(04-15-2014 08:50 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 08:27 AM)statefanatic Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 08:17 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 07:13 AM)statefanatic Wrote:  We still need to balance the divisions.

If the Swofford-plan goes into effect, you won't be required to have divisions in the first place. You can just have 11 teams playing a conference schedule, and then the top 2 meet in a CCG.

How can you choose a true top two with no divisions when you don't play every team? Divisions solve that by playing everyone in your division.

That's the point of the ACC proposed legislation though. Last year the top 2 teams didn't meet in the ACC title game. We got an over-matched Duke vs. FSU. If you recall, the Big XII almost never matched the two best teams because the divisions were so out of balance.

Under these rules you can select the teams any way you choose.

You can take #1 and #2 in the standings. (If there is a two-way tie, the tiebreaker determines home field).
You take #1 and #2 based on a rating system or a combination of rating systems.
You can take #1 in the standings and then pit them against the highest rated other team accoring to ratings.
You can take #1 in the standings a pit them against the highest rated team they didn't play in the regular season.
You can give the top seed to the team rated the highest in ratings, hosting the highest in the standings or vice versa.

The key is you have to tell everyone what the system is before the season and the system has to be transparent enough that people have a reasonable idea what a result on Saturday will do to the race.

I suppose leaving it up to a conference is ok - but I hope we simply pit the East versus west champion. I like the idea of a Cinderella story, and I really hate the rating systems which may not be fair. Are we going to do our own ratings? Will it be by a computer or voting from people who know very little about us as individual programs or a conference? I'd rather just bang it out on the field as Wins/Losses. Duke may have been over matched, (ok, they were) - but so were many teams FSU faced. Duke won their games in their Division, they earned it. The question is: How will that help Duke progress in football power? I think without such notice and media attention - a program will have a hard time accessing life blood for the future of their program (RECRUITING). Does what Duke did earn them any advantages in Recruiting? I think the answer is yes, imhop - it just isn't fair or good for the conference to take that possibility away.