ESPN College Football Team Draft

[A-Tex Devil]

While I do not support Pat Forde's dissing of Duke football, I do think this little 40/80 split of D1A is an excellent, excellent idea, and I wish to subscribe to its newsletter. But I have some improvements on it to make.

- Four 10 team conferences in the "Premier" league.

- Eight 10 team conferences in the "First Division."

- Schedule the same as Forde describes. Some First Division teams won't have to play Premiere teams each year, but game against a Premiere league team won't affect any tiebreakers so there are no advantages/ disadvantages to having a Premiere league team on your schedule. You must play a premiere league team once every three years though.

- Same championship as Forde -- Conference winners, 4 team playoff. Use bowls on rotating basis for the three games and a third place game, if you like.

- Instead of FIVE teams being relegated, to make this exciting, I say TWELVE teams get relegated. Bottom three in each conference. Conference winners in First Division get promotion plus 4 bowl games among the second place finishers to have a "Play In" for the last two spots. Seeds will be determined by a BCS/Computer type system.

- Bowl games will be 2 seeds and 3 seeds of Premiere league against conference winners from First Division. There may be some blowouts, yes, but it would give the underdogs a shot to see what they are going to be up against the following year.

- If the other teams with winning records want to play in bowls and there are bowls to take them, fine.

A problem is that traditional rivalries will almost certainly be cut short. ND won't be able to play Michigan and USC every year unless they somehow end up in the same conference. That and the recruiting angle are the main negatives in my mind. It will be harder to recruit if you are a lower division team. But wait!! Here is a new rule ---

-- if you transfer down, you can play right away. if you transfer up, you lose a year of eligibility and must sit out a year (similar to many intraconference transfer rules). If you transfer within a division, current transfer rules apply.

I love this system.... but it will never happen.

[COYS]

While I do not support Pat Forde's dissing of Duke football, I do think this little 40/80 split of D1A is an excellent, excellent idea, and I wish to subscribe to its newsletter. But I have some improvements on it to make.

- Four 10 team conferences in the "Premier" league.

- Eight 10 team conferences in the "First Division."

- Schedule the same as Forde describes. Some First Division teams won't have to play Premiere teams each year, but game against a Premiere league team won't affect any tiebreakers so there are no advantages/ disadvantages to having a Premiere league team on your schedule. You must play a premiere league team once every three years though.

- Same championship as Forde -- Conference winners, 4 team playoff. Use bowls on rotating basis for the three games and a third place game, if you like.

- Instead of FIVE teams being relegated, to make this exciting, I say TWELVE teams get relegated. Bottom three in each conference. Conference winners in First Division get promotion plus 4 bowl games among the second place finishers to have a "Play In" for the last two spots. Seeds will be determined by a BCS/Computer type system.

- Bowl games will be 2 seeds and 3 seeds of Premiere league against conference winners from First Division. There may be some blowouts, yes, but it would give the underdogs a shot to see what they are going to be up against the following year.

- If the other teams with winning records want to play in bowls and there are bowls to take them, fine.

A problem is that traditional rivalries will almost certainly be cut short. ND won't be able to play Michigan and USC every year unless they somehow end up in the same conference. That and the recruiting angle are the main negatives in my mind. It will be harder to recruit if you are a lower division team. But wait!! Here is a new rule ---

-- if you transfer down, you can play right away. if you transfer up, you lose a year of eligibility and must sit out a year (similar to many intraconference transfer rules). If you transfer within a division, current transfer rules apply.

I love this system.... but it will never happen.

I completely agree that this would be an awesome way for working the football postseason. I think that there's not nearly enough fun and intrigue involved in the playoff format. I'd love to see the top seed given the privilege of choosing their own opponent at the start of each round, with the next highest seed choosing second, etc. This would cause a logistical nightmare but man would it be a fun way to make instant rivalries.

