NCAA Football 12 Blog - Custom Conferences

[drtrix]

"The number of conference games depends on the schedule type you select and the number of schools. By default all conferences use the correct schedule type, but we needed to account for how conference schedules would work for conferences with less than eight schools or more than 13. Here's a quick breakdown of how many conference games will be played for each schedule type:

4-8 schools – 7 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else. For conferences of 4-6 schools FCS opponents will play the part of your additional conference games"

Would this not screw with top 25 rankings? For example, a team from the WAC (assuming people move Hawaii, Boise, etc to the MWC) could pick up 3-4 conference wins from FCS teams.

[justblaze09]

Quote: Originally Posted by DorianDonP

On a related note, I wonder if you take away all of the BCS tie-ins, how will they pick the teams? Will it be 1vs 2, 3vs 4, 5 vs 6, 7vs 8?

Since the bowls rotate on who they invite to play it will always end up:

1 v 2
3 v 7
4 v 8
5 v 9
6 v 10

Quote: Originally Posted by drtrix

"The number of conference games depends on the schedule type you select and the number of schools. By default all conferences use the correct schedule type, but we needed to account for how conference schedules would work for conferences with less than eight schools or more than 13. Here's a quick breakdown of how many conference games will be played for each schedule type: 4-8 schools – 7 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else. For conferences of 4-6 schools FCS opponents will play the part of your additional conference games" Would this not screw with top 25 rankings? For example, a team from the WAC (assuming people move Hawaii, Boise, etc to the MWC) could pick up 3-4 conference wins from FCS teams.

If anything it will mess up bowl invites as then they have to win 7 games to be Bowl-Eligible. The polls usually look down on when teams play multiple 1-AA teams (that's how I remember it on NCAA 08/09).

[doom41]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ziza9Noles94

He addressed that: "Non-conference games are the last games to get filled when the schedules are created. If Auburn goes the Independent route but Alabama stays in the SEC, the game will still try and schedule the Iron Bowl for the last week of the season. If it can't get scheduled that week it will try to find another week to schedule the game."

So I take this to mean when I move my Aggies to the SEC, and Texas & OU to the Pac-Whatever, the game will schedule the Lone Star Showdown on Thanksgiving if possible. And even if it can't put it on Thanksgiving, for whatever reason, it will still schedule it as one of the non-conference games. If this is true I'm liking this feature even more.
I'ld still like to be able to set my own Rivals, especially for Teambuilder Teams.

[doom41]

Quote: Originally Posted by Microsoft_Works

Yeah I guess I'm going to run into this problem as well when I put the old SWC in the MWC. The conference champion will get a nice BCS berth but the rest will be stuck with the default MWC tie-ins. Kind of crappy, but better than nothing.

Why not put the old SWC in the Big 12, and whatever you were going to do with the Big 12 in the MWC. That way you get your SWC tied to the Cotton Bowl.

[Microsoft_Works]

Quote: Originally Posted by doom41

Why not put the old SWC in the Big 12, and whatever you were going to do with the Big 12 in the MWC. That way you get your SWC tied to the Cotton Bowl.

I was going to bring Nebraska and Colorado back and make the Big 12 the old Big 8. So either way, one "power" conference will get the short end of the stick when it comes to bowl tie-ins after the BCS berth.

[dochalladay32]

Quote: Originally Posted by jpdavis82

Yeah and besides I don't think most people are going to move all the top teams into small conferences. If I remake the SWC I can just replace it with the big 12 or something and that way a Team like Texas would still be in a decent bowl.

So you give the Big 8 the shaft? It'd be Arkansas making that decent bowl any way

And the conference schedules sound like a mess. What is it about odd numbers that makes it so difficult to accomplish things? A 16-team conference only needs 9 conference games (which I wish we had more freedom to schedule 8 like the old WAC), but a 15-team conference has to have 10 games? Luckily none of the conferences in my setup have 13 or 15 and the current MAC at 13 doesn't have any major games that should be protected; all the big rivals are in the same division already.

I know an 11-team conference doesn't have divisions, but are rivalries still protected like in real life? The Big Televetwelve didn't play everyone the past years but still managed to schedule OSU/Michigan, etc... so hopefully those games are protected. I'm assuming so if other rivalry games are continually scheduled even if the teams are no longer in the same conference.

I'm hoping with my setups, the small conference schedules of the Big West, Southland, etc... ARE NOT filled with FCS teams. I will have anywhere from a dozen to all 32 independents depending on the year so I would think if you have 32 teams with mostly empty schedules, it would try to schedule them first before scheduling lower teams. If not, that is a flaw that needs to be fixed. It'd make more sense to schedule, say in my '91 setup, ECU (ind) vs. Memphis (C-USA) over each vs. an FCS team.

I don't like that it forces round robin for 10 teams, but that is the standard the Pac 10 set so no big deal there. Schedules were also shorter when a 10-team conference was more common so fewer conference games.

[buckeye02]

Its about time they stopped scheduling a non conference game after the OSU/UM game.

[Wildcats302]

Yeah, the thought of the WAC and Sun Belt teams getting to feast on cupcake 1-AA schools for 3-4 games of the year annoys me. For my 4 team WAC I was hoping to just have the option to play each team twice, one home and one away to add up to 6 Conference games, but I knew they would not do that.

So now I've got 6 WAC teams and 5 Sun Belt after raiding the Independents of Army and Navy. I moved Buffalo from MAC to Independent...so at least now it won't be quite as bad but I'm still annoyed the 5 Sun Belt teams get 3 games against I-AA.

It seems to me that several of these teams will all get to bowls each year due to beating up on cupcakes and take away spots from a 6-6 team from my new 12 team Big East or 12 team Mountain West, etc.