#25 Cincinnati has now beaten:
Alabama A&M (FCS SWAC)
Barely beat a 3-2 Ohio team at home
A 2-4 Tulane Team
A 2-4 Miami Ohio Team

But because they beat a winless UCLA team that lost 38-14 to Fresno State, they get ranked.

Now, I'm not sure that I think App State is legitimately one of the best 25 teams in the country, but that doesn't really matter. Is there really any justification for Cincinnati being ranked and not App State? I mean, is anyone going to say "sure App looks good, but I want to see how they handle an 0-5 UCLA team before I rank them"?

And don't give me that "moral victory" BS. Going to OT with a top 10 team is better than beating one of the worst P5 teams by 9, period.

BTW, I even saw one article on ESPN listing Cinci as a CFP dark horse. Are you kidding me?

Hurricane Florence probably didn't help our cause any. If we had played and beaten Southern Miss and were 5-1 instead of 4-1 we might be up there right now.

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.

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 10:17 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 10:29 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 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.

Since we've been here, StAte's been the team to beat every year. I'm not saying that someone from the West can't challenge them in the future, but it still won't change the fact that our championship game likely won't be between our two best teams.

(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.

I don't think any of this matters. I've thought for a while that you have to have a Power 5 win (even a really bad one) to have credibility with AP voters. App doesn't control their own destiny to get into the top-25, and it doesn't matter who they'd play in the SBCCG. And it won't matter that the SBC east is right on the heels of the AAC and MWC and higher than all other G5 leagues in some rankings. Based on who Cinci has played, App could beat one of the worst P5 teams there is and skip GS and Troy and get ranked.

As long as this is true, our division format isn't keeping SBC teams from getting ranked.

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.

App will be ranked in the Coaches Poll if they win their next two games. App may be the 26th team in votes this week. The AP will take time to catch up but App is bearing the teams they have played how you would expect a Top 25 team to. I still withhold judgement because we saw what happened in 2007 when App wasnt healthy and they dropped a couple of games.

(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.

Oh I see exactly where you're coming from. And it's true that with most conferences power is unevenly distributed (ACC Atlantic, SEC West, BIG10 East) but we need more than 6 games of data to determine how good a decision it ultimately is to have divisions. If stAte had been good this year or any one of the other western teams made marginal improvement this discussion wouldn't be happening. (PS Looking at you Louisiana)

(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.

EXACTLY. The Big 12 model is the only one that makes sense. With regularity the best two teams in the SEC, B1G and ACC do NOT play in the championship game because the two or three best teams in any given year are all in the same division with one another.

The problem with the Big 12 model is that it requires playing 9 conference games, which leaves one less OOC game to boost a good team’s resume

Missing a game hurts App because the voters don't see every single game. To use your example, when the voters look at the numbers they see Cinci at 6-0 and App at 4-1. Even if the wins come at the expense of terrible teams, that's basically a 2 game difference in the records. Without context, 6-0 looks a hell of a lot better than 4-1.

As for the conference divisions, being a fan I definitely prefer a round robin with the 2 best teams squaring off in December to help boost SOS resume. However, with 10 teams this throws a monkey wrench in our plans as it would require each program to lose an OOC game to play the other 9 teams in the conference. The Sun Belt is not the Big12 ($ee money) and many programs within our conference need the 4 OOC games to balance their budgets. We have several programs who play 2 A5 teams each season to pay the bills and losing an OOC game would require several teams to only play 5 home games per season on a regular basis with the 5th game most likely being either a conference game or a FCS team. This means, outside of a possible FCS team, some programs may never see another team from a different conference in the confines of their home stadium. I'm not sure how much support the new commissioner would get if this were proposed just purely based on economics.

I guess the question is: Would the potential of getting the NY6, bid which breaks down to a few hundred thousand extra per program, offset the potential loss of revenue that comes with a home gate? Obviously this scenario would greatly benefit whatever program actually made the NY6. Do we know how the Sun Belt has decided to breakdown the money ($4mil I believe) if a Fun Belt program ever makes the NY6?

(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.

What exactly has Troy done to make you think that? Was it their 5 point win against winless Nebraska (a team equally as bad as UCLA)?

Maybe both teams would beat UC but while we're bashing sos, keep in mind that neither App nor Troy boast any quality wins themselves. Personally I do think App would beat Cincy at home or on a neutral site, but playing at Nippert can be difficult. Out of curiosity are the Sun Belt and American slated for any bowl match ups this 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.

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 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)

Maybe add NMSU and try to get UTEP so that they can be travel partners, and move USA to the east

NMSU was not getting decent.

(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.

(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.

One hit wonder. Back to not being good at 2-4 without Rodgers and Rose.