NCAA08: Join a conference or stay independent?

[Young Drachma]

So I've been playing a dynasty in NCAA08 with a created school that I've built up over time. Well, the past three years we've become an upstart. We won our first bowl game three years ago, won the Rose Bowl as an at-large the year after that and won the national title last year against another upstart program that recently got into the Big Ten.

Anyway....I'm trying to figure out whether we ought to accept an invitation to go from being an independent to joining the Big XII. I declined the invite last year, but I imagine it'll come again this year and so, I'm trying to figure out what the advantage is to joining a "major" conference when you're already an emerging juggernaut as an independent and can pick whoever you want to play (though I don't go nuts on scheduled great teams, I've been incremental about it...)

So, what do you all say? Independent or join a conference?

[MrBug708]

You have the ability to have playrs be All Conference when you are part of a conference

[jackyl]

I've stayed independent through seven years so far on my dynasty but I'm not nearly as successful as your school - on purpose. Biggest reason so far is so I can see all of the pretty stadiums that were included this year instead of that generic bowl the 07 version used. It's fun to actually work to beat UL-Monroe and see their place in high definition glory.

Bottom line, why join a conference if you've won a Rose Bowl and a title in consecutive years? That's exactly what Texas did in 04 and 05 and they're already in the conference that wants you. Stick with variety, or maybe try to get to the level where you replace the upstart in the Big Ten.

Who joined the Big Ten, anyway? What happened there?

[Young Drachma]

Whenever I play, one of my friends and I always start a dynasty and he creates Ferrum College in Va where he went and I always created Monmouth College in Illinois where I spent some time as an undergraduate both are D3 schools. But this time, I didn't play as Monmouth, I created a school in Cody, Wyoming called Yellowstone University, which is intentionally recruiting largely out of state (we have a pipeline in Ohio, New Jersey, Texas and California..) and in my head, is a big endowment private school in a region with no major private schools like that -- at least football playing ones.


Anyway...we were pretty bad for a few years, but Monmouth got good around Year 4 and so, I took them over near the off-season to see if they would get recruited out of Conference USA where I started them and sure enough, the Big 10 asked them to join (replacing Indiana..as it turns out) and they've been dominant as a Big 10 member ever since. I'll do this from time to time (taking over a team at season end to get conferences to swap out a bit) if a team is soaring and turning into something of an upstart, because it makes the game a lot more interesting, since it's inheirently rigged towards the traditional juggernauts/big conferences.

I guess because they're in Illinois or because I have no idea why. But they're really good and we met them in the national title game last year and happily put on them -- and funny enough, that game was in Pasadena too, so I like to joke we're 2-0 in the Rose Bowl and we're hosting USC as a home/home this year.

Now that we've established ourselves as one of the nation's "elite" teams, it's easier to get better games against good schools and I try to mix it up around the conferences, realizing that it's easier to schedule a Big East school than to try to load up on great schools and artificially insert ourselves into the national championship conversation each year, while still keeping it realistic too.

So I dunno. I like being independent, largely for the flexibility. And I like your stadium touristing, it's a lot of fun and part of what I do when I play, to travel to see stadiums (though I like our stadium, because it looks a lot like Cody. A horseshoe with the mountains surrounding it.)

If you haven't been to Lincoln Financial to play Temple, you ought to. It's fun to see that place with their colours and to be able to play in an NFL stadium in the game or at least, their variation of an NFL stadium. The stadium that the International Bowl is played in Toronto isn't all that great.

But anyway...that's what's going on and so, that's my dilemma. I'm leaning towards staying independent, but I was debating it heading into the end of this season. (we're #3 and down 21-7 right now against USC at home in the 2nd half, as I type this...so this discussion won't be moot, but it might not involve us repeating as champs unless I can quickly turn it around.)

But your Texas example is a good one to point out.

[sabotai]

I like playing in conference championships. That would be my only reason for joining a conference.

[CamEdwards]

Speaking of NCAA 08, is there a reason that Idaho's Kibbie Dome has been turned into an open air bowl that seems to seet 50,000+?

[Young Drachma]

I guess that the benefit of a conference is that if we're having a bad season, we can still get a BCS bid we manage to win games in the conference. That's the benefit. And strength of schedule will always be relatively high in a top conference.

Because it's all fine and dandy now that we're good and all, but if we hit a bad stretch, I'd hate to be on the outside looking in and start getting offers from the WAC or Mountain West or something like that.

[Young Drachma]

Speaking of NCAA 08, is there a reason that Idaho's Kibbie Dome has been turned into an open air bowl that seems to seet 50,000+?

I googled and apparently they left out like 20 stadiums for one reason or another. Of course, they won't tell us why. They just do it.

[Raiders Army]

Join a conference because it's one more thing that will help you recruit. (conference prestige)