I've decided to get a pet bird, so that I may line its cage with the Newark Star Ledger. I'll even spring for the toner and paper needed to print the rag so that Polly has a proper potty. Why, might you ask, would I waste the time and energy to create custom bathroom for a bird?
It might have something to do with Andy McCullough & Brendan Prunty who basically decided that the way to "Save College Football" is by muscling out the "Bottom" teams in favor of five mega conferences. For the most part this obliterates the MAC as an FBS conference (Unless you count Temple as a MAC team).
The PDF of the proposed alignment is here
The Irony of this setup is that it originates from fans of a team that went to just one Bowl game in their first 130 years of college football (yes Rutgers has a fine tradition, just not a winning one) who themselves did not manage to be a regular bowl fixture until the Big East got down to 8 teams (who share six bowl bids). Now it seems these Rutgers Partisans think its time to thin the herd.
This gets to why the Bowl System, and the current conference setups may be better then what many are proposing with mega conferences. The flexibility that the current system affords may not benefit ESPN or most media outlets but it does benefit fans.
In the current system it is far easier to break into Division1A football that in a world where you have 6 conferences that are all full up.
In the proposed setup the only way to break in is to wait for a school to drop out. Because there will be so much money swimming around in these new conferences a vacancy will never happen.
In the current setup teams can break into the lower conferences and, aside from the occasional BCS buster getting shafted out of a championship game it's a pretty nice world for mid majors.
The good news is that this setup probably is about as likely as UB going to the BigTeleven, there is going to be a lot of consolidation going on but I don't think the 'Big Atlantic' is going to happen. No way the ACC and Big East kiss and make up let alone Kiss and make a new conference together.
The one thing that needs to be done for college football is to thin out the bowl games and make them harder to get into. Go back to to 20 or 25 Bowl games, give every conference at least two bids and make the threshold eight wins for a team to go bowling with 7-5 and 6-6 at larges.
If over the course of four years you have at least two 6-6 teams going bowling then eliminate a bowl game, if over the course of four years you don't have at least two 7-5 teams bowling allow a game to be added.
That and a play in among the top four teams (all from difference conferences) for the national championship should address a lot of the problems with mediocrity and many of the concerns about top programs not getting a crack at the NC because of their conference. But none of this will make ESPN any more money and because they increasingly own the NCAA you won't see it happen.
It might have something to do with Andy McCullough & Brendan Prunty who basically decided that the way to "Save College Football" is by muscling out the "Bottom" teams in favor of five mega conferences. For the most part this obliterates the MAC as an FBS conference (Unless you count Temple as a MAC team).
The PDF of the proposed alignment is here
This gets to why the Bowl System, and the current conference setups may be better then what many are proposing with mega conferences. The flexibility that the current system affords may not benefit ESPN or most media outlets but it does benefit fans.
In the current system it is far easier to break into Division1A football that in a world where you have 6 conferences that are all full up.
In the proposed setup the only way to break in is to wait for a school to drop out. Because there will be so much money swimming around in these new conferences a vacancy will never happen.
In the current setup teams can break into the lower conferences and, aside from the occasional BCS buster getting shafted out of a championship game it's a pretty nice world for mid majors.
The good news is that this setup probably is about as likely as UB going to the BigTeleven, there is going to be a lot of consolidation going on but I don't think the 'Big Atlantic' is going to happen. No way the ACC and Big East kiss and make up let alone Kiss and make a new conference together.
The one thing that needs to be done for college football is to thin out the bowl games and make them harder to get into. Go back to to 20 or 25 Bowl games, give every conference at least two bids and make the threshold eight wins for a team to go bowling with 7-5 and 6-6 at larges.
If over the course of four years you have at least two 6-6 teams going bowling then eliminate a bowl game, if over the course of four years you don't have at least two 7-5 teams bowling allow a game to be added.
That and a play in among the top four teams (all from difference conferences) for the national championship should address a lot of the problems with mediocrity and many of the concerns about top programs not getting a crack at the NC because of their conference. But none of this will make ESPN any more money and because they increasingly own the NCAA you won't see it happen.