Group of 5 officials considering playoff for non-Power 5 teams

PlummMeanGreen · December 31, 2016

On 12/29/2016 at 1:17 PM, UNT90 said:

Terrible idea.

The group of 5 should be considering a class action anti-trust lawsuit instead of relegating themselves to second tier nothingness forever...

We've already been D1-AA in the past & this proposal reeks of those days. The perception aspects of that is also one helluva' gorilla to get off a school's back. Been there done that folks & many of us will tell you we do not want to go down that road again. Why flaunt to the sports world we're G5 & that's all a school will ever be?

Some schools in no growth outposts with "we've done all we're ever going to do" MO's will gravitate that direction, but I'd bet most of CUSA, the AAC & the MWC who still have their dreams of being the next Louisville or Boise State will say: No dice

Edited December 31, 2016 by PlummMeanGreen

greenb.o.g. · December 31, 2016

I'm all for it!

In fact, I think the G5 should go a step further and completely boycott playing P5 schools.

Can you imagine the reactions of P5 athletic directors and head coaches?! After their collective large, bulbous, heads stopped spinning, smoke would poor out of their ears, and then they would internally combust like the gremlin stuck in the microwave.

"What?! You mean we would actually have to play even competition for every game of the season?!"

In the words of Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now: "The Horror."

Harry · December 31, 2016

https://southernmiss.rivals.com/news/fbs-needs-fewer-teams-not-more-championships

The blame for the debacle that the FBS has turned into can be laid squarely at the feet of the NCAA and their rules committee.

There are flat out too many teams in FBS. There are too many teams that are asking for a slice of the pie who have never contributed to the making of the pie.

Beginning in the mid-1990’s and continuing to this day we have seen a flood of programs starting from scratch or moving up into FBS.

In 1995 there were 108 I-A programs this included North Texas who made their transition that year. The year also marked the final season for Pacific who dropped football following the season.

Today there are 128 FBS (formerly I-A) football programs. UAB returns in 2017, while Idaho has realized they can not sustain at FBS and will drop to FCS.

Some of the teams who are not pulling their weight are newcomers to FBS like Umass and South Alabama. Others are long term dregs (Eastern Michigan, ULM and others) who contribute nothing more than being cannon fodder for other FBS programs.

Many of these schools who don’t pull their weight have fan bases who either don’t care or are not large enough to justify playing college football at the highest level.

Over the past four years an average of 29 FBS programs have posted seasonal average attendance numbers below 20,000.

The lowest of the low include Ball State and Eastern Michigan who routinely average less than 10,000 fans per game and sometimes drop below a 5,000 average for entire seasons.

Programs like the ones mentioned above competing in the highest division of college football is what gave rise to the BCS back in 1998.

Programs who routinely put 40,000, 50,000, 100,000 in their stadiums saw no reason to keep subsidizing programs with apathetic and/or non-existent fan-bases. They began seeking a way to marginalize these programs.

One consequence (possibly intended but likely unintended) that arose from this were the programs who were in the middle also got caught. These programs had been historically competitive, had legitimate, organically built fan bases but were not necessarily the flagship programs in their states.

Programs like Colorado State, East Carolina, Southern Miss and others have suffered because of the unwillingness of the NCAA to control healthy numbers at the FBS level.

Ryan Munthe · December 31, 2016

16 hours ago, UNT90 said:

This is complete hogwash. That isn't going to happen. Plain and simple. Force their hand. So TFLF says he is tired of the G5 laying there and taking it? Then band together and force the P5's hand by filing the lawsuit. Stop being a whore. Have some self-respect. That is the ONLY thing that will get their attention.

If you think they, or the ticket paying public, would give 2 craps about a 2nd tier playoff system, you are smoking crack. If TFLF thinks the P5s are magically going to have their upper division champion play a G5 lower division champion for some TFLF imagined national title, he is smoking crack, mainlining heroin, doing X, and eating shrooms.

AINT

GONNA

HAPPEN

So you are delusional enough to think a bunch of "Little Sisters of the Poor" G5s would be able to successfully sue the NCAA, which up to this point, has shown to have a stranglehold over judiciary and an immensely strong lobby?

UNT90 · December 31, 2016

36 minutes ago, Ryan Munthe said:

So you are delusional enough to think a bunch of "Little Sisters of the Poor" G5s would be able to successfully sue the NCAA, which up to this point, has shown to have a stranglehold over judiciary and an immensely strong lobby?

Yes, I do.

Greenrex · December 31, 2016

33 minutes ago, UNT90 said:

Yes, I do.

I do too.

GreenGonzo · December 31, 2016

Me, too!

risinggreen · December 31, 2016

On 12/29/2016 at 1:17 PM, UNT90 said:

Terrible idea.

The group of 5 should be considering a class action anti-trust lawsuit instead of relegating themselves to second tier nothingness forever...

