Conference Invites

[spdawesome]

My question is in three parts:

First, I have a Teambuilder team in my off-line Dynasty who currently resides in the MAC. They have been pretty soild; winning the conference several times over 5 seasons, and ever finishing in the top 25 a few times. What do you have to do exactly to get an invite to a higher conference? It is pretty uncommon?

Second, I was curious if non-user controlled teams ever receive, and in turn change conferences?

And lastly, is it possible for a team who already reside within a BCS conference to receive an invite to another BCS conference? Like, I understand you might receive an invite to move to a higher conference, but does parallel conference movement ever occur?

Thanks, guys!

-Sean

[dshill]

1. It depends on the star prestige of your program. You can only replace a program with a lower prestige than you. So if you have a three star MAC program, you can only replace a 2 or 1 star program in a conference that makes geographic sense. The team you replace needs to have a pretty bad season for the conference to want to replace you. The conference invites happen randomly -- you could get one within the first couple of years, or it could take 10-15 years. It's not like, "this team did X,Y, and Z things so now he's going to get an invite for sure.' But I have noticed that finishing in the top 25 and winning your bowl game tend to get you an invite. Winning your conference itself doesn't seem to make it more likely, but obviously you need to have a real good season to get an invite-- I'd say any more than 2 losses and it's not real likely. In past years, I'd take the top 11 midmajor teams and user control them for the period you'd get invites, and I'd say I could usually rely on one or two a year, so they are decently common.

2. there are no conference swaps that do not involve a user-controlled team.

3. I haven't looked this year. In 09 and prior, it was possible for Big East teams to get swooped up by other conferences, but it never seemed to happen in 2010, so I have a feeling that, in that game, and BCS conferences were on equal footing, and the only way to swap is to get kicked out first (i.e. Utah replaces Arizona in the Pac-10. A few years later, Arizona replaces Baylor in the Big 12). Due to the realignment this offseason, I wouldn't be surprised if the Big East is again vulnerable, maybe also the ACC to the SEC.

[Pogo27]

It helps to play (and beat) teams in one of the BCS conferences as part of your non-conf schedule. For instance, if you're in the MAC and in a Big Ten state, start playing Indiana and Northwestern every season in your non-conference schedule.


What conferences you get invited to is related to what state your school is located in. Boise State, for example, would never get invited to the ACC.

I do know for sure that if State A already has a school in Conference X, then all schools in State A are for sure able to join Conference X. For example, if you created a teambuilder school in Florida and started as an Independent...you could get invited to join the Sunbelt (FIU/FAU), Conference USA (UCF), the Big East (USF), the ACC (Miami/FlaSt), or the SEC (Florida).

I am curious as to whether schools in states that neighbor could also join. For example, could Houston get in SEC, or are they only able to join Big 12 potentially? And what about states that aren't really in any conference region...

What conferences would invite a team from Canada? What conferences would invite teams from the Dakotas, etc.

[dshill]

I know that conferences can extend to states they border and beyond -- I've gotten Louisiana Tech, Northern Illinois and the Arizona schools into the Big 12, Buffalo into the Big Ten, Rutgers into the ACC, I know I've gotten Stanford demoted to the Sun Belt. A lot of the schools in the Rockies area can go to either the Big 12 or the Pac-10 -- Boise I've only ever seen in the Pac-10, but the Utah schools can go either, and so can the Colorado schools. The conference invite system seems real fluid to me, they've got a very vague notion of a conferences area (a lot like the conference commishs in this summer's saga).

As for teambuilder teams, I don't know, it'd be an interesting experiment to try out.