College Football 2014-15

Lost Virtue

Trakanon Raider
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Honestly, Division 1-A(FBS) needs to be split. It needs to be done in Football and it REALLY needs to be done in Basketball. 124 FBS teams is too many. Baasically split that in half. The 5 "power" conferences as the new FBS level 1, and the smaller schools as a FBS level 2, however you want to designate it.

I mean, theres zero chance that one of those level 2 teams is ever getting into the playoff anyways, at least not until it expands to at least an 8 team playoff, so whats the difference?

Require that the top-tier of FBS can't play more than 1 team from the lower tier per season, like they do with the FCS now.
Issue is, a lot of members of the Power 5 are almost D2 level of bad. AAC Schools like Cinci and UCF can beat most Power 5 teams (in football at least).

Same goes for basketball. the SEC is very weak in basketball besides Florida and Kentucky. PAC-12 is weak also (aside from Arizona and UCLA). You have ACC, Big East easily beating most Power 5 schools in basketball.
 

Joeboo

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Well, basketball splitting in half could still be something like ~100 schools in the top division, and toss the other 240ish to a lower division.

And while I believe that in college football, a lot of teams can beat a lot of others in any given 1-game sample size, but throw Cinci and UCF into the SEC or Big10 or whatever power conference and they are middling bowl-eligible teams most years. They aren't approaching double-digit wins most years by any means. Sure they could hang in the big conferences, but not at the level of success they have recently experienced. I feel the same way about Boise St, even though they even won some BCS bowl games, they aren't even getting the chance to play in a BCS bowl game if they are in the Pac12, they aren't ripping off 50 wins in 4 years in a good conference. TCU has experienced this phenomenon first hand, and the B12 is arguably the weakest of the remaining "power conferences". After only losing 1 conference game in 4 years prior to joining the Big12, they've gone 4-5 and 2-7 in their 2 years since joining. BIG difference.
 

Joeboo

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No one ever accused 'Bama fans of being smart
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Excuse me, Alabama fan, your anti-Auburn t-shirt makes no sense - SBNation.com
 

Whidon

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Really worried college sports as we know it are going to morph into something far less intriguing. The way things are going I feel that eventually the big football schools will be unassailable dominate in football and even basketball because they can pay athletes far more.

Basketball splitting into two divisions might make sense to at least ensure more schools can remain competitive. I assume schools would still play vs many lower D1(B) schools.

For conferences you have the eight obvious ones. The "power 5" + American, Atlantic 10, and Big East. Add something like Mountain West or the best remaining mid major, and possibly have a few select schools join those conferences if needed.

I do think you underestimate the importance of those non-conference games vs smaller schools however. At least up in the northeast with so many smaller schools they always seemed to have a real purpose to me.
 

Joeboo

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The glorious SEC network debuted last night. They had several hours of famous alumni from each school talking about their school, the traditions, their favorite sports memories, etc. The choice of school representatives was pretty damned funny though.

Mizzou - Carl Edwards
A&M - Gov. Rick Perry
Kentucky - Ashley Judd(who is starting to look old, btw)
LSU - James Carville
SC - Darius Rucker(Hootie)
Tennessee - Charlie Daniels
Vandy - some host of the Today Show
Florida - Emmitt Smith
etc

But then -
Alabama - Melissa Joan Heart(from NY, lives in Connecticut, never attended any school in the state of Alabama, but I think maybe her husband is a Bama fan?)

and Arkansas:
May,_Ralphie.jpg

lol. I don't know what they were thinking with those 2 schools.
 

lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint
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Well, at least they hold their athletes to the same academic rigour as the rest of the student. Those football players might accidentally get an education along the way.

But crap.
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
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Bret Bielema Instructed Arkansas Fans To Knock the Shit Out of Auburn Spies | The Big Lead

This is inexcusable. Bielema, Jeff Long, and Arkansas need to immediately release an apology to Auburn. They should be fined and the SEC / NCAA should open an investigation in to Arkansas and targeting. Who knows what he's instructing the players to do on the field if he wants Arkansas fans to start attacking fans from other teams. He's a head coach who is outright inciting violence.

Am I doing this outrage thing right? Little over a week until opener and we need to create some drama up in here.
 

Joeboo

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Well, even with a backup QB, Ohio State should still be able to go something like 11-1. They only have 1 ranked team on their schedule for the entire year
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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Well, even with a backup QB, Ohio State should still be able to go something like 11-1. They only have 1 ranked team on their schedule for the entire year
Oddly enough last week radio hosts were doing what-if scenarios with Miller injured and most agreed they were a 3 loss team at best. We'll see how it all plays out. Their offense was mostly predicated on Miller/Hyde last year just running and their defense is fuck-all. They're not really that strong a team top to bottom.
 

lurkingdirk

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Well, even with a backup QB, Ohio State should still be able to go something like 11-1. They only have 1 ranked team on their schedule for the entire year
1 ranked team to face all year. And yet, everyone is calling them a powerhouse. Put a bunch of ranked teams in there and watch that program fold in on itself.
 
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Ohio State could lose at home in Week 2 to an unranked team. I'm not sure why ESPN gets its head so far up its ass about who is ranked and who isn't. I thought we have a playoff system now to ward off some of the stupid.

Virginia Tech's definitely fallen off in recent years, but it's been because of a dated offense and a total decline in special teams. The defense is strong as ever. OSU will definitely remain favored, and rightfully so...but I dunno how fun it's going to be for a freshman QB to see a Bud Foster defense in his second game as a starter. Scratch that, firstrealgame as a starter. I'm sure he'll do fine against Navy.

I'm not going to sit here and predict a victory, but if the new Tech QB can take care of the ball and the defense plays to its usual standard it'll be a game. Fun fact: One team on its schedule held Alabama to less than 300 yards of offense last year. Virginia Tech gave up 206 before the offense and special teams imploded and sent a load of points the other way.