More Sun Belt and less FCC OOC games?

ALA2262

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POINT CLEAR, Ala. -- The Sun Belt Conference will split into two five-team divisions, broken up simply by east and west, starting in 2018.

The conference announced its divisions Tuesday after the end of its spring meetings.

The East Division will include Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Coastal Carolina, Georgia State and Troy. The West Division will have Arkansas State, South Alabama, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana-Lafayette and Texas State.

The division winners will meet in the championship game, which will be played at the home stadium of the team with the best College Football Playoff ranking. If no teams are ranked in the CFP selection committee, the conference will determine home field using a formula based on six computer ratings that were used in the old Bowl Championship Series standings.

Sun Belt conference to split into 2 divisions


Will be interesting to see the total number of conference games scheduled. I suspect it will be 8 in order to keep the H/A even at 4 each. All of these schools are prime candidates for SEC schools to drop $1-1.5M in their bank accounts for single-no return game OOC games. Ten schools with 4 OOC games each gives the SEC a potential 40 OOC games to fill their 56 OOC game schedule. And gives each of them a potential $4-6M windfall.

Safe to say they will not go to a complete round robin schedule of nine conference games. If they were going to do that, I don't believe they would have gone to divisions.
 

rgw

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I'd rather see late season Sun Belt games (FBS competition) than late season FCS competition. If they can make their schedule work out such that they have open dates in late November then I think you could very well see it happen.
 

ALA2262

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I'd rather see late season Sun Belt games (FBS competition) than late season FCS competition. If they can make their schedule work out such that they have open dates in late November then I think you could very well see it happen.
Good point. They will have to leave the last week of the season open for their CG. So they may not be able to leave those dates open also.

That is the problem currently. in 2017, 100 of the 115 (128-13 SEC) are playing conference games on the next to last regular season weekend.
 
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rgw

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The SEC already schedules a ton of Sun Belt teams in September. The opportunity for more SEC paychecks is in November. To repeat something I said in another topic, college administrators aren't that bright.
 

KrAzY3

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Ok, so what's the big difference between playing a former FCS program or a FCS program? 6 of those teams were not in the FBS a few years ago... so they move up and magically they're worth scheduling now?
 

ALA2262

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Ok, so what's the big difference between playing a former FCS program or a FCS program? 6 of those teams were not in the FBS a few years ago... so they move up and magically they're worth scheduling now?
Is there anyone out there who is going to throw rocks at Bama for playing a FCS, besides you, smart enough to know that. Very doubtful.
 
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ALA2262

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I'm fine with it - but it's all about scheduling on their end - if they find it starts to affect bowl eligibility, it won't last.
Another good point and the other current problem. The few that are available won't come with just two weeks left in the season. Last place you want your team needing two wins to become Bowl eligible is Tuscaloosa, Alabama on the next to last weekend.
 

Crimson1967

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We pay G5 teams about twice as much as we pay FCS teams. That is as good a reason as any to keep playing the FCS.
 

CrimsonProf

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Ok, so what's the big difference between playing a former FCS program or a FCS program? 6 of those teams were not in the FBS a few years ago... so they move up and magically they're worth scheduling now?
Yes because their schedule has changed which does look better even if we beat their brains in.


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Displaced Bama Fan

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Most, if not all of these schools need to go back to being FCS schools. There are too many D-1A or FBS schools as it is. I'm a USA grad, and I hate the fact that they are considered an FBS school.
 

81usaf92

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Is there anyone out there who is going to throw rocks at Bama for playing a FCS, besides you, smart enough to know that. Very doubtful.
I think he is the opposite in terms of Bama playing FCS teams.

Krazy has a big issue with FBS teams not meeting attendance quotas. Which you could argue either way, but I'm really hoping we don't get into it because we are going to have only 1 page about the topic you posted and about 15 on "who should be in the FBS".
 
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GrayTide

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If we need an annual FBS opponent that is a guaranteed win why not schedule Vanderbilt and have it count as a non-conference game. :rolleye2:
 

KrAzY3

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Most, if not all of these schools need to go back to being FCS schools. There are too many D-1A or FBS schools as it is. I'm a USA grad, and I hate the fact that they are considered an FBS school.
I certainly agree.

I think he is the opposite in terms of Bama playing FCS teams.
Without trying to go too far down that rabbit hole, I have a big issue with the notion that playing a newly minted FBS team should hold any real importance. The idea that somehow we silence the FCS critics by scheduling barely FBS programs is at best a farce. Also, there is one rule that complicates this a bit (not that the NCAA really pays cares), but there's a NCAA mandated minimum number of home games for FBS programs. I believe this is 5 home games, so in theory at least they can't just hit the road for their whole ooc schedule.
 

81usaf92

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I certainly agree.


