Colonel Angus
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Please tell me you've been day drinking
So it's at least fan lore. I'm curious if there's a direct connection. If a team schedules a home and home at Miami or FIU do they start getting more Miami area recruits? If so, does the impact last beyond the length of the contract? Do ACC Coastal teams recruit Miami better than ACC Atlantic teams because they play in Miami every other year? Same question for CUSA East teams vs. CUSA West teams.
So it's at least fan lore. I'm curious if there's a direct connection. If a team schedules a home and home at Miami or FIU do they start getting more Miami area recruits? If so, does the impact last beyond the length of the contract? Do ACC Coastal teams recruit Miami better than ACC Atlantic teams because they play in Miami every other year? Same question for CUSA East teams vs. CUSA West teams.
Tenet No. 1: All Power 5 schools should play 11 meaningful games each season.
What does meaningful mean? That depends on the school. For some, it might mean 11 Power 5 opponents. For others, it might mean games against a mix of Power 5 and Group of 5 teams. A Texas-Houston game wouldn’t be Power 5-on-Power 5, but it certainly would be meaningful. Ditto for Florida or Florida State against UCF or USF. Any Pac-12 team against Boise State or San Diego State would be meaningful.
Tenet No. 2: Schedules should have some opponents who are annual in order to maintain important (rivalry) series, but a majority of the opponents should rotate regularly to prevent staleness and fan fatigue.
Stricklin works in a 14-team league with an eight-game conference schedule in which one cross-divisional opponent is fixed. The ACC also fits this description, and the lack of certain cross-divisional games there has gotten so ridiculous in that league that founding members North Carolina and Wake Forest — which sit 80 miles apart — have scheduled one another this season in a non-conference slot.
There are two potential solutions here. Those leagues could add a conference game, which would force another “meaningful” game on programs that lack the motivation to schedule better. It also would add another team into the cross-divisional rotation each year. In the Big Ten, a 14-team league that plays nine conference games with one protected cross-divisional rival, a team faces every league opponent at least six times in 10 years. The drawback to this from the ACC and SEC standpoint is that schools would prefer not to have five conference road games every other season.
The other solution is more radical — and would require some serious arguing to get established in the SEC — but probably would be the better option for all the 14-team leagues*. The important rivalry games could be maintained by establishing a group of three permanent opponents for each team. For example, Stricklin’s Gators could play Tennessee, Georgia and LSU every year. (They’d still play Florida State every year.) In the ACC, Clemson could play Florida State, NC State and Georgia Tech. (The Tigers would still play South Carolina every year as well.) For the ACC and SEC, the other 10 league opponents would rotate through the other five spots on the schedule. So every team would see every opponent twice in four years. The Big Ten could use three fixed opponents and rotate the other 10 opponents through the remaining six schedule spots for even more frequent meetings, or that league could drop back to eight games and demand conference members schedule fun, meaningful non-conference opponents.
Tenet No. 3: All kickoff times should be announced in the spring prior to the season.
This is the most fan-friendly of Stricklin’s suggestions. It hit him after meeting a Florida fan who lives in the Sunshine State but also is a big Chicago Bears fan. When the NFL releases its schedule each spring, that fan identifies the games he can attend and still catch a flight back home and make it to work on Monday morning. The NFL does occasionally use flex scheduling, but that doesn’t affect nearly every game like it does in college.
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Networks want the flexibility to ensure they have the best game in the most visible spot. But going forward, this really only is an issue in leagues such as the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 that split rights between two networks. When the SEC’s best game moves from CBS to ESPN/ABC in 2024, Disney/ESPN will have rights to every SEC game. That’s already the case for the ACC. There really is no excuse for the game times in those leagues not to be announced once ESPN has the complete set in the SEC. If the best game isn’t scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Eastern (the traditional time for the best SEC game) or 8 p.m. Eastern (the accepted time for the best ACC game), the network can promote the heck out of whatever the best matchup is to ensure everyone knows what time it kicks off. Meanwhile, Fox and ESPN already draft some of the games in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 in the spring. They could draft all of them in the spring.
That way, fans who plan to attend games in person could start making plans. They could decide if they need hotel rooms and book those rooms. They could book their flights before prices spike. It would make it easier for fans to spend their money on their favorite college football programs, and every program should be making it as easy as possible for their fans to spend money on them. This one wouldn’t be helped by the new playoff format. It would just require leagues and networks to make a concession to help the fans a little.
Notre Dame joining the conference is the impediment. Don't see ND giving up their football rivalries, and their deal with NBC.
If the new playoff proposal is accepted, the top 6 conference champions get automatic bids (if I understand it correctly). You're going to assume it is always going to be the Power 5 conferences plus the next highest ranked conference champ from all the rest of the conferences. So that's 6/12 teams locked in. ND doesn't have a chance at those 6 bids. They then have the opportunity to make it as an at-large bid. Whereas every conference team has a shot at any of the 12 bids. Is that enough to force their hand? The ACC plays an 8 game conference schedule. That still frees up 4 non con games for ND.
agree. And expansion has to be a worthwhile add. You could make a case for WV (power 5 to power 5) but who would you go to next? Navy for the brand? UCF if they keep having good runs in group of 5? Hard to think of someone that adds value and market $$.
I know football drives the conversation, but it’s not the entire conversation. The ACC is not going to invite these schools that are absolute dogshit in every other sport.
There are a dozen posts bitching about playing Navy all the time and you want to talk about adding Navy to the ACC ?
DO NOT WANT !
when I originally posted this thread, WF was scheduled to host ND in 2027. fbschedules has now removed that game, meaning the next time ND is scheduled to visit Winston-Salem is now 2037. If WF issued a release regarding this, I missed it.
Good news though - we still have our series with Army and Liberty (Liberty's move to a conference has at least played a part in Duke and UVA cancelling series with Liberty, but ours persists)
when I originally posted this thread, WF was scheduled to host ND in 2027. fbschedules has now removed that game, meaning the next time ND is scheduled to visit Winston-Salem is now 2037. If WF issued a release regarding this, I missed it.
Good news though - we still have our series with Army and Liberty (Liberty's move to a conference has at least played a part in Duke and UVA cancelling series with Liberty, but ours persists)