A Brilliant Idea For a Horrible Conference

[andrew]

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.

Wait so the best way to win the conference would be for a good team to tank, finish in the bottom half, of the conference, and then have a cakewalk to the conference title game next season?

And if two teams are playing each other in a relegation/promotion game at the end of the season fans would be rooting to lose and get an easier schedule next season?

 

[AlaGold]

As long as we are thinking about games schedule--we need to get clem off our ours EVERY yr.With uga and clem we start 2 in hole.As would 90% of other teams.

 

[AmpuTECHture]

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.

As others have said, winners of BTL and ATL playing in a championship would be nuts. Our fans bitch about having Clempson as a permanent divisional opponent. Imagine the bitching if we were to get 2nd place in the ATL division and we get to see a Wake Forest play Clemson in the championship game....

My original response was more geared toward relegation as a whole and less to the specifics of an acc conference relegation, which is no where near as terrifying as relegation in P5/FBS as a whole with a top division of factories.

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.

Our current system is not perfect, but it is getting better. In that same time span, there were no national championship games, the BCS natty game and the 4 team playoff, and soon to be a 12 team playoff. Expanding the playoff has been the right move to allow more teams a chance and for lightning-in-a-bottle programs to have a chance at a natty. The solution to the problem (good teams not getting a chance for the natty) is not to eliminate more chances for those teams in favor of consolation championships by using a relegation model. If you have a national championship caliber team (or even playoff caliber team) what good does a BTL/NIT championship give you if you can't play for the national championship? Especially if this one season was your chance, and you graduate all your star players.

you think it's been bad with teams like Cincinnati, ucf, Boise state are left out of a 2 or 4 team playoff? Wait until you have a 12 team playoff and an undefeated football power in a lower division passed over for a team in the upper division that is clearly worse.

the only situation where relegation might make sense is in and out of the Power 5 (60ish teams), but then you will still have the same problem like a ucf or Cincinnati not getting in.

 

[gtrower]

As others have said, winners of BTL and ATL playing in a championship would be nuts. Our fans bitch about having Clempson as a permanent divisional opponent. Imagine the bitching if we were to get 2nd place in the ATL division and we get to see a Wake Forest play Clemson in the championship game....

My original response was more geared toward relegation as a whole and less to the specifics of an acc conference relegation, which is no where near as terrifying as relegation in P5/FBS as a whole with a top division of factories.



Our current system is not perfect, but it is getting better. In that same time span, there were no national championship games, the BCS natty game and the 4 team playoff, and soon to be a 12 team playoff. Expanding the playoff has been the right move to allow more teams a chance and for lightning-in-a-bottle programs to have a chance at a natty. The solution to the problem (good teams not getting a chance for the natty) is not to eliminate more chances for those teams in favor of consolation championships by using a relegation model. If you have a national championship caliber team (or even playoff caliber team) what good does a BTL/NIT championship give you if you can't play for the national championship? Especially if this one season was your chance, and you graduate all your star players.

you think it's been bad with teams like Cincinnati, ucf, Boise state are left out of a 2 or 4 team playoff? Wait until you have a 12 team playoff and an undefeated football power in a lower division passed over for a team in the upper division that is clearly worse.

the only situation where relegation might make sense is in and out of the Power 5 (60ish teams), but then you will still have the same problem like a ucf or Cincinnati not getting in.

I guess if you’re building all of college football specifically around the concept of a fairytale season occurring for one single team once every 10 years then sure.

If you’re building football for 130 teams to have meaningful seasons every year then no. Right now college football sucks for 120 teams in the country every year. A relegation system would help lower that number.

 

[BigDanT]

As long as we are thinking about games schedule--we need to get clem off our ours EVERY yr.With uga and clem we start 2 in hole.As would 90% of other teams.

Except when you beat them it’s nice. Somehow the sec can pack out their stadiums and lose to Alabama and it doesn’t bother them.

 

[AmpuTECHture]

I guess if you’re building all of college football specifically around the concept of a fairytale season occurring for one single team once every 10 years then sure.

If you’re building football for 130 teams to have meaningful seasons every year then no. Right now college football sucks for 120 teams in the country every year. A relegation system would help lower that number.

