Savannah Jay wrote:Xudash wrote:
Who knows what will happen, but of programs like Ohio State and Alabama and Texas wake up one day and decide the programs like wake forest and Boston College, etc. are not worth it, then they may take this thing to a 4 x 12 model. They may decide to take it to a 4 x 16 model, wherein those schools would probably just be safe, obviously except for one of them.
Either way, things probably will settle down at least until 2023, unless Texas and Oklahoma, in particular, get uppity.
I wonder...would the real football schools actually want to jettison the mostly guaranteed Ws? Who would they schedule homecoming games against? I say that only half in jest. But if they are going to play 12 regular season football games, do their fans really want all 12 to be against teams that could beat them on a given Saturday? Or do they want to know that their team is probably going have 6 almost guaranteed wins, and then if they go 3-3 against the better teams on their schedule, rah rah, they are 9-3 and get to a nice bowl game. Of course, some coaches are getting fired now after 9-3 seasons.
That's a very good and fair point.
Perhaps it depends upon who's point-of-view is in play. The administrative/business people may be more inclined to pay attention to what is best for their schools with respect to money and the playoff system, in particular. The coaching staffs may be more focused on your exact point for job survival and even perhaps for the physical well being of their teams.
Schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, ND and Michigan will sellout at home regardless of the name on the jerseys of the school on the other sideline. Conversely, a tilt between BC and Wake Forest in Winston-Salem or Boston isn't exactly going to have ticket scalpers foaming at the mouth. Even so, especially in those cases where some of the weaker "club" members happen to be charter members or very long established members of their respective conferences, how do you show-up on their doorstep one day to inform them that they've been kicked out of the conference, and the club.
The big schools have already done enough damage to college football. 4 x 16 would limit that damage to virtually where it stands today, save for the one program that would have to be punted to make room for Notre Dame (i.e. if it were to become a "pure" 4 x 16 model). Dropping another 16 schools from the money waterfall might push things politically; some of those 16 may not be top drawer in terms of football, but they still wield power in their respective states. Besides, just as it would be were the big schools to run off and attempt to put together their own basketball tournament, the backlash from both direct and casual fans would be pretty severe at that point.
It is amazing how things have turned out, respecting that more change is down the road at some point. Just consider the two main schools in Cincinnati. Not long ago UC had settled into its Big East membership and was able to elevate its football program from decades of mediocrity through upcoming coaches that built the program up and then moved on. The Yellow Toothed Gnome was over his head, coaching basketball in the Big East, but at least Big East teams were coming to Cincinnati to play basketball against UC.
On the other hand, Xavier had to continue to build its program shackled to a pathetic - in comparison - conference that had teams that either couldn't afford investments in their programs, didn't care about investing in their programs, didn't know how to go about building their programs, or some combination of all the above. Xavier and Temple, in particular, kept the A10 respectable for a number of years. Adding Butler was a solid move. Adding VCU was a solid move for that conference. Still, the A10 was never going to be a serious competitor to the Big East.
Now we come to the present. UC, having spent $80+mm on a Nippert Stadium upgrade with 5/3 upgrades now looming, and having stuck it out with Tommy Tuberville, who is doing everything he can to send UC football back from whence it came, must move forward, slugging it out in the AAC, where we've learned that scotch tape and small mic headsets can work well together.
All that while Xavier was blessed to wake-up from the nightmare of road games to Gola Arena, etc., transitioning to THE basketball-centric conference in the U.S.
I got off track there a little, but the point is that we can settle in now for a while, focusing on the 10 of us, while we continue to build a Big East Conference that can only be regarded as a major conference that racks up impressive results.