sec03 wrote:
Personally, I am not keen on conferences going beyong 14, given that a few have already reached 14. With 12 regular season games scheduled of which 3 to 4 are OOCs', 14 is plenty for two divisions and a CCG.
The model the PAC-12 was using last year, if they expanded to 16, I think was what everybody else will use in getting to 16 team conferences. Break everything up in 4, 4 team pods. Play everyone in your pod once, and rotate playing one other pod yearly. This gives you 7 conference games, and you can have one out of pod "lock in" game yearly, thus giving you 8 conferences games. Then, you can schedule 3 other games, so teams like UF can schedule the Citadel, Troy, UL-Monroe, Bowling Green, FAU, or whatever other lamb wants to visit the swamp.
The end result is you will have 4 pod winners, playing two semifinal games and then a championship game. Increased TV revenue? You know a conference like the SEC would love a scenario like this! First weekend of December they have their semifinals, then the second weekend they stage their championship game! Talk about a revenue windfall!
Greed will drive this gravy train. As long as one conference does it, they will all do it.
Just to do a little "future" gazing using a potential pod divisional format and NC St and VT in the SEC.
Pod A: Texas A&M, LSU, Arkansas, Missouri
Pod B: Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State
Pod C: UF, Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Pod D: NC St, VT, South Carolina, Kentucky
Pod winners play: LSU Vs. South Carolina and Alabama Vs. Georgia
Those winners playing for the SEC Championship the following week.
* Team, pods, playoff seeding are only being used to show how such a set-up could work. It is not my attempt to say any team would be joining the SEC, or this is the way any pod divisions would be broken up.
