Pac-12 alignment, scheduling causes conference turmoil
by Brian Floyd on Jul 15, 2010 8:46 AM PDT
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PrintJon Wilner checked in yesterday with the latest on the Pac-12 and the possibilities for divisional alignment and scheduling. In short it's a nightmare proving to be more of a headache than Larry Scott anticipated.
Let's break it down in layman's terms.
The "Pac-12″ will almost assuredly play a nine-game conference schedule in the foreseeable future.
[...]
So many teams’ schedules are set for the next four or five years — teams inside and outside the Pac-10 — that accommodating an extra non-conference game would be exceedingly difficult.
If the Pac-12 does choose to play nine conference games, we'd all be at a disadvantage (as I detailed here). How would an extra conference game affect out of conference contracts? It wouldn't. The heart of the problem here is that the California schools are forcing the conference to bend to their will, allowing them to maximize the chances of continuing their rivalries every year. Even with nine games, the scheduling to keep the rivalries intact becomes incredibly difficult.
Men’s and women’s basketball will exist as single, 12-team entities (which obviously raises some scheduling issues).
Again, a scheduling nightmare. At the end of the day, it's going to take a rocket scientist to make everyone happy and even then, I don't think it's possible. The scheduling nightmare that's coming to light -- both in football and basketball -- was unforeseen when Colorado and Utah were invited. Larry Scott may have had a dream that we'd all get along and make this work, but that isn't happening.
One Pacific NW school is dead-set on being paired with at least one of the SoCal schools, I’ve been told, and the California schools are loathe to be separated.
UW That unnamed Northwest school has a fear of being cut off from those fertile SoCal recruiting grounds. If the Northwest schools could be unified, it would go a long way towards preventing the California schools from having their way with the details of alignment and scheduling. Instead, we've got three on board and UW one unnamed school working for their own interests.
Dividing the league by the natural rivals (i.e., the Zipper Plan, proposed on the Hotline in February) is gaining traction.
The zipper plan is a second rate idea, in my opinion. First, the zipper splits the schools in a seemingly arbitrary way. Are we going to pick and choose which rival is on which side to attempt to make everyone happy? If so, the Pac-12 minimizes the value of divisions and creates a conference championship that is insignificant.
Wilner points out that there is a way for the California schools to play each other in both the zipper proposal and aligning divisions geographically. There's no need to arbitrarily split the conference down the middle.
The piece from Wilner shows a clear power play from a few schools in the Pac-10. The California schools are pushing a 9 game schedule and an alignment that best fits their ability to keep their rivalry intact. UW The unnamed Northwest school is throwing their weight around in fear of irrelevance due to being "cut off" from Southern California. Schools are beginning to jockeying for position.
By allowing the conference to move forward with a nine game schedule, the Pac-12 schools would all be at a disadvantage. None of the current twelve team conferences play nine conference games. It allows schools to take the easiest path to BCS relevance while minimizing the possibility that the conference will beat up on each other throughout the season.
Is a rivalry game more important than the national exposure and money BCS games will bring? It may not be ideal, but it's the system we're forced to play within. We might as well exploit it while we have the chance.
Step up to the plate, Pac-10 schools. Make some concessions to make this work. If you don't, we're no better than the Big 12 and the conference will suffer as a whole. Expansion was meant to maximize revenue and exposure. If the schools don't make some compromises to do this, it was all an exercise in futility.
For more on alignment, see our pieces on the geographic and zipper alignments. For more on scheduling, see this piece. Finally, does it even matter?
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How is the dividing up the schools in the zipper plan any more arbitrary than dividing the schools up by geography?
I recognize that geographical divisions have been the norm in sports forever, but I imagine that the only reason geography has ever played a role in divisional alignments was due to travel costs. Travel costs today, while still significant, are much less of a factor than they were 20, 50, or 100 years ago. If travel cost is deemed to not be one of the most important factors in divisional alignment than the zipper plan division is no longer arbitrary and instead is functional.
My point is simply why, other than that’s what sports leagues have always done, does it make sense to divide divisions by what schools happen to be close to each other?
