Mexico does pro/rel on the basis of a last 3 year's average, or thereabouts. I'm not sure about the specifics of it (for instance, how a team that's been up one or two years is compared to 3+-year teams), but it is possible to work this without penalizing the single horrible season.

Of course, when I first dreamed of this many moons ago, I went with 4 regions of 12, suggesting a 12th game be permanently added, and making winning the region vitally important to NC chances (in short, 4-team playoff).

That being said, I'll add to GunnerFan's comments to say that it's far more likely that most of Europe will end pro/rel first, rather than the NCAA adopting it (much less, say, Major League Soccer and the United Soccer Leagues, though you can find websites with a lot of fans naively wondering why THAT hasn't happened).

The only way I see scheduling working is by dividing the 12-team "A League" Conferences into two divisions with NO cross-divisional play. The games that would be opened up could be used for "Traditional Rivalries". That way, if a team (Vanderbilt) gets relegated to "B League", it can use the traditional games to maintain rivalries. Similarly, if a team (Boise State) gets bumped up, they can use the Traditional games for Idaho, Fresno State,...


Networks would have to commit to conferences and not teams. Scheduling probably couldn't be done more than one year in advance.


As far as recruiting and "fairness", do away with all scholarship rules other than the 1-A Maximum allowance. Schools sign as many or as few players as they care to sign. That way, a team like McNeese State can jump up to the B League from 1-AA without having to adjust scholarships.


Aa far as schools fearing relegation, they are all BCS teams that don't want a level playing field like this would be. A team like UNT or TCU could get its fair shot at The Big Boys while a team like Baylor plays against teams that are at its level.


I agree that this won't happen, but I love the idea.

I doubt relegation would ever take hold, for many of the reasons suggested, but I don't think it's completely unmanageable. Teams could make contracts contingent on teams remaining in I-A. If one or the other falls out of the top division, the remaining games on the contract are null-and-void. It also wouldn't be too difficult to simply switch out the team falling to I-B with the team taking their place in I-A. You won't see a lot of multi-year non-conference contracts, but you don't see more than a home-and-home in most cases now anyway. Teams may have to wait later to fill out their schedules than they do now, but I don't see that as a bad thing. It will give us better and more interesting games. You won't get an LSU-Arizona that was supposed to be a quality matchup, then turned sour when Arizona tanked.

Most big-time rivals wouldn't have to face the possibility of one of the teams being relegated. Rarely would a big-time program fall on such hard times that they would fall to the very bottom of their league and, even then, they'd likely win the minimum number of games they need to avoid relegation.

GunnerFan would know better than I, but my impression of the effect of relegation in European soccer is that mainly the same group of teams bounce up and down from the highest division to the next division. I would imagine that the same would be true in my proposed divisions. There would be two (at most three) schools from each of the original I-A conferences who are on occasion replaced by two or three of the schools from the paired I-B conference. Some of the I-B schools might thrive and find a way to stay in I-A, but most would do their two-year stint, then fall back to I-B, most likely replaced by the I-A team who fell.

I see this as the best way to improve the quality of games at the highest division, while still giving some of the lesser programs a chance to prove themselves. Everyone is given an opportunity to thrive, if they can make the grade.

BTW, GunnerFan, do you have any comments on my response to your original questions?

Your explanation of the SEC moves suits your scheme. I'm not aware of the depth of the Auburn/ Florida rivalry, but as you said these things are works in progress. I think I've placed a scenario up some time ago but have refrained since simply for an inability to find a perfect medium.

My standards usually include 8-10 team models, which does away with conference championship games but would allow a 12th regular season game and thus at least a 3rd ooc game. I've yet to try anything radical, feeling too attached to certain alignments as it is. Perhaps I'll force myself out of the box one afternoon and see what spills onto the keyboard.

GunnerFan, all

Page 2 of the Dream thread deals a lot with a D-1A - 1B moving realignment. To work, FB conference alignments must be seperate from "non-revenue" sports. I won't bother with the question about men's and women's BB.

I will keep looking for some of the other post that I know are on this board. The Idea for rule change has a good bit on the subject too. :)

Realignment doesn't have to occur every 2 or 3 yrs, and they don't even have to be formal. One idea that I proposed somewhere on this board is that teams can only change conferences during certain "windows." The idea was that teams would change conferences in an orderly manor. The catch is that the Vandys and Baylors of the BCS would never want to move down.
To get them to willingly move down is the catch.

Seven team conferences seem best to me. This leaves 5 or 6 ooc games. Half would go into some type of year by year arrangement to guarentee that all the top 40 teams played at least 2 top 20 teams. ??? How to do that? I do not have a clue! ??? :-[ I hereby invite ALL ideas. :)

FBfan

I think you would have to have very rigid scheduling (what games take place in what week).

