ESPN has a story where Saban shares some ideas about scheduling at the playoffs.
Short version - he thinks Power 5 teams should only play Power 5 teams.
I really think his opinion would be stronger if he put his money where his mouth is and fixed Alabama's schedule first. It looks like Alabama's standard OOC schedule is play a P5 team at a neutral site in week 1, play two G5 schools that no one really knows, and then an FCS team the week before Auburn. (Even that opening week game appears to be getting weaker. While they have FSU this year, they take on Louisville next year, followed by Duke in 2019.)
I know there's the "other schools need to be willing to schedule" argument, but that same story shows that Jimbo Fisher has similar thoughts.
Comments
To be fair, he's saying that if everyone had to do it, he'd do it, too.
I think he's right. Power 5 teams should only schedule power 5 teams.
It also appears he's saying that bowl games shouldn't be tied to conferences or team records, but instead be assigned by a committee much like in basketball where a committee assigns seeds and brackets for the tournament. The committee rates all the teams and assigns them to bowls based on their rating.
Given the perception of the SEC, I can understand his position.
The answer is NO. Thanks, but no thanks.
The playoffs should include more teams, though.
I think they should use bowls as playoff games/rounds. Then matchups are unique and every bowl game means something. Although with as many bowls as there are currently, regular season would be pretty meaningless. But if they did use 10-15 bowls that way, it might work. The playoffs are going to expand, might as well get going with it.
The G5 schools would never let it happen. That would truly make them minor league programs, if their only options were to play each other and FBS schools.
As a P5 school, it's tempting to say, "well, just means more money and recruits for us" ... but it also cuts off any avenue for those programs to ever reach the next level. When we were a bad program, Frank was willing to schedule power programs to play us because that was the level he wanted us to get to. Imagine how different Virginia Tech football would be if back in the early 90s we were doomed to only ever play Marshall and Akron. We wouldn't have even had the series with LOLUVA.
Well, it's nice to have an automatic win on the schedule every season...
Very tempted to down vote this statement, only because you could jinx the situation.
psh, that's like saying "gravity pulls things down" will jinx my dropping a pen and that sucker up and hits the ceiling.
I'd take that one win at the Horseshoe over the entire series with UVA, given the choice.
VT always played teams that are now in the P5. VT has been playing UVa since 1895.
EDIT: Like tjbhokie says, VT was in the Southern Conference with Alabama, Auburn, Georgia Tech, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississipi State, Tennessee, Clemson, Virginia, North Carolina, and NC State in 1921.
This. We were in the southern conference long before Beamer.
R E L E G A T I O N
Edit: IMO, Saban should know how the college football food chain works - When Bama invites an FCS school to play, they cut that school a fat check. That check pays for scholarships and other athletic department expenses.
All you do by blocking FCS schools is take more scholarships away from kids. If you install a relegation system, then FCS teams that are competitive (like ODU, App State and Georgia State once were) can work their way up the ranks.
as stated in the soccer thread, relegation only really works if your geographical footprint doesn't change drastically by being promoted/relegated. In order for that to happen, there would need to be P5, G5, and FCS conferences that shared a footprint and were limited to easily traveled regions so as not to balloon expenses for fledgling, newly promoted schools without the revenue necessary to shoulder to costs.
I rather like the idea of making larger conferences with a "P5" division and a "G5" division. After each season, evaluate where teams fall and rearrange as necessary. Conference schedules are already revamped every off season and, presumably, there would be minimal movement between divisions. To keep things simpler, P5 schools would play a rotation of the lower division schools within the conference and maybe one or two OOC games to keep interesting marquee games.
Footprint is a huge issue, however, college football has enough saturation to make it work. Using florida as an example, because florida came up in the soccer conversation. Realistically, how many MLS teams is florida going to support, 1? 2? But on the other side of that, how many college football teams (at all levels) are there in florida? Then you add the immediate states/really close states, FL, GA, AL, MS, SC (so you've basically got the SEC) and you've got a dense enough saturation that you're still riding the bus to most second or third tier games.
SBNation has looked at this. It's been posted here before, but because it's so relevant:
CFB Pro/Rel
TL;DR: tie lower tier conferences to the top conference, keep it all in the footprint, make woovoo join a geographically reasonable conference.
There are 66 p5 programs counting ND and BYU. Move up the next 6 best to get 72 teams, and 8 regional conferences of 9 teams. Each year teams play their whole conference (8) + three nonconfernce games (3) + a G5 opponent (1). The remaining 56 teams are split regionally into 8 conferences of 7 teams. Every year winners of the small conferences move up, losers of the big conferences move down.
the math works out, but not the geography. Once you get away from the south east, P5 schools are fairly spread out. Which is how you end up with Colorado in the PAC16.