I like the idea of being in a division with UW, Oregon, OSU
I know their schools, I have friends who are fans — much more so than, say, UCLA, Arizona State or Colorado. North/South would make things more interesting for me, personally.
Under a zipper plan, you could have a year where you don't play in the NW outside your home stadium
For example.
Couldn't you just set it up like this in alternating years?
First year: play OSU home, UW away.
Second year: OSU away, UW home
That way you wouldn’t have a game outside the NW.
It’s an honest question because sometimes I’m not too good looking ahead more than one or two years schedule-wise?
And even so, not having a game in the NW might be a good thing for increasing attendance in Martin Stadium.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 9:42 AM PDT up reply actions
Regarding increased attendance in Pullman
Personally, because I live in Portland I am much more apt to see the Cougs in Eugene or Corvallis than I am in Pullman. I might be different than most (frankly I hope I am) but personally if I knew the only chance I had to see the Cougs was to go to Pullman I’d be more likely to go.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 9:44 AM PDT up reply actions
It's possible
But with all the other “demands” out there that the Pac-10 schedule makers are going to try to fill, this is going to be low on the priority list.
by Jeff Nusser on Jul 15, 2010 10:37 AM PDT up reply actions
Yes, it does
By arbitrary, I mean that I could poll someone from every school and get twelve different answers on the zipper. There’s really only two answers with a geographic alignment. One involves the NorCal and NW schools, the other involves the newbies. Only one of these is realistic.
The point is, the zipper plan creates a “team draft” for the conference. In an effort to please everyone, the conference will have to sit there and arbitrarily place teams in divisions because there’s no clear method for splitting the conference in a zipper fashion. Doing so diminishes the value of the conference as a whole and potentially the conference championship game.
Larry Scott amazes me with his naivete
He’s surprised that scheduling is proving to be more of a problem than he anticipated? There are politics involved? What did he expect?
I am coming at this from the prespective that I don’t like the addition of Utah and Colorado. The conference was perfectly fine the way it was. Every team played each other in football, which it is the way it should be. To me, , with a 12 game league, then there should be 11 league games. Most 12-team conferences play 8 games, which I hate. At the very least the conference schedule should be kept to 9 games. I don’t give a s____t about non-conference games.
I am growing tired of the fact that money drives everything. The football schedule is in turmoil because TV can jerk around the game times with sometimes as little as 7 days notice.
The geographic configuration makes the most sense to me, Not happy about any of this. Just my $02.
yes, so naive...
…Unbelievable the way he engineered this whole expansion fiasco leading to scheduling chaos, a pac 10 championship game and several million dollars in incremental revenue for every program in the conference. What a boob.
Damn, my eyeball tastes good.
by Gekko Mojo on Jul 17, 2010 8:19 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
reply to Gekko Mojo
the championship games cheapen the regular season. They are purely a money grab. The regular season games should be the ones that count. I do not like the Pac10 BKB tournament because it gives crappy teams a chance to win the tournament.
We don’t have any guarantee about the money involved in this new Pac12. I still believe that every team should play every other team and I hate this Pac12.
Ok - I'm sorry to hear that you are stuck with a decision you don't like.
… I have a feeling that once they start playing games, it will feel the same as it ever did for you. Have fun!
Damn, my eyeball tastes good.
Zipper
I like the zipper plan, putting us and the puppies in separate divisions but maintaining the Apple Cup. Civil War. etc., as the last game of the season. It also gives everyone a presence throughout the conference. Five division games, the year-end rivalry game , 2 or 3 cross-over games, 3 or 4 OOC games and a championship. Sounds good to me!
With 9 games and geographic alignment, we'll still have a presence throughout the conference.
Heck, even with 8 games we will.
Unnamed NW school could definitely be us.
I’ve heard Moos talk about the California recruiting issue quite a bit (more than UW, OSU or UO) so personally I would assume it might be us that is adamant about having a couple Cali schools in the division. That being said, I don’t think its us demanding USC or UCLA, but rather Stanford or Cal as a compromise. Especially since 40% of our football recruiting has come from Nor Cal the last 2 or 3 years.
