(06-02-2012 08:53 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 07:59 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 07:29 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 07:03 AM)Theodoresdaddy Wrote:  

(06-01-2012 11:40 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That's just sad. Rivalries are what the game is made of.

and new rivalries will be created over time; it revitalizes the game

Come on. Do you really think USC football needs "revitalization" by say replacing Notre Dame on the schedule with Utah, or Ohio State via replacing Michigan on the schedule with i don't know, Cincinnati?
Long-time rivalries are fantastic.

Let's face it: WVU's move to the Big 12 has pros and cons. The pro is essentially a boat-load more money, and I would be last person to denigrate the importance of that. It's easy for fans like me to snicker at moves made for money, because I don't have the responsibility of meeting WVU budget goals. But, there are also cons, and the main one is that WVU's football schedule will now be filled with schools that WVU has no geographic or cultural affinity with, meaning WVU fans don't care about their opponents and the opponents do not care about WVU. WVU playing a bunch of Texas schools is competitively nonsensical. The only times WVU should play Oklahoma State are the odd once-every-couple-of-generations two game home-away contract, or a bowl game.

WVU if a far more-natural fit in the ACC than the Big 12, and it's even a more natural fit in the SEC or B1G than the Big 12 too. But those conferences didn't invite them.

Steve, I sometimes wonder if your version of common sense is you disguising the fact that you're dense and obtuse...

WVU fit in the ACC back in 1953, but not today. WVU is basically an SEC team at heart, and the ACC will never be mistaken for the SEC. Not on their best day - or the SEC's worst...

The fact of the matter is that the Backyard Brawl is dead, unless by some miracle it's resurrected in the future. The Texas-A&M, Oklahoma-Nebraska, and several other rivalries have died as well. Trying to hold onto a dead carcass is stupid. It will decay and crumble in your hand...

The ACC is never going to invite WVU, and even if they did, I tell 'em to get stuffed. At this point in time, the only conference other than the Big XII that I'd want WVU to be a part of is the SEC - unless JoePa's ghost comes back at some time and spooks all the old eastern indies into creating that eastern all-sports conference he dreamed of....

Those are the only conferences that suit IMO, and the ACC doesn't make the cut...

Since we agree that WVU is a better fit for the SEC than Big 12, i guess you think I'm "dense" because of the ACC issue? Well tough cookies, because I don't see how anyone can argue that, geographically or culturally, WVU isn't closer to the ACC than the Big 12. It just doesn't compute.

Get out of that 19th century thinking, Steve. This is the 21st century. We aren't all riding about on horseback, so the travel isn't an issue. We do have air travel, you know...

(06-01-2012 09:41 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-01-2012 09:22 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  I agree that there needs to be more access to both the playoffs and the money and that the Big 4 are hoarding too much of the cash without truly using on-the-field competition as their competitive advantage. But the reality is that the open market dictates that the power schools get more attention and therefore more revenue. The problem is that unlike the open market, the Big 4 having all the power means that an up and comer can't break into the market and take a share.

It's not that there can't be up and comers, but rather that those up and comers end up getting snapped up by the power conferences if they're valuable enough. Just look at Utah and TCU or the schools being added to the Big East. So, it's possible to have an up and coming *school*, but it's extremely difficult for an entire conference to move in the pecking order because the power conferences essentially use the lower tier leagues as farm teams.

When you think about it, for all of the conference moves over the past 2 years, there are only 3 leagues that are clearly better off than they were before: the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 (and even then, it's debatable whether Utah and Colorado really made that big of a difference or if they simply had extremely fortunate timing in putting their TV rights up for bid).

The Big 12 has done a good job rebuilding, but they certainly would have never actually chosen to let Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M and Missouri leave. They would still would rather have their 2010 lineup compared to what they have today (even if they can raid the ACC).

The ACC is up in the air depending upon what the Big 12 does, although they did damage the Big East with taking Pitt and Syracuse (so they arguably have improved their relative position regardless of what FSU chooses to do).

