-right-move-for-acc
8-6 vote to keep that 8 game schedule for the ACC.
That’s as close as it gets…
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Interesting the vote didn’t become unanimous after it became clear which side would win (i.e. holding a second vote), which is what usually happens with these things.
That’s the second time in a month the ACC wasn’t able to get unanimous approval for for a major decision in a month (FSU and Maryland voting against the $50 million exit penalty being the other)
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SIAP
I know there was a discussion of Ohio St. scheduling TCU. Don’t know if this article which discusses Gee’s and other’s change of mindset on scheduling philosophy was posted. For Arizona, it sounds economic.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl–major-college-football-powers-returning-to-bold-scheduling-of-exciting-non-conference-games.html
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The economics will be interesting. The number of schools scheduling 3-4 ‘buy’ games per year has created the demand that has driven the costs of those ‘buy’ games so high. As schools start to schedule more home-and-homes those costs will fall. So smaller schools will be getting paid for fewer games & getting less per game. Will the smaller schools get enough TV money to keep from having to drop down?
“Wisconsin, which was long mocked for notably weak schedules, now says it will seek at least two major non-conference opponents, preferably traditionally successful clubs. It’s following the Big Ten’s conference wide mandate. ”
Is there an actual mandate, or is it merely a recommendation? Is the Big Ten driving up their next TV contract by guaranteeing better OOC games?
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Delany has told all the schools to pick up their scheduling. There’s nothing in writing and no minimum SOS rules as far as I know. Is that a mandate?
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bullet,
Hopefully Smith is lying as usual. 4 top 50 AQs every year is a stupid idea. He still has to get 3 home OOC games every year as far as I know. That means getting 2 for 1’s and paycheck games from top 50 teams, which is a lot more expensive than paying a MAC team. Maybe he intends to get 2 in the 40s plus 1 top 25 and 1 top 10. I’m not sure how willing even those 40s programs would be to play a paycheck game, though. I’d be perfectly happy to see 1 MAC team per year as a tune-up game for the rest of the season, with 1 mid-level AQ, 1 prince and 1 king to round out the schedule. It’d help if other schools also felt the need to drop cupcakes, though.
As far as SOS for the playoff, it has yet to be decided what that really means. OOC only? OOC weighted as half of the total? All games weighted equally? “OOC only” would help the little guys since they have a bunch of easy conference games. Weighting each game equally means the games you can’t control have the most impact and makes OOC games relatively unimportant (33% of the schedule). Valuing 4 OOC games the same as 8 conference games may be the best compromise, but then maybe the power teams don’t schedule as hard OOC.
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Maybe he’s simply thinking #50, so Wake Forest is on the list. Or top 50 schools and he can schedule Rice.
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However, if there is a school that can play 4 “AQ conference” schools and still have 7 home games, it’s tOSU, as they can afford to pay out more than most schools for guarantee games and “AQ conference schools” like USF/UCF/UH/SMU (& Colorado & OrSt & WSU etc.) are willing to play guarantee games against a brand name school like tOSU which they wouldn’t be willing to give schools like MSSt.
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Richard,
“However, if there is a school that can play 4 “AQ conference” schools and still have 7 home games, it’s tOSU, as they can afford to pay out more than most schools for guarantee games and “AQ conference schools” like USF/UCF/UH/SMU (& Colorado & OrSt & WSU etc.) are willing to play guarantee games against a brand name school like tOSU which they wouldn’t be willing to give schools like MSSt.”
That’s true, OSU is one of a few schools in that position. That doesn’t mean it makes sense, though. CO cost $1.4M compared to around $1M for a MAC or CUSA school. Is the SOS bump worth $500k? Most years you won’t make the playoffs anyway, but you’ll always have to balance your finances.
In addition, does it make competitive sense to go to 4 top 50s if almost nobody else is? Will OOC SOS be so important that an extra loss or 2 will be overlooked?
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The Colorado game at $1.4M was when Colorado was in a bind after leaving the B12, so who knows if they’d be willing to do the same thing in the future.
SOS in terms of the playoffs is overrated. Winning all your games is the important thing.
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Colorado played a one and done with Michigan in the 90s. They started off that year with close road wins over Michigan and Texas. But I think that was Nebraska’s year.
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However, they may be able to charge more for a game vs. CU rather than vs. a MAC team. Ticket prices would have to increase all of a massive $5, on average, to make the finances match.
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Richard,
OSU charges the same rate for all games ($70 this year, IIRC). That’s longstanding policy.
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OK, but they would be able to charge more (if they went to market-based pricing).
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@Richard – Yeah, I’m surprised that they don’t do so. I know it’s not the greatest thing for season ticket holders, but I’m not sure why either pro or college sports teams should be giving all of the financial upside of high demand games to the secondary market. A ticket to OSU-Michigan is clearly worth several times more than a ticket to OSU-UAB, so it might as well be OSU getting paid for it instead of some ticket broker.
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