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Divisionless Conferences?

Here is the problem with this. Who decides who all the top teams will be and where they play? What happens when one of the weaker teams ……..who hardly played anyone of importance suddenly has a decent year and gets in because of their schedule? We are then re-creating this scenario all for the purpose of trying to get rid of it. While so many people hate it......our present system recognizes those outliers and keeps them out.

Also, I'd say in a 10 team conference schedule and 14 teams, you avoid only 3 teams. Look back at my Nebraska example, where we would team #12 in the rankings from the prior year. I think it is obvious that we'll be better than team #12 in the upcoming season. We avoid teams #1, #3, #4 in our schedule; but, there is still a 'championship' game to be won. We'd have to beat the other top team in the conference to be considered for a CFP spot. If we win that and still are perceived to be the #5 conference champ because of our weaker schedule, so be it.

Still better than people arguing that Georgia deserves to be in because they "looked" good in their two losses to perceived top teams.
 
What a crackpot idea of doing away with divisions. The big 12 did not do it except they hardly had a conference left after all the defections. If it was such a good idea, the NFL , NBA, and NHL would be doing it today. NUTS!

Perhaps; but, those pro leagues control the scheduling to create relatively balanced schedules. College football is left up to the conferences and schools. 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.
 
Let's do everything we can to make college football more like the NFL.

This isn't a good idea.

If you're going to shake up the conferences and scheduling to this extent, then REALLY shake it up.

Drop some teams from FBS so that we bring the number back down to 110 teams. Have 10 conferences comprised of 11 teams. Play all 10 conference opponents. Allow for 2 non-conference games, but only from other FBS conferences. Take the 10 conference champions (using a standard set of tiebreaker rules). Seed them. 1 and 2 get a bye.
Theoretically not a bad idea. The trick of course is keeping everyone together who wants to stay together.

The idea of 12-14 team conferences WITHOUT divisions and a conference title game pitting the winners against each other is silly. I already hate the idea of conferences exceeding 12. In a perfect world they'd be 10.

This idea that everything has to be exactly equal from conference to conference and division to division like hville has been insisting is entirely pointless and impossible.
 



The mostly full round robin would be no less unbalanced than today's divisions with arbitrary cross-overs. With 10 games and 14 teams, you play everyone but 3 teams. The radio hosts theory is that if you have all top teams in a conference play each other, that is enough data to pick the top 4 out of 5 conference champions.

Crossover schedules are unbalanced (and Nebraska is often on the "wrong" side of that), but within each division the schedule is balanced. Unless crossover games significantly skew the standings, in the Big 10 you get a true East champ and a true West champ. Not necessarily the two best teams in the conference, but the best team from each division.
 
In the end, it will be determined by those who can make the best case that one approach or another will make everyone more money or provide more gambling action. And that will depend upon wars between ESPN and other TV outlets. We've long ago lost any other reasons for which teams we play and when. Only leagues like the Ivies have stayed with tradition or any logical basis for scheduling.
 
Theoretically not a bad idea. The trick of course is keeping everyone together who wants to stay together.

The idea of 12-14 team conferences WITHOUT divisions and a conference title game pitting the winners against each other is silly. I already hate the idea of conferences exceeding 12. In a perfect world they'd be 10.

This idea that everything has to be exactly equal from conference to conference and division to division like hville has been insisting is entirely pointless and impossible.
If we don't care about other historical aspects of college football, why do we care about things like traditional rivalries? Break it all up and put it back together in the image of every other sport. People will complain at first, but they'll get over it. Nebraska got over not playing Oklahoma every year right? And we all got over changing conferences, right? If you're gonna do it, just rip the band-aid off and start over.

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.
 



If we don't care about other historical aspects of college football, why do we care about things like traditional rivalries? Break it all up and put it back together in the image of every other sport. People will complain at first, but they'll get over it. Nebraska got over not playing Oklahoma every year right? And we all got over changing conferences, right? If you're gonna do it, just rip the band-aid off and start over.
I think as one of the traditional "big boys" nebraska...and therefore nebraska fans....have gone through more change than most. Expanded conference that changed a traditional rivalry to changing conferences entirely...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"...

Only a few traditional rivalries have died really. Nu-ou (it was more important to one than the other). Texas & A&M...but texas still has ou. Missou-kansas. Wjat other great traditional rivalries have died? I'm sure I'm missing a couple. But overall college football is still big on tradition.

The bowls...we could argue that all day.
 
I think as one of the traditional "big boys" nebraska...and therefore nebraska fans....have gone through more change than most. Expanded conference that changed a traditional rivalry to changing conferences entirely...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"...

Only a few traditional rivalries have died really. Nu-ou (it was more important to one than the other). Texas & A&M...but texas still has ou. Missou-kansas. Wjat other great traditional rivalries have died? I'm sure I'm missing a couple. But overall college football is still big on tradition.

The bowls...we could argue that all day.
NU/KU was one of the longest running matches in College Football history.
 



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.

The downside of that is what led this radio host to talk about divisionless conferences. People don't think that a conference champion like Northwestern, Pitt, or Texas would have deserved to be in the playoff this past season. So, with a divisionless conference and the top two playing each other for the conference championship, you have a deserving automatic bid.
 
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And the winner gets enough to feed their clan for the whole year.
 


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