BCS conferences leaving NCAA?

[CaseyGarrisonforPrez]

I don't have a dog in the BCS vs. non-BCS football fight but I will say that one big (VERY BIG) reason for the enormous lack of balance is that BCS teams won't go on the road to non-BCS team schools. Maybe they don't need to go on the road, but when games have been played on neutral sites (mainly in bowl games), the balance is better. Now you are going to say that there is no reason to go on the road if you are a BCS conference team, and you are right but this does enter into the deck being stacked against non-BCS teams. Now I will agree too that there have been only a few non-BCS teams who could legitimately compete well. The lower BCS teams in each conference are teams that some of these non-BCS teams could be competitive with on a year in year out basis if H/H games would be played.

There are quite a few 2 for 1s and home in homes in college football. A lot of mid tier and lower tier BCS teams go play on the road against MAC teams, CUSA teams, stuff like that. There are more of these games than you might realize. Overall there is significant gap in my opinion.

[rlh04d]

I don't have a dog in the BCS vs. non-BCS football fight but I will say that one big (VERY BIG) reason for the enormous lack of balance is that BCS teams won't go on the road to non-BCS team schools. Maybe they don't need to go on the road, but when games have been played on neutral sites (mainly in bowl games), the balance is better. Now you are going to say that there is no reason to go on the road if you are a BCS conference team, and you are right but this does enter into the deck being stacked against non-BCS teams. Now I will agree too that there have been only a few non-BCS teams who could legitimately compete well. The lower BCS teams in each conference are teams that some of these non-BCS teams could be competitive with on a year in year out basis if H/H games would be played.

That's a fair point.

However, you're wrong on bowl games. I'll post the stats if you're interested, but only the MWC has proven to be competitive in bowl games. The other four conferences are similar to the stats I already posted above.

For instance, the MAC was lauded as having the best year in conference history and had I think seven teams go to bowl games -- but they were 2-5 in those bowl games, including 0-1 against BCS teams.

[Mikovio]

I know I said I wouldn't respond but I felt I had to clear a couple things up.

You absolutely are cherrypicking. You're choosing what stats are relevant and what aren't. I'm giving data from every conference over four seasons, and you're just looking at a couple of teams from one season. How is that NOT cherrypicking? You can make any argument in the world using that kind of logic.

What all-time records are you talking about? I gave records from 2009-2012 ... that's the last four seasons. I think UMass is the only team that has joined the MAC during that time frame, and their numbers were not included prior to their joining the conference.

Why four seasons then? I assume because it's because that timeframe is the most convenient.

The rosters and coaches in the MAC four seasons ago were entirely different (sans a few redshirt seniors and Frank Solich). And facilities were way behind. NIU was just finishing up the Yordon Center training facility and was years away from breaking ground on the IPF. Ohio is just now in the middle of its IPF construction. Recruiting then was on a lower level.

I was talking about the FCS record you brought out.

We have different definitions of impressive wins, if you're including Kansas, Tennessee, South Florida, etc. in that list. As for being ranked ... beating a 5-7 Utah team was Utah State's only BCS win. UNI's was over a 1-11 Kansas squad. San Jose's biggest game would have been a three point loss to Stanford. Fresno State was not ranked, but if they were, their only BCS win would have been over a 1-11 Colorado team. Tulsa did not have a win over a BCS team. How much does being ranked matter if it only means you nearly ran the table in Conference USA, which has gone 14-82 against BCSteams in the last four seasons? Being ranked doesn't mean they're good teams -- it means they're better than the teams they've played, to the extent of 10-11 wins. If they're not beating any good teams, how relevant are their rankings?

Talking about a non-AQ's BCS win in a given season as its "only" BCS win is a little silly when they only play 2, maybe 3 per year. They don't play enough "good" teams week in and week out to pad the resume.

