Playoff system and custom conferences

[dpw1717]

I posted this last year and now your able to custom the conferences I thought I would post this again.




If we were going to dismantle conferences, why not do it right? Let's just keep it somewhat simple. I don't understand why every other sport organizes teams geographically, except for college football. Sure, it kind of worked out that way for natural reasons, but it also gets really messed up. For instance, the WAC spreads from Hawai'i to Louisiana! Conference-USA form Carolina to Texas! Etc.*


Here is my answer, redo all the conferences so they're in geographical order. It saves the schools money, and will keep most rivalries intact, since most are in-state rivalries. The one thing you must do is make sure that a conference has all the teams from a given state. Thus, the 10 schools in Texas must all be in the same conference, same for the 7 from Florida and California, etc.


Here it is: 12 conferences, 10 teams each, you play 9 conference games and 3 non-conference games (scheduled at your will, just like normal). Each conference must play its top two teams in a championship game and name a conference champ. That would be the start of the bowl games is the conference championship game. Then you have 12 teams left and the way you seed it by total points scored. You then have to add 4 more teams to make the bracket right and the way to do that is by adding teams that played in the conference championship game and again by total points scored. When you start the playoffs it’s 16 teams and for the next three weeks are the playoffs for a total in the season of 17 weeks. The way I see it, it's still 12 games in the regular season (I believe stretched out over 14-15 weeks), and still 4 weeks in the post-season one week being the championship game. I added all the bowl games up for my new playoff system and it would be 25 and that’s less than 30 plus it has been.


In case you wanted an idea of how the conferences would look, I'll include that below. I take no responsibilities for bad conference names. I just now put this together, and making each conference have exactly 10 teams takes some wiggle room. I'm sure if it was actually to happen it could be perfected:






Southwest: California, Hawai'i, Nevada

California
Fresno State
Hawai'i
Nevada
San Diego State
San Jose State
Stanford
UCLA
UNLV
USC


Northwest: Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming


Boise State
Idaho
Kansas
Kansas State
Nebraska
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State
Wyoming


Four Corners: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah


Air Force
Arizona
Arizona State
Brigham Young
Colorado
Colorado State
New Mexico
New Mexico State
Utah
Utah State


Lone Star: Texas


Baylor
Houston
North Texas
Rice
Southern Methodist
TCU
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
UTEP


Louisiana Purchase: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma


Arkansas
Arkansas State
Louisiana - Lafayette
Louisiana - Monroe
Louisiana Tech
LSU
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Tulane
Tulsa



Gulf Coast: Florida, Mississippi


FIU
Florida
Florida Atlantic
Florida State
Miami (FL)
Mississippi
Mississippi State
South Florida
Southern Miss
UCF



Southeast: Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee


Alabama
Auburn
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Memphis
Middle Tennessee
Tennessee
Troy
UAB
Vanderbilt



Atlantic: New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia


Clemson
Duke
East Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Rutgers
South Carolina
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest



Richland: Ohio, West Virginia


Akron
Bowling Green
Cincinnati
Kent State
Marshall
Miami (OH)
Ohio
Ohio State
Toledo
West Virginia



Great Plains: Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri


Illinois
Iowa
Iowa State
Kentucky
Louisville
Missouri
Northern Illinois
Northwestern
Purdue
Western Kentucky



Great Lakes: Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin


Ball State
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Notre Dame
Western Michigan
Wisconsin



New England: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania


Army
Boston College
Buffalo
Connecticut
Maryland
Navy
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Syracuse
Temple

[TDenverFan]

Interesting idea, although I don't think most of the current conferences are too spread out. Also, tOSU will dominate the Ohio-West Virginia Conference

[JalenTigh]

Ive done similar conferences in 11, all it does though is create grossly mis-matched conferences, with two or three dominant teams in each conference . That may sound ok, because most conferences are already like that... but when I say dominant, its almost a understatement.... way to many undefeated teams, year in, year out. Same teams every year... that gets boring, fast.

