Race begins to be power conference No. 6

Harry · December 17, 2012

The five power conferences have molded the coming playoff to their advantage. Surprise. Even the ACC -- whose champion has finished in the AP top 10 twice in the last decade -- is cashing in on $91 million per year. The rest of college football, the so-called Group of Five (MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt, Big East, for now)? About $19 million each.

Their only distinguishing characteristic will be getting that one automatic playoff bowl berth in one of the "host" -- or open -- bowls. Those bowls are yet to be determined, but favorite sites include Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas. The berth will be awarded to the highest ranked champion of the Group of Five.

Therefore, the best combination of schools making up the No. 6 conference is an unknown depending on ...

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany deciding if his league is done raiding.

Boise State to make up its mind. Big East? Mountain West? Someplace else? The silence coming out of Boise is deafening.

The intentions of Cincinnati, Connecticut, the ACC and possibly more. So far, the two schools have not been thrown lifelines to BCS leagues, but are on record as being willing to jump. Cincinnati has a surprising amount of juice at this point. It has been to a BCS bowl. It draws surprisingly good TV ratings in basketball. Call it the best player left on the board.

"Cincinnati is more valuable than what is being let on," an industry source said.

A direction, a leader. The week starts with 12 Big East football schools for 2013 not knowing for sure if they have a BCS bid.

College football is paralyzed at the moment. Anyone who knows which way it is headed is guessing. But there is an old idea being discussed.

"If I were one of the other five commissioners, I would get on the phone and band together," said one source close to the situation. "I would become an über-conference. Forget superconference. Let our current [TV] contracts lapse. That's the only way to take this one."

There are some advantages to this socialist approach. It's also scary. This might be exactly what the power conferences want. If those in the Group of Five are successful banding together, that might just be what the BCS conferences need to break away themselves -- from the Group of Five.

That's how Division I-AA (now FCS) was created in 1978, when the bottom half of Division I complained about revenue and exposure. I-AA was given its own playoff and not much else in terms of TV and money. The latest evolution may be upon us. Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick spoke openly last week about establishing a "Division 5." Currently, there are four football-playing divisions (FBS, FCS, Division II, Division III). "The [power conferences] don't give a [damn] about" the Group of Five, the same source added. "Fine -- be bigger and go."

These are no original thoughts. In fact, 14 months ago we were calling such a conference "Big Country." Conference USA and the Mountain West had been talking about it since 2010, the champions of the two leagues meeting in a play-in game for a BCS berth. As late as October 2011, the conferences had announced that had combined into "one large association."

A few days later a document surfaced that detailed a 28- to 32-team grouping that would combine the Mountain West, Conference USA and the Big East. The idea fell part as playoff talk grew. Still, you can see the proposed divisional lineups here.

Read more: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/21414150/as-abandoned-big-east-crumbles-race-begins-to-be-power-conference-no-6

Harry · December 17, 2012

Wow this is a very good article!! Really spells it out.

oldguystudent · December 17, 2012

Wanna make things really interesting? Go ahead, split the five power conferences and the five non-power conferences into two different divisions -- FBS and FU. Then do like the British soccer leagues do and promote the top FU team to an FBS conference, and demote the lowest FBS team to FU status. Meanwhile, let the FBS have their own damn playoff system full of Sabens, Miles, under the table payments, thugs, flashy cars, and questionable house payments, and let the FU have its own playoff system with a national TV deal that holds it to be clearly of more importance than FCS.

I have no definitive answers except to say that UNT will never be Alabama or LSU, and I'm not entirely sure I'd ever want it to be, so why to both sides continue to pretend that we're all on equal footing?

golfingomez · December 17, 2012

i like the proposal put forth here... let's do it!!!

GL2Greatness · December 18, 2012

Wanna make things really interesting? Go ahead, split the five power conferences and the five non-power conferences into two different divisions -- FBS and FU. Then do like the British soccer leagues do and promote the top FU team to an FBS conference, and demote the lowest FBS team to FU status. Meanwhile, let the FBS have their own damn playoff system full of Sabens, Miles, under the table payments, thugs, flashy cars, and questionable house payments, and let the FU have its own playoff system with a national TV deal that holds it to be clearly of more importance than FCS.

I have no definitive answers except to say that UNT will never be Alabama or LSU, and I'm not entirely sure I'd ever want it to be, so why to both sides continue to pretend that we're all on equal footing?

college isn't pros where you can go make a trade or a free agent signing to change your team in a single season

in the pros the owner has much more freedom to make decisions about budgets and spending that might result in on the field results....in college you are limited by income, willingness of the administration and students to spend, and sometimes even state laws.....in pros the owner can even choose to go into debt if he wants to not all college teams can do that and many college teams do operate at a revenue deficite relative to what they take in from athletics

not all universities use the same admissions criteria for athletics or the same policies about breaking rules....in the pros the requirement for admission is can you play at a level the ownership thinks is worthy of paying you and giving you a spot and the rules are generally handed down by the league as far as behavior

if you want to see college athletics turn into a spending war you would implement a silly plan like this and then teams with resources would make sure they stayed where they wanted to be and teams with large donors would continue to get larger and larger donation while the bottom feeders would do what they do best feed on the bottom

there is no evidence that playing at a "higher level" will lead to more support or fans for many programs.....north Texas will have the fan support they have and even if they somehow rotated into the upper league and there was even a small increase in fan support once north Texas fell back down to the lower level they would lose that support and probably a great deal more....Appy State, Sam Houston, NDSt and others are not going to suddenly develop huge new fan bases because they make it into the upper division and once the split is made most of the teams that are in the lower division would be losing support immediately and they would have next to no chance to move up and again if they did move up it would be short lived at best and then back you go....losing a few more fans along the way after it is proven you can't move up and stay up

stop pretending that schools like north Texas and others do not have their chance now as it is.....all you have to do is win the games you claim you are capable of winning and perform the way you claim you are capable of performing and develop the fan base you claim you are capable of developing.....making the silly claim that "we can't because the big boys (and SMU) won't help us out" really just means you can't or won't