Are you talking about a plan that has each G5 conference aligned with a P5 conference...so the top G5 teams switch places with the bottom P5 teams in respective conference...such as:
- ACC & CUSA
- Big 10 & Mid-American
- Big 12 & Sun Belt
- Pact 12 & Mountain West
- SEC & AAC
So UVA and Duke would drop down to CUSA
And Western Kentucky & Old Dominion would move up to ACC
I like it.
It's not that simple though. You would need entire athletic divisions to move. Does Syracuse move down to G5 if they lose in football? What about basketball? What if they have a dope indoor track season?
You cannot use the association football model for football since it's not one star team with supporting affiliates, there are multiple star teams in different sports per school.
Having a school in one conference for football and another for everything else is not some new crazy idea. You could completely re-work the football side of things and leave everything else unchanged. Wouldn't be easy, but not impossible.
I would say you do the promotion/relegation per sport. That way you ensure each sport had its most elite teams at its highest level. So under the proposed model, the Atlantic Coast League would have 76 member institutions, with the top 16 making up the elite tier.
I like that, because it would give then incentive to be as good as possible across the board. It also allows for the possibility of some small schools to put all their eggs in one basket at a lesser sport and be able to climb up to elite status.
It also takes revenue from small schools. Your elite would be funneled more and more money opening a bigger and bigger gap from the lower divisions. This is the exact issue with the Premier League and why you see dynasties that won't move.
FTFY
On one hand, relegation at the collegiate level has a very realistic chance of working given the volume of institutions that are involved with collegiate athletics. On the other hand, we'd lose our annual victory over UVa.
hmmmm
But what if deep down inside you just don't care about the success of the athletic programs at ODU, App State and Georgia State? What if you really do not care that they have more money or less money. What if you just honest to god want to see more exciting and meaningful games on your own team's schedule?
Four reasons I personally disagree with this:
Edited the above to reflect my personal opinion. I can't stand NFL football anymore.
I think FCS teams should be off limits to P5 teams, but I am ok with a P5 team playing a G5 team. Maybe put a max of 2 a year
I'm ok removing FCS games first. Let's try that, I don't think there are enough P5 programs to have games every weekend against only P5.
65 Power 5 teams play a 12 game schedule.
The NFL has 32 teams and a 16 game schedule. Take out the double dipping in the divisions and it's 13 games.
Never happen. Get rid off the easy wins and you have 3-4 fewer P-5 teams per conference bowl eligible every year, with the slots taken by non-P-5 who beat each other. That's less bowl money for the conference, and a bunch of teams with very little chance to get to a lousy bowl. At least one less home game every season. And you are not going to get any non-P-5 schools to support it.
You don't need non- P-5 schools to support it. P-5 schools can already vote for their own rules.
Also, let the G-5 teams have their bowls. Do we really need P-5 teams with a 5-7 record going to a bowl? Just have fewer. The expenses are higher than the payouts for some of these bowls. Do we need UVa going to a bowl with 5 wins?
You're already going to get increasing separation, with stipends and broadcast contracts for the P-5 schools. This would just make for more interesting games, more of the time. How interesting is it to see Alabama play a G-5 team?
There are a lot of P-5 schools (just look at some of the ACC OOC schedules), who do want to be able to get to a bowl, and schedule to do it.
Sure. And who could blame them? UVa would be ecstatic to get to the Orkin Roach Motel Bowl vs Texas State. It's really tough for a Power 5 team to sit at home when 82 of the 128 Division I teams are going to a bowl.
So we have a situation where every team schedules meaningless games in order to protect their spot in the playoffs, a better bowl, or a meaningless bowl. Eliminating at least some of those particularly meaningless games would be fine by me.
I don't see it happening any time soon. I'll just hold out hope that they expand the playoffs to include more teams.
I have never defended the status quo and won't. I just said that change will be hard, as there are a lot of bad programs that benefit from the way things are.
I disagree with Saban's idea.
If Saban likes it...I hate it. Don't know why...just a reflex.
What does this have to do with making chocolate??!! Stay in your lane!!!
This is still by far the best GIF that I hate.
via GIPHY
It's nice to hear the coach of a national title winning team
talk about "expanding the playoff".
More games === More money
Agreed, but this would only work if we had a tier system where teams can move back and forth between p5 and the lesser tiers
This dart is getting throwing out to see what reaction it gets (and promote their game against each other). I wonder of their answer was based on how the media framed the question (and thereby its less their idea and more the medias - though their answers are telling).