Every other conference is clearly weaker in off-the-field terms. These leagues might end up having higher TV contracts than before simply because of the overall bull market in TV sports rights, but they all would have done even better TV-wise if they had kept their 2010 lineups.

So, the Big Ten adding 1 school and the Pac-12 and SEC each adding 2 schools ended up weakening all 8 other FBS conferences (including the likely death of the WAC).

If you look at it in terms of average attendance, every single conference except the Big 10 has decreased their average attendance with the changes. The Big 10 had a small increase. Its arguable that the Pac 12 and SEC are diluted by expansion.

(06-01-2012 06:48 PM)BadWillHunting Wrote:  It's not hard to look at the 4-team model and see it for what it is: an attempt to make additional money off of the NC game format, without expanding the field significantly.

The 3 Champs + 1 at-large model is lame and more troublesome than either all conference champs-in or straight-rankings top 4. The 8 team model fixes all of these problems easily with a Top 5 Conf Champs + 3 ranked At-Larges mix. Even SEC would get more teams-in every year with the 8-school plan, but then MONEY would be more accessible to non-big4 conferences & ND. THAT is why they resist it so hard, it's not about getting a fair-shot or having a realistic, rational method of crowning the champ, it's about controlling that $$$$.

Its a nice article. However, I think as mentioned above, to some extent, they simply don't want much change. They don't want to expand significantly and don't want to impact the bowls. I certainly think control is a major factor in that, but not the only one. There's risk aversion and, for some, a preference for the bowl system.

I prefer 8 teams, but you have to acknowledge, that unless you have the 1st round on New Year's, it will significantly impact the major bowls. And even in that format, it significantly impacts the minor bowls by drawing attention to the playoff.

(06-02-2012 07:29 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 07:03 AM)Theodoresdaddy Wrote:  

(06-01-2012 11:40 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-01-2012 10:32 PM)Theodoresdaddy Wrote:  I know that I'm not the only WVU fan that could give a fuzzy rat's butt if WVU ever played Pitt again...

That's just sad. Rivalries are what the game is made of.

and new rivalries will be created over time; it revitalizes the game

Come on. Do you really think USC football needs "revitalization" by say replacing Notre Dame on the schedule with Utah, or Ohio State via replacing Michigan on the schedule with i don't know, Cincinnati?
Long-time rivalries are fantastic.

Let's face it: WVU's move to the Big 12 has pros and cons. The pro is essentially a boat-load more money, and I would be last person to denigrate the importance of that. It's easy for fans like me to snicker at moves made for money, because I don't have the responsibility of meeting WVU budget goals. But, there are also cons, and the main one is that WVU's football schedule will now be filled with schools that WVU has no geographic or cultural affinity with, meaning WVU fans don't care about their opponents and the opponents do not care about WVU. WVU playing a bunch of Texas schools is competitively nonsensical. The only times WVU should play Oklahoma State are the odd once-every-couple-of-generations two game home-away contract, or a bowl game.

WVU if a far more-natural fit in the ACC than the Big 12, and it's even a more natural fit in the SEC or B1G than the Big 12 too. But those conferences didn't invite them.

But WVU is a far more natural fit in the Big 12 than in what's left of the Big East. Maryland, VT and Pitt aren't there and those are the natural rivals.

(06-02-2012 07:43 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Basically, this article is arguing against capitalism (as are most of the posters here). The most popular teams with the most fans get the most money, and they use that money to become more competitive and win more often. This is how capitalism works.

You can whine about collusion and corruption, but the fact is that:
1) there is zero collusion whatsoever when it comes to playing the games on the field.
2) There is zero collusion between the conferences and the pollsters.
3) There is zero collusion between the conferences and the BCS computers.

So the only way that being rich and powerful helps you get into the national championship game is by giving you the resources to field the best team on the field.

