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Ideal conference size

BryceC

BryceC

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2006
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Since everybody is throwing everything around here, and we're talking about adding, mergers, etc. I really like the 10 team league for football. I think it's awesome. That said, since I like that so much, wouldn't it make sense to add enough PAC schools to get to 20 teams now? Just have 2 divisions of 10, and then the winners of those divisions play in the Big 12 championship? It'd be like old school baseball where the AL and NL didn't play until the championship. I'll hang up and listen.
 
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BryceC said:
Since everybody is throwing everything around here, and we're talking about adding, mergers, etc. I really like the 10 team league for football. I think it's awesome. That said, since I like that so much, wouldn't it make sense to add enough PAC schools to get to 20 teams now? Just have 2 divisions of 10, and then the winners of those divisions play in the Big 12 championship? It'd be like old school baseball where the AL and NL didn't play until the championship. I'll hang up and listen.
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Kids HS is in the TIC conference. They have the east and west. Outside of wrestling which is all together, no one considers it one conference. It’s just teams who used to be in your conference that are no longer and you play once in awhile. If it becomes unbalanced like the big ten you could see one side wanting to split off and pull in other teams.
 
I think it's 16. No divisions, 2 permanent rivals, then rotate 3 in and out every year.

Basically flipping 3 every year rather than all 6.
Year 1 group A 3 home, group B 3 away
Year 2 group C 3 home group A 3 away
Year 3 Group D 3 home group C 3 away
Year 4 Group B 3 home group D 3 away
 
I love the 10 teams and round robin thing. However, there is now way too much money at stake and those days are gone.
Sadly, I think rivalries will become less important with so many teams to play. Of course, we will now start to get the arguments of this year's "Fake ID" of the conference due to scheduling.... or in Iowa City it's called "just a normal year."
 
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I would agree 10 is the ideal if there is a strong geographic basis. I like the idea of fans being able to travel to road games.

But with modern conferences, schools are spread out. What % of Cyclone fans have been to West Virginia or Lubbock. Heck even Texas or TCU. So I don't feel modern conferences necessitate playing the same schools every year.

If the Big12 becomes a super conference- I go for a hybrid. I am not a fan of the ACC model of playing 3 consistent teams, I go more. I would have 5-6 consistent rivals on the schedule every year and then have 3-4 rotating games. Who knows, if we end up with 2-3 Super Conferences on competing TV Networks do we see fewer inter-conference. Does a 10 game conference schedule become the norm and then schools will try to play a G5 type and FCS level school to act as warm-ups.

One other aspect of scheduling that gets overlooked in college is equalizing the SOS. As we move to super-conferences it will be important to try to create schedule parity so that schools can be evaluated fairly for Playoff selection. There is no way to guarantee a level playing field- but at least there must be an effort when schedules are created.
 
isutrevman said:
The ideal size was 10, and we'll probably never see it again after this year.

Round robin football schedule, double round robin basketball schedule.
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I'd agree, but with the caveat of a well governed overall body of enforcement. The NCAA utterly failed at their job, thus allowing the super conferences to seize control. Now, this likely was a planned coup by the SEC of which the B1G is now following. But, eventually, collective bargaining and all other things associated with 'ownership' will have to be implemented. When I heard Fox has 51% of the B1G board and we know ESPN's influence, it clearly is an 'ownership'. I'm shocked the government hasn't stepped in. Look for that to happen within 10 years.
Some of you may recall I was posting to 'brand' Iowa State more as the 'Cyclones' disassociating the University aspect of it. While very premature, in 10 years that re-branding may very well entice a wider net of audience. Don't get me wrong. I love everything about Iowa State. But, in the new formation of college football, for the sustainment of $$$ it's best to brand for a wider audience.
 
Basically agree with everyone else here. 10 is best, but if we have to have more than that 16 is the best divisible number. For football you can do a 3-6-6 schedule, with 3 permanent rivals and rotate the other schools every other year. For basketball can do a 3-3-12 (18 total) schedule where you have a home-home with your 3 permanent rivals and play every other team once.

Also 16 lends itself to a 4 round conference championship basketball tournament with no byes.
 
Jkclone15 said:
Basically agree with everyone else here. 10 is best, but if we have to have more than that 16 is the best divisible number. For football you can do a 3-6-6 schedule, with 3 permanent rivals and rotate the other schools every other year. For basketball can do a 3-3-12 (18 total) schedule where you have a home-home with your 3 permanent rivals and play every other team once.

Also 16 lends itself to a 4 round conference championship basketball tournament with no byes.
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16 also gets 4 even divisions and an in-conference football playoff to decide the champion.

Because college kids really need to play an 18 game schedule.....for their own good.
 
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I think in a perfect world we have no conferences. We have one National Collegiate Football League with regional divisions of five teams.
 
16, 4 pods of 4. Works perfectly for the SEC/B10 now. Each pod winner gets a playoff berth, take 3 other wild cards from each conference, so 7 teams from each. Top team in each conference gets a first round bye. Play all the games on campus until the championship game.
 
Conferences need to go away for football and scheduling is centralized for a group of around ~50 college football teams. Every team has two protected rivalry games, each team schedules one game a year outside those ~50 teams, and the other nine games are centrally scheduled. Then at the end of the regular season there is a 16 team playoff.
 
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The Big 12 fell into 10 but even in years where the conference wasn't that strong, round robin was way better than any of the watered down conferences.
 
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I say trash the entire conference deal and have a flex schedule worked into a longer playoff system. Scheduling would be tougher because there would be home and away issues the way the games played out, but you'd have some good games. Kind of like a wrestling round robin.
 
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NorthCyd said:
I think in a perfect world we have no conferences. We have one National Collegiate Football League with regional divisions of five teams.
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I think that generates the most $ and interest too.

The driving force is never about making $.

The driving force is the exact same people want to make the most $ for just them.

If it was about maximizing money for everybody we wouldn’t have had no playoff for 100 years and a 2 team playoff for 15 years.
 
madguy30 said:
The Big 12 fell into 10 but even in years where the conference wasn't that strong, round robin was way better than any of the watered down conferences.
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I feel like we got no credit anyway in the many years our teams SOS were generally #1 in nation. About half of the time our schedules were as tough as even SEC and almost always tougher than big ten. (Talking fb)

In basketball our schedules have been on another planet compared to other leagues and still will be in new version.

None of that got us anywhere as a conference. The media ignored it or outright lied about it or were so stupid they couldn’t understand we had 4 or 5 less teams so we didn’t need the most bowl teams or most ncaa teams to be deepest conference.

I think growing our # past ten can only help fight that willful ignorance.
 
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KennyPratt42 said:
Conferences need to go away for football and scheduling is centralized for a group of around ~50 college football teams. Every team has two protected rivalry games, each team schedules one game a year outside those ~50 teams, and the other nine games are centrally scheduled. Then at the end of the regular season there is a 16 team playoff.
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This makes the most sense. The losers in the current madness are all other sports. The USC tennis team has to be pumped for the road matches at Rutgers and Maryland.

Football needs to be its own thing and all other sports need to return to geographic sense. Hell, ISU should play teams like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri and Nebraska in non-revenue sports. The core fans are friends and family. Make it easier for them to attend.
 
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