[CameronBornAndBred]

As far as Forde's "dissing of Duke football", I think Forde has every right to say what he does. I bet you wouldn't get Coach Cutcliffe to offer too much criticism either. I'm one of the biggest supporters of the football program you will find on this board, but we haven't earned the respect yet, so we can't expect the media to give it. I DO believe Cutcliffe and the athletic department are working very hard to change that, but they are doing it by working in the right places. They are working to fix our problems on the field. When we make the team an outfit that garners the respect that I believe it will one day deserve, then the bashing will stop. That will be a great day, but we aren't there yet. Even if we go bowling this year, we won't be there. Not until it becomes a regular occurance, and Duke is regularly within at least the middle pack of the ACC will we have much of a leg to stand on when answering critics of the program. Happily, at that point, I don't doubt that Forde and other writers will mind one bit including us in complementary articles.

As far as the rest of the article goes, interesting stuff, but I won't be paying attention. I'll be too busy reading up on the excitement building on campus and the progress of practice leading up to our first game.

[A-Tex Devil]

I just figured out the main problem - how to get it started in the first year.

The borderline teams that are left out in the cold (41-45) could be irreparably harmed in recruiting. Take a team like Ole Miss. I wouldn't put them in the top 40 programs of the last 5 years, but after this year, they might be.

Perhaps you take the top 25 in the BCS the year before the switch, then take the next 15 based on average BCS placement in the previous 5-7 years. This would allow an up and coming team to make it, but would hopefully not penalize a team that had been strong, but struggled for one year (a la Michigan last year).

Once this system started, though, and was clicking for several years, I think it's a winner.

[johnb]

The idea isn't new and it isn't good.

People like rivalries that are based on water coolers and stereotype.

If I live in Nashville and went to Tennessee for college, I want to go to my watercooler and diss Vanderbilt the day before the Tennessee/Vandy game. That gears me up. I will make some comment about preppy babies and be excited about the game, especially if a colleague (or boss) went to Vanderbilt.

If Vandy is left out because it's last all-time in the ESPN ratings, then I might get to play Oklahoma instead. Obviously, it's a bigger game, a more equitable game, and will feature more future NFL players. But I probably don't know anyone from Oklahoma and will be much less enthusiastic about winning or watching. It's why all the major conferences keep schools like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern. They may (or may not) be able to keep up in sports like football, but they make the season more entertaining.

Interestingly, from the top 40 perspective, Duke all-time is 39 and Carolina is 41. According to that logic, we'd be in and they'd be out. Would we really want to play a season of Southern Cal, Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Penn State, Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State, and Miami?

[Stray Gator]

...Interestingly, from the top 40 perspective, Duke all-time is 39 and Carolina is 41. According to that logic, we'd be in and they'd be out. Would we really want to play a season of Southern Cal, Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Penn State, Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State, and Miami?

Are you kidding? The Blue Devils would be playing on national TV every Saturday! (Well, maybe the Notre Dame and FSU and Miami games might be relegated to secondary telecast status. )

[A-Tex Devil]

The idea isn't new and it isn't good.

People like rivalries that are based on water coolers and stereotype.

If I live in Nashville and went to Tennessee for college, I want to go to my watercooler and diss Vanderbilt the day before the Tennessee/Vandy game. That gears me up. I will make some comment about preppy babies and be excited about the game, especially if a colleague (or boss) went to Vanderbilt.

If Vandy is left out because it's last all-time in the ESPN ratings, then I might get to play Oklahoma instead. Obviously, it's a bigger game, a more equitable game, and will feature more future NFL players. But I probably don't know anyone from Oklahoma and will be much less enthusiastic about winning or watching. It's why all the major conferences keep schools like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern. They may (or may not) be able to keep up in sports like football, but they make the season more entertaining.

Interestingly, from the top 40 perspective, Duke all-time is 39 and Carolina is 41. According to that logic, we'd be in and they'd be out. Would we really want to play a season of Southern Cal, Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Penn State, Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State, and Miami?

Honestly, the first 4 or 5 years, people might complain about losing rivalry games (and I think you could maintain many of those games), and there would be some really bumpy roads for it in the short term. Still, I really think this system would be great over the long term. No one has that much patience, though. Anyway, this is a pipe dream. More than a pipe dream. But I think it's the best idea I've seen in a long time.