10th Mountain is correct that UC was 1 controversial second away from a national title game appearance in 2010. I guarantee that if our team had been 12-1 the year before (like Texas had) and blown out every opponent (Texas had 3 games decided by 10 or fewer points; UC had 5) that we would have been seriously considered for the national title game. Even if we hadn't gone to the title game, it wouldn't have been because of collussion or corruption. It was because that's what the pollsters chose. No one paid them off, implicitly or explicitly. Similarly, no one paid off the pollsters or the computers last year when Alabama played LSU.

How can you complain about corruption when the voting system is completely transparent and the voters aren't paid off? We can all agree that it is difficult and controversial to decide the best two teams using any system, but that doesn't make it corrupt.

The funny thing is that outside the SEC, most of the people in charge (the college presidents) could care less about a national championship. Even most fans in the B1G and PAC care a lot more about winning their conference than anything else.

Articles like this are really just complaining that the most popular teams get the most revenue. They're advocating for the socialistic economy that the NBA and NFL have. It's all fine and good if that's the system you prefer, but don't be naive and whine about corruption and fairness when really you just want your team's facilities to be subsidized by a richer, more popular team.

With the polls, the most popular (traditionally strong) teams also get more votes. I have very little doubt that if the SEC team last year had been Mississippi State instead of Alabama and the Big 12 team had been Oklahoma instead of Oklahoma St., that it would have been an LSU/Oklahoma national title game. I also think it would have been much more likely that if the Big 12 (instead of the SEC) had won 5 straight national titles that Oklahoma St. would have made it over Alabama. And the coaches poll clearly has biases, if the coaches even vote. It is not transparent except for the final poll. Computers make some irrational decisions because they don't take the human element into account and are totally opaque. The MAC commissioner, who is only peripherally impacted, made similar comments on the radio the other night (polls are biased based on past-not only on the current year-coaches aren't paying attention to other schools-computers don't have the human element to account for intangibles).

(06-02-2012 06:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 01:35 AM)jaredf29 Wrote:  This article is dead on. The rich getting richer and more exclusionary. Segregation is segregation no matter how you package it. In this case in the guise of a playoff to give the illusion of choice, but with a loaded deck.

How is this 'deck' loaded any more than choosing the top 4 ranked conference champs?

The answer it isn't stacked any less. Do a thread check on me ive been railing against any championship that doesn't include an eight team playoff of the highest ranked teams.

(06-02-2012 09:12 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-01-2012 09:41 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-01-2012 09:22 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  I agree that there needs to be more access to both the playoffs and the money and that the Big 4 are hoarding too much of the cash without truly using on-the-field competition as their competitive advantage. But the reality is that the open market dictates that the power schools get more attention and therefore more revenue. The problem is that unlike the open market, the Big 4 having all the power means that an up and comer can't break into the market and take a share.

It's not that there can't be up and comers, but rather that those up and comers end up getting snapped up by the power conferences if they're valuable enough. Just look at Utah and TCU or the schools being added to the Big East. So, it's possible to have an up and coming *school*, but it's extremely difficult for an entire conference to move in the pecking order because the power conferences essentially use the lower tier leagues as farm teams.

When you think about it, for all of the conference moves over the past 2 years, there are only 3 leagues that are clearly better off than they were before: the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 (and even then, it's debatable whether Utah and Colorado really made that big of a difference or if they simply had extremely fortunate timing in putting their TV rights up for bid).

The Big 12 has done a good job rebuilding, but they certainly would have never actually chosen to let Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M and Missouri leave. They would still would rather have their 2010 lineup compared to what they have today (even if they can raid the ACC).

The ACC is up in the air depending upon what the Big 12 does, although they did damage the Big East with taking Pitt and Syracuse (so they arguably have improved their relative position regardless of what FSU chooses to do).

Every other conference is clearly weaker in off-the-field terms. These leagues might end up having higher TV contracts than before simply because of the overall bull market in TV sports rights, but they all would have done even better TV-wise if they had kept their 2010 lineups.

So, the Big Ten adding 1 school and the Pac-12 and SEC each adding 2 schools ended up weakening all 8 other FBS conferences (including the likely death of the WAC).

