Promotion and Relegation in college football?

[jrh31584]

An idea I've been working on for a while.

1. Divide FBS into three tiers, creatively known as Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3.

2. Four conferences in each tier. This generally involves completely disregarding traditional conference affiliations, but it's not unprecedented in the NCAA.

3. Top 8 teams in Tier 1 play in playoff for National Championship (4 conference champs, 4 at-large)

4. Last place team in each conference in Tier 1 and Tier 2 relegated to next tier lower.

5. First place team in each conference in Tier 2 and Tier 3 promoted to next tier higher.

6. Out-of-conference games would not necessarily be within the same tier.

7. FCS teams moving up to FBS would start in Tier 3.

I've been working on what it would look like this year, using 1998 as the base year (earliest year in which I could find rankings of every 1-A/FBS team) and playing through the ensuing seasons to arrive at this year's setup.

[McCall]

Sorry, but not for college sports.

[Jigga]

I just do not see any way that this 1) makes any sense whatsoever or 2) would ever be agreed upon.

[BBTV]

It would be impossible to make schedules. It "punishes" players who may have had nothing to do with their teams failure during the previous year. It would make recruiting very difficult. It just doesn't make any sense.

[jrh31584]

I just do not see any way that this 1) makes any sense whatsoever or 2) would ever be agreed upon.

1) I wanted to give good teams in lower-level conferences more of a chance to prove themselves without rewarding them for having a conference slate full of cupcakes. I thought that picking 8 playoff teams from 40 or so teams in 4 conferences would be fairer that picking 8 from 120 teams in 11 conferences.

2) Which is why this is just a product of too much time and too little to do.

1) It would be impossible to make schedules.

2) It "punishes" players who may have had nothing to do with their teams failure during the previous year.

3) It would make recruiting very difficult.

4) It just doesn't make any sense.

1) The scheduling process would probably have to be more centralized, except for scheduling non-conference opponents.

2) As do most NCAA penalties for rules violations.

3) I don't see how it would make recruiting any more difficult than it is today, especially for teams that have much diminished chances at national prominence just because of the conference setup as it is today.

[McCall]

Your not a longtime traditional College football fan are you?

[Red Wolf]

ESPN did a big deal like this. I hated it then and don't like it now. Just would not work at all for college with the way you're constantly cycling through players with graduation or getting drafted and the smaller schools would have even less of a chance of making any noise.

[The_Admiral]

College football isn't worth fixing.

[OMMF]

College football isn't worth fixing.

Las Vegas would say otherwise.

[The_Admiral]

hah!

[jrh31584]

You're not a longtime traditional College football fan are you?

Traditionally, Oklahoma and Nebraska played every year.

Traditionally, the Fiesta Bowl was secondary to the Cotton, Sugar, Rose and Orange Bowls.

Tradition (or meddling governors) is why Vanderbilt and Baylor have more of a chance at a national championship than do TCU and Boise State.

[oddball]

All the excuses of why this wouldn't work don't fly. Changing players is pure b.s., players always change and when has that stopped soccer/football from relegating? It's how hockey does the Olympics and the difference in rosters every four years is more dramatic than college football. The scheduling would be impossible? Not really, because you have s plethora of teams to choose from. Teams break contracts all the time, and reschedule opponents so it wouldn't be different.

I've thought about this for awhile, but what I thought was to make D1 12 conferences of 10 teams. Everyone plays everyone in their conference and then you have two games to freely schedule such as USC-Notre Dame or whatever. The difference is it would be a 8 year cycle based on your overall records and the bottom two teams in each conference would be pushed down to a conference in D1 AA or call it D2. Then they would take the top two from each conference to replace the bottom two schools that left. So you make 12 conferences of 10 teams in D2 and then teams would only be relegated to the conference that is based on geography, whether up or down. You would know who you played for 8 years and pretty much around year 6 you would have a general idea of who might be relegated or move up and then they could start preparing to schedule for the future. Now whether you do playoffs or bowls, that's another issue.

[rams80]

You're not a longtime traditional College football fan are you?

Traditionally, Oklahoma and Nebraska played every year.

Traditionally, the Fiesta Bowl was secondary to the Cotton, Sugar, Rose and Orange Bowls.

Tradition (or meddling governors) is why Vanderbilt and Baylor have more of a chance at a national championship than do TCU and Boise State.

No, a $2.8 billion endowment and larger alumni base is why they have more of a chance at a national championship.

Come back when you understand how the economics of college athletics work.

[rams80]

All the excuses of why this wouldn't work don't fly. Changing players is pure b.s., players always change and when has that stopped soccer/football from relegating? It's how hockey does the Olympics and the difference in rosters every four years is more dramatic than college football. The scheduling would be impossible? Not really, because you have s plethora of teams to choose from. Teams break contracts all the time, and reschedule opponents so it wouldn't be different.

