Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Should conferences get rid of divisions in football?

Should conferences eliminate football divisions?

  • yes

  • no

  • I couldn't resist your poll

Results are only viewable after voting.
Buffnik

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
It's mostly a scheduling tool to make that easier when everyone doesn't play everyone. But football is the only sport where the conferences have an East/West or North/South configuration. I think that what the AAC is trying to do makes the most sense. Especially for the P5 conferences. We're trying to use that conference championship game to not only determine the champion (i.e., best team) but also to give that team its best shot at making the playoff.

Seems to me that getting rid of divisions and simply having the top 2 teams by record, then head-to-head, then CFP rank as the tiebreakers would be better. Maybe keep 1 fixed game with the paired rival/ travel partner and rotate the other 10 teams through future schedules.

 
Last edited:
Darth Snow said:
**** divisions, I want pods!
Click to expand...
c9b.gif
 
Buffnik said:
It's mostly a scheduling tool to make that easier when everyone doesn't play everyone. But football is the only sport where the conferences have an East/West or North/South configuration. I think that what the AAC is trying to do makes the most sense. Especially for the P5 conferences. We're trying to use that conference championship game to not only determine the champion (i.e., best team) and also to give that team its best shot at making the playoff.

Seems to me that getting rid of divisions and simply having the top 2 teams by record, then head-to-head, then CFP rank as the tiebreakers would be better. Maybe keep 1 fixed game with the paired rival/ travel partner and rotate the other 10 teams through future schedules.

Click to expand...

You already know this Nik, but I can see where this gets more complicated in the future with more expansion. As I understand it, the PAC12 was very aware of some long standing rivalries and concerned that they continue even with the addition of CU and BYU Lite. Another issue was the PAC12 North wanting USC and UCLA dates for recruiting exposure to the LA area. One can see that these types of rivalry challenges (Mich/ OSU, UT/OK, Auburn/Alabama) will almost certainly be at the forefront of any scheduling discussions.
 
WarBuff said:
You already know this Nik, but I can see where this gets more complicated in the future with more expansion. As I understand it, the PAC12 was very aware of some long standing rivalries and concerned that they continue even with the addition of CU and BYU Lite. Another issue was the PAC12 North wanting USC and UCLA dates for recruiting exposure to the LA area. One can see that these types of rivalry challenges (Mich/ OSU, UT/OK, Auburn/Alabama) will almost certainly be at the forefront of any scheduling discussions.
Click to expand...
That's a big reason why @Darth Snow and I like pods for a 16-team conference. For a Pac-16, that would mean a NW Pod for scheduling where OSU, UO, UW and WSU all played each other every year. Then for the other 6 games they'd alternate so that they'd get, for example, one Bay Area game and one LA game against the CA pod on the schedule. Basically, you just split the paired rivals outside your pod with those other 12 teams for everyone's schedule to make the 9-game schedule.

I agree that no divisions would be hard to do with 12 or 14 teams because of rivalries. I don't think Washington and Oregon are interested in only playing 2 out of every 4 years, for example. That's likely what would hold this up.
 
Any conference should want it's two best teams playing for the championship and a spot in the playoff. Divisions are not necessary at all to do this
 
Buffnik said:
That's a big reason why @Darth Snow and I like pods for a 16-team conference. For a Pac-16, that would mean a NW Pod for scheduling where OSU, UO, UW and WSU all played each other every year. Then for the other 6 games they'd alternate so that they'd get, for example, one Bay Area game and one LA game against the CA pod on the schedule. Basically, you just split the paired rivals outside your pod with those other 12 teams for everyone's schedule to make the 9-game schedule.

I agree that no divisions would be hard to do with 12 or 14 teams because of rivalries. I don't think Washington and Oregon are interested in only playing 2 out of every 4 years, for example. That's likely what would hold this up.
Click to expand...
I didn't understand the pods reference. Makes sense.
 
One of the highlights of college sports, football especially, is tradition. Realignment, playoffs, elimination of divisions are all examples of getting rid of traditions for the reason of making more money. It is inevitable, I understand that, cuz money talks and tradition walks.
 
WarBuff said:
I didn't understand the pods reference. Makes sense.
Click to expand...

PAC 16 example

PNW Pod: UW, WSU, UO, OSU
Cali Pod: USC, UCLA, Stan, Cal
Mountain Pod: CU, UU, ASU, UA
Midwest Pod: UT, TTU, OU, OSU

CU schedule would be 3 games vs mountain pod and a home/away pair against the remaining three pods. Guarantees a game in each region every year, which is important for recruiting.

Ya, ya, ya no Texas in our conference ever. I actually like the competitive balance that this format provides, although it could be argued that the Mountain Pod would be the weakest most years. Would require CU regaining some semblance of their former glory, and Utah to continue on their current trajectory.
 
CU wouldn't have been able to buy participation rings, er, um, "Division Champions" rings under the new way.
 
I like the idea of pods because it allows each school to maintain a limited number of games that are played each year, a way of developing a rivalry sense that makes games more interesting as long as the pods are divided well to start with.

From there the pod scheduling can be used to insure that each team over time has fairly balanced difficulties of schedule

If you have 4 pods of four teams you can easily do a 7 game conference schedule with 3 games against your pod and 4 games against one other pod that rotates so you see every teams either every three years or twice every six (if you play each home and home prior to rotation.)

If you want a 9 game conference schedule you play 3 against your pod plus two from each other pod on a rotational basis. This means you play each school at least every other year or every two years if you go home and home again. This system can also insure at least one game per year in each region if the pods are done geographically.

Championship is the two best teams but not two from the same pod.
 
It seems like that there has been competitive issues with two division set ups in both the Big 12 and Pac-12. I'm ready to do away with divisions at this point.

The teams with the worst records in conference play should get the easiest conference schedules the following season while the champs would get the harder conference schedule the following season.

The California, Mountain, and Northwest pods would stay intact and the teams within those pods would still play each other.
 
Jalapeno said:
The teams with the worst records in conference play should get the easiest conference schedules the following season while the champs would get the harder conference schedule the following season.
Click to expand...
You want to make it harder for the best Pac-12 teams to make the Playoff? I don't know what you're trying to accomplish with a setup like that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top