If you look at it in terms of average attendance, every single conference except the Big 10 has decreased their average attendance with the changes. The Big 10 had a small increase. Its arguable that the Pac 12 and SEC are diluted by expansion.

The SEC's average attendance dropped by about 300 fans per game as a result of expansion, which is like a rounding error, a trivial amount.

In contrast, they clearly improved themselves in terms of market penetration, so i don't see how any 'dilution' has occurred.

(06-02-2012 09:22 AM)bullet Wrote:  [quote='quo vadis' pid='7955059' dateline='1338640156']
But WVU is a far more natural fit in the Big 12 than in what's left of the Big East. Maryland, VT and Pitt aren't there and those are the natural rivals.

No question, the Big 12 is much better for WVU than the Big East.

(06-02-2012 09:31 AM)bullet Wrote:  Computers make some irrational decisions because they don't take the human element into account and are totally opaque. The MAC commissioner, who is only peripherally impacted, made similar comments on the radio the other night (polls are biased based on past-not only on the current year-coaches aren't paying attention to other schools-computers don't have the human element to account for intangibles).

Since 2004, the computers and human pollsters have agreed on who #1 and #2 were (going into the bowls) every single year, except this past year (computers said OK State was #2, humans picked Alabama).

I say use 10 computers and throw out the the best and worst as outliers. That's better than human biases.

(06-02-2012 05:11 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 09:31 AM)bullet Wrote:  Computers make some irrational decisions because they don't take the human element into account and are totally opaque. The MAC commissioner, who is only peripherally impacted, made similar comments on the radio the other night (polls are biased based on past-not only on the current year-coaches aren't paying attention to other schools-computers don't have the human element to account for intangibles).

Since 2004, the computers and human pollsters have agreed on who #1 and #2 were (going into the bowls) every single year, except this past year (computers said OK State was #2, humans picked Alabama).

I say use 10 computers and throw out the the best and worst as outliers. That's better than human biases.

I don't even have to research this to know that statement isn't true. Cincinnati technically finished 2nd in a composite of the BCS computers one year but didn't finish Top 2 in the human polls.

Cheers,
Neil

Okay, fully researched it now and as of the end of the regular season:

In 2007, VT finished as the BCS Computers Composite #1 team.

In 2008, Texas finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2009, Cincy finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2011, Okla St. finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

Cheers,
Neil

(06-02-2012 05:49 PM)omniorange Wrote:  Okay, fully researched it now and as of the end of the regular season:

In 2007, VT finished as the BCS Computers Composite #1 team.

In 2008, Texas finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2009, Cincy finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2011, Okla St. finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

Wow ... thanks for correcting my sorry arse.

BTW, i guess 2007 was a situation where the "human element" was important. VT was #1 in the computers, LSU was #2, even though LSU crushed VT 48-7 during the regular season and LSU's losses came deep int overtime. Crazy.

(06-02-2012 06:08 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 05:49 PM)omniorange Wrote:  Okay, fully researched it now and as of the end of the regular season:

In 2007, VT finished as the BCS Computers Composite #1 team.

In 2008, Texas finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2009, Cincy finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2011, Okla St. finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

Wow ... thanks for correcting my sorry arse.

BTW, i guess 2007 was a situation where the "human element" was important. VT was #1 in the computers, LSU was #2, even though LSU crushed VT 48-7 during the regular season and LSU's losses came deep int overtime. Crazy.

There is no perfect system. Not humans nor computers. Which is why whatever system is used for the Football Final Four will involve both.

In 2007, the computers gave VT "credit" for losing to "better teams". LSU lost to middling Kentucky and Arkansas programs that year, while VT lost to an 11 win LSU team and a 10 win BC team.

Cheers,
Neil

PS, another tidbit from that year was that VT narrowly finished ahead of LSU in terms of SOS, I believe VT was 10th and LSU 11th.

Ohio State, who the human polls loved finished 50th in SOS that year.