I see this as a plan to establish three separate tiers from the present FBS and FCS: P5, G5, and then FCS with them each separated from each other for ever with another end goal. The entire FCS and many G5 football programs would be crushed and would fold. From that perspective then this is about more money for the elite programs, focusing the available NCAA football marketplace money on the P5 and thereby focusing the recruits on those elite schools.
Someone sees the available NCAA football marketplace as a fixed total sum and are developing a plan to change how that is partitioned so the P5 gets more.
This is just an other example of what's wrong with society (the 1% wanting more and more, leveraging their power to get it, and the 99% be damned),... its despicable behavior. Its like a feudal system.
In the world they describe their would be no Memphis - Ole Miss games where a rising excellent coach gets to show his metal and progress his career. How does that world benefit anyone and allow for the progression of excellence across the entire NCAA football spectrum?
This proposal should go nowhere but to the trash bin.
It's almost as if you're suggesting that college football wouldn't be fair... /s
I'm not sure why you think coaches couldn't move between the levels of football conference, since they already do.
Yes, they do, in the model we have right now where G5 coaches get to show their ability to beat P5 talent. That would be significantly hindered by this hypothetical model. That's my point.
Sure, and those G5 coaches also will move from lower teams to higher ones in the hierarchy for money and prestige. They invariably do, and they would even under the system that Saban proposes.
Under the current system, P5 teams will pad their schedule with a couple of G5 or FCS teams each year. Some of those G5 teams will get some wins against P5 teams (particularly UVa) and the best teams may make the jump to the P5 if and when the P5 expands. Under the system Saban proposes, the best G5 teams would also make the jump when the P5 expands.
The biggest difference is that under the system Saban proposes, there would be a lot fewer meaningless games for both the G5 and the P5.
There is already a "haves" and "have nots" system in college football. The only way around a "haves" and "have nots" system would be to demand actual equity among the teams by equalizing spending on team sports, and we all know that's not going to happen. When the P5 started having TV contracts and giving stipends to athletes, the die was cast. There is already a separation between the P5 and the G5 which will continue to grow. That bell was already rung.
Seriously, if you remove G5 and even FCS schools loluva will have fewer loses! What is he thinking?
I hate when people think someone needs to be perfect and already practice an idea that they propose. It's a fallacy to attack Sabans opinion based on Alabamas schedule probably negotiated by the AD. Addressing his actual proposal, I would love if we only played P5
I'm not saying Alabama needs to play all P5 schools right now. But if you're gonna throw an idea out there, at least make it look like you're trying to change something at the level at which you can actually affect.
Alabama has only had two true road OOC games since 2003 - Duke in 2010 and Penn State in 2011. As I said above, their schedule is mostly one P5 neutral site game, 2 G5's, and an FCS. (The last time they had 2 P5 teams out of conference in the same year was 2010.)
Maybe Saban has lobbied his AD. Maybe he's gotten shot down. We'll probably never know for sure. But his case would appear a lot stronger if it looked like Alabama was willing to play another P5 team outside of an NFL stadium.
I think Alabamas history is irrelevant to the point he is trying to make. Personally, I wouldn't care if they never played a road OOC P5 before. It doesn't detract from what he is saying now.
If you really care about they character of the speaker, I would make the argument they have the most to lose by the change.
It's not just history. It's the present and future. There's no P5 games on Alabama's schedules other than neutral openers.
I'm sure the AD does most of the scheduling, and I'm not even arguing that Saban can't have opinions unless he is doing it himself. However, I do think that if Saban went to the AD and said we want to play "insert any school name" next year, it would happen.
Second thought, why do we care so much about what would happen to the FCS and G5 teams? It may seem cold but I already don't pay any attention to them and I assume that most don't. This isn't a charity. We don't owe them a game every year. I mean the way I hear the "G5 schools would fold without P5 games" it sounds like a parasitic relationship
Ummm, who would be VTs football coach now if this model existed already........
Somebody would. Thats the same as asking who would be our coach if the Other 5 conference (I just made up) existed. It's a stupid hypothetical
No its not. The pool of available coaching talent that Whit would deem applicable would be very small. The good young coaches working in the G5 ranks that would have to play only G5 talent wouldn't get to show their talent against P5 talent. The cost of a limited pool of P5 coaches would go up and only the schools with biggest pockets would get the best talent. The "somebody would" statement you make seems to show you don't care if VT gets the best coaching talent. Your "stupid hypothetical" response is pretty narrow minded also, IMO. I'm being direct back at your directness. I disagree with you completely.
I envy your ability to be "direct" without making yourself look like an a$$...
