BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Chip Brown wrote on Monday that supposedly Notre Dame's jumping to the Big Ten was contigent on them being the only one to jump and make it a 12-team league, however some ND people are afraid that if the doomsday scenario of four 16-team conferences starts to take shape they will end up getting left holding the bag.

 

Even if no one leaves in this round, it's going to take one hell of a reconciliation to keep the Big 12 together after everything that's happened. Of all the people I'd pick to lead that effort, Dan Beebe isn't in the top 10,000.

 

Does anyone...even on this board....think this isn't now going to happen ? Maybe not exactly the 4 x 16 number, but the "four mega league" scenario? This has been coming for years & now feels like the end of Reservoir Dogs. All we're waiting for is for the first trigger to get pulled...

As for ND, yes the have the hubris to try and stay independent through all this. But when the sh*t inevitably hits the fan this summer....and you want to remain relevant in college football....you'd better have a seat at one of the four "big boy" tables.

 

So there's no playoff in part because the kids would miss more class time, BUT.....it's cool to throw together a 16-team megaconference and have Texas flying to Seattle for a volleyball game. I'm sure they won't miss any class time. Ugh.

 

What, really, is the difference between 4 16-team conferences and reorganizing into 8 8 team conferences? TV will continue to demand some nonconference matchups, so by and large, a team in say the Big Ten East will play a rival from the Big Ten West about once every three years, or once every six years at home. I know college presidents are greedy and stupid, but they haven't really thought through the downsides of this idea. For one thing, it makes the playoff they say they don't want far more likely, as the four mega-conference title games will be de facto playoff games anyway.

 

How are you going to reorganize into 8 team conferences? How do you tell teams from every conference goodbye?

Hey, we aren't leaving but you are.

And I still don't get how four mega conferences would work

1. Pac 16
2. Big 10 + ND + A few Big 12 schools + maybe a Big East Team
3. SEC + VT + Florida State ( we still need two more, which teams make the jump) West Virginia, GT, Clemson? I have no clue here.
4. The leftover garbage from the Big East and ACC, well great... now we have a conference with 10 mediocre schools and 6 bad ones. At this point I'm thinking you would have to at least consider the MWC and create a 5th super conference. Especially if they pull a few teams like Boise, Colorado, Kansas or Kansas State out of the wreckage.

Essentially we are looking at a Super Conference system with 3 great conferences and 1 or 2 mediocre ones.

To this, I say they go for a for a five game playoff. The conference championships would serve as an elimination round and the two teams with the worst overall records have to do a play in game to play the best team in the tourney.

For example:

First Round:
5. Big East/ACC garbage leftovers vs. 4. MWC

Second Round:
1. SEC vs. 4 MWC
2. Pac-16 vs. 3. Big 10/11/16

Mustang Championship Game
1. SEC vs. 3. Big 10/11/16

Final result

SEC 48, Ohio State 13

 

Of course. I'm sure this is all being done with the student-athletes' welfare in mind.

 

It just seems so dumb for ND not to join.

More money to play in a league with your legit rivals: Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State.

They can use their four non-conference games for Army, Navy, USC and another rival of their choice.

It makes sense geographically... it's almost the only thing in expansion talk that makes a ton of sense. And I think fans would love to see it.

 

Read a tweet yesertday that Beebe won't be available this week for expansion talks because he's currently in line for Toy Story 3.

 

Mustang, my point was not that they should reorganize into eight eight team conferences, but that given the length of the football season, four 16-team conferences would effectively be the same thing. Teams in the other division of your conference would be de facto non-conference opponents in football for as often as you'd see them.
I agree with you that consolidation will inevitably lead to a playoff.

 

Word.

 

Agreed. The only problem with the four superconference system everybody is predicting is that it appears that one of those four will be grossly inferior to the other three in football. It's really just three conferences that appear to be taking over the system and seizing a stranglehold on the football revenue machine.

Presuming this Texas/Oklahoma defection to the Pac 10 happens, you know the SEC isn't gonna settle for the Big East scraps when it's their time to expand. Instead they're gonna go after the best most marketable options out there to stay competitive with the Pac 10 and Big 10, which means raiding the ACC and expanding from the Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Clemson selection.

And that leaves for the ACC only the leftover wreckage that the other three conferences left behind. Not sure how "super" a conference constructed on those lines can be.