Whichever division gets the Nor Cal schools will take the unbalanced edge in divisional strength. That would be my only reason for going with a zipper to keep them a bit more balanced, but overall I’m a fan of North/South as long as all 4 Cal schools are not in the South.
by LeaveItToWeaver on Jul 15, 2010 10:11 AM PDT reply actions
Moos and Wulff have both said they preferred a geographic alignment
Moos likes the idea of keeping the NW rivalries completely intact.
The problem with the zipper is assigning schools to try to balance the divisions can completely backfire on you and is very short sighted. If balance is the only reason schools are assigned to either side of the split, it creates a conference that has no real identity, as well.
by Brian Floyd on Jul 15, 2010 10:27 AM PDT up reply actions
Yes, balance would be very short-sighted
Who is proposing balance?
Also, could you elaborate further on why you think the conference has no real identity if balance is employed?
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 10:48 AM PDT up reply actions
The ACC
Assigning teams with no apparent reason creates confusion and the lack of identity on a national scale. It’s tough to care about a conference with manufactured divisions on a local level, as well.
by Brian Floyd on Jul 15, 2010 10:51 AM PDT up reply actions
Lack of a great team makes the ACC more irrelevant
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 10:53 AM PDT up reply actions
The ACC aligned it's conference in an attempt to have an FSU-Miami conference championship every year
Not only has that failed miserably, but the conference championship itself has flopped in spectacular fashion.
by Brian Floyd on Jul 15, 2010 10:54 AM PDT up reply actions
If you use a North/South conference alignment aren't you just setting up the conference championship to be USC-UO every year?
No, because one year it might be OSU, the next UW, the next WSU….
Clearly you have a strong feeling regarding maintaining a national identity for the conference and you are convinced that the zipper will damage this. My guess is you likely have a good reason but either I haven’t asked the right question or I’m not smart enough to interpret your answers properly.
Using the ACC as the example for why a zipper wouldn’t work doesn’t quite make sense to me simply because if one of their powerhouse schools (FSU or Miami) had been relevant on a national level in the past five years, I don’t think your argument would hold up. Their zipper hasn’t made their conference irrelevant, FSU and Miami sucking made it so.
The same that would happen to the Pac 10 if USC is irrelevant.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 11:13 AM PDT up reply actions
That's the point about irrelevance and short sightedness
They set the conference up when those schools were relevant and made them the anchors of each division. Then, the two schools faded — which USC may very well do soon — and the conference fell off. The title game became irrelevant in the mean time.
On the national level, nobody can really figure out how or why the ACC is aligned the way it is. It’s hard to follow and causes confusion, something nobody wants.
by Brian Floyd on Jul 15, 2010 11:18 AM PDT up reply actions
Without looking, tell me who's in which division.
by Jeff Nusser on Jul 15, 2010 11:18 AM PDT up reply actions
I think Rutgers and Providence are in the Coastal Division.
I could be wrong, though.
by Kyle Rancourt on Jul 15, 2010 12:13 PM PDT up reply actions
Why does it matter?
It doesn’t matter who is in what conference, it matters if you have good football teams in your conference. Period, that’s it.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 1:37 PM PDT up reply actions
The North/South divisions proposed aren't geographically accurate.
The east/west of the SEC aren’t geographically accurate.
It takes 20 seconds to find out which teams are in which divisions in the ACC. The reason most people don’t know is because they don’t care to know. The ACC hasn’t done much in football for years now. Nobody talks about ACC football.
People outside of the west aren’t going to care about the Pac 10’s alignment, unless they care about the Pac 10. The “casual east coast fan” or “midwest fan” probably can’t name all the teams in the Pac 10 to begin with. Casual fans will watch games in other regions if they are relevant, and they won’t if they aren’t. The conference aligment is completely secondary to changing the perception that the Pac 10 plays second-class football.
nobody outside a conf cares about division alignment in a conference
Without google, most of us can’t identify the division alignments of the teams in the acc, second and former Big 12. We will not be able to in the big 10. This is much ado about nothing. This is nothing close to “turmoil” – it is simply logistcal planning that meets the most needs of most members.