Without trying to go too far down that rabbit hole, I have a big issue with the notion that playing a newly minted FBS team should hold any real importance. The idea that somehow we silence the FCS critics by scheduling barely FBS programs is at best a farce. Also, there is one rule that complicates this a bit (not that the NCAA really pays cares), but there's a NCAA mandated minimum number of home games for FBS programs. I believe this is 5 home games, so in theory at least they can't just hit the road for their whole ooc schedule.
I took his remark as to putting you into those 1978 schedule enthusiast that believe that we shouldn't have a cupcake game, but I think I remember you being against having that type of schedule and keeping with the status quo.

I took your comment as just your general view on FBS teams like USA, UMASS, and etc.
 

KrAzY3

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I think I remember you being against having that type of schedule and keeping with the status quo.

I took your comment as just your general view on FBS teams like USA, UMASS, and etc.
I suppose my overall viewpoint is somewhat relevant, so I hope I'm not hijacking this too much. In terms of Alabama's schedule, I think it's already probably gone too far. They've been playing one of the top schedules every season, and it's basically giving diminishing returns at this point. Making it tougher would only, well, make it tougher.

There's two angles to this that formed my outlook.

A: Boise St.
I got a lot of Boise St. fans angry once when I pointed out what they did, a practice which I refer to as Boise Stating a schedule. The idea is you basically add a couple of legitimate football opponents to a schedule full of cupcakes. If you beat those, you can claim legitimacy. If you don't, well hey you won almost all your games right? You also complain about no one wanting to schedule home and homes with you even though you only seat 30,000, and you turn down a million bucks to play Nebraska. Basically, the whole thing is propaganda. But how is it really possible to do that? How could Boise St. have been considered a legit championship contender while playing schedules that ranked in the 80s or 90s? Garbage FBS teams. They played in a garbage FBS conference and they in some cases literally played teams weaker than FCS teams. Boise St. and all the nonsense surrounding them literally could not have happened if not for a large collection of impotent FBS programs. Those opponents were meaningless, but they were racking up FBS wins and if you didn't look too close it seemed impressive.

B: The hobbling of the FBS
I actually came to the conclusion that one reason the NCAA was letting everyone in and not enforcing their own rules was due to a desire to eventually take over the postseason. It makes some sense, the more have nots voting, the more likely the NCAA would be to get a faction large enough to vote power over to them. This hasn't happened, but I suppose the NCAA has no reason to discontinue their practice of letting anyone in. But, there are other costs associated with this. As one coach put it, they've been trying for years to even the playing field. He made it sound like a good thing, but it's not. They limited the number of coaches, they limited the number of scholarships, and to what end? Well, look at happened when they lowered it to 85. A whole new stream of programs arrived, including UAB and Boise St. These are, as I see it, football welfare programs. They exist only because the bar kept being lowered until they could slip in. We've had around 30 programs join the FBS since the scholarships were lowered to 85 by the way. It's darn near the entire Sun Belt conference.

I could go on, but to sum it up, these guys don't really belong in the FBS and they are making a mockery of the FBS. Fortunately, if one bothers to calculate SoS, their true meaningless is revealed. For the record, it really doesn't matter much whether or not you play a good FCS program or a bad FBS one for those calculations (for example if you start in the 80s of Sagarin rankings you will find a mix of FBS and FCS teams and this continues all the way to 160). The difference is, the FCS programs are not mucking things up in the FBS. I have far more respect for those programs, who are operating within their means, than I do for the FBS programs which are doing harm to the FBS by being there (and quite possible wasting their universities funds to feed egos).
 

CrimsonProf

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Y'all realize that until the Power Five breakaway that none of this is changing, right?

Stop dominating the thread with your soapbox.

Now the idea of playing more FBS teams instead of FCS teams late in the season is fine, though the FBS teams have to make their schedules work and ensure they don't tank their bowl eligibility. Let's also not forget that those paychecks to FCS teams use our payoff money to pay for scholarships and staff. That's not nothing.
 

KrAzY3

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Stop dominating the thread with your soapbox.
I understand I might be overly rhetorical, but most of what I said was in fact meant to address the actual question:
"More Sun Belt and less FCC OOC games?"

To be more succinct I can do it this way.
According to Sagarin, the ranking of the Sun-Belt was 59.06. The Missouri Valley Conference was 57.54. For reference, the SEC West was 81.22. 4 FBS divisions (all outside the Power 5 of course) actually ranked below the Missouri Valley Conference and just ahead of the Southern Conference with 52.60. The difference between a good FCS conference and a bad FBS one is negligible.

Furthermore, despite shenanigans to meet the NCAA requirements for attendance, the Sun Belt only averaged 18K attendance (the MAC was worse with 16K). This compares to the Southwestern Athletic Conference with 14K (again for reference the SEC's was 77K). So, it's not even as though their fans care more.

I explained some of the why not already, but the only reason why would be to simply appease the either deliberately misinformed people who think FBS programs automatically have greater importance, or to appease people that are deliberately being misleading when they promote that notion.
 
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