By just about any metric the good non-AQs would be competitive in BCS leagues (and that's all I'm saying). Human polls are supposed to take into account the level of competition-- and if you look at how long it takes for winning non-AQs to start getting votes it would seem that they do-- but if you don't trust them, look at the computer polls. Massey (a composite of all the computer rankings) says Utah State was 16th last year, ahead of Texas, Nebraska, OK State and Michigan. San Jose State was 22nd, ahead of Baylor, Big East Champ Louisville and Vandy. Boise was 26th and NIU was 27th, ahead of B10 champ Wisconsin, Penn State and Michigan State. Go down the list and you see Tulsa, Arkansas State, LA Tech and Kent ahead of dozens of the BCS big boys.

http://masseyratings.com/cf/arch/compare2012-15.htm

Look at the USA Today countdown for this season written by the widely-respected Paul Myerberg. He's at 34 right now, and Fresno, Boise, Tulsa and NIU still haven't appeared. But he's got them ahead of most of the BCS.

http://www.usatoday.com/topic/980e11db- ... countdown/


Again, I'll point out what a big deal home field is in college football. It's generally considered to be worth 6 points.

I'll use NIU as an example because that's what I'm most familiar with. NIU has a 3 game win streak vs AQ teams at Huskie Stadium, including a Ralph Friedgen coached Maryland team that was ranked at the time and finished 2nd in the ACC. Among their road losses the last few years have been:

-1 point loss to Iowa at a neutral field in 2012,
-3 point loss @ Kansas in 2011,
-6 point loss @ Illinois in 2010,
-8 point loss @ Wisconsin in 2009,
-4 point loss @ Minnesota in 2008,
-4 point loss @ Tennessee in 2008,
-1 point loss @ Northwestern in 2005,
-3 point loss @ Maryland in 2004,
-7 point loss @ Iowa St in 2004,
-3 point loss @ Wisconsin in 2002,
-5 point loss @ Illinois in 2001 (the year they won the B1G).

If NIU played all these games at home, according to oddsmakers they would have won 8, and taken the Illini to overtime in 2010 (which I'll just count as a loss for the sake of argument). So instead of just 7 wins, for a 7-17 record, they would have 15 wins, for a 15-9 record.


Of the 28 games played by the MAC against AQ teams in 2012, 7 were played in MAC stadiums. What is the record of those home games? 4-3. One of the home losses was by UMass, a provisional member in transition from FCS. Among the road losses were a 1 point loss to Iowa, an OT loss to Arizona, a 13 point loss to Florida (which was tied in the 3Q), a 5 point loss to Minnesota, and a 7 point loss to UCONN.

If they were all played at MAC home stadiums (ie, the advantage AQ schools enjoy), the MAC record would have been 11-17 according to oddsmakers. And the 17 losses includes 4 losses by FCS-transition UMass, so it's an 11-13 record for the core MAC membership.

That's competitive.

The MAC schools are not catching up facility-wise. Revenue wise, every BCS squad in the sport is making $20 million a year plus in TV money that MAC schools are not getting. The revenue gap is too wide to ever think you'll realistically catch up in facilities.

Yes there's a revenue gap but what I'm saying is that the facilities at most MAC schools were non-existent 10 years ago. NIU would practice for a bowl game in the snow or rent out the small DeKalb rec center. They've gone from shameful to presentable. Now, the Alabamas and Oregons of the world have gone from nice to nicer, with antigravity underwater treadmills or what have you, and spent millions to do it, but the point is that nobody can point at most MAC schools any longer and say they don't have the basic necessities. The bells and whistles race's impact is marginal in comparison.

None of what you're saying is based on anything quantifiable.

This from the guy who argues that nobody wants to watch NIU in the Orange Bowl even though data shows that the ratings were up.

You can't compare Kent State to Kansas or Washington State, either. Kent State made a little over $5 million in 2012 from football revenue. Washington State made nearly $18 million.

Money doesn't buy good football, otherwise Kent wouldn't be 46th in Massey and Washington State 94th.

And UNI only crossed the 50 yard line once in the first half with only two plays of 10 yards or more. An incredible, dancing sideline 55 yard catch and run was nearly the only offense UNI had the entire game. FSU had nearly 300 more offensive yards. That gap is more than UNI had altogether. Most of UNI's offense came from trick plays, fourth down plays, and a successful on-side kick.

Lynch had receivers open but wasn't hitting them regularly. Anyway, the defense was doing its job. Even after Lynch threw the pick late in the 3Q, the NIU defense would have held Florida State to a 3 and out, but linebacker Jamaal Bass got flagged for a late hit that extended the FSU drive that put the game away.

Those are relevant points. For the record, I'm not including Boise State in any of my comments. I think Boise State is a great team.

