I like this idea. Looking at this year, the conference favorite has a cakewalk of a schedule that won’t garner any respect from the national media. This would also create interest in the conference from some pundits and some of the national shows for being unique.
Independence Day: The AAC Should Break Up Divisions
This serves us a few advantages – you maximize the exposure of your league on TV and in the national consciousness by delivering good games. This year could be a great case study, as USF is poised to be an excellent team under a star quarterback yet doesn’t have anything near the marquee matchups that Houston had last season (that, at least for most of the year, boosted the Cougars into the Playoff discussion). Dynamic scheduling, at minimum, would give the Bulls three more relevant matchups this year alone.
i don’t know if your objection on no divisions hold up.
there is no rule that you can’t reorganize your divisions every year, also i don’t think there is a rule on how large those divisions need to be.
you can organize into quads based on results the previous year as suggested in the article. the best teams would play each other and then randomize the other games across the quads. so the top quad members would play everyone in the other top quad and same with the lower quads.
you can actually have two quads per division a top performing quad and a lower quad. you can use some soccer rules here. firstly, only the two top quads, one team in each division, are actually playing for a shot at the championship game. the other two quads are playing for a chance to move up. the last place team in each quad switches places with the first place team from the bottom quads, this is like relegation in soccer. this could become a very interesting format, and lead to a lot of interest in the aac.
He addressed this in the article Red. You don’t HAVE to play every team. He suggested dynamic scheduling based upon the previous year’s result to create an 7-8 game conference slate with a rivalry game added in.
So, based upon last year, Houston’s schedule would be SMU (rivalry game), Temple, USF, UCF, Navy, Tulsa, Memphis, and Cincinnati if I follow correctly.
You either break it up into two divisions, and everyone HAS to play every team in their division.
Or you get rid of divisions (like the Big 12), and everyone HAS to play everyone else. 11-game conference schedule for a 12-team league without divisions.
That’s the NCAA rule.
Assuming we keep two divisions, and rig them every year:
It makes no sense putting all your strong teams in one division, and all your weak teams in another. It guarantees a mismatch in the title game that does nothing for the resume of the better team, and provides a chance for a huge upset knocking your champ out of contention for a NY6 bid.
If you keep geographic divisons, and rig the cross division games to match strength with strength and weakness with weakness, then you almost guarantee a rematch in the title game. Plus you don’t play everyone home and home every 4 years like you do now.
The author is thinking about this all wrong. This isn’t basketball where RPI is king.
The key to making a NY6 game is having an undefeated champ. Preferably two 8-0 teams going at it in the title game.
The way to rig this is to keep geographic divisions, and match strength vs weakness in the cross division games. Of course, the weak teams would never go for it.
Red is correct in all counts. His proposal would pretty much guarantee that an AAC team would never play in a NY6 bowl game as a schedule where all the better teams play each other would make it difficult for someone to go undefeated or just one loss.
my solution solves the problems stated in yal’s arguements,
by reshuffling the divisions every year based on strength you guarantee strong games and weak games.
the divisions would be american and national
the top teams from last year temple usf memphis in a pod, navy, tulsa, houston in a pod
usf, cin, tulane a pod and smu, ecu, uconn in a pod
a top pod and a lower pod create a division.
temple, usf, mem, usf, cin, tulane american div
navy, tulsa, UH, sum, ecu, ucon. national div
all the top teams will play each other, and thier lower pod div mates for 8 games this leaves 3 non conference games
the lower pods play every team in the lower pods plus the top team in thier div.
the kicker is this, best records of the top pods from both div play in the champ game. so temple and navy in this example same as last year.
no need for the relegation concept, the only disadvantage or advantage gained is one game. bottom teams will always play 3 top teams vs 4
this would make for interesting discussion each year.
it’s really just a scheduling mechanism
you could also make sure certain teams wind up in the same div for rivalry purposes if they were in different pods ufc, usf. or houston sum, memphis cin. etc…
I think the main issue is that schools want to be assured of playing in certain locations every year more than they want to try to crash the playoffs.
UCONN would rather have a game in Florida every year rather than potentially losing out on those games. Same goes for Navy and Texas which is why Navy asked to be included in the Western division.
In the end, it sounds great to shoot for the moon, but the current system is there because all 12 schools need to be appeased.