What!? This isn't building college football around fairytale seasons of non-factories. It's continuing the tradition of college football and allowing all teams to compete if they can win games, not hamstringing teams based on previous seasons with completely different player makeup.

College football will always suck for the majority of teams. Changing to relegation and giving consolation trophies won't help that.

 

[gtrower]

What!? This isn't building college football around fairytale seasons of non-factories. It's continuing the tradition of college football and allowing all teams to compete if they can win games, not hamstringing teams based on previous seasons with completely different player makeup.

College football will always suck for the majority of teams. Changing to relegation and giving consolation trophies won't help that.

I’m starting to wonder if you know what a promotion/relegation system is. It’s designed to maintain fan interest with large groups of teams. There are other issues that arise, but this is literally the one thing it’s guaranteed to improve.

College football as it stands right now is the single dumbest format of any sport in the world. And it’s because a 10:1 ratio of teams to regular season games played is ludicrous. Playoff expansion to anything other than conference champs only does nothing to rectify that. If you keep it to conference champs only then your league now becomes 10-16 teams rather than 130. Which makes it at least reasonable.

 

[GTCrew4b]

I’m starting to wonder if you know what a promotion/relegation system is. It’s designed to maintain fan interest with large groups of teams. There are other issues that arise, but this is literally the one thing it’s guaranteed to improve.

College football as it stands right now is the single dumbest format of any sport in the world. And it’s because a 10:1 ratio of teams to regular season games played is ludicrous. Playoff expansion to anything other than conference champs only does nothing to rectify that. If you keep it to conference champs only then your league now becomes 10-16 teams rather than 130. Which makes it at least reasonable.

Long ago I made a map of some pretty sweet regional conferences with promotion and relegation. Don’t tell me it would be lame to be in a regional pool of teams all within 6 or so hours of each other. Also I’d allow permanent regional rivalry games, 1-cross level game, and 1-cross region game.

I think it was 8 20-team pools. 9 conference games, and those 3 that don’t count towards conference standings. No conference championship games. Sometimes you could play your rival twice. Once that counts and one that doesn’t. It was beautiful.

 

[AmpuTECHture]

I’m starting to wonder if you know what a promotion/relegation system is. It’s designed to maintain fan interest with large groups of teams. There are other issues that arise, but this is literally the one thing it’s guaranteed to improve.

College football as it stands right now is the single dumbest format of any sport in the world. And it’s because a 10:1 ratio of teams to regular season games played is ludicrous. Playoff expansion to anything other than conference champs only does nothing to rectify that. If you keep it to conference champs only then your league now becomes 10-16 teams rather than 130. Which makes it at least reasonable.

Seriously? Promotion/relegation may work with some large groups of PROFESSIONAL teams in other sports, but it will not work in college football. This is primarily because your team's performance in the previous year should have no bearing on the teams you play or your eligibility for championship games the next year. It really is that simple. Teams change far too much from year to year to base schedules off prior year performance. My lightning-in-a-bottle/fairytale team example is just one part of this.

Aside from moving to relegation within a conference model (which would likely only happen in much differently realigned conferences anyways), If you are moving to some grand relegation/promotion model, then you are completely scrapping conferences, tv deals, future schedules, everything. At that point, just create better, smaller, traditional regional conferences with expanded playoff and don't let last years players to determine this years schedule. Ratio of teams to games played is just not important, and the statistic is completely muddied since we have different conferences and tiers already built in to team's schedules. The goal of playoff expansion is to give more chances to more teams, not to try to solve some arbitrary metric of teams:games played.

 

[gtrower]

Teams change far too much from year to year to base schedules off prior year performance.

At least you’re thinking about it now. Welcome to the discussion.

Aside from moving to relegation within a conference model (which would likely only happen in much differently realigned conferences anyways), If you are moving to some grand relegation/promotion model, then you are completely scrapping conferences, tv deals, future schedules, everything.

Not necessarily. You could have promotion/relegation within super conferences with the winners playing each other in a playoff.

At that point, just create better, smaller, traditional regional conferences with expanded playoff and don't let last years players to determine this years schedule.

Again, not necessarily. Going more regional would make college football an infinitely better product for fans. But TV drives everything now so it would be an awfully tough sell to the cable providers. Not sure you could find a strictly regional approach that made as much money.