[bigdfan76]

First two things I notice as far as flaws is the Texas conference. I'm from Texas and I'm a UT fan... No Red River Rivalry? Not cool. UT and Oklahoma wouldn't go for that. Second I am also a Iowa Hawkeyes fan and taking them out of the Big 10 would not fly. They'd have to be stupid to leave a stable money maker like the Big 10. But if it's just for the video game, sounds fun. But hypothetically... this would never happen. Just like there will never be a playoff... In my lifetime. I have been brainstorming for ideas for "super conferences". I was thinking more along the lines of 16 team conferences and decimate the crappy conferences like Conference USA, WAC... But I do like your idea also. Everytime I start working out hypothetical realignments I start to want to go with how it is IRL for realism. Then I did a little research on who might expand first and who could fold. Sounds like the BIG East would probably fold and the "power conferences" would expand(Big 10, Big 12, SEC, Pac 12). But we can't eliminate conferences in NCAA 12 which I'm dissapointed about but as stated earlier it's all about the money.

[dpw1717]

Quote: Originally Posted by bigdfan76

First two things I notice as far as flaws is the Texas conference. I'm from Texas and I'm a UT fan... No Red River Rivalry? Not cool. UT and Oklahoma wouldn't go for that. Second I am also a Iowa Hawkeyes fan and taking them out of the Big 10 would not fly. They'd have to be stupid to leave a stable money maker like the Big 10. But if it's just for the video game, sounds fun. But hypothetically... this would never happen. Just like there will never be a playoff... In my lifetime. I have been brainstorming for ideas for "super conferences". I was thinking more along the lines of 16 team conferences and decimate the crappy conferences like Conference USA, WAC... But I do like your idea also. Everytime I start working out hypothetical realignments I start to want to go with how it is IRL for realism. Then I did a little research on who might expand first and who could fold. Sounds like the BIG East would probably fold and the "power conferences" would expand(Big 10, Big 12, SEC, Pac 12). But we can't eliminate conferences in NCAA 12 which I'm dissapointed about but as stated earlier it's all about the money.

As I said each team can schedule up to three non conference game SO UT could play Oklahoma each year if they wanted to.

[NEOPARADIGM]

I like this sort of thing a lot. And it will be made infinitely better this year thanks to being able to select bowl tie-ins.

[HoundsOfHowl]

Nice idea, you can do that this year easily.

But the way I would implement a playoff system is simple. You have 6 AQ conferences (SEC, Big12, Big10, Pac12, ACC, Big East.) Then you have 2 non-aq schools selected by a comittee to play in. But now what would need to happen is the AQ schools would need 12 teams a peice in their conference, so that you have a conference championship for the teams to play to see who would be going into the tournament. So after selecting you get 4 first round games (Rose bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl) after that would just be a semi final round, then you have your National championship game for the winners. Now for all the schools left out, you would have bowl games. Simple, you still get all you bowls, and you get a playoff system.

[Unlucky 13]

A way that this WOULD work would be if you could strip D1 down to 72 teams. Eliminate the MAC and Sunbelt, most of the WAC, half of the Muntain West, and the service academies. Create eight conferences of nine teams each, arranged geographically.

Send down those removed to a rearranged lower set of divisions.

All teams play the other eight teams within their conference, and four other games against the other teams from D1. No games against lower division schools. In doing so, there should be FAR fewer undefeated seasons, and actually probably far fewer one loss seasons as well.

The eight conferece champs go into a playoff with eight other wildcard spots made up of the best teams that did not win their conference, decided entirely on math. For tiebreakers, use head to head first, then conference winning %, then opponents win %.

Eliminate all polls.

Start the season the final saturday of August, finish the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Take two weeks off for exams.

The playoffs start as a seeded tournament with the lowest ranked WC playing at the home field of the highest ranked conference winner. The round of eight games are played at four regional sites using NFL stadiums. The two semi-final games and championship game are held on a rotating basis between three of the current BCS sites.

There you have it! Would it ever happen? No, of course not. But isnt it a lot better and more fair than what we have?