There is an extremely strong argument that the SEC has taken advantage of scheduling to put their schools in position to be in the playoff more often than other conferences.
I vaguely was aware that they played a weak non-conference schedule, but it wasn't until around Thanksgiving that I started comparing the B1G versus the SEC in every way imaginable, and I was shocked by how bad it is. The only way that an SEC team is going to lose a non-conference game is if they play an early game on a neutral site somewhere relatively close to home. Take a few minutes and go through the SEC schedules from this past year (and the ACC while you're at it) and honestly identify how many of the SEC opponents had any realistic hope of winning. Even Missouri scheduling Illinois was about as close to "living on the edge" as the SEC ever cares to get. Missouri will replace that game with Ball State as soon as possible.
In a perfect world they'd be 10.
Or 18-20. We're not going backwards towards smaller conferences, but it's highly likely that we'll expand our way into the equivalent by having conferences of 18 or more. Once they get that big, each division can function as its own mini-conference. It's not hard to imagine something close to the bulk of a reincarnated Big 8 making up the majority of the B1G West in the relatively near future. If all the teams in that division play each other, the championship game serves as a de facto pre-first round playoff game. Where's the downside?
Nebraska got over not playing Oklahoma every year right?
Honestly, no, I didn't. Did you? It bothered me in '98 and '99, and it has really bothered me for the past 8 years that we can't even have the chance to play them in the CCG. Based on what I hear from fellow Husker fans, I'm not in some miniscule minority.
And we all got over changing conferences, right?
Again, nope, not quite. Look at how many posts (including mine) are the equivalent of trying to put the Humpty Dumpty Big 8 back together again?
If you're gonna do it, just rip the band-aid off and start over.
I know your comment is well intended, but having lived where I've lived, I feel obligated to say this: That is the rationale that has led to more human misery in the past 100+ years than any other. You just summarized the rallying cry of every radical, murderous regime of the past century plus. A truly wise stoic view of the world never loses sight of one simple truth: We can always make this worse.
I agree with you on conference sizes. I'd also be fine with conferences going to 16-20 teams and being more of a loose affiliation between divisions (similar to the smaller conferences of the past). Play the 7-8-9 other teams in your division, and the champions of each side meet in a game at the end of the regular season as a de facto play-in game for the playoff.
Yes, and Amen! Reference what I wrote above: mega-conferences can serve as de facto mini-conferences if each division has to play round robin on its side, and cross-divisional games are minimized.
Nebraska has no traditions left that involve other programs. I think that clouds our vision sometimes when we say "if we dont care about that stuff anymore"...
I think that it clouds our vision, but in a cynical way: "We tore down our traditions, so let's tear down yours!" We lost something special when we stopped playing Oklahoma every year, and we lost sometime more when we stopped playing Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, and Missouri every year. You don't have to call for radical change or reactionary roll-backs to acknowledge that. We don't need to force that on others. Beating Iowa like a rented mule will eventually be salve to our wounds.
Its inevitable considering the influence the NFL has in sports.
I REALLY, really question this. I don't know how it's possible to gauge this, but the NFL is losing die-hard fans based on what I anecdotally see in a fairly (bizarrely) diverse cross-section of my friends and acquaintances, and college football is uniquely poised to pick up a lot of that slack, if the cards fall right. I could say a lot more about this, but I'm already going to get grief from the word-counters analyzing this post, but I'll say more, if anyone cares.
How many times do fans in the Big 12 really want to see OU versus Texass in that game?
Our leaving the B1G did more than anything else to lead to that. The Big 12 existed in its original form from '96 through 2010, and in those years, OK and TX were the two best teams about 25-33% of the time, depending on how you ranked them. Texas hasn't been one of the 2 best teams in Big 12 since Nebraska left until this year. They SHOULD be based on recruiting advantages, alumni support, facilities, etc., but they haven't been.
How many times do BIG fans want to see Michigan playing Ohio State in the CCG? It's very possible to have Michigan playing OSU back to back since it's the last game on their schedules.. at least right now!
It was the hope of a Michigan vs Ohio State rematch in the B1G championship game that led to the bizarre division of the B1G into Leaders and Legends when Nebraska first joined the conference. How many times did they meet in the championship game between 2011 and 2014? The answer, of course, is zero. It wasn't until 2016 that we would honestly say that Michigan and OSU were the two best teams, and this past year was only the 2nd time.