BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Illinois-Missouri is dead.

 

I don't know all the particulars (not a scheduling / math wiz, by any stretch), but I keep hearing a 16 team B1G, broken into 4 "pods" (2 pods per division). Somehow allows for a more consistent scheduling of opposite division teams?

Also seeing the idea of adding neutral site conference games (Chicago, Indy, Cleveland, etc.) floated, to help offset the loss of revenue from one less home game.

Hate on the B1G all you want, but they're trying to schedule better (the big guns in the conference, at least) in the future & make things more interesting / competitive.

 

This important news hasn't been mentioned here: UMass Lowell is going D-1, and will take BU's place in America East.

http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/2013/02/14/umass-lowell-joining-america-east/JvZl3l8QhA0A3CYPe6wShP/story.html

 

I pondered something like this back when the SEC added Texas A&M and Missouri, and was talking about going to 16. It would work well if the NCAA allowed a two-game conference playoff.
You split into four divisions, with a nine-game conference schedule. You play the other three teams in your division, plus two from each of the other divisions on a two-year home-and-home rotation. So, you end up playing everyone in the conference at least twice every four years and the rivalries can be maintained without a lot of interruption. At the end of the season, you take the four division winners and have a semifinal-final playoff setup.
Not sure it'd fly with the NCAA, but if two or three conferences swell to 16 teams maybe it can be proposed.

 

Actually, that could form the basis of a 16-team playoff, using at-larges to fill the other spots.

 

Not surprising. I had one AD tell me a few years ago that when they stopped allowing games with FCS schools to count toward bowl eligibility, that was a death knell. I see why. There's really no upside to scheduling them, unless you are so darn desperate that you can't get a small-time FBS school to fill that spot on your non-conference schedule.

The same crowd that will show up to watch you thump North Dakota State will show up to see you thump Middle Tennessee, so the bottom line isn't affected all that much. I wouldn't have an issue with banning all games against non-FBS schools, although it would hurt the FCS schools that need that big payday.

 

Until the 1990s, they didn't count toward bowl eligibility.

Now you can count one FCS win a year, IIRC. Before that, it was one every other (?) year.

 

That AD must be out of his depth if he doesn't know the games count.

 

I'm going with the null hypothesis and blaming the messenger.

 

Dixiehack, I'd go with the null hypothesis as well, but it gets old telling Mark he's short on facts.

 

We should just make a macro.

 

Monmouth to the Big South as a football associate starting in '14. Big time.