Yep. The new 1AA.

Aquila_Viridis · December 31, 2016

On 12/29/2016 at 9:53 PM, UTSA Fan said:

Help me understand that statement. Why would they care about our budget? Is there a tangible benefit or outcome to this that interests them or is it a subjective "we have more $ than you"?

It is not directly the dollar amount but the only way to promote and compete at a comparable level is to devote a comparable level of funds.

I am not happy with the situation right now. I am looking for more change. You see what the programs at 'our level' - some of which are thrashing us - are doing, like ODU and now FAU with the assistants. So we have a lot of work to do just to keep competing with them. Then there is the condition of our basketball which is being exposed again today in Charlotte.

PlummMeanGreen · December 31, 2016

3 hours ago, Harry said:

https://southernmiss.rivals.com/news/fbs-needs-fewer-teams-not-more-championships

The blame for the debacle that the FBS has turned into can be laid squarely at the feet of the NCAA and their rules committee.

There are flat out too many teams in FBS. There are too many teams that are asking for a slice of the pie who have never contributed to the making of the pie.

Beginning in the mid-1990’s and continuing to this day we have seen a flood of programs starting from scratch or moving up into FBS.

In 1995 there were 108 I-A programs this included North Texas who made their transition that year. The year also marked the final season for Pacific who dropped football following the season.

Today there are 128 FBS (formerly I-A) football programs. UAB returns in 2017, while Idaho has realized they can not sustain at FBS and will drop to FCS.

Some of the teams who are not pulling their weight are newcomers to FBS like Umass and South Alabama. Others are long term dregs (Eastern Michigan, ULM and others) who contribute nothing more than being cannon fodder for other FBS programs.

Many of these schools who don’t pull their weight have fan bases who either don’t care or are not large enough to justify playing college football at the highest level.

Over the past four years an average of 29 FBS programs have posted seasonal average attendance numbers below 20,000.

The lowest of the low include Ball State and Eastern Michigan who routinely average less than 10,000 fans per game and sometimes drop below a 5,000 average for entire seasons.

Programs like the ones mentioned above competing in the highest division of college football is what gave rise to the BCS back in 1998.

Programs who routinely put 40,000, 50,000, 100,000 in their stadiums saw no reason to keep subsidizing programs with apathetic and/or non-existent fan-bases. They began seeking a way to marginalize these programs.

One consequence (possibly intended but likely unintended) that arose from this were the programs who were in the middle also got caught. These programs had been historically competitive, had legitimate, organically built fan bases but were not necessarily the flagship programs in their states.

Programs like Colorado State, East Carolina, Southern Miss and others have suffered because of the unwillingness of the NCAA to control healthy numbers at the FBS level.

Any school flirting with going up the totem pole (like many at our level) should be required to have a minimum 40,000 seat stadium which would cull out many of the present FCS pretenders. Then re-form FCS to where our schools would have a chance for more TV revenue from ESPN & the big boys since we're talking way fewer members at that level due to the new 40k stadium minimum criteria.

Yes, we'd need to add 9k more seat, but Apogee was built for expansion.

GMG!

Edited December 31, 2016 by PlummMeanGreen

Aquila_Viridis · December 31, 2016

I'd much rather see a 20,000 seat stadium that is full every time than a 40,000 one that is at 25%.

KRAM1 · December 31, 2016

1 minute ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

I'd much rather see a 20,000 seat stadium that is full every time than a 40,000 one that is at 25%.

ODU agrees with you.

Aquila_Viridis · December 31, 2016

1 hour ago, KRAM1 said:

ODU agrees with you.

ODU won all their home games and their bowl this year.

jacksondf · December 31, 2016

Baaaad idea. This would relegate us to FCS+. I would become a TCU fan.

PlummMeanGreen · December 31, 2016

8 hours ago, Harry said:

https://southernmiss.rivals.com/news/fbs-needs-fewer-teams-not-more-championships

The blame for the debacle that the FBS has turned into can be laid squarely at the feet of the NCAA and their rules committee.

There are flat out too many teams in FBS. There are too many teams that are asking for a slice of the pie who have never contributed to the making of the pie.

Beginning in the mid-1990’s and continuing to this day we have seen a flood of programs starting from scratch or moving up into FBS.

In 1995 there were 108 I-A programs this included North Texas who made their transition that year. The year also marked the final season for Pacific who dropped football following the season.

Today there are 128 FBS (formerly I-A) football programs. UAB returns in 2017, while Idaho has realized they can not sustain at FBS and will drop to FCS.

Some of the teams who are not pulling their weight are newcomers to FBS like Umass and South Alabama. Others are long term dregs (Eastern Michigan, ULM and others) who contribute nothing more than being cannon fodder for other FBS programs.

