kj121's NCAA 14 Relegation System
 

Here is my attempt at a relegation system for NCAA 14.

Regions
The first step was finding an appropriate number of teams for each region. I wanted to make sure I could make solid geographical regions, and I ended with four regions - West, South, Midwest, and East.

Teams in the West Region are located in these states

• Arizona
• California
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Nevada
• New Mexico
• Oregon
• Utah
• Washington
• Wyoming

Teams in the South Region are located in these states

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Florida
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Oklahoma
• Texas

Teams in the Midwest Region are located in these states

• Colorado
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Nebraska
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

Teams in the East Region are located in these states

• Connecticut
• Georgia
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• New Jersey
• New York
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Virginia

These maps work out great, as every state in a Region is touching another state from their respective Region.

After making Army and Navy Independents, this leaves the West and East Regions with 24 teams, and the South and Midwest Regions with 38 teams, a perfect 126 to match with the game.

Determining Tiers and Amount of Teams Per Tier
I like having all the teams in the top tier play each other, so I made the top tiers have 10 teams, allowing for a round robin schedule, and also only 3 non-conference games.

The next tiers (All Tier 2s, and Tier 3 for South and Midwest) have 14 teams. I would suggest an 8 game conference schedule, which means teams would play every team in their division of 7 teams, plus two crossover games. Limiting the crossover games lowers the variability of schedule strength, helping the best team in the division rightfully finish in first.

The Relegation System
This is obviously up to the individual on what they think works best.
I like only moving one team up and down, as it makes it more difficult to advance to the higher tier.

For Tiers 2 & 3, the Conference Championship Game winner will move up a level. Again, this makes the road to the next tier more difficult, as it requires an extra victory, which will most likely be against a team of equal strength.

If the user wants to move up two teams, than the two division winners would move up, with the two lowest teams (for moving down from tier 2 to tier 3, it could be last place in each division, or just the two lowest conference records overall) moving down.

Initial Set-Up
I put the top 10 rated teams of each region in the top tier, next 14 in the next tier, next 14 in the final tier. In case of the same rating in the lowest teams of one tier and highest teams in the lower tier, I picked the team which I felt belonged in the higher tier (OrSt/ASU over SDSU/Cal) (Minny/NIU/Ohio over BallSt/Colorado) (Rutgers over ECU/NCState/UVa)

The team rating is to the right of the team name with the average of each tier below the last team from that tier - as you can see, all tier 1s are close, with the West and East having similar tier 2s and the South and Midwest having similar tier 2s and tier 3s.

Attachment 62601


Other Notes
Setting up divisions - The divisions for tiers 2 and 3 will have to be realigned every year. This could be done by splitting East/West or North/South, alphabetically, whatever. I am going to look at the teams final ratings from the year before, rank them 1-14, and put teams 1,4,5,8,9,12,13 in one division with teams 2,3,6,7,10,11,14 in the opposite.

All other options (night games in November, conference championship game locations, etc.) are up to the user. I am going to start my conference games at the latest week possible, however, so that there aren't as many meaningless games late in the year.

Hope these work well for everyone who wants to try!