Damn, my eyeball tastes good.
by Gekko Mojo on Jul 17, 2010 8:14 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
"second" = SEC
Damm auto spell check
Damn, my eyeball tastes good.
by Gekko Mojo on Jul 17, 2010 8:16 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
My question is, who would have the stones to push the issue?
I don’t think WSU is in a position to make this kind of demand. OSU (Riley, specifically) has said it doesn’t matter. Oregon has no AD.
There’s only one school left.
by Jeff Nusser on Jul 15, 2010 10:38 AM PDT up reply actions
We may not be in position..
But we’re DEFINITELY pushing for an alignment which includes the No-Cal schools. Moos has made that very, very clear.
I think the Wilner piece made it clear someone in the NW was pushing for SoCal schools
Am I mistaken? Those NoCal schools would be in our division in a north/south alignment.
by Jeff Nusser on Jul 15, 2010 11:05 AM PDT up reply actions
Sorry, missed that
So-Cal in our division is ridiculous; WA, OR & No-Cal; So-Cal, AZ & new guys makes more sense.
theoretically it could be Oregon...
but yeah, it’s Washington. When push comes to shove, they’re the only school secure enough in their position (academics, Seattle market, overall football history [though clearly not recent] ) to be comfortable making a big stink about an issue that at least theoretically has the potential to blow up the league (though that’d be a number of steps down the road, barring a REALLY awful solution being constructed)
Zipper plan problem
l think it would suck to have the same two teams play back to back in a rivalry game and conference championship game. For example last year Oregon vs. Oregon St. was for the Rose bowl. Under the zipper, the game could have been worthless as both teams could have played in the conference championship the following week.
I don’t like the idea of the possibility of natural rivals in the conference championship game. The rivalry game will count for more if they are fighting to decide which team will have the oportunity to represent the division in the championship game.
Agreed, this would be less than ideal
It definitely would have happened if OSU had won, but I can’t remember if OSU won the tiebreaker for second or would UA or Stanford actually have played in the title game?
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 10:45 AM PDT up reply actions
Arizona had the tiebreaker, I think
But in a divisional alignment with UA and Oregon in the same division, then it would’ve been a rematch.
It’s still something you’d want to avoid at all costs. An immediate rematch in a conference championship game kills the interest — and subsequently the revenue — in the game itself.
by Brian Floyd on Jul 15, 2010 10:47 AM PDT up reply actions
I don't want to seem like devil's advocate
But, a rematch could be fantastic if the earlier game went down to the wire. Frankly, watching UO vs OSU play again two weeks later might have been a heck of a lot better than watching one team annihilate the other if the different divisions happened to have unequal champions.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 10:50 AM PDT up reply actions
Completely disagree.
Let’s say Oregon wins this fictitious first game. Then they win again in the rematch. I don’t really care if both games are great and come down to the wire, Oregon wins both. OSU shouldn’t have been given a 2nd chance to simply lose again.
Think back to a few years ago when the Michigan vs. Ohio State game was a battle to see who goes to the National Championship. Great, great game. Ohio State wins. People are clamoring for a rematch in the NC.
Michigan winds up getting absolutely destroyed by USC in the Rose Bowl. If they played again and won, then all it was saying was “Oh now we’re tied. Best 2 out of 3?” and who is the National Champion? If they lose, then everyone would be saying, hey, didn’t we just see them lose? Why are we watching this again?
I realize this may be a poor example since we wouldn’t be voting anyone in, but it’s the first thing I think of when someone says they want to watch a rematch of teams two weeks later. I vote no everyday of the week, and twice on Sunday.
by Kyle Rancourt on Jul 15, 2010 12:20 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I remember how volatile the opinions were on each side of the Michigan/Ohio State rematch question
Frankly it comes down to a matter of differing opinions. Rematches make for great drama in the NFL, in college basketball, and in my opinion, college football.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions
Actually, the NFL is making sure it now has divisional games in week 17
Precisely to avoid last season’s rematches. The NCAA Tournament committee seeds teams to avoid rematches in the first two rounds.
