(10-10-2018 10:17 AM)APPdiesel Wrote:  Keyword of what you just said Drew, "this year". You can't say divisions were a bad idea when we haven't even played a full year under the division system. Plus, no one foresaw stAte falling off a cliff. Given the recent trends of stAte being good the CCG system looked good. All either division really needs is 1 good team. It works for the SEC east.

The interesting scenarios to me are, if it didn't require 10 to play a CCG (which was our goal all along) would Coastal have gotten the invite? If (hypothetically) any one team gets plucked would we stick at 9 and play a round robin or add to rebalance divisions?

(10-10-2018 10:29 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(10-10-2018 10:17 AM)APPdiesel Wrote:  Keyword of what you just said Drew, "this year". You can't say divisions were a bad idea when we haven't even played a full year under the division system. Plus, no one foresaw stAte falling off a cliff. Given the recent trends of stAte being good the CCG system looked good. All either division really needs is 1 good team. It works for the SEC east.

The interesting scenarios to me are, if it didn't require 10 to play a CCG (which was our goal all along) would Coastal have gotten the invite? If (hypothetically) any one team gets plucked would we stick at 9 and play a round robin or add to rebalance divisions?

But that's just it. The winner of the conference suffers every year that Arkansas State decides to fall off a cliff. In a system where it's #1 vs #2, Arkansas State would play if they are #1 or #2 in conference and not just necessarily because they're the best team from a dumpster division. The way we have it set up now, the post season prospects for the winner of the East depends solely on how good Arkansas State is each year.

(10-10-2018 10:37 AM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  

(10-10-2018 10:29 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(10-10-2018 10:17 AM)APPdiesel Wrote:  Keyword of what you just said Drew, "this year". You can't say divisions were a bad idea when we haven't even played a full year under the division system. Plus, no one foresaw stAte falling off a cliff. Given the recent trends of stAte being good the CCG system looked good. All either division really needs is 1 good team. It works for the SEC east.

The interesting scenarios to me are, if it didn't require 10 to play a CCG (which was our goal all along) would Coastal have gotten the invite? If (hypothetically) any one team gets plucked would we stick at 9 and play a round robin or add to rebalance divisions?

But that's just it. The winner of the conference suffers every year that Arkansas State decides to fall off a cliff. In a system where it's #1 vs #2, Arkansas State would play if they are #1 or #2 in conference and not just necessarily because they're the best team from a dumpster division. The way we have it set up now, the post season prospects for the winner of the East depends solely on how good Arkansas State is each year.

Louisiana, South Alabama, Texas St and ULM all have the ability to recruit and be just as good as any eastern team any given year. You can't put all of the load on just stAte to carry in the West.

(10-10-2018 09:28 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  This is why we effed up when we split into divisions. Since we only have 10 teams, we should have modeled ourselves after the Big12 instead of all these other G5 conferences with regards to conference structure and the championship game.

I'll use App State and Ark State in this scenario since they are both the hot teams from each division. We all know the west isn't good this year, and Ark State is likely to play in the championship game. Ark State is also already 0-2 against the East. If we want to elevate our conference perception, we need our best team, in this scenario it's App, to get some quality wins to enhance their post season prospects.

If we have an East vs West championship game, and it ends up being Arkansas State (4-4) vs App State (8-0), that won't do dick for App's post season while a let's say (7-1) Troy team has to stay home. We should just drop the divisions and play a round-robin schedule like we basically do anyway. Then the top two teams in the conference play a championship game like the Big 12 does. That's the only way to keep from hurting our best team's chances against the other G5 champions.

(10-10-2018 10:29 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(10-10-2018 10:17 AM)APPdiesel Wrote:  Keyword of what you just said Drew, "this year". You can't say divisions were a bad idea when we haven't even played a full year under the division system. Plus, no one foresaw stAte falling off a cliff. Given the recent trends of stAte being good the CCG system looked good. All either division really needs is 1 good team. It works for the SEC east.

The interesting scenarios to me are, if it didn't require 10 to play a CCG (which was our goal all along) would Coastal have gotten the invite? If (hypothetically) any one team gets plucked would we stick at 9 and play a round robin or add to rebalance divisions?

But that's just it. The winner of the conference suffers every year that Arkansas State decides to fall off a cliff. In a system where it's #1 vs #2, Arkansas State would play if they are #1 or #2 in conference and not just necessarily because they're the best team from a dumpster division. The way we have it set up now, the post season prospects for the winner of the East depends solely on how good Arkansas State is each year.