Many of these schools who don’t pull their weight have fan bases who either don’t care or are not large enough to justify playing college football at the highest level.

Over the past four years an average of 29 FBS programs have posted seasonal average attendance numbers below 20,000.

The lowest of the low include Ball State and Eastern Michigan who routinely average less than 10,000 fans per game and sometimes drop below a 5,000 average for entire seasons.

Programs like the ones mentioned above competing in the highest division of college football is what gave rise to the BCS back in 1998.

Programs who routinely put 40,000, 50,000, 100,000 in their stadiums saw no reason to keep subsidizing programs with apathetic and/or non-existent fan-bases. They began seeking a way to marginalize these programs.

One consequence (possibly intended but likely unintended) that arose from this were the programs who were in the middle also got caught. These programs had been historically competitive, had legitimate, organically built fan bases but were not necessarily the flagship programs in their states.

Programs like Colorado State, East Carolina, Southern Miss and others have suffered because of the unwillingness of the NCAA to control healthy numbers at the FBS level.

Any school flirting with going up the totem pole (like many at our level) should be required to have a minimum 40,000 seat stadium which would cull out many of the pretenders. Then re-form FCS to where our schools would have a chance for more TV revenue from ESPN & the big boys since we're talking way fewer members at that level due to the new 40k stadium minimum criteria.

Yes, we'd need to add 9k more seat, but Apogee was built for expansion.

GMG!

PlummMeanGreen · December 31, 2016

17 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

I'd much rather see a 20,000 seat stadium that is full every time than a 40,000 one that is at 25%.

It's not about our past--but what happpens with most progressive programs that are projected to have 45,000 students; who will have over 250,000 alums within 1 hour of their alma mater's campus football stadium; and a school located in a county that's only a few years from having a population of 1,000,000.

❓Who out there actually thinks Wren Baker took the UNT A.D. job based on our past for crissakes❓

So it's not about attendance for the moment with a 40k stadium, but rather culling out the schools who average 10k (give or take) & want as much TV revenue as (say) a Southern Miss or a Marshall of which both those schools have had great attendance most decades.

This G5 committee may have good intentions, but they'd be enslaving up & comers (like UNT still is) to stay down at their level with some kind of a "2'nd Hand Rose" playoff. They'd indenture schools who want to be like our former conference mates, i.e., Louisville, Boise State, Cincinnati, Memphis & (yes) U of Houston. I hope our present UNT powers have that as part of their grand scheme of knocking the lid off this can we've caused ourselves to be inside way too long.

If we keep wallowing around with the NCAA's total "have nots" who will stay at that level we're going to start thinking like them & believing we don't deserve any better. A few of you are there now as you can only seem to base our future on our past--a bridge to nowhere.

✳️ Like it or not, UNT is in a major league sports market & only the few, the brave & the bold will support a program that doesn't aspire to aim toward & be part of this major league sports market.

GMG!

Edited January 1, 2017 by PlummMeanGreen

outoftown · January 1, 2017

I have some conflicting thoughts on this:

1. The current situation is no better than this proposal, in that we have seen that the "committee" completely biases the rankings in a way that there is no way a G5 team ever gets in in a practical world. I mean Western Michigan went undefeated, and yes their ranking was not all that high, but you tell me they belong 11 spots behind a playoff that includes teams that didn't win their division? With 4 teams they will never let a G5 participate.

2. Sadly 90 is right when he says that such a G5 Playoff would cement the current situation. It might even make bringing a lawsuit more difficult (because it would "exclude" the P5s middle tier schools).

This leaves me with the question how long the status quo will last without intervention. I believe the playoff will eventually get expanded, the question how long that will last and how that expansion will look when it happens. Personally I have to say that if this stays in the hands of the same kind of committee, then my hopes of something good coming from that are small. Also the voting changes on "semi-independence" for the P5 we saw in the last two years set bad precedents and tilted the power in a bad way.

As a psychologist this whole G5 situation seems to be one big "prisoners dilemma" to me. Essentially all G5 would profit if they worked together, but for that you have to trust all the others, and if some do the good thing for the group and others don't you are worse off if you did the right thing. I really do think a lawsuit would be the best way forward, but it would take a good number of schools to agree to it and I think that is hard to do. Understandably nobody wants to be the single school / single conference that is shunned by all the power 5 schools. Personally I think if G5 conferences start to limit the number of road games they allow their member to play vs P5 to 1 per season would go a long way to showing the P5 how dependent they are on the G5. They have a lot of members that would look very bad if they did not have the chance to play teams from less affluent conferences as much (or at least not always play at home).

Overall I think right now the right thing is to wait another season or two and see if the playoff gets reformed, and prepare the lawsuit so it is ready to go at that very moment in case the P5 are not willing to do the right thing by themselves.

