Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

[Cire]

This sucks, I like round robin.

[Pete]

From now on, anyone who suggests anything about a ridiculous 16-team conferences has to first read Pan's post on this:

http://www.bringonthecats.com/2012/5/29/3049399/conference-realignment-what-matters-in-realignment-post-2

[steve dave]

16 is the best number..

[CNS]

Brad Stevens ?@BUCoachStevens

Butler University - The Official Athletics Site: Butler Will Begin Play in the Atlantic 10 In 2012-13: http://bit.ly/LDSMuW

[Ira Hayes]

Brad Stevens ?@BUCoachStevens

Butler University - The Official Athletics Site: Butler Will Begin Play in the Atlantic 10 In 2012-13: http://bit.ly/LDSMuW

Duke will probably join them.

[Panjandrum]

great stuff on your bloggy thing Panjandrum 

amazing how members of the goEMAW culture takes fat lazy journalists to school in troubled times.

Thank you, sir.

[Panjandrum]

From now on, anyone who suggests anything about a ridiculous 16-team conferences has to first read Pan's post on this:

http://www.bringonthecats.com/2012/5/29/3049399/conference-realignment-what-matters-in-realignment-post-2

I will reply to you because I am not taking part in steve dave being a silly goose.

16 is a dumb number.

[naturalselection]

I will reply to you because I am not taking part in steve dave being a silly goose.

16 is a dumb number.

Is 16 a worse number then 14 if by some miracle ND does come on as a full member down the line? 

I just hate 14 with a passion. Trying to figure out how 7 pods of 2 can work, cause 2 divisions of 7 sucks. 

Also, I think everyone is undervaluing UM in expansion.  Unless they get the death penalty (internally or externally), they are a Tier 1/2 football gold mine imo. 

[Panjandrum]

I will reply to you because I am not taking part in steve dave being a silly goose.

16 is a dumb number.

Is 16 a worse number then 14 if by some miracle ND does come on as a full member down the line? 

I just hate 14 with a passion. Trying to figure out how 7 pods of 2 can work, cause 2 divisions of 7 sucks. 

Also, I think everyone is undervaluing UM in expansion.  Unless they get the death penalty (internally or externally), they are a Tier 1/2 football gold mine imo.

16 is a dumb number because no matter how your TV contracts work out, some folks are going to not be on television.

One of the posts in my realignment series is about what a conference network could look like with today's restrictions (i.e. LHN) with an additional Notre Dame network.  Fourteen teams allows us to have a 12 member conference network, the LHN, and the NDN together.

I'm not going to go into great detail now, but with 14 teams, we'd have somewhere between 90-100 home games per year.  We could have a 22 game Tier 1 deal, a 39 game Tier 2 deal (1 FX game, 2 FSN games every week for 13 weeks) and 30+ games that you can split between the LHN, NDN, and Big 12 Network every year.

16 teams crosses the threshold where it's nearly impossible to get every game nationally televised every week. We'd have to get into a situation where we'd be doing regional broadcasts on a Tier 3 network every week to make it work, and really, to maximize that value, you're most likely going to want all of those game to be national broadcasts.

[AzCat]

Is 16 a worse number then 14 if by some miracle ND does come on as a full member down the line? 

Not necessarily. 

There's an interesting thought on shaggybevo about 4 pods of 4 teams with two rotating designated rivalry games every year.  E.g., Team A from Pod 1 plays Pod 1 teams (3 games), Pod 2 (4 games), Rival B from Pod 3 (1 game) and Rival C from Pod 4 (1 game). 

In real terms assume that each Pod has an "anchor" team (FSU, TX, ND, OU) and that those teams are permanent designated rivals.  That way no matter the rest of the schedule you get FSU/TX, FSU/ND, FSU/OU, TX/ND, TX/OU, ND/OU which is a lot of must-see television.  You also get 8 anchor / second fiddle games per year and everyone plays everyone else at least every 3rd year.  That's workable and would serve up a ton of great games so long as the conference didn't mind moving a bit away from traditional scheduling.

Which isn't to say that 16 team conferences are inevitible, merely that they could be made to work.  The inevitible question the true top shelf programs will ask themselves eventually is, "Why do we need to drag along the Kansas States, Iowa States, Northwesterns, Washington States, etc. of the world?"  Check back in 2025 (-ish) for the resolution. 

[steve dave]

Nobody wants to play high level big time football teams every week. For every OU you need a KU in your conference. The TV talking point doesn't make sense. There aren't suddenly more teams in college football than there were before. We aren't restricted to the same amount of slots that we were with 10 teams.  Were the ACC or BE not on television prior to this year? Do you think a network is going to pay more overall money to broadcast the same amount of games?

[WillieWatanabe]

Bill Connelly ?@SBN_BillC

I love Peter's tone in this piece. Very matter-of-fact. UT wants what's best for UT, for better or worse. RT @PBatBON http://sbn.to/KYBGVt

[Pete]

Nobody wants to play high level big time football teams every week. For every OU you need a KU in your conference. The TV talking point doesn't make sense. There aren't suddenly more teams in college football than there were before. We aren't restricted to the same amount of slots that we were with 10 teams.  Where the ACC or BE not on television prior to this year? Do you think a network is going to pay more overall money to broadcast the same amount of games?

