• You do not need to register if you are not going to pay the yearly fee to post. If you register please click here or log in go to "settings" then "my account" then "User Upgrades" and you can renew.

HuskerMax readers can save 50% on  Omaha Steaks .

Divisionless Conferences?

NU lost all of its historical rivalries when it left the Big12. Now the fans are like a ship lost in the fog.

C

But, we don't want to declare rivalries with new nearby schools, Iowa in particular. There really is no reason why the games against Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois couldn't become like the games against Kansas St, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado. I'll leave OU off that list for now because it was something special...but, Iowa could develop into that over a long period of time.
 
So we agree on most things related to the Big 8/12, but my pointing out that your comment was justification for a whole lot of evil crap was too much for you. Fine, I'll own that part. I stand by what I stressed, though: We can always make things worse.

And, no, I'm not familiar with your history. You're a guy on the message board with the Fonz as your picture. I haven't bothered to research your deeper thoughts on history, etc.
I'd advise that when someone uses a common phrase such as "rip the bandaid off" you refrain from jumping immediately to genocide. That's quite a leap.
 
This is all drifting towards some "Hot Topic" like threads ...

Regarding the OP, I could see an event similar to ~ 1970 or '71 when NU, OU and Colorado finished 1, 2 & 3 ...

... albeit with a twist that the top 3 (evenly matched) teams each somehow lay one loss on each other ... imagine the moaning and groaning when your team or more than one team that went 8-1 or 9-1 & got left out. That thought has me leaning towards the five Power 5 champs + 3 at large berths to account for the anomalies.
 
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.
Hey, did Pitt win their bowl game?
 



So we agree on most things related to the Big 8/12, but my pointing out that your comment was justification for a whole lot of evil crap was too much for you. Fine, I'll own that part. I stand by what I stressed, though: We can always make things worse.

And, no, I'm not familiar with your history. You're a guy on the message board with the Fonz as your picture. I haven't bothered to research your deeper thoughts on history, etc.
Watch how you speak to the Fonz - aye!
 



But, we don't want to declare rivalries with new nearby schools, Iowa in particular. There really is no reason why the games against Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois couldn't become like the games against Kansas St, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado. I'll leave OU off that list for now because it was something special...but, Iowa could develop into that over a long period of time.


Yep, new ones need to be formed but all historical are gone. Over a century of history with those programs all gone, just can't replace that.



C
 
Last edited:
But, we don't want to declare rivalries with new nearby schools, Iowa in particular. There really is no reason why the games against Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois couldn't become like the games against Kansas St, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado. I'll leave OU off that list for now because it was something special...but, Iowa could develop into that over a long period of time.
Yep, new ones need to be formed but all historical are gone. Over a century of history with those programs all gone, just can't replace that.C
It's not that hard to imagine who our new natural rivals are. Ask yourself this question: "If I could pick only three games that we would win next year, who would I pick?" Where you live can warp your answers a little bit because if I was living in Lafayette, Indiana, I'd probably include Purdue, otherwise very few would.

Here are my top three choices:
  1. Iowa = all day, every day. It's incredibly arrogant to pretend that they're not good enough to be our rival when they've beaten us 4 in a row, and 5 of the last 6. The fact that that eats at your craw to read that is proof that you hate them, and rivalries are born out of hatred. After we've defeated them for approximately 30 straight years, then we can start discussing whether or not it's still a rivalry. As for anyone in Iowa who doesn't view it as such, watch what happens when we start beating them a few years in a row.
  2. Wisconsin = to me this isn't a natural rivalry in the sense of geographic neighbors; I just hate them because they have embarrassed us repeatedly. This cannot stand. They much be destroyed. If we beat them 10 to 20 times in a row, and they no longer have pretensions of beating us, we can move on to someone else. Until then, they need to be humbled ... repeatedly.
  3. Anyone else who beat us last year = this isn't a one-time listing. I literally mean that every year the 3rd most hated team(s) on our schedule will be whoever beat us last year. If we go undefeated, it's retroactive to the year before. There's a lot of room for hatred here.
Who do you guys hate? Those are our candidates for rivals. I long for the day when we get to the point that we beat everyone around us so much that the only rivals left are on the national stage. It will be a great day when we survey the college landscape and think, "Alabama and Clemson are getting a little big for the britches. I hope they make the playoffs this year so we can spank them."
 
Last edited:



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.
And how holier than thou and dumb are the other conferences for not following suit?
 
And how holier than thou and dumb are the other conferences for not following suit?

It depends on the perspective of what a conference should mean to it's member schools and the overall goal of the conference.

There is something to be said about being in partnership with other schools for scheduling, competitiveness, and TV contracts. With divisions in place the largest factor that stands out to me in favor of the 9 game schedule is getting the teams from the other division on your schedule more frequently than every 7 years. With 8 game schedule, you get 2 teams from the other side every year. If it is home-and-home like currently done and a regular rotation (which it does not seem to be). The 9 game schedule drops that to about 5 years.

I do like to point out the math to SEC fans. Play one fewer conference game and the conference as a whole automatically loses 7 fewer games, which bumps up the mathematical ranking strength of the entire conference. Combined with the other strategic decision of playing very few true road games and playing cupcakes in November to avoid a late loss, the SEC is certainly showing that their focus is for their 2 or 3 strongest teams to have a better chance at the playoff. Nothing wrong with that at all, I just find it amusing that their fans frequently don't admit that this strategy is intentional and an advantage.
 

Prepare for the dumbest idea yet....

I'd like to see another tier of football created and have a promotion/relegation system like the EPL. You would have the Power 5, FBS and FCS. You have to schedule within your own tier or a lower tier (P5 can't schedule FCS).

Divide the Power 5 into 8 regional conferences with 8 teams. Schedule will be 7 Conference games and 4 OOC. Each 8 team conference winner then plays a Regional Championship Game which narrows the field down to the North, West, East and South Champions to play in the playoff. Basically, it is an 8 team playoff where each region has a champion that plays in the Final 4. Notre Dame joins a conference or gets left out.

Finally, every year, the bottom 4 teams in FBS get relegated to FCS, Top 4 FCS move up and the same for FBS and Power 5. Make all scholarship rules the same.

P5, FBS and FCS crown their own champions.
 

GET TICKETS


Get 50% off on Omaha Steaks

Back
Top