Exactly who decided which conferences were power conferences anyway. The whole thing is arbitrary. P5 and G5 is the exact same league and yet G5 doesn't get the same opportunities. FCS is a different league and there should be no crossover in my opinion.
The members of those conferences. It's an evolution that really picked up steam when the P-5 conferences started to make their own rules. Between TV contracts and stipends, there is more and more a separation.
I agree with you about the FCS.
Plus, as the Power 5 conferences expand, the Group of 5 conferences start picking up FCS teams to fill in their ranks, which further creates the divide between P5 and G5.
When was the last time a G5 school even played/received votes from a major poll for a FBS championship
Most recent example I can think of a successful G5 school to receive love in the polls is Boise State circa 2006, but it looks like the last G5 school to win a National Championship was BYU in 1984.
I believe they were an independent back then
They are also considered P5 by some conferences. I know they count as a P5 game for the Big Ten.
If i may contribute. VT was once what would be considered a non P5 school. Why should we get preferential treatment now that we are one of the P5's?
a G5 playing a P5 school is a recruiting advantage. X G5 school can tell a recruit "come to my school, you'll be on the SEC network you're sophomore year against bama...tons of NFL scouts show up to Bama schools, Y G5 school won't play any P5 school". So if that was taken away, that removes a recruiting tool for them.
It was said above already, FCS schools get money for playing FBS schools.
I've been told by older VT faithfuls that we've been paid to play teams before (I believe one of them was FSU, we used that money help fund the building of the Rector Field House)(I was misinformed). So now you'd be removing a way for FCS/lower level schools to help build up their football programs.Why force the independents to join a conference? VT was once an independent. Why should we make it impossible for an independent school to thrive and be competitive for the playoffs?
I really just feel like this is a "rich getting richer" scheme and there are those who are trying to overlook the little guy, but we should not forget that Virginia Tech itself was once a little guy not too long ago.
Because our only concern should be making Virginia Tech football better
A "Fuck you, I got mine!" attitude isn't the best way to go about things. If other schools held that attitude, we wouldn't be where we are today.
Virginia Tech has been a Power Five school since that term was coined, and was in the BCS since it's inception. Virginia Tech has played against programs that are currently in the "Power Five" since 1895, and was an original member of the Southern Conference in 1921.
I think Saban's saying all the teams need to play by the same scheduling rules, and let's face it, some of those games aren't interesting.
That said, some of the arguments to keep some P5 vs G5 games are compelling. It's all worthy of discussion.
I agree with the overall point that everyone should follow the same scheduling rules. I think that make sense.
When did we receive a hand out from another school?
We were able to stay in the spotlight by scheduling aggressively against the likes of Bama and LSU OOC. Had we been forced to play other lesser schools in those games I guarantee we would have completely faded from the national scene, only being able to point to weak (at the time) ACC championships for accomplishments.
Win or lose, playing the big boys when we were just a regional power helped us out.
If anything, you just gave reasons that support playing strong P5 teams.
Right, it makes sense for up and coming G5 teams to play strong P5 teams. Glad we're all on the same page!
To a certain point, though, I kind of agree with what is being said here. Its always a good thing to help someone out, but you have to keep it within reason. They set up a 1 time home and home with us that ended up being 2 high profile games. The first one helped us to a win and established us as a premier program at the time. The second game propped them up enough to get them into the BCS title game that they ended up winning. That was an ideal win-win. You could argue the Ohio State home and home accomplished the same kind of win-win for different reasons.
What they didn't do was set up a rolling 15 year home and home agreement that allowed the lower program to essentially leech off them to gain relevance like we did with ECU and are about to start with ODU. The long term agreements like that tend to hurt the bigger program over the long haul, and I really think we need to drop those agreements as soon as we can.
I don't have a problem throwing programs a bone here and there, but we have to look out for VT first and foremost.
I don't think anyone taking the side of the G5s in this argument are going as far as an ECU type agreement. But for some reason, the responses are assuming we are.
Because of comments like,
"I really just feel like this is a "rich getting richer" scheme and there are those who are trying to overlook the little guy, but we should not forget that Virginia Tech itself was once a little guy not too long ago"
and,
"A "Fuck you, I got mine!" attitude isn't the best way to go about things. If other schools held that attitude, we wouldn't be where we are today."
These imply that we need to help smaller schools, even at the cost of our own scheduling. The arguments made are painting the picture that we owe them something or that we have to abide by some kind of scheduling morality. Virginia Tech should always act in its own best interest.