(10-10-2018 09:28 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  This is why we effed up when we split into divisions. Since we only have 10 teams, we should have modeled ourselves after the Big12 instead of all these other G5 conferences with regards to conference structure and the championship game.

I'll use App State and Ark State in this scenario since they are both the hot teams from each division. We all know the west isn't good this year, and Ark State is likely to play in the championship game. Ark State is also already 0-2 against the East. If we want to elevate our conference perception, we need our best team, in this scenario it's App, to get some quality wins to enhance their post season prospects.

If we have an East vs West championship game, and it ends up being Arkansas State (4-4) vs App State (8-0), that won't do dick for App's post season while a let's say (7-1) Troy team has to stay home. We should just drop the divisions and play a round-robin schedule like we basically do anyway. Then the top two teams in the conference play a championship game like the Big 12 does. That's the only way to keep from hurting our best team's chances against the other G5 champions.

(10-10-2018 11:05 AM)AppfanInCAAland Wrote:  I watched the Cincinnati - Ohio game and was not impressed with Bearcats at all. I'm confident either App or Troy would beat them by 20. But Cincinnati has a win over P5 so that is good enough for the AP and the AAC lovefest over on the "college sports and realignment" thread on these boards. I've said since the beginning that App deserves to be voted one spot below Penn State in the polls, at least they loss or even have a close win.

(10-10-2018 09:28 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  This is why we effed up when we split into divisions. Since we only have 10 teams, we should have modeled ourselves after the Big12 instead of all these other G5 conferences with regards to conference structure and the championship game.

I'll use App State and Ark State in this scenario since they are both the hot teams from each division. We all know the west isn't good this year, and Ark State is likely to play in the championship game. Ark State is also already 0-2 against the East. If we want to elevate our conference perception, we need our best team, in this scenario it's App, to get some quality wins to enhance their post season prospects.

If we have an East vs West championship game, and it ends up being Arkansas State (4-4) vs App State (8-0), that won't do dick for App's post season while a let's say (7-1) Troy team has to stay home. We should just drop the divisions and play a round-robin schedule like we basically do anyway. Then the top two teams in the conference play a championship game like the Big 12 does. That's the only way to keep from hurting our best team's chances against the other G5 champions.

(10-10-2018 08:44 PM)hotrod2001 Wrote:  

(10-10-2018 09:28 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  This is why we effed up when we split into divisions. Since we only have 10 teams, we should have modeled ourselves after the Big12 instead of all these other G5 conferences with regards to conference structure and the championship game.

I'll use App State and Ark State in this scenario since they are both the hot teams from each division. We all know the west isn't good this year, and Ark State is likely to play in the championship game. Ark State is also already 0-2 against the East. If we want to elevate our conference perception, we need our best team, in this scenario it's App, to get some quality wins to enhance their post season prospects.

If we have an East vs West championship game, and it ends up being Arkansas State (4-4) vs App State (8-0), that won't do dick for App's post season while a let's say (7-1) Troy team has to stay home. We should just drop the divisions and play a round-robin schedule like we basically do anyway. Then the top two teams in the conference play a championship game like the Big 12 does. That's the only way to keep from hurting our best team's chances against the other G5 champions.

Just because the west division sucks this year doesn't mean they'll always be. stAte will always be a perennial favorite out of there but Louisiana, ULM and USA can and have turned their programs around before. This isn't a Sun Belt-specific situation either. The SEC for years has had this issue with their two divisions with the western side essentially "Alabama and everyone else" for at least the last 4 seasons, or "Clemson and everyone else" in the ACC's Atlantic division and on and on. If you listen to the pundits, most conferences outside of the B1G have one division which is glaringly weaker than the other.

If anything, the Sun Belt I thought would benefit by getting themselves two more teams so you have a solid 12-team conference. One in the east and one in the west (still think it was a mistake to kick NMSU to the curb, they wanted to be full members and were getting somewhat decent)

(10-10-2018 09:22 PM)APPdiesel Wrote:  NMSU was not getting decent.

(10-10-2018 09:36 PM)hotrod2001 Wrote:  

(10-10-2018 09:22 PM)APPdiesel Wrote:  NMSU was not getting decent.

They went to a bowl game and won. I can think of six other SB teams who didn't do that. I'm not saying they were going to run the table but they were at least competitive.