Sample schedule:
-----------------------
Week 01 Traditional Rivalry Game
Week 02 Traditional Rivalry Game
Week 03 Traditional Rivalry Game
Week 04 Traditional Rivalry Game
Week 05 OOC Top 20 Game
Week 06 OOC Top 20 Game
Week 07 National Bye Week
Week 08 Conference Game
Week 09 Conference Game
Week 10 Conference Game
Week 11 Conference Game
Week 12 Conference Game
Week 13 Conference Game
Week 14 Bye?
Week 15 Playoff ?
Week 16 Playoff ?

You and I seem to be very much on the same page, FBfan. I agree that 7-team conferences might be the ideal. They allow for an even number of conference games every year (thus, the same number home-and-away) and almost half the schedule out-of-conference. The only reason I didn't propose that in my dream conference alignment is that I wanted 8 conferences and cutting down to 56 teams rather than 64 might be a bit drastic. It does make some of the choices at the bottom less arbitrary, however. Here's a crack at 7-team conferences:

ACC
Miami-Fl
Florida St
Virginia Tech
Virginia
Maryland
NC St
UNC

Big East
Penn St
Notre Dame
Syracuse
W. Virginia
Purdue
Boston College
Pitt

SEC-East
Florida
Georgia
Auburn
Georgia Tech
Clemson
Marshall
S. Carolina

SEC-West
Tennessee
Alabama
LSU
Arkansas
Ole Miss
USM
Louisville

Big "Ten"
Michigan
Ohio St
Wisconsin
Michigan St
Iowa
Miami-Ohio
Toledo

Big 7
Oklahoma
Texas
Texas A&M
Kansas St
TCU
Oklahoma St
Missouri

MWC
Nebraska
Colorado
Arizona St
BYU
Air Force
Arizona
Utah

Pac-7
USC
UCLA
Washington
Oregon
Washington St
Fresno St
Stanford

Maybe the conferences could be paired, such that #1 over a two-year period from one conference plays a home-and-home in the next two-year period with #1 from the other conference, #2 plays #2, etc. ACC-Big East, SEC-West vs SEC-East, Big Ten-Pac-7 and Big-7-MWC would seem the natural pairings. Also, I'd have another series determined in the same fashion on a rotating basis. ACC would play SEC-West, the SEC-East, until they've gone through all conferences. That still leaves teams the 3 free games to schedule as they do now, though of course still requiring that 2 of the 3 come against the top division.

KungPaoCajun,
Yes and no. It would cause problems, but you would only have to designate two weekends. One home and 1 away.

Mike The Tiger,
If you want only 8 conferences, you could go with 14 teams conferences. The key is to limit the number of conference games. If you pared a current BCS conference( or a division of it like the SEC east or Big 12 north) with a non BCS conference, you would have the effect of eleminating the non BCS conference.

The problem is that the TV revenue for the BCS conference would go down. Would a 2 for 1 "challenge" during the 1st 3 weeks be good enough for the "big boys." This would only require that all the conferences have the same number of teams, and a little regidity.
FBfan

The Big Ten commisioner recently commented he would like to see a 12 team conference (with ND as 12th) but would be opposed to divisions or a conference championship game. This has been his position all along, but it was further strengthened by the way the Big 12 hurt itself with K-State's win over Okla in the championship game.

So I'd see a dream conference with 12 teams, no divisons, no league play-off and a round robin schedule. That's 11 games. By adding one more regular season game (making it 13), you still get a round-robin 11 and 2 non-conference games.

To me that would be ideal. I find 14 too big. The idea of seven gives you that odd number so someone isn't playing a league game each week.

I'm trying to strengthen the conferences and the average level of competition. Having a top division of 112 teams wouldn't accomplish that goal. Also, I want conferences in which everyone plays everyone else. You don't have that in a 14-team conference.

The SEC used to have that setup a long time ago back when Georgia Tech, Tulane, and the University of the South (Sewanee) were in the league, and back when Arkansas and South Carolina were still playing in the SWC and the ACC respectively. When the SEC had 13 teams, there was no conference championship game or divisions. It worked out for awhile, but then Sewanee dropped out, and GT & Tulane soon followed.

my dream conferences

SEC - South
Miami
Florida
FSU
Georgia
GTech
Alabama
Auburn

SEC - North
S. Carolina
Clemson
Duke
UNC
Tennessee
Kentucky
Louisville


SWC - West
Arizona
ASU
UNM
NM St.
Colorado
CSU
UTEP
T. Tech

SWC - East
UNT
Houston
UT
A&M
Texas St. (all sports)
LSU
OU
OSU


Big East - North
UMASS (all sports)
UCONN
Syracuse
Temple
Penn St.
Pitt
Maryland

Big East - South
Marshall
WV
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Kentucky
Cinncinati
Louisville

Big 14 - EAST
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Indiana
Notre Dame
Illinois
Wisconsin

Big 14 - WEST
Minnesota
Iowa
Iowa St.
Missouri
Nebraska
Kansas
Kansas St.

Realignment Thoughts
How college football could realign
March 15, 2004
By Pete Fiutak
http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2004/Features/Realiginment.htm

That looks pretty much like my idea with the only difference being that my conferences make more sense. :)