I've thought about this for awhile, but what I thought was to make D1 12 conferences of 10 teams. Everyone plays everyone in their conference and then you have two games to freely schedule such as USC-Notre Dame or whatever. The difference is it would be a 8 year cycle based on your overall records and the bottom two teams in each conference would be pushed down to a conference in D1 AA or call it D2. Then they would take the top two from each conference to replace the bottom two schools that left. So you make 12 conferences of 10 teams in D2 and then teams would only be relegated to the conference that is based on geography, whether up or down. You would know who you played for 8 years and pretty much around year 6 you would have a general idea of who might be relegated or move up and then they could start preparing to schedule for the future. Now whether you do playoffs or bowls, that's another issue.

How about this excuse? Alumni donations. How big a hit do you suppose that would take if the athletic department just got demoted? Department crippling? Endowment crippling? That's why this would never fly.

[oddball]

Really, stop and think about teams getting relegated. Duke, Vanderbilt, UTEP, San Diego State, UNLV, New Mexico, Baylor, SMU, Wyoming, Temple, etc. No one is donating money to these schools based on the football programs, so try again.

[rams80]

Really, stop and think about teams getting relegated. Duke, Vanderbilt, UTEP, San Diego State, UNLV, New Mexico, Baylor, SMU, Wyoming, Temple, etc. No one is donating money to these schools based on the football programs, so try again.

Michigan, Notre Dame, Mississippi State, Florida State, Nebraska, Purdue, Syracuse....

All liable to relegation. All big time football school that do so alumni donations based on football.

[Jigga]

College football does not exist in a vacuum, so how would this promotion/relegation apply to the other 20 or so sports, or would it not at all?

[jrh31584]

Really, stop and think about teams getting relegated. Duke, Vanderbilt, UTEP, San Diego State, UNLV, New Mexico, Baylor, SMU, Wyoming, Temple, etc. No one is donating money to these schools based on the football programs, so try again.

Michigan, Notre Dame, Mississippi State, Florida State, Nebraska, Purdue, Syracuse....

All liable to relegation. All big time football school that do so alumni donations based on football.

If their alma mater's football program was relegated or in danger thereof, do you think these alumni would...

1. Cut back, because they don't want to support a second- or third- rate football program, or

2. Pump more money into the program to keep this from ever happening again?

I don't know. Incidentally, I just finished going through previous season to arrive at what this year would look like, and of the schools you mentioned above...

Michigan - just got demoted to the second tier. Now in a conference with Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan State and Minnesota, among others.

Notre Dame - has managed to remain in the top tier...there's always been someone worse than them in their "conference."

Mississippi State - second tier along with a few other SEC teams

Florida State - still top tier, but looking rough.

Nebraska - back in Tier 1...they're kind of hard to fit in a "conference"

Purdue - see Notre Dame

Syracuse - down in Tier 3 with the likes of Buffalo and Temple.

College football does not exist in a vacuum, so how would this promotion/relegation apply to the other 20 or so sports, or would it not at all?

Compared to the rest of college athletics, football does exist in a vacuum to an extent. Having entirely different conference set-ups for one sport is not unprecedented. In short, outside of football, conference affiliations would not be affected by this.

[rams80]

They'd cut back, because they'd be downright pissed off at the athletic department for letting this happen. A decent chunk of people would stop attending or watching games on television (and the lower tier conferences get worse TV deals anyway), which would be a further hit to revenue.

And no, the football programs don't exist in a vacuum. The football team funds the entire athletic department at a decent number of schools. Cripple the football program; cripple the athletic department.

[DustDevil61]

In the sense that a team may take years to rise to prominence (Boise St., Hawaii a few years back, etc.), the BCS is somewhat similar to the English Premiere League's promotion/relegation system, so it might (and I repeat, might) make sense. The major difference is that some conferences are favored (SEC, ACC, Pac-10, Big 12, etc.), while others are often left out in the cold. If they involve all NCAA Div. I football teams without regard to strength of scedule, then the strength of schedule might be able to play itself out over a few years.

That said, a playoff system (likely 8-team, maybe 12-team) seems far more effective, especially when you can put it into the big gap between the end of the regular season and the Bowl week. I know, final exams have something to do with that big gap, but plenty of schools reschedule exams for their student-athletes.

With a playoff system, a team with a soft schedule will have to play with the big boys, and certain games could be the [insert Company Here] [insert Name Here] Bowl, with the National Championship being the [Whatever Bowl] for the given year. You could also have brackets for the rest of the Top 25, or do it by invitation. I don't know, but I'd personally perfer a playoff system to promotion/relegation system.