Yes. I might be in the minority, but I do believe it is our responsibility to help the little guy. I have my reasons, being we were once the little guy, it's for the betterment of other universities in our state, and it paints us in a big brother type of picture.
I'm not saying scrap our entire OOC P5 games in favor of scheduling all in-state FCS programs, but I do favor scheduling 1 per year. My ideal OOC schedule would look like this for all P5 schools, even those who want to compete for CFP
1 in-state FCS program
1 G5 school we've never played before or rarely play
1 P5 school we've never played before or rarely play (dont care about how good they are)
1 (at least) top 25 P5 school
Both of those comments (the last being mine) suggest that we should help non-P5 schools when feasible. Neither suggest we schedule one specific school in perpetuity like the ECU deal. I have no idea how you made that leap.
Being against "all P5, all the time" scheduling doesn't mean we want ECU and ODU on the schedule every single year for the next 20 years. No one is suggesting that we put ourselves in the red or screw our SOS just to help other schools. There is a happy middle ground that benefits all schools involved, not just the big dogs to the detriment of the little guys.
The reality is that the current incentive is to schedule two of these a year. For simplicity reasons, you end up scheduling the same ones over the long term.
Like we just did.
That's the AD's fault for being non-creative.
What it lacks in excitement, it may just make up for in getting VT to a region where Fuente probably wants to spend some more time and develop some more relationships.
VT should be locking down the state a LOT better in terms of recruiting. Maybe this will help.
Well now we play ODU 9 out of the next 11 years
Up and coming G5 teams aren't our problem. If anything that only erodes where we are like Boise State did. WE, Virginia Tech, need to play good competition.
But the other side of that coin is that it doesn't make sense for strong P5 teams to play G5 and especially FCS teams.
I mean, I wouldn't call it a handout, but UVA helped us get into the ACC...
The Big East football schools that migrated to the ACC made the ACC a better football conference than they were before.
That wasn't charity from the ACC. It was a strategic move for the ACC to get into what is now the Power Five.
Any resistance at that time to VT getting in at that time was out of fear that they'd dominate the conference or be competitive for recruits, not a fear that they wouldn't be good enough.
I remember being told the resistance came from historically basketball dominant programs who were concerned the ACC would become too football dominant, i could be tho
Whats
funnyironic is that the ex-Big East teams have also made the ACC stronger in basketball.Well, for a while we were in or near the basement, and, well, Boston College was one of the other 2...
I don't think it's a fair statement to say that the 2004-05 round of expansion helped improve ACC basketball. Maybe in the years since, with the additions of Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, and Notre Dame, but not that original round. 2004-05 expansion was all about improving ACC football, and trying to catch up with the SEC and B1G.
I agree. I wasn't isolating the 2004 expansion, which was clearly all about football. I was just pointing out a bit of irony.
I think you meant the governor that held UVA's move to the ACC hostage helped us
Sheesh, I hope this is sarcastic
I dunno. Rector was built in 1971, and it looks like we played FSU every year but one from 1955-1980. 15 games in Tallahassee and 10 in Blacksburg.
The only game with FSU that looked like it might have involved money was the home game purchased to be played in Orlando in 1991.
The info I got from my dad, class of '82. I never asked him what year that game was played, I can ask him next time I see him. He always laughs about it so should be fresh on his memory. I could be wrong about the Rector Field house part.
Florida State is one of the top 10 opponents of Virginia Tech all-time in terms of number of times we've played them.
Yes, we played Florida State every year as a home-and-home series. We were both independents in football, but we had a conference affiliation with the Metro Conference in every sport other than football.
Talked to him this morning, it was the 1991 Orlando game. I thought it was one of the earlier games in the series so this is a bad example
After our recent scheduling update, Saban's idea doesn't seem so bad now.
I don't think P5 should only play P5, but I do think that 4 OOC games a year means that a P5 should play two P5's a year, a G5, and one floating game between P5/G5/FCS. I can tell you with our recent scheduling update, there are a few weekends in future years that I don't have to consider whether I can access our games or not. I get a free weekend!
I don't mind the G5 at all, because some of them get to be better than some P5's (like two years' ago Memphis, or Boise from a while back, were genuinely better than LOLUVA is or Vandy or the bottom half of the Big Ten). You also get the Appalachian States and JMUs with a shocker of a game occasionally, which I think is generally good for the sport.
I'd agree with P5s playing P5s if and only if there were a way, maybe geographically organized, for G5 teams to able to move into a P5. This might require a current P5 team to drop down to G5 level. Hmm...if only there were a way...
Ugh, hate P5, can't wait till the big 12 (UT conference) folds and we go to P4. Just dragging this out. That would already make things easier.