Ryan Munthe · January 1, 2017

15 hours ago, UNT90 said:

Yes, I do.

Well, unfortunately as much as I'd like to agree with you, you're crazy and delusional.

This whole argument is hypocritical. We barely average 20K. We might as well be FCS. Just WIN, baby.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Ryan Munthe

greenminer · January 1, 2017

1 hour ago, Ryan Munthe said:

Well, unfortunately as much as I'd like to agree with you, you're crazy and delusional.

This whole argument is hypocritical. We barely average 20K. We might as well be FCS. Just WIN, baby.

2015 FCS attendance average was ~8K, so not quite.

UNT90 · January 1, 2017

32 minutes ago, Ryan Munthe said:

Well, unfortunately as much as I'd like to agree with you, you're crazy and delusional.

This whole argument is hypocritical. We barely average 20K. We might as well be FCS. Just WIN, baby.

Ok, law degreed Ryan Munthe. Why do you want UNT to be so much less?

GTWT · January 1, 2017

19 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

I'd much rather see a 20,000 seat stadium that is full every time than a 40,000 one that is at 25%.

Me too. However, if a program's goal is to fill a 20K stadium it probably doesn't belong in FBS.

UTSA Fan · January 1, 2017

13 hours ago, outoftown said:

Personally I think if G5 conferences start to limit the number of road games they allow their member to play vs P5 to 1 per season would go a long way to showing the P5 how dependent they are on the G5.

I think the opposite is true, G5 programs need the $ from those road games. Your proposal may destroy several schools teams.

Ryan Munthe · January 1, 2017

5 hours ago, UNT90 said:

Ok, law degreed Ryan Munthe. Why do you want UNT to be so much less?

I don't want UNT to be so much less. I just want us to win, plain and simple, at whatever level we play at.

Our goal needs to be to win at this level and be one of those in-between schools as far as the fanbase goes (Southern Miss, Marshall, etc). If we can do that consistently, then you move onto the next step.

As of now, we aren't consistent winners in the conference and division we are in, and we don't sell out the stadium. My argument is simple: UNT needs to support what helps it WIN NOW and put butts in seats. I'm not sure, in my honest opinion, that the HoD being our national championship is going to let us be consistent winners or put butts in seats. A playoff system that we can feasibly compete in will. This is hotly debated I know, I just feel that a playoff championship where we play a UCF, Houston, Southern Miss, etc is a good thing and would mean something, especially with media backing. It's a lot different than playing Youngstown State on the Ocho.

No G5 will ever be able to beat the Bamas and Ohio States of the world. They have the most resources, fans, money, recruits, etc. They have a monopoly on championships. Boise State can't compete with them...hell, even TCU can't.

That is why I support the playoff system. We don't bring 100K to fans and attract the very best athletes and if we won our conference EVERY YEAR for 15 years then maybe we'd be that level but that would be unheard of. In G5, you will always be hampered by money, perception, recruits, scared P5s, money games, and the risk of losing your coach. UH is finding out the hard way that there is no way up anymore for the G5. There is no glass ceiling.

We are now FBS 1-AA. There is absolutely no way that a band of NIUs and UNTs can take Alabama and the NCAA to court with all their lobby and clout and win. I just don't see it. What are you going to take them to court over anyway? Antitrust? How are you going to plead your case when Bama shows their cash flow and fanbase compared to ours? Their recruits? They're simply going to argue they are a higher level. That's because THEY ARE. It's over. We're out in the cold.

What we can do is WIN and FILL APOGEE.

Sorry if this sounds pessimistic, I'm just looking at the playing field from a realistic and historical view.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Ryan Munthe

Ryan Munthe · January 1, 2017

Furthermore 90...

You love to rail against "whore games" but what you don't understand is that the only way to win a national championship as a G5 would be to play two "whore games." Think about it. WMU did exactly what you want. Scheduled cream puff P5, beat them, beat their schedule, undefeated.

No playoffs.

Or, you can take the Houston route. Schedule a pseudo-whore game (OU paid UH, even if it was a neutral-site in the end), beat the P5 team, kick serious ass, but then let rumors of your coach leaving to better opportunities distract the team, resulting in a few losses destroying your playoff chances.

In G5, you can be the WMU, or you can be the UH.

Guess what? Neither went to the championship.

G5 players are the ONLY NCAA PLAYERS who are UNABLE to play for a national championship. Completely unfair bullshit.

I'm tired of the P5 bullshit. We are in the strongest G5 conference (check bowl records vs other G5, AAC is flash and talk) and nobody in CUSA would ever get a shot.

Like...this is why even Vandy recruits better than most G5 schools.

"If we went undefeated, we would be in the playoffs. At UH, you'd have to pray you got a Top 10 ranking."

90, why don't you take your trigger finger off the downvote button and actually discuss the topic without being rude because I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Ryan Munthe