I needed to make a distinction between two types of rematches
There’s the back to back rematch, like Michigan-Ohio St. almost was and then any old rematch that involves the same two teams playing more than once in a season. I recognize now that you were clearly referring to the back to back rematch which I will still admit is less than ideal, but not horrible.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 7:37 PM PDT up reply actions
I don't mind the rematch if it was from way earlier in the year.
So I don’t mind playing Alabama in Week 2 and then meeting them again in the National Title game. What I don’t like is playing them in Week 14 and then again in Week 16 or whatever week it is.
Obviously no way we ever play Alabama. They’re way too scared of us.
by Kyle Rancourt on Jul 15, 2010 8:12 PM PDT up reply actions
They're afraid of the ghost of Mike Price
by Jeff Nusser on Jul 15, 2010 9:45 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I hadn't even considered the last point.
The Zipper Plan is just sounding psychotic.
I don’t think I realized that Cal-UCLA was such a big deal to create this headache.
TV Money
I think we will find that the biggest push towards maintaining rivalries is from the network deal. The Pac 12 has to build the most marketable platform that it can to maximize $$$. Cal vs USC pits two of the largest tv markets in the nation against each other. So I am pretty certain that what can deliver the most money is where the league will lean. As for 9 league games that just means more money split within the Pac 12. More games means larger deal for a Pac 12 television network. I do believe that it is short sided because it impacts bowl games by adding 6 more losses to the league. I think regardless of the setup WSU will be stronger both financially and as a brand. Should be interesting to see what the final outcome is.
This is an excellent point
By not becoming the Pac-16, the conference needs to find other ways to maximize value. Rivalries will help do that.
by Grady Clapp on Jul 15, 2010 1:28 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
Win / Loss records maximize value
A better win/loss ratio increases your SOS which increases national attention and the possibility of being ranked. Plus it increases the odds of the conference champion being in the NCG and the PAC 12 getting 2 BCS bids.
If the PAC12 beats each other up the rest of the nation will just see mediocrity.
Something else that brings up value is scarcity. It’s the law of supply and demand. Personally a game against Cal has high value in my opinion. If a home game against Cal happens every 4 years instead of every 2, then the value of that game just went up. I am more likely to spend on higher ticket prices.
This is why I'm all for the 8 game schedule
But I’m still pretty neutral on divisional alignment. Only thing I wouldn’t go for is a NW division that includes Utah & Col instead of Cal & Stan.
by Grady Clapp on Jul 15, 2010 3:45 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
What about this for TV Money
Let’s say that the PAC 12 plays 8 conference games instead of 9. This makes it easier for all teams to schedule an extra home game like other BCS leagues do. Now all PAC 12 teams have 7 home games and 5 road games every year.
Since home teams gets TV rights there will be more games to put on the PAC 12 TV network. Instead of 6 inter-conference home games, we could replace this with 12 OOC home games. This adds an additional 6 games for TV revenue.
Plus more teams will qualify for Bowl games (as Coug03 mentioned.)
Of course I made the assumption that we could only schedule an extra home game if we don’t have 9 conference games. This isn’t necessarilly true. I have heard people talk like it makes a differnce due to ease of scheduling though.
I agree
The only problem is that all non conf games are created equal. The choice is that most teams would take a bye that week by buying some team from Cheeseball U and give them a thrashing in front of minimal viewership. The teams that do schedule a good opponent are likely to get picked up nationally, although both options are good for teams in the pac12, neither are very good for the Pac12 network. A 9th game gives the Pac12 a whole additional week of big matchups. So if 8 weeks of matchups is worth 200 million than a 9th week is worth 25 million or 2 million per school and all the money stays in conference. If USC has to pay Tulsa to come play that will cost them 1 million which is going rate to beat up on someone. If there is a 9th Pac12 game it is because money talks.