But Boise State wasn't Boise State before it was Boise State. In other words, it was a former community college about a decade removed from I-AA and loaded with 2 star recruits at the time of that Fiesta Bowl. It wasn't much different than most of the non-AQs and you would have called it non-competitive at the time. Even today, they're not recruiting 4 and 5 star players and still go toe to toe with the big boys. If you paint with a broad brush and swipe away all the non AQs to D2, you won't get the classic games that capture the public's imagination like Boise did.

And the Orange Bowl had a 6.1 rating nationally, or just barely behind the Florida-Louisville Sugar Bowl at 6.2. And last year's Orange Bowl between West Virginia and Clemson was a 4.5, so with UNI the OB actually had a 44% ratings boost over that all-AQ game everyone wanted to watch.

Florida State has some of the best ratings of any college football program. Bowl games with FSU almost always significantly beat the ratings of the same Bowl game from the year before without them. If you think the difference in ratings is due to UNI rather than FSU ... that's not even worth debating.

WSJ article from 2010 (before FSU became good again) marking FSU as the program that generates the second largest increase in bowl viewership, only behind USC: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 72488.html

Let me get this straight. NIU killed the ratings for the Orange Bowl, but ratings were up 44%, but this is all due to Florida State's incredible popularity, and in reality I'm supposed to believe it's actually NIU's fault that the ratings were only up 44% and not up 500%?

So you think NIU was a ratings killer for the Orange Bowl but don't have any evidence at all. Great.

I think SOME of the other teams in the MAC, WAC, MWC, etc. are quality teams -- I think UNI would have been a decent team in the ACC and probably made a bowl game with 7 or 8 wins. But I think the gap between the average BCS team and the average non-BCS FBS team is so wide that it's laughable.

I think that's reasonable. The non-AQs have some god awful teams that should be in FCS (Eastern Michigan, New Mexico, Idaho, Akron), but their top teams would generally be competitive in BCS leagues. If you look at Myerberg's rankings, the MAC has 3 of the bottom 8, and 6 of the bottom 27. But it also has 5 of the top 52, which tells you (in his opinion anyhow) they wouldn't finish last or even close to last in BCS leagues. This lack of parity exists in the big conferences too. In fact, those 5 MAC teams (in the top 52) are all rated ahead of 6 SEC teams (ie 53 or lower), so you could say 5 in the MAC would be middle of the pack in the SEC.

We'll see if the MAC will regress back this season. I don't think so but I've been wrong a couple times before.

[unipanther99]

I just want to point out that when referring to the Huskies, it might be best to spell out Northern Illinois, as using their abbreviation automatically corrects to UNI (do to a problem a few years back of some posters intentionally referring to the Panthers using the abbreviation for Northern Illinois University).

Not a big deal, it's just a little confusing.

[Redbird Recon]

Not a big deal, it's just a little confusing.

I've seen UNI called NIU far too often, but rarely do I see it the other way.

[rlh04d]

Why four seasons then? I assume because it's because that timeframe is the most convenient.

It is the timeframe that is the most convenient. I didn't see any reason to go back any farther. I'll happily let you define the timeframe that YOU consider relevant, as long as it isn't strictly the 2012-13 season. Again, one year is not a trend, it's a statistical anomaly until proven otherwise.

I'll use whatever timeframe you like. All time, the MAC is 109-542 against the BCS conferences, or 16.7%. Want to add the 2008 season? 5-14 against the BCS.

Why four seasons? It's an arbitrary time frame that is long enough to be indicative of a trend but not so far back that it's going to take me hours to prove you wrong. If you'd like another time frame, define it. You and I both know the numbers aren't going to magically get better no matter what time frame you choose.

Fair point on the FCS, though. I forgot about that.

Talking about a non-AQ's BCS win in a given season as its "only" BCS win is a little silly when they only play 2, maybe 3 per year. They don't play enough "good" teams week in and week out to pad the resume.

I'm not saying it's fair. I'm saying that if you don't play any good teams, your record isn't actually indicative of you being a good team. If Kent State goes undefeated, they're not better than Alabama because they had one loss. Kent State doesn't play good teams. It's absolutely not fair that they're being measured on the same plane as the big boys without being given an equal shot to compete with them ... but that's part of the problem.

