(05-18-2022 07:19 PM)BewareThePhog Wrote:  I’m sure I’m not the first with this idea, but I like a pod and group setup.
Football - 9 total games.

Play each team on your line (pod) every year.

2 from each other pod by Group. Alternate groups each year

Basketball - 18 games. Home and away. Play the opposite groupings as in football (e.g., if you play Group A in football, you play Group B in hoops).

Pod Group A - Group B
1. USC, FL - GA, TN
2. AL, Vandy - AUB, KY
3. LSU, Miss - Miss St, aTm
4. Tex, Miz - Ark, OU

That way you play 3 major rivals in both football and basketball every year. You play EVERYONE in either football or basketball every year.

You play everyone in each sport at least every other year. States with 2 schools are split across groups so you get to play someone from AL, MS, TN, and TX every season. Both groups have BIG brands attractive to TV.

I suspect that as an outsider I’m overlooking an annual matchup that some fan bases really value. But I do think that this is a good way to get maximum exposure, lots of good games every year, and even if you don’t see a key rival every year in football, you’d at least get them in basketball.

The bold reminds me of how I wish the SEC would determine football champions... How about 2 from each other pod by cross-group instead? That way the number of opponents unpaired teams have in common is doubled, from 4 to 8.

I alternately think of that as "indirect," "anti-divisional," "transitive" or "comparative" scheduling, lol. That scheduling model along with a certain point system (one that will never happen) is, AFAIK, the fairest possible way to crown the football champion of a league that is too large to stage a round-robin, or otherwise doesn't.

Here's an illustration of how useful indirect scheduling can be in fairly determining a champion, although in this first example I'll use 2-team pods, not 4. It won't happen, of course, and I don't suggest it should, but imagine that the SEC @ 16 got rid of the CG and limited everyone to 1 permanent opponent: Each year, split the field into 2 groups of 8, placing each team's permanent opponent in the opposite group. Have all teams play all 8 teams in the opposite group. That's it. The lone team with the most wins is the champion. I don't want to bog this particular bit down with an explanation of tiebreakers except to say that a tiebreak system would be necessary because tied in-group teams should not be considered co-champions. So, for simplicity's sake, imagine that one team finishes with more wins than all others.

That's fair because teams who do not play each other have the same opponents. All teams who play each other have an equal opportunity to win and all teams who do not play each other have an equal opportunity to outdo each other. (Well, it's as equitable as can be without staging all games at neutral sites.) It's simple, too, when there's no tie for 1st.

But if the goal is to make things as fair as possible, then complication would be at the fore with a conference CG or if teams are to have more than one permanent opponent while still being able to play all of the others on occasion. The reason for the former has to do with the imbalance between the schedules of cross-group teams and the reason for the latter has to do with the would-be imbalance between the schedules of in-group ones...

Put it this way: The reason why a team who finishes with more wins than all others in that 8-game scenario should be the champion when there is no CG is not per se because they have the most wins; it's because the number of wins they have plus the number of teams they did not play and finished ahead of (while having the same opponents) or otherwise outperformed is greater than that of any other team. That's automatic for first place when there's no tie. However, it is not automatic at any untied position between first and last.

Example: Team A has the most wins with 8. Team B has the second most wins with 7 and is in the the same group as A. Team C has the third most wins with 6 and is the top team in the other group. In this example, teams A & C finished ahead of all 7 teams they did not play and team B finished ahead of only 6 of the teams they did not play. So teams B & C are actually tied for 2nd:

1. Team A (8+7=15)
2. Team B (7+6=13)
2. Team C (6+7=13)

The team who should play team A in a CG is the winner of the head-to-head meeting between teams B & C, which of course could be C. So those indirect "wins" have to be included as points in the standings to ensure the right teams advance. Now, applying those indirect points frees teams to have more than one permanent opponent (provided pods are used) because it nullifies the problems of both imbalanced cross-group schedules and imbalanced in-group ones.

So with 4-team pods and the use of indirect points ("wins"): Sort the conference into four 4-team pods. Each year, split the field into 2 groups of 8, placing 2 of each team's 3 permanent opponents in the opposite group. Each team plays all 8 teams in the opposite group followed by their in-group annual rival. A point in the standings goes to the winner of each game, and regarding every 2 teams who do not play each other, a point in the standings goes to the one with more wins against the 8 teams in the opposite group (or the one with better stats should they tie), and just as soon as they mathematically eliminate the other.
(Tiebreakers)
https://imgur.com/K2990hs.jpg

That way a winner or "winner" is fairly determined between every 2 teams, allowing all teams to be fairly positioned in the standings despite having different schedules.

Here's a 4-year rotation in which all rotators play twice:

1 - (A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 D1 D2) vs (The Rest)
2 - (A1 A2 B1 B2 C3 C4 D3 D4) vs (The Rest)
3 - (A1 A2 B3 B4 C3 C4 D1 D2) vs (The Rest)
4 - (A1 A2 B3 B4 C1 C2 D3 D4) vs (The Rest)

Some variations:

a) 10 games with 5 permanent opponents per team involving four split 4-team pods

b) 10 games with 4 permanent opponents per team (involving four split 4-team pods) and two rotators who are played thrice per 4-year cycle instead of twice

c) 10 games with some teams having 5 permanent opponents and the others 4 (a combination of A & B)

d) 11 games with 7 permanent opponents per team involving two split 8-team pods



Of course, the SEC would never use that point system. But that type of scheduling with 9 games is still a good way to go, IMO, because it lends the schedules of unpaired teams so much commonality. Absent a lot of parity at the top or plain bad luck, the two teams who should be in the CG in this or that year probably would be.