You bring up good points
But if we beat up on each other, the nation will stop caring about us. Equality = mediocrity in their eyes. Plus not all games are $1 million, Alabama paid Georgia State $435,000. It would have been $400,000 but they added $35,000 to bump the game to Thursday so they would have extra time to prep for Auburn the following week. That is a bad example because it is a div II game. It does show how a div II game can be used to beat a strong opponent the following week though. San Jose St. dumped Stanford this year for a $1 million payout from Alabama.
Notice the common thread is Alabama bought 2 wins this year. Plus a tactical advantage over a conference foe. Maybe you are right, we can’t compete with the SEC’s ability to buy wins. Alabama outpaid furd, even after the cost of flying across the country.
the problem
is that not everyone is able to schedule halfway decent OOC games. Remember, Wazzu signed up for bodybag games at Auburn and Wisconsin in the last decade alone, and has done home and homes with schools like Baylor and SMU. For the Cougars, the choice between doing a home and home with Pac-12 team X (9th league game) or someone like Baylor or SMU seems pretty clear to me; they’d be MUCH better off with more league games rather than less.
Moreover, I think we’re moving to the point where TV dollars start driving more and more of the decisions, and I think that you’d get MUCH better ratings for, say, UCLA-Colorado than you would UCLA-Rice or Colorado-Tulane (or, to be honest, the sum of those two games).
I disagree
Those bodybag games were purely for revenue. I would imagine the new Pac-12 contract will be the same whether there are 8 or 9 conference games. If WSU doesn’t need to get revenue at the same level it does now because of increased television revenue, it’s MUCH preferable to play 3 or 4 cupcakes and get to a bowl game.
the national tv
contracts may well be the same, but a lot of the other games would be on Pac-12 network (or whatever it’s called). In that case, TV ratings would directly matter, both to boost subscriptions in non-footprint areas and to boost ad revenue.
Moreover, TV contracts wouldn’t be negotiated until after it was made clear how things would be scheduled. Almost certainly 9 games would be more valuable for TV execs than 8 (though there are exceptions; USC adding a home and home with an SEC school would be more valuable than a 9th league game, for instance)
It won't change the contract
Whether it’s 8 or 9 games doesn’t matter. The contract covering the sum of the games within the contract will be the same. We’ll all still play 12 games and the networks will get 12 games. An extra conference game should be negligible. The SEC and their 2 billion dollar contract for 8 conference games (with 4 non-conference patsies) should be proof enough.
Yup
Plenty of good inventory with eight conference games. In fact, I’d argue there’s probably MORE good inventory given the way records would likely be inflated.
a potentially better way
The zipper is just a horrible idea, which the ACC has been kind enough to demonstrate very clearly. There’s really no good reason why Arizona should play Oregon every year and Oregon St only every other year (or vice-versa), which is exactly what would happen in such a setup. It creates artificial "rivalries" that really aren’t much cared about by the teams involved (much like BC against Wake, Clemson and FSU; UNC and Duke against Miami and Virginia Tech; etc.).
One thing that’s been bandied about by some writers and fans is the idea of rotating divisions. Most such setups are really wacky and bad ideas (IMO), but there is one way that might actually work.. What I had in mind was a North/South setup with partial rotation. The Pacific Northwest schools would be always in the North, the Arizona and Mountain schools always in the South, and the California schools rotating between divisions. For 2011 and 2012, the Bay Area schools would be in the North and LA in the South, and in 2013 and 2014, they’d reverse. Presuming that you always have all the CA schools playing each other every year, you’d end up with (as examples):
Washington:
(first five games intra-division, last four non-division)
2011: vs WSU, vs UO, @ OS, vs Cal, @ Stan, vs UCLA, @ Utah, vs Colo, @ ASU
2012: @ WSU, @ UO, vs OS, @ Cal, vs Stan, @ USC, vs Utah, @ Colo, vs Ariz