As for your points about statistical measures, I prefer F/+ as far as advanced metrics go. And yes, Northern Illinois was ranked #33 nationally in that measure ... that's a good measure. It's not the measure of a BCS bowl team, or even really of a ranked team, but a good measure. They were better than a lot of BCS teams. But it's not about what the good teams are like. It's about what the conference as a whole is like. And while Northern Illinois was #33, and Kent State was #48, the MAC as a whole averaged 80.7 in their best season in conference history. The ACC, generally seen as the second weakest of the BCS conferences, and in a year that completely lacked depth, averaged 61.5. Hell, the Big East last year averaged 49.9. Meanwhile, the SEC averaged 41.5. It's a pretty significant gap between the MAC and all of the BCS conferences when you average the teams out.

As for the computer ratings -- I don't like the computers. However, the numbers don't really change. the MAC's average actually falls to 81.7 going by the Massey composite. The ACC's rises slightly to 61.3. Still a 20 point average difference in a 124 team ranking.

By just about any metric the good non-AQs would be competitive in BCS leagues (and that's all I'm saying).

I'm not denying that. There are good non-AQ teams every year that would be competitive in BCS leagues. I haven't denied that at any point. What I'm denying is the idea that it's worth having them in the same division as the BCS teams because for every one team that CAN compete, there are five teams that can NOT compete. If we could simply grab all of the best teams from each of the minor FBS conferences and create one new conference with them, I would be absolutely find with keeping that conference in the same category as the BCS conferences. What I'm not find with is having five bad conferences pretending that they're competing at the same playing field as the BCS conferences because each of those conferences has two or three teams that would be competitive against those teams.

Again, I'll point out what a big deal home field is in college football. It's generally considered to be worth 6 points.

Absolutely a fair point.

Again, though, you're cherry picking by just looking at UNI.

Plus, of those seven games Northern Illinois theoretically would have won (which I'll give you for the sake of argument, but is pretty flimsy taking a Vegas idea and assuming that changes the outcome of games), Iowa in 2012 won 4 games. Kansas in 2011 won 2. Minnesota in 2008 won 7 games. Tennessee in 2008 won 5. Northwestern in 2005 won 7. Maryland in 2004 won 5. Wisconsin in 2002 did win 8, but went 2-6 in the B1G. Illinois in 2001 was the only good team you listed.

the point is that nobody can point at most MAC schools any longer and say they don't have the basic necessities. The bells and whistles race's impact is marginal in comparison.

You went from saying that the MAC was quickly catching up and amended that to saying the MAC "has the basic necessities." That's an interesting correction.

This from the guy who argues that nobody wants to watch UNI in the Orange Bowl even though data shows that the ratings were up.

This from the guy who is trying to claim all of the Orange Bowl's ratings due to Northern Illinois rather than to Florida State, a team I did give you quantifiable evidence of their impact on bowl game ratings.

You also failed to mention that the 2012 Orange Bowl, the one you're using as a baseline comparison, was the lowest rated BCS bowl game in HISTORY. The West Virginia/Clemson game was down 45% from the OB game the year prior. So when you're arguing that it jumped 44% when UNI played in it -- that isn't impressive. That's still lower than the year before. And that's with Florida State, which I have given you quantifiable evidence already of being the second biggest TV ratings draw of any bowl team.

So did you leave that little stat off because you're being deliberately deceptive or just because you didn't know? http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... gBymo2ThTk

Let me get this straight. UNI killed the ratings for the Orange Bowl, but ratings were up 44%, but this is all due to Florida State's incredible popularity, and in reality I'm supposed to believe it's actually UNI's fault that the ratings were only up 44% and not up 500%?

So you think UNI was a ratings killer for the Orange Bowl but don't have any evidence at all. Great.

You want quantifiable data? Fine. I've given you the link that already states that FSU is worth a 22.6% viewship increase. Let's look at some Orange Bowl ratings:

2013: 6.5 (I don't know where you're getting the 6.1 number from).
2012: 4.5
2011: 7.1
2010: 6.8
2009: 5.4
2008: 7.4
2007: 7.0

That's an average Nielsen rating of 6.39 over the last 7 seasons. The 2013 OB was slightly above average -- however, if FSU is single handedly responsible for a 22.6% increase on average, that would have been an extra 1.44 Nielsen rating, or an estimated 7.83 Nielsen rating with FSU involved. Thus, Northern Illinois' participation in the Orange Bowl was actually a decrease of 1.33.

