A Brilliant Idea For a Horrible Conference

CiraldoForever

Damn Good Rat
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The ACC is a dismal and totally uninteresting football conference. But, it can take its 14 mediocre to awful teams and create one good, not great, football division every season and make the really terrible teams somewhat competitive through one innovative and pioneering breakthrough: Relegation.

At the end of every season, reshuffle the divisions for the following season. Put the seven teams with the best conference records into the "ATL Division." Put the other seven in the "BTL Division." Have the seven in each division play each division rival once for six games. Have them play two from the other division once for two games. That's eight conference games.

So, the ATL Division could have some pretty good games for TV. The teams in the BTL Division would have a chance to compete in most of their games. There would be no permanent cross over games. The championship game would be no more boring than it usually is now.

Who wouldn't like to see this happen? It's the new ACC culture.
 

1982Jacket

Dropper of the F Bomb
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Shouldn't you be out buying a Kennesaw St jersey that you can wear tomorrow while you cheer for them?
 

AmpuTECHture

Drain Lake Powell
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Relegation is the single dumbest idea I have seen floating around for college football. In college football, teams are inconsistent from year to year, especially with different recruiting classes, attrition, injuries, coaches leaving, transfer portal, etc. Relegation would öööö over really good teams, who happened to be bad the year before. You would also see teams that are great one year, lose a bunch of players or coach, and then be a terrible team in the upper division the next year.

What relegation does is eliminate any chance for a lightning-in-a-bottle program/team to win championships.
 
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The ACC is a dismal and totally uninteresting football conference. But, it can take its 14 mediocre to awful teams and create one good, not great, football division every season and make the really terrible teams somewhat competitive through one innovative and pioneering breakthrough: Relegation.

At the end of every season, reshuffle the divisions for the following season. Put the seven teams with the best conference records into the "ATL Division." Put the other seven in the "BTL Division." Have the seven in each division play each division rival once for six games. Have them play two from the other division once for two games. That's eight conference games.

So, the ATL Division could have some pretty good games for TV. The teams in the BTL Division would have a chance to compete in most of their games. There would be no permanent cross over games. The championship game would be no more boring than it usually is now.

Who wouldn't like to see this happen? It's the new ACC culture.
Interesting idea, but the ACC big-wigs would never go for something as logical as that.
 

gtrower

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Relegation is the single dumbest idea I have seen floating around for college football. In college football, teams are inconsistent from year to year, especially with different recruiting classes, attrition, injuries, coaches leaving, transfer portal, etc. Relegation would öööö over really good teams, who happened to be bad the year before. You would also see teams that are great one year, lose a bunch of players or coach, and then be a terrible team in the upper division the next year.

What relegation does is eliminate any chance for a lightning-in-a-bottle program/team to win championships.
Yeah…cause we’ve had tons of “lightning in a bottle championship teams” the last 40 years. You could still be champion of your division. And then you’d get the chance to win the next higher division next year.

Relegation would take some thought to translate to football, but anything you came up with would probably a hell of a lot better than the current system that attempts to separate 130 teams with 12 game seasons.
 

AmpuTECHture

Drain Lake Powell
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Yeah…cause we’ve had tons of “lightning in a bottle championship teams” the last 40 years. You could still be champion of your division. And then you’d get the chance to win the next higher division next year.

Relegation would take some thought to translate to football, but anything you came up with would probably a hell of a lot better than the current system that attempts to separate 130 teams with 12 game seasons.
Being champion of your division and not eligible for the national or true conference championship would be like winning the NIT. no one ööööing cares. And a chance at the main championships the next year is completely meaningless if the current year is your one chance (key players graduating, etc).

Georgia Tech, Washington, Colorado (sort of) all have championships in a lightning in a bottle fashion, and a relegation system would certainly provide less of a chance to non-factory teams to have a chance at championships. Even bigger programs could be prevented a chance at a national championship through relegation.. If relegation existed in a similar fashion to OP's, but in the SEC, the 2010 Auburn team likely would have been relegated after 5 conference losses in 2009. The 2000 Oklahoma Team was 7-5 the year before. If you want to limit our chances at conference or national championships, then support something like relegation. Also, we dont need to borrow ideas from communist sports like soccer.
 

CiraldoForever

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Being champion of your division and not eligible for the national or true conference championship would be like winning the NIT. no one ööööing cares. And a chance at the main championships the next year is completely meaningless if the current year is your one chance (key players graduating, etc).

