Wednesday, December 3, 2014

My Vision for the FBS


Reading about UAB shutting down their football program got me to thinking about my plan for the FBS.  If we want to see college football continue at the same level it's been there need to be some changes made or we may see more programs shutting down.  Why does a program like UAB struggle.  Well all the money that's coming into the sport is crowding to the top teams, top conferences and the little guys like UAB are left out.  How can this be resolved.  Make their games worth money.

Remember when you read this that it assumes we want to keep things moving in the direction it is already moving.  Conferences are no longer regional, there is huge money on the line, etc.  Teams like UAB have floated up to the FBS level hoping to get some of that money, but to survive they have to schedule at least one big time game with guaranteed money.  This has sometimes meant things like Idaho playing in Florida.

How can we make their games worth money you say, give them their own playoff in their own time slot where they aren't competing with the top level FBS programs.  How would this work, well I'll lay it out for you.

FBS Div II

In FBS Div II the teams would play a 10 game season.  They can play one game a year against an FBS Div I opponent and one game a year against an FCS opponent.  At the end of the 10 game season each Conference would have it's championship game.  This would have occurred this year last weekend.

The 5 conference winners plus one wild card would then begin a playoff the next week, and this is where the money comes into play.  In the first week two teams would get a bye and the other four would play.  During this week the playoff games would be competing with the FBS Div I conference championship games, but still these playoff games would get picked up as part of the playoff package.  I would envision these games being played early in the day and the FBS Div I conference games getting the prime time.

The next week would be the final four with two games.  These games would have the weekend all to themselves as the FBS Div I teams would be off.  This would hopefully build interest in people to watch the previous weekend and then gin up interest for the championship game.

The championship game would then be played at night the following week as the FBS Div I playoff first round would be kicking off during the day.

If the NCAA packaged this properly for shopping around their football playoffs I believe this could amount to quite a bit of money for the FBS Div II teams and it would give them a shot at gaining a national audience.  If a team wanted to leave Div II and go to Div I this would have to be agreed upon by the conferences and the schools involved.  For a team to go up, one must come down.

This year's playoff would look something like this.

Boise State vs BYE
Marshall vs BYE
Memphis vs Georgia Southern
Northern Illinois vs Louisiana Tech


American Athletic
Memphis
Cincinnati
Central Florida
East Carolina
Houston
Temple
South Florida
Telane
Tulsa
Connecticut
SMU
Navy

Conf USA
Marshall
WKU
Army
Old Dominion
Florida Int
Florida Atl
La Tech
Rice
UTEP
UTSA
North Texas
Ball State

Mid-American
Bowling Green
Ohio
Buffalo
Akron
Umass
Miami (o)
Kent State
Northern Illi
Toledo
Western Mic
Central Mic
Eastern Mich

Mountain West
Boise State
Colorado State
Utah State
Air Force
Wyoming
New Mexico
Fresno State
San Diego State
Nevada
Hawaii
San Jose State
UNLV
Idaho
New Mexico State

Sun Belt
Georgia Southern
Louisiana-Lafayette
Appalachian St
Arkansas St
Texas State
South Alabama
Louisiana - Monroe
Troy
Georgia State
Southern Miss
Middle Tennessee
UAB



FBS Div I

In FBS Div I the teams would play an 11 game season.  They can play one game a year against an FBS Div II team.  At the end of the 11 game season each Conference would have it's championship game.  I would reduce the number of regular season games to account for an extra round of playoffs.

The playoffs would be 8 teams.  The five conference winners plus three wild cards.

If a team wanted to move down to Div II a team would need to move up.

This year's playoff would look something like this.

Alabama vs Arizona
Oregon vs Michigan State
Florida State vs TCU
Ohio State vs Baylor



ACC
FSU
Clemson
Louisville
Boston College
NC State
Syracuse
Wake Forest
Georgia Tech
Duke
North Carolina
Pittsburgh
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Miami

Big 12
Baylor
Kansas State
TCU
Oklahoma
Texas
WVU
Oklahoma State
Texas Tech
Kansas
Iowa State
Notre Dame
BYU

Big 10
Ohio State
Michigan State
Maryland
Michigan
Rutgers
Penn State
Indiana
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Nebraska
Iowa
Illinois
Northwestern
Purdue

Pac 12
Oregon
Stanford
Washington
California
Washington State
Oregon State
Arizona
Arizona State
USC
UCLA
Utah
Colorado

SEC
Missouri
Georgia Tech
Florida
South Carolina
Tennessee
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
Alabama
Mississippi State
Mississippi
Auburn
LSU
Texas A&M
Arkansas



11 comments:

  1. I was listening to ESPN Radio last night, and they were pushing hard for an 8-team playoff.

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  2. And I just want to remind everyone that WKU beat Marshall last weekend.

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    1. That was the high point of the sports weekend for me -- I was yelling at WKU to go for the two-point conversion in OT, and they did, and it worked! How great was that?

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  3. Incidentally, if we're rolling to this, I want to see the five conferences in each division busted into eight divisions in two conferences, with only divisional champions' advancing to the national tournaments.

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  4. Personally, I want to bring back the Big 8 and the Southwest Conference.

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  5. And I'd like to send South Carolina to the ACC in exchange for Georgia Tech.

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  6. And since Missouri would be back in the Big 8, and Arkansas and Texas A & M would be back in the SWC, I would bring Tulane back into the SEC as a 12th member:

    EAST:
    Florida
    Georgia
    Georgia Tech
    Kentucky
    Tennessee
    Vanderbilt

    WEST
    Alabama
    Auburn
    LSU
    Mississippi
    Mississippi St.
    Tulane

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  7. Since West Virginia is out of the Big XII, we would create a new conference consisting of WVU, UConn, Syracuse, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, and Boston College. This conference would be called the Eastern 7, and Notre Dame would be a member in all sports other than football.

    Meanwhile, Maryland would go back to the ACC, and BYU would replace Colorado in the Pac 12.

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  8. OK, this is looking good. Who are the eight division champions?

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  9. I would also abolish the NFC South and the AFC South. Here's what would happen to those teams:

    1. The Colts would go into the AFC East.
    2. The Texans would become the Oilers and join the AFC North, which we would rename the Central.
    3. The Titans would be abolished.
    4. So would the Jaguars.
    5. The Falcons and Saints would go into the NFC West, while the Seahawks would move into the AFC West and the Cardinals would go into the NFC East.
    6. The Panthers would be abolished.
    7. The Buccaneers would not belong to any division, but would be an independent, sort of like Notre Dame. They would play all their games on Thursday night, unless they were in London, because they would also participate in all the London games. They could only enter the playoffs if they won at least 11 games, and a majority of fans participating in an online poll voted to let them in the playoffs.
    8. If the fans agreed to let Tampa Bay in the playoffs, then the fans would also decide which conference Tampa Bay would represent, and what seed it would have.
    9. Any playoff game involving Tampa Bay would be shown on ESPN, and Chris Berman would do the play-by-play, with Mike and Mike providing commentary.

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  10. you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together in the SEC, although it would be nice.

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