I think what he is saying is that unless we can do something very good with tier three, you can't compare our future tier three with the ACC or Big East tier 1/2.

Tier three in the ACC is rough ridin' Raycom, with crap money and crap coverage.

I don't see how the money would be good enough to pay 16 teams as much as it would if we just grabbed FSU and Clemson and stopped at 12.

What is it about 16 that you like?

[steve dave]

Nobody wants to play high level big time football teams every week. For every OU you need a KU in your conference. The TV talking point doesn't make sense. There aren't suddenly more teams in college football than there were before. We aren't restricted to the same amount of slots that we were with 10 teams.  Where the ACC or BE not on television prior to this year? Do you think a network is going to pay more overall money to broadcast the same amount of games?

I think what he is saying is that unless we can do something very good with tier three, you can't compare our future tier three with the ACC or Big East tier 1/2.

Tier three in the ACC is rough ridin' Raycom, with crap money and crap coverage.

I don't see how the money would be good enough to pay 16 teams as much as it would if we just grabbed FSU and Clemson and stopped at 12.

What is it about 16 that you like?

the point is it wouldn't be on tier 3.  we would have the same percentage of our games on tier 1 and 2.

[steve dave]

What is it about 16 that you like?

It's our only shot at ND.  ONLY.

[WildcatNkilt]

Nobody wants to play high level big time football teams every week. For every OU you need a KU in your conference. The TV talking point doesn't make sense. There aren't suddenly more teams in college football than there were before. We aren't restricted to the same amount of slots that we were with 10 teams.  Where the ACC or BE not on television prior to this year? Do you think a network is going to pay more overall money to broadcast the same amount of games?

I think what he is saying is that unless we can do something very good with tier three, you can't compare our future tier three with the ACC or Big East tier 1/2.

Tier three in the ACC is rough ridin' Raycom, with crap money and crap coverage.

I don't see how the money would be good enough to pay 16 teams as much as it would if we just grabbed FSU and Clemson and stopped at 12.

What is it about 16 that you like?

the point is it wouldn't be on tier 3.  we would have the same percentage of our games on tier 1 and 2.

I fully agree with this.  16 won't bring less games on TV, it should be more.  The slots that never included Big 12 teams playing each other (Nebraska playing whoever the eff every week for example), will now be filled with Big 12.  We are only talking about 8 games needing to be televised come conference play.  Plus, we could easily take over the Thursday ESPN slot (ACC teams love that night). 

[Ira Hayes]

What is it about 16 that you like?

It's our only shot at ND.  ONLY.

Our only shot at ND is if the four team "playoff" is the Rose Bowl, the Champions Bowl, and then one game matching the winners.

That is what the big 10 and PAC12 want. 

North:
KU
K-State
Iowa State
West Virginia
Notre Dame
Florida State or Clemson

South:
OU
Okie St.
TTU
UT
TCU
Baylor

And that is as big as we will ever get.  12 is the max and it only happens if one of the teams is ND.

[steve dave]

12 is the max and it only happens if one of the teams is ND.

we are going to at least 12 no matter what.  and ND isn't jumping on this grenade unless super conferences are a real thing (which would mean we went to more than 12). 

[ben ji]

Nobody wants to play high level big time football teams every week. For every OU you need a KU in your conference. The TV talking point doesn't make sense. There aren't suddenly more teams in college football than there were before. We aren't restricted to the same amount of slots that we were with 10 teams.  Were the ACC or BE not on television prior to this year? Do you think a network is going to pay more overall money to broadcast the same amount of games?

Everyone keeps forgetting this, the world needs ditch diggers too.

Hell why dont the 10-15 best programs(OU,TX,USC,tOSU,MICH,ND,BAMA,FL, etc) just form their own conference and keep all the money? I'll tell you why, because any one of those schools would lose their crap after they go 7-6 4 years in a row

[Ira Hayes]

12 is the max and it only happens if one of the teams is ND.

we are going to at least 12 no matter what.  and ND isn't jumping on this grenade unless super conferences are a real thing (which would mean we went to more than 12).

I don't think you've been listening to Neinas and DeLoss.  We're not going anywhere unless we have to...or if Notre Dame wants access to the Champions Bowl.

[steve dave]

I don't think you've been listening to Neinas and DeLoss

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Dugout DickStone]

This sucks, I like round robin.

This gives us the chance to pull a ku 07-08 and dodge the good south teams.

[Ira Hayes]

Dodd's article yesterday was all about this: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19196197/another-playoff-format-proposal-pushes-playoff-even-further-away

There is not going to be a playoff with the top 4 ranked teams. There will be a playoff with the champions of the top 4 conferences.

Notre Dame is going to have to be in one of those conferences.

[Trim]

I love when Ira gets all matter-of-facty.

[WildcatNkilt]

Yep ND is coming and we will be getting 16.  The 4 power conferences are going to force it to happen.  Peace out BCS.