2013: vs WSU, vs UO, @ OS, vs USC, @ UCLA, vs Cal, @ Utah, @ Ariz, vs ASU
2014: @ WSU, @ UO, vs OS, @ USC, vs UCLA, @ Stan, vs Colo, vs Ariz, @ ASU
USC:
(first five games intra-division, last four non-division)
2011: @ UCLA, vs Ariz, @ ASU, vs Colo, @ Utah, @ Cal, vs Stan, vs UO, @ WSU
2012: vs UCLA, @ Ariz, vs ASU, @ Colo, vs Utah, vs Cal, @ Stan, @ OS, vs Wash
2013: @ UCLA, vs OS, @ UO, vs WSU, @ Wash, @ Cal, vs Stan, vs Ariz, @ Utah
2014: vs UCLA, @ Ariz, vs ASU, @ Colo, vs Utah, vs Cal, @ Stan, @ ASU, vs Colo
Arizona:
(first five games intra-division, last four non-division)
2011: @ ASU, vs Colo, @ Utah, vs UCLA, @ USC, @ Cal, @ UO, vs OS, vs WSU
2012: vs ASU, @ Colo, vs Utah, @ UCLA, vs USC, vs Stan, vs UO, @ OS, @ Wash
2013: @ ASU, vs Colo, @ Utah, vs Cal, @ Stan, @ USC, vs OS, vs Wash, @ WSU
2014: vs ASU, @ Colo, vs Utah, @ Cal, vs Stan, vs UCLA, @ UO, @ Wash, vs WSU
(and then for 2015 – 2018 you reverse the @/vs assignments for all non-annual opponents, making it a fair eight-year rotation)
For Washington (who is the one that seems to be most concerned on the issue), it’d be 3 out of 4 (which is the most possible under ANY reasonable setup). It also wouldn’t arbitrarily put USC on the schedule every year and UCLA every other (or vice-versa); ditto for Utah vs Colorado, Arizona vs ASU, etc.
It also ensures that each of the Pacific Northwest schools play a full round-robin annually, as well as the Arizona/Mountain group, which I’m pretty sure is a good thing to do. Moreover, it makes sure that you’ll never see a championship game between two local rivals right after they meet to end the season, and heading off that possibility is (in my opinion) a very good thing.
I’m not sure I really love this one (I generally prefer stable, fixed, geographically obvious divisions), but when compared to the zipper…
I'll give you credit for all the work you did on this post
However, this is just too confusing to any fan, casual or ardent, and I don’t see how ensuring that the NW schools play each other is the be-all-end-all that would necessitate such confusion.
by Nicky Glasses on Jul 15, 2010 7:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Change NW to California and you still have a confusing scenario
And thus, we arrive back at the problem.
The heart of the problem here is that the California schools are forcing the conference to bend to their will, allowing them to maximize the chances of continuing their rivalries every year.
Come on, there are reasons to go with 9 conference games that have nothing to do with preserving the intrastate California games. Cal (and I presume most Pac-10 schools) try to schedule roughly A-B-C. One high interest home and home with a BCS conference A team. One game against a second tier BCS or mid-major B that’s home and home or a schedule filling one off and one FCS or weak mid-major C no return game. This usually means one road and two home games. The 9th conference game guarantees .5 additional losses for each team or 6 losses for the new 12 team conference. To make a 4th OOC game worth it we’d need to eliminate nearly all those losses and additional A and B games won’t do that.
The problem is we’re not the SEC, Big12 or Big10. Many of them can SELL OUT 80-100K stadiums for glorified scrimmages two times a year. And probably get decent TV rating for that sh*t. The Pac-10 can’t. Do you want a directional FCS or WAC bottom feeder replacing a conference game? Because that’s the only way to make the 4th OOC game pad the record sufficiently. Those games will be poorly attended and no one will tune in to a hypothetical Pac-10 network to watch them. On top of that we’ll have to pay ever increasing guarantees to get them (ask San Jose State how much they want for a bodybag game these days). All that to get one, maybe two 5-7 teams to 6-6 and eligible for a mid December bowl game? Not worth it.
Sooner...
or later the California schools will become boring if they only stay in California. They need to get out some time.
by well you win some and lose others on Jul 16, 2010 8:08 AM PDT up reply actions
So, the MEAC, CUSA, and ACC can do that?
Because the Pac-10 would be the only conference with divisions that plays 9 games.
by Brian Floyd on Jul 16, 2010 11:05 AM PDT up reply actions
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