Cheers,
Neil

(06-01-2012 09:22 AM)Borncoog74 Wrote:  

(06-01-2012 09:07 AM)Old Dominion Navy Wrote:  +1

Everything she is saying is 100% fact. It is so transparent when you have complete understanding of the situation and proposals that it is pathetic.

The problem is the mindless sports "sheep" who stare at ESPiN and get programmed to what is right and wrong.

Those of us who are pasionate enough about college sports to consistently visit and post on boards like these are very well aware of how corrupt and money-grabbing the battle for the format is. These options are not about crowning a true best team in College Football by pure in the field performance.

These 4 team formats are about limiting the access further to the top 4 conferences, and hordeing as much money for those four in the process to further separate those member schools from the rest of college athletic programs.

Even at the expense of having to marginalized some previously marquee programs.

The same thing happened 15-20 years ago with the creation of the BCS.

Now they will cull a few more programs and seperate the previously cast off programs even further.

100% disgusting how college athletics, particularly college football has been altered over the last 20 years and forseeable future.

When assigning blame remember who it is that dances for the peanuts and who it is that tosses them. The man tossing the peanuts is the one ruining the game. Media, owned by mega-corporations and conglomerates saw a product that was cheap to produce, totally individualized, and easy to exploit. They have the NFL but without having to contend with player salaries.

Do you really think the Big 12 would still be around if not for ESPN's contribution to Texas called the LHN? Do you really think the ACC could be raided if they had been paid according to the size of their TV markets? The footprint of the Big 12 was 5 states and only one of them populated enough to count. The ACC was about to be in 9 and almost all of them large media markets. Sure the ACC's product was on a down trend but the Big 12 had lost 33.3% of its product in two years.

Someone in media land saw an opportunity to acquire bits of the ACC and Big East in other conferences and use them to make the product in those conferences more valuable. The move to a more manageable format of 4 conferences would also permit them to eliminate having to pay for teams they didn't want and matchups that didn't yeild the most advertising dollars.

Bye bye Big East, and bye bye ACC (perhaps). The Big 10, SEC, PAC, and resurrected Big 12 will do for now. Eventually they will be whittled down to two and perhaps renamed to avoid certain legal entanglements.

I look for this to happen within the next 20 years. The networks will want to lose Wake Forest, Vandy, Northwestern, Iowa State, Ole Miss, and others that just don't bring in the ad dollars.

Didn't you know that all these years our conferences were just waiting on someone to discover our potential, reap the lion's share of profits off of our athletics, and then tell us who we should associate with if we wanted more money.

Like I said, they toss the peanuts, and we dance. That's why while I find the writer of this peace to be right on target with her assessments, at the end of the read it is yet another arm of the media institution that is making money off of her writing about the industry their family of companies are helping to corrupt. Whether that's irony or hypocrisy is hard to determine!

Without writing an epic just let me add that you are witnessing the end game of nearly 40 years of using economic influence in the political arena to disenfranchise the American people and to take what they worked hard to build, and their way of life.

Now we are likely to lose our favorite conferences, and perhaps our alma maters will be shut out of the money, and to make it all possible we will be billed monthly through our cable statement for enough money to allow the corporations to take all of this too, for nothing. Just like the bailouts of the banks didn't stop people's homes from being forclosed, in fact it made it more possible for the banks to accomplish it by giving them the money for their losses up front, so now you will be billed so that college football will become a tremendously profitable commodity for the networks. They pay out nothing that doesn't come from you and they get control. Brilliant! Think about that every time you get ticked about it. It's not Delany, Slive, Dodds, Swafford, Neinas, or Scott. It's the crook that stole your school's athletic department and got you to pay him to do it. And they call it higher education. God help us! P.T. Barnum was right, there's one born every minute! JR

(06-02-2012 07:56 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(06-02-2012 07:43 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Basically, this article is arguing against capitalism (as are most of the posters here). The most popular teams with the most fans get the most money, and they use that money to become more competitive and win more often. This is how capitalism works.

You can whine about collusion and corruption, but the fact is that:
1) there is zero collusion whatsoever when it comes to playing the games on the field.
2) There is zero collusion between the conferences and the pollsters.
3) There is zero collusion between the conferences and the BCS computers.