Ratio of teams to games played is just not important, and the statistic is completely muddied since we have different conferences and tiers already built in to team's schedules.

I don’t see how you could craft a logical defense of this statement. Im running out of adjectives to describe the lunacy of trying to compare an 11-1 Oregon to an 11-1 Florida when they don’t have a single common opponent.

The goal of playoff expansion is to give more chances to more teams, not to try to solve some arbitrary metric of teams:games played.

No, the goal of playoff expansion is to make more money. That is the sole driving force. And that is why we will end up with something stupid like 12 teams where the 5th best SEC team gets to play for a championship.

 

[Akinji07]

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.

I’m surprised your wife didn’t divorce you after you shared this plan with her.

 

[andrew]

Seriously? Promotion/relegation may work with some large groups of PROFESSIONAL teams in other sports, but it will not work in college football. This is primarily because your team's performance in the previous year should have no bearing on the teams you play or your eligibility for championship games the next year. It really is that simple. Teams change far too much from year to year to base schedules off prior year performance. My lightning-in-a-bottle/fairytale team example is just one part of this.

I know this is super cliche to say, but that's just, like, your opinion, man. The thought of a promotion/relegation system in CFB that rewards sustained increases in the quality of your program across multiple seasons is not objectively dumb or incorrect. To some extent we already have it in a de facto way -- having one good season makes it easier to recruit for the next, which leads to more success, which leads to better recruiting classes, etc.

I won't say there are no downsides. Of course there are some downsides, and from a practical standpoint (i.e. taking into account existing TV contracts, conferences, etc.) it's impossible, but there would be a lot of good things about a promotion/relegation system.

 

[AlaGold]

With the new "commercialization" for athletes,, the rich are going to get even richer.. Uga has 1 million fans ,GT has 100k, How many shirts/socks/autographs ,etc can the Tech guy selll compared to uga guy? hmmm,

 

[PressManCoverage]

With the new "commercialization" for athletes,, the rich are going to get even richer.. Uga has 1 million fans ,GT has 100k, How many shirts/socks/autographs ,etc can the Tech guy selll compared to uga guy? hmmm,

The better analysis is why you think that Uga has 1 million fans and we only have 100K

If my memory is correct, at one time GT, Uga, and Tennessee were tied for having the biggest on-campus Stadium, in the Deep South, they were all around 60K

so how do we go from that above to having uga out number us by a multiple of 10X in 55-60 years?

no way could they have done everything perfect, no way could we have done everything wrong during that time

 

[AlaGold]

The better analysis is why you think that Uga has 1 million fans and we only have 100K

If my memory is correct, at one time GT, Uga, and Tennessee were tied for having the biggest on-campus Stadium, in the Deep South, they were all around 60K

so how do we go from that above to having uga out number us by a multiple of 10X in 55-60 years?

no way could they have done everything perfect, no way could we have done everything wrong during that time

If you don't think uga has 10x the number of fans just in Ga over Tech ,you are kidding yourself. -I 'm not referring to stadium fans.

 

[ciegetanks]

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

That was me

 

[andrew]

The better analysis is why you think that Uga has 1 million fans and we only have 100K

If my memory is correct, at one time GT, Uga, and Tennessee were tied for having the biggest on-campus Stadium, in the Deep South, they were all around 60K

so how do we go from that above to having uga out number us by a multiple of 10X in 55-60 years?

no way could they have done everything perfect, no way could we have done everything wrong during that time

The academic profile of our school was raised considerably while continuing to focus narrowly on STEM. This has multiple effects:

1) It attracts students who are much more focused on academics, who are less likely to be into football and sports in general
2) Related to 1, it attracts international students, who are even less likely than academic-focused American students to be into football
3) It alienates sidewalk fans who may perceive (often correctly) the students and faculty of the school to be elitist
4) It grants the academic side of the school more power over the athletics side, leading to higher admissions standards and fewer resources for athletes, which makes it harder to win, which in turn affects the number of fans

Of course we also left the SEC, which many will tell you had a big effect. But I see the two as kind of linked -- we left the SEC over philosophical differences related to academics (specifically making sure that all players retained their scholarships until they could graduate.)

There are also plenty of ACC schools with much bigger fanbases than ours -- being in the SEC is not a prerequisite to having a lot of fans, not even in the south.