[Husker] Big Ten Scheduling

[Don Rietsch]

Is there anyone else on this list that finds this whole conference expansion
business unseemly?  The dollar rules; I totally get that.  But, it doesn't
always have to be that way.  I was very unhappy when we left the B12 and
joined the B10.  We flushed all those rivalries and traditions down the
toilet.  We sold our souls for 6 pieces of silver.  My family (SW NE
farmers) no longer attends away games because of the distance.  They used to
drive to Ames, Bolder, Manhattan, OK, TX, OSU, and Missouri.  Now they have
to fly if they want to attend any away games.  Maryland and Rutgers, give me
a break.  How many of these fans who don't even attend their home games will
make the trip to NE?  We should have stopped whining about how poorly we
were treated by TX+, manned up and stayed with tradition.  It doesn't matter
how much money NU brings in, all of it will get spent anyway.  That's the
way Gov. institutions work.  Hypothetically, a new conference could offer NU
a billion dollars just to move and before you could say "Obamacare" the
money would be gone.  If we are doing it for the increase in viewing
audience, why not add a couple of teams from the west coast?  What about the
SE or south?  Why not Texaz and Oklahoma?  They have a big following.  Heck,
why not put all the 100+ major college teams in a single conference?  That
would bring in Bazillions of dollars wouldn't it?  We could call it the
Division 1 conference.

Yeah, it's 9:00 and you can see by my post that I'm cranky...  I long for
the good old days on the farm when my dad and I would soak some corn cobs in
kerosene and light them on fire under our old Chevy truck engine to warm the
oil up so it would start when it was 20 below.  

Drietsch

 
-----Original Message-----
From: husker-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:husker-bounces at tssi.com] On Behalf Of
RJ Wessel
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2012 7:21 PM
To: Agris Taurins
Cc: huskers
Subject: Re: [Husker] Big Ten Scheduling

Well said and all true

---- Agris Taurins <taurins at scifipenguin.com> wrote: 

=============
Everyone seems to be glossing over a factor that I think will weigh heavily
on the minds of most ADs.  They're not generally looking for "best match
ups" or "divisional parity".  They're looking for $$$.  And for most
power-house football programs that means a minimum of 7 home games a year.
With a 9 game conference schedule (regardless of how you work up various
divisions) you're looking at years where the conference schedule will only
give you 4 home games.  In those years it will be absolutely imparative for
ADs to schedule teams that don't insist on a home-and-home arrangement.  In
other words, "powerpuff" games.  Even though the new 4 team playoff format
will start to factor in strength of schedule more, the chance that you're
going to be the number 5 team, on the bubble, hoping your SOS is good enough
to vault you into that playoff game isn't going to be persuasive enough to
negate the guaranteed 6, 7, 8, 9 million you're pocket from an additional
home game.

If your argument is that the new expanded league will generate additional
broadcast money, that means that the new contract will need at least in the
neighborhood of $50 million just to "break even" for the schools that might
lose that additional home game.  Honestly, I think some of these cable deals
are reaching towards their upper bounds of what networks/broadcasters/cable
systems are willing to pay.  Now some marketing genius might prove me wrong
but...*shrug*

And the more we start talking about play-off, quarter finals, divisional
playoffs or what have you, the chance that the NCAA would allow schools to
expand their schedule to lock in the extra home games will be either slim or
none.  I'd bet on the "none".




On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Steve Schmadeke
<husker at schmadeke.com>wrote:

>
> There are two big downsides of a 3+2+2+2 schedule.
>
> The first is that, despite a nine-game conference schedule, two teams 
> in the same division are guaranteed to have no more than one 
> head-to-head match and just two common opponents.  They could have as 
> many as six conference games that are not scheduled against a conference
opponent.
>
> An even bigger problem with the 3+2+2+2 schedule is that the only 
> teams you are guaranteed to play every year are the three teams in your
division.
>  Therefore, if you want to preserve the traditional rivalries, you 
> would have to place the teams in the same division, which would then 
> preclude those teams from appearing in the championship game(s) against
each other.
>  The Big Ten already made it clear they weren't going to do that with 
> the Michigan-Ohio State matchup.
>
> To resolve those two problems -- and to also help increase the number 
> of easily marketable games in the inventory, which is one of the main 
> purposes of the expansion -- you can tweak the formula to a 3+4+1+1.  
> Each team has a designated traditional opponent in each of the other 
> three divisions that they play each year.  Each team also plays the 
> other three teams in the division each year and, finally, each 
> division is matched up against one of the other three divisions each 
> year, with the divisional matchups rotating the same way of the conference
games in the NFL.
>
> That results in a nine-game schedule where you play the other three 
> teams in your division and your other three designated opponents every 
> year and you play the once every three years (or twice every six years).
>  Furthermore, only two of the nine conference opponents will not be 
> shared with the other teams in the same division, so that the quirks 
> of the scheduling rotation won't have the huge impact that they could 
> have in the
> 3+2+2+2 scheme.
>
> As for game inventory, this frees up the conference to scatter the 
> big-name schools evenly across the four divisions, but still have 
> those teams play each other every year with the intent to fill those 
> prime-time slots.  For example, Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska and 
> Penn State could be the headliner in separate divisions and each of 
> them could be the designated opponents of each other so that they all 
> play each other every year.  (Which would mean that if those teams all 
> retain their long-term success, they would always have a slightly 
> harder schedule than their fellow division mates, but it certainly 
> helps Delaney's inventory.) It's relatively easy to fill in the rest 
> of those divisions with the other opponents for games that must be
preserved on an annual basis (e.g.
> Michigan-Michigan State).
>
> Oh yes, it also means that there is no need to create a semi-final.  
> Each pair of quadrants constitutes a division for that year and it is 
> impossible for more than one team from each division to run the table.  
> Furthermore, each team will have played each other and will have seven 
> head-to-head or common games with anybody they might be tied with in 
> the standings, so we probably won't have to rely on the dreaded "Highest
BCS Ranking"
> tie-breaker.
>
> One possible setup:
>
> Nebraska
> Iowa
> Wisconsin
> Minnesota
>
> Michigan
> Michigan State
> Northwestern
> Illinois
>
> Ohio State
> Purdue
> Indiana
> Team #15
>
> Penn State
> Rutgers
> Maryland
> Team #16
>
> (I suppose in this setup, the Michigan-Minnesota rivalry would 
> probably take priority over a potential Michigan-Nebraska game on an
annual basis.
>  Both games could be preserved on an annual basis by swapping the 
> Wisconsin-Minnesota pair for the Northwestern-Illinois pair, but that 
> would probably leave the resulting Michigan-Michigan 
> State-Wisconsin-Minnesota group a bit too top-heavy based on 
> historical performance.)
>
> One last side note, it has been traditional to rotate the opponents in 
> a scheme where you play each of your rotating opponents home-and-home 
> in consecutive years and then you have to wait twice as long for that 
> team to rotate back on your schedule.  I would prefer that the games 
> be spread out more evenly so that you don't have to wait for an entire 
> graduating class to go by before you match up with a team.  By 
> rotating the quadrants each year, NFL-style, you would end up playing 
> your non-designated opponents in the other divisions once every three 
> years, with each of those teams coming to your stadium once every six 
> years.  This would also lesson the effects if two divisions 
> temporarily become top-heavy while the other two divisions are weaker.  
> At most, you would have one year when the two top-heavy divisions are 
> matched together fighting for the same slot in the title game.  The 
> next year they would be split apart.  By the time they get paired 
> together again three years lat  er, the strengths might have evened out.
>
>
> On Nov 29, 2012, at 9:19 PM, Mike Nolan <nolan at tssi.com> wrote:
>
> >> I can see it divided into 4 - 4 team divisions. You would play the 
> >> 3
> other teams in your division every season and the 2 from the other 3 
> divisions. That gives a 9 game conference schedule.  I can't see 
> anyone wanting more than that and still do a meaningful out of confernce
game.
> >
> > I thought of the 3+2+2+2 9 game conference schedule, too.  That has 
> > the advantage that you would play all non-division teams twice every 4
years.
> >
> >> The down side is there is always that chance of 4 undefeated teams 
> >> then
> and how to tie break those
> >
> > The best way to deal with it is to have semi-final games.  If 
> > Division 1
> FCS and
> > the lower divisions can handle multi-round playoffs, Division 1 FBS 
> > can
> too.
> > (And think of the additional money it would bring in.)
> >
> > Anybody want to set up a pool on which conference approaches the 
> > NCAA with this idea first?
> > --
> > Mike Nolan
>
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