Georgia Tech, Washington, Colorado (sort of) all have championships in a lightning in a bottle fashion, and a relegation system would certainly provide less of a chance to non-factory teams to have a chance at championships. Even bigger programs could be prevented a chance at a national championship through relegation.. If relegation existed in a similar fashion to OP's, but in the SEC, the 2010 Auburn team likely would have been relegated after 5 conference losses in 2009. The 2000 Oklahoma Team was 7-5 the year before. If you want to limit our chances at conference or national championships, then support something like relegation. Also, we dont need to borrow ideas from communist sports like soccer.
I must have not been clear. My plan was that, at the end of the season, the champs of the ATL and BTL divisions would play each other in the ACC Championship Game. I meant that would probably not be much less competitive than it's been lately during Clemson's run. So, if Tech were won the BTL Division, we could have a chance to advance in the ACC Championship Game.
 

ClubSeats

Well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory
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I must have not been clear. My plan was that, at the end of the season, the champs of the ATL and BTL divisions would play each other in the ACC Championship Game. I meant that would probably not be much less competitive than it's been lately during Clemson's run. So, if Tech were won the BTL Division, we could have a chance to advance in the ACC Championship Game.
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Vespidie

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The ACC is a dismal and totally uninteresting football conference. But, it can take its 14 mediocre to awful teams and create one good, not great, football division every season and make the really terrible teams somewhat competitive through one innovative and pioneering breakthrough: Relegation.

At the end of every season, reshuffle the divisions for the following season. Put the seven teams with the best conference records into the "ATL Division." Put the other seven in the "BTL Division." Have the seven in each division play each division rival once for six games. Have them play two from the other division once for two games. That's eight conference games.

So, the ATL Division could have some pretty good games for TV. The teams in the BTL Division would have a chance to compete in most of their games. There would be no permanent cross over games. The championship game would be no more boring than it usually is now.

Who wouldn't like to see this happen? It's the new ACC culture.
So would relegation realignment be based on the football, basketball, or baseball season?
 

CiraldoForever

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Were you actually thinking or did you get high and decide to fix college football?
Actually, I spent several years on this plan. It was mainly inspired by reading The Dialogues of Plato and watching reruns of "Are You Being Served." I would also like to thank my wife for her understanding during the time I devoted to this project. Finally, I would like to thank former ACC Commissioner John Swofford for giving me the unshakable conviction that there had to be a better way.
 

BigGTMike

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Chuck Oliver pitched this for the SEC years ago... "SEC 2"
 

gtrower

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Being champion of your division and not eligible for the national or true conference championship would be like winning the NIT. no one ööööing cares. And a chance at the main championships the next year is completely meaningless if the current year is your one chance (key players graduating, etc).

Georgia Tech, Washington, Colorado (sort of) all have championships in a lightning in a bottle fashion, and a relegation system would certainly provide less of a chance to non-factory teams to have a chance at championships. Even bigger programs could be prevented a chance at a national championship through relegation.. If relegation existed in a similar fashion to OP's, but in the SEC, the 2010 Auburn team likely would have been relegated after 5 conference losses in 2009. The 2000 Oklahoma Team was 7-5 the year before. If you want to limit our chances at conference or national championships, then support something like relegation. Also, we dont need to borrow ideas from communist sports like soccer.
In the same time span that you go back to to get the three examples you provided I can probably give you 20+ undefeated teams that were not given the title or a chance to play for a title. Our current system is already doing what you’re afraid of. We literally had one last year.

If winning the NIT gave you a reward like promotion you’d probably more excited about winning it. There would be more championships so it would actually increase the chance for “lightning in a bottle” seasons to happen.

Again I’m not saying Im an advocate for this. Im saying it’s interesting and even in its infancy as an idea is already better than the inane system we currently have.
 

gtchief

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I must have not been clear. My plan was that, at the end of the season, the champs of the ATL and BTL divisions would play each other in the ACC Championship Game. I meant that would probably not be much less competitive than it's been lately during Clemson's run. So, if Tech were won the BTL Division, we could have a chance to advance in the ACC Championship Game.
Why would the BTL winner have a right to play the ATL winner? You're essentially saying that a team atop a systemic loser's bracket claims 2nd place in the league by default. What was the point of setting up the relegation if you're not matching up the top two teams from the ATL division, even if it's a rematch? BTL winner simply gets promoted to ATL or has to play last place in ATL to switch spots in a relegation "championship"
 
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