So the only way that being rich and powerful helps you get into the national championship game is by giving you the resources to field the best team on the field.

10th Mountain is correct that UC was 1 controversial second away from a national title game appearance in 2010. I guarantee that if our team had been 12-1 the year before (like Texas had) and blown out every opponent (Texas had 3 games decided by 10 or fewer points; UC had 5) that we would have been seriously considered for the national title game. Even if we hadn't gone to the title game, it wouldn't have been because of collussion or corruption. It was because that's what the pollsters chose. No one paid them off, implicitly or explicitly. Similarly, no one paid off the pollsters or the computers last year when Alabama played LSU.

How can you complain about corruption when the voting system is completely transparent and the voters aren't paid off? We can all agree that it is difficult and controversial to decide the best two teams using any system, but that doesn't make it corrupt.

The funny thing is that outside the SEC, most of the people in charge (the college presidents) could care less about a national championship. Even most fans in the B1G and PAC care a lot more about winning their conference than anything else.

Articles like this are really just complaining that the most popular teams get the most revenue. They're advocating for the socialistic economy that the NBA and NFL have. It's all fine and good if that's the system you prefer, but don't be naive and whine about corruption and fairness when really you just want your team's facilities to be subsidized by a richer, more popular team.

Capitalism?....
State supported capitalism? Do you know what capitalism is?

cap·i·tal·ism/ˈkapətlˌizəm/
Noun: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

Since the institutions in question are for the most part publicly supported, how can they operate in a capitalistic state?

I wish the government would subsidize my business by helping pay the bills while I pocket the profits. If that's what capitalism is sign me and my company up.
CJ

BTW.....
Louisville made more money than anyone in The Big East, The ACC, PAC and 8 of the 10 teams in The Big 12 and I still think the system sucks.

In most states, the only thing that public money is used for is to subsidize tuition for in-state students, or to jumpstart a new department that (might) economically benefit the state. It's true that public universities have an advantage in size due to these subsidies, but they also have a disadvantage in that their mission is to educate everyone, not just the highest achievers.

At the end of the day, public universities compete on the private market. Yes, they're subsidized, but so are oil companies, farmers, wind turbine manufacturers, and many other industries. Just because they're subsidized doesn't mean that they aren't private markets operating on the principle of capitalism.

An example of a non-private market transaction would be if the government had the Air Force design the next generation of jet engines in-house (rather than turning to Lockheed Martin).

Universities compete on the private market for students (and indeed, the international market). They certainly compete in the private market for student-athletes and coaches. In Ohio, state law requires that public dollars can't go toward collegiate athletics. It is 100% a private market.

(06-02-2012 05:49 PM)omniorange Wrote:  Okay, fully researched it now and as of the end of the regular season:

In 2007, VT finished as the BCS Computers Composite #1 team.

In 2008, Texas finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2009, Cincy finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

In 2011, Okla St. finished as the BCS Computers Composite #2 team.

Cheers,
Neil

I'm not too pissed about UC getting left out in 2009. Even though we had a harder schedule that year, there were good reasons that Texas was perceived as the better team.

1) Texas had fewer close games (3 games decided by 10 points or less). Many of UC's games were nailbiters (5 games decided by 10 points or less).
2) UC's strongest games were at the beginning of the year. Texas seemed to get better as the year went on.
3) Our defense was middling at best, especially at the end of the year. We gave up 45 points to UConn (the 2nd most they had against a D-1A opponent all year). We also gave up 36 points to a 3-9 Illinois team the day after Thanksgiving (only winning by 13).
4) Texas went 12-1 the year before. UC went 10-3 against an easier schedule. It's true that teams change year-to-year, but it's not an unreasonable criteria to evaluate.

Honestly, if we had blown out Illinois and UConn, I would have been a little ticked since the computers confirmed that our SOS was tougher than Texas. But the reason we have polls is that it's incredibly difficult to determine the best team using computers with only a 12-game sample size.