Aargh wrote:A lot has changed since '05-'06. The Valley scheduled up in the non-con - and then won most of those games. In 2006, I believe InSU had a single-digit RPI going into league play.
The BCS-affiliated schools raised hell because the Valley had "tricked the RPI system". Now, the BCS-affiliated schools schedule a couple games with each other in OOC play. That solves the SoS beatdown they took in '05-'06 when they scheduled nothing but cream puffs. The Valley was knocking down road wins against top-100 RPI teams while the BCS-affiliated schools were racking up home wins over RPI 250+ schools.
When the BCS-affiliated schools were scheduling nothing but cupcakes and the Valley had a mandate to schedule high-quality OOC games, there was a window of opportunity for the Valley to have decent quality W's compared to the BCS-affiliated schools.
Now that those schools are scheduling each other, there's a winner and a loser in those games. The winner gets a big boost for the quality win, and the loser doesn't take a hit for losing to a quality opponent. The environment is different now than it was 6 or 7 years ago.
This is absolutely spot on.
The BCS has cracked the code in the reverse of the way we did. That way they can assure that the MVC, A10, and MWC stay at a 'Near High Major' Level...