Oh, and FSU's non-National Championship Orange Bowl ratings? 2004, 9.1; 2006, 12.2. A 6.5 rating for a BCS bowl game involving Florida State is terrible. A 6.5 is something you get to brag about as a Northern Illinois fan ... a 6.5 rating in a BCS bowl is damn awful to me as a Florida State fan. That's not that much better than we had in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl in 2010 when we were ranked #23 and playing a #19 South Carolina team. 6.5 is nothing to be happy with.

How much more quantifiable would you like me to be?

Money doesn't buy good football, otherwise Kent wouldn't be 46th in Massey and Washington State 94th.

Money does buy good football. Easier to argue otherwise when you cherry pick one team in one year, but the PAC12 is clearly a better conference than the MAC, and it isn't even worth debating. As for Kent State, good on them for winning 11 games. Too bad they won 5 the year before. And 5 the year before that. Oh, and 5 the year before that. 4 before that. 3 before that. 6 before that. You think that's a good football team? That's a flash in the pan that had one good season when the stars lined up. That's an average of 5.6 wins a year over the last seven seasons. Washington State is worse, but they're the worst team in the PAC, while you're using Kent State as an example of one of the best teams in the MAC. And Washington State has to play the PAC-12 teams, while Kent State plays MAC teams.

Lynch had receivers open but wasn't hitting them regularly. Anyway, the defense was doing its job. Even after Lynch threw the pick late in the 3Q, the UNI defense would have held Florida State to a 3 and out, but linebacker Jamaal Bass got flagged for a late hit that extended the FSU drive that put the game away.

Lot of excuses for a 300+ yard offensive difference that you think was somehow closer than the final score indicated >=)

But Boise State wasn't Boise State before it was Boise State. In other words, it was a former community college about a decade removed from I-AA and loaded with 2 star recruits at the time of that Fiesta Bowl. It wasn't much different than most of the non-AQs and you would have called it non-competitive at the time. Even today, they're not recruiting 4 and 5 star players and still go toe to toe with the big boys. If you paint with a broad brush and swipe away all the non AQs to D2, you won't get the classic games that capture the public's imagination like Boise did.

For every classic game that you would lose you'd also lose dozens and dozens of games that no one cares about.

I would hate to lose Boise State -- but is keeping 50+ bad teams in the FBS worth having Boise State and maybe five other nationally competitive teams?

I'd prefer if Boise State and the handful of other nationally competitive teams were able to form together into a new conference -- but even then, where would you draw the line? Last season? Kent State would be in, even though they've barely averaged more than 5 wins over the last 7 seasons. No matter what measure you took, you'd be leaving off some teams that will have a good year at some point in the future. Just like there are a number of FCS teams that would probably have a year here and there that would make them competitive in the FBS -- they just don't get the chance to prove it. You have to draw the line somewhere, and someone's going to get left out regardless. You're on the right side of it right now, but that doesn't mean that's fair -- there's no way to prove that the FCS national champion isn't good enough to compete in the FBS that year.

But it also has 5 of the top 52, which tells you (in his opinion anyhow) they wouldn't finish last or even close to last in BCS leagues.

Myerberg might be respected, but that's opinion. He almost never correctly predicts national champions, so his opinion in the prediction of a coming season is a bit flimsy. If you'd like to look at the computer ratings that you yourself linked to, you only had two teams last season in the top 52: Northern Illinois and Kent State. That's a hell of a jump to five this season.

Meanwhile, Tennessee at #62 would apparently be the fourth best team in the MAC, and they won one conference game in the SEC.

Again, my point isn't that there aren't any good teams in the lower five conferences. My point is that on average those conferences are terrible. There are generally one to three teams in each conference that I think would be competitive in a BCS conferences, but the rest of the teams in those conferences are quite bad. It's not a matter of fearing competition when you want to take conferences out of the equation where 75% of the teams are not competitive. There are a number of FCS teams that would be very competitive with teams in the bottom five conferences. The line has to be drawn somewhere -- and I think the line between the BCS conferences that make incredibly amounts of money and the lowest tier conferences that struggle to make any money at all is an acceptable line. The MAC teams, while some are absolutely competitive, aren't good enough on average to be competitive with the BCS teams. They just aren't.

This isn't basketball. The NCAA tournament evens the playing field in basketball, having far more games gives lower conference teams more opportunity to play and prove themselves against the bigger conferences, and having only five players on the court makes it easier for less well known programs to build themselves the way Butler, VCU, and WSU have been able to. FBS football is an entirely different beast.

PERSONALLY, my preference would be for all of FBS to adopt English Premier League relegation, where every FBS conference was connected with a smaller conference in the FCS. The best team or two from the FCS conference replaces the worst team or two from the FBS conference, and they get the TV deal. So instead of Northern Illinois maybe having a good year out of the MAC and leaving it at that, they would have replaced Illinois in the Big 10 this year. And they would have the shot in this coming year to prove that they deserved to remain in the Big 10, while Illinois would have to compete in the MAC and prove they deserved to come back to the Big 10. And even if UNI only got to remain in the Big 10 for a season, they'd take their fair cut of the football revenue for that one season. I think THAT would be a truly competitive way of running football -- it has no shot in hell of happening, though >=)

[Aargh]

If you haven't seen UNI referred to as Northern Iowa University, you haven't been around long enough.

Even BCS absolute FB bottom-feeders (like Kansas) can put 40K butts in seats at home games. Those people are going to be dropping in the range of $50 per butt in tickets, concessions, etc.

That's $2 mill for a home game. Pay the visitor $600K and there's still $1.4 mill to work with. There's much less reason for a BCS FB team to play a non-con roadie than for a BCS-league BB team to play a non-con roadie.

I don't think the BCS leagues are going to leave the NCAA. The legal issues are HUGE. I do believe the BCS leagues will use the threat of leaving to coerce the non-BCS conferences to bow to every whim of the BCS leagues. If they can do that, there's no reason to leave.

Bowing to every whim of the BCS leagues will include favoring their mid-tier teams over upper-tier "mid-major" teams in the NCAA tourney. If the Selection Committee doesn't put enough BCS-league BB teams into the tourney, the BCS conferences will threaten to leave - again - and again - and again.

There sure are a lot of posts in this thread that are WAY, WAY, WAY too long to read.

[rlh04d]

Bowing to every whim of the BCS leagues will include favoring their mid-tier teams over upper-tier "mid-major" teams in the NCAA tourney. If the Selection Committee doesn't put enough BCS-league BB teams into the tourney, the BCS conferences will threaten to leave - again - and again - and again.

I don't think the upper tier "mid-major" teams are at any risk. I think the AQ status of lower tier conferences that get seeded in the 13-16 range would be at risk of the BCS conference demands.

It would be very difficult for any argument to be made that BCS leagues should be favored over mid-major teams in seeding -- we already use quantifiable data and all of the measures we use would have to be re-written specifically to favor the BCS leagues. I don't see that happening. However, you can easily make the argument that the 13-16 seeds don't deserve to make the NCAA tournament, and prevent the tournament from having the best 68 teams in the country participating.

[TheAsianSensation]

As everyone keeps going on, remember that conference affiliation means a lot. When you're in the B1G or the Pac or whereever, you're in it academically in addition to athletically. Any solution to realignment/a new division has to account for that.

The first step has to be disassociating football with conferences first. Once you get a system up and running that allows football to be separate from the other sports in all facets, then you can do some of these things. But as long as football is tied directly to existing conferences, that are designed to serve its member schools in all sports and academically, many of the solutions presented (namely promotion/relegation, and maybe the creation of a new division) is impossible.

[rlh04d]

As everyone keeps going on, remember that conference affiliation means a lot. When you're in the B1G or the Pac or whereever, you're in it academically in addition to athletically. Any solution to realignment/a new division has to account for that.

The first step has to be disassociating football with conferences first. Once you get a system up and running that allows football to be separate from the other sports in all facets, then you can do some of these things. But as long as football is tied directly to existing conferences, that are designed to serve its member schools in all sports and academically, many of the solutions presented (namely promotion/relegation, and maybe the creation of a new division) is impossible.

Oh, my relegation dream would require an incredible reworking of the entire system. Which is why it'll never happen. It would create true, fair competition, though.