ULM beat Arkansas, they had a decent Baylor team at home after that and lost to them and ended the season on a down note with small fan support overall and even after the Arkansas win their fan support was very small compared to even decent fan support from teams that are willing and able to develop long term support...if they were in the position of having to earn a chance to move up their support would drop to next to nothing VS what they have now which is the chance to at least compete and develop the best fan support they can develop for themselves even if it is small compared to many others

also north Texas did not even win that much at the D1-AA level as a huge school, with tons of alumni in the area, and Texas as a recruiting base and north Texas would be one of the ones in the drop down group and there is little evidence that would be a chance to build winning momemtum and fan support at that level to move up and "dominate"......that was already tried and the move up was just moving up not even having to earn it.....and it was not a huge success or anything that would sustain staying at the higher level.....it would be the same for most every other team in the drop down league

UNTLifer · December 18, 2012

college isn't pros where you can go make a trade or a free agent signing to change your team in a single season

in the pros the owner has much more freedom to make decisions about budgets and spending that might result in on the field results....in college you are limited by income, willingness of the administration and students to spend, and sometimes even state laws.....in pros the owner can even choose to go into debt if he wants to not all college teams can do that and many college teams do operate at a revenue deficite relative to what they take in from athletics

not all universities use the same admissions criteria for athletics or the same policies about breaking rules....in the pros the requirement for admission is can you play at a level the ownership thinks is worthy of paying you and giving you a spot and the rules are generally handed down by the league as far as behavior

if you want to see college athletics turn into a spending war you would implement a silly plan like this and then teams with resources would make sure they stayed where they wanted to be and teams with large donors would continue to get larger and larger donation while the bottom feeders would do what they do best feed on the bottom

there is no evidence that playing at a "higher level" will lead to more support or fans for many programs.....north Texas will have the fan support they have and even if they somehow rotated into the upper league and there was even a small increase in fan support once north Texas fell back down to the lower level they would lose that support and probably a great deal more....Appy State, Sam Houston, NDSt and others are not going to suddenly develop huge new fan bases because they make it into the upper division and once the split is made most of the teams that are in the lower division would be losing support immediately and they would have next to no chance to move up and again if they did move up it would be short lived at best and then back you go....losing a few more fans along the way after it is proven you can't move up and stay up

stop pretending that schools like north Texas and others do not have their chance now as it is.....all you have to do is win the games you claim you are capable of winning and perform the way you claim you are capable of performing and develop the fan base you claim you are capable of developing.....making the silly claim that "we can't because the big boys (and SMU) won't help us out" really just means you can't or won't

ULM beat Arkansas, they had a decent Baylor team at home after that and lost to them and ended the season on a down note with small fan support overall and even after the Arkansas win their fan support was very small compared to even decent fan support from teams that are willing and able to develop long term support...if they were in the position of having to earn a chance to move up their support would drop to next to nothing VS what they have now which is the chance to at least compete and develop the best fan support they can develop for themselves even if it is small compared to many others

also north Texas did not even win that much at the D1-AA level as a huge school, with tons of alumni in the area, and Texas as a recruiting base and north Texas would be one of the ones in the drop down group and there is little evidence that would be a chance to build winning momemtum and fan support at that level to move up and "dominate"......that was already tried and the move up was just moving up not even having to earn it.....and it was not a huge success or anything that would sustain staying at the higher level.....it would be the same for most every other team in the drop down league

I think I read the first sentence of the last paragraph and that was not even correct. We were ranked a number of times in D1aa.

Either way, try to be a little more concise so people will take the time to read some of what you write.

UNTexas · December 18, 2012

Our last year of D1AA we played Boise State in the playoffs and we were in the top 14 teams. I was on that team and you have no idea what you are talking about. GL2GREATNESS, your rants are ridiculous and epic in length. No one bothers reading this nonsense.

mgfan · December 18, 2012

UNTEXAS is correct. I'm going to put you up there with Andrew and Skiver for the douche of the year award. I will let you know the winner later.

filmerj · December 18, 2012

UNTEXAS is correct. I'm going to put you up there with Andrew and Skiver for the douche of the year award. I will let you know the winner later.

Wait... Skiver isn't Andrew??

Christopher Walker · December 18, 2012

college isn't pros where you can go make a trade or a free agent signing to change your team in a single season

in the pros the owner has much more freedom to make decisions about budgets and spending that might result in on the field results....in college you are limited by income, willingness of the administration and students to spend, and sometimes even state laws.....in pros the owner can even choose to go into debt if he wants to not all college teams can do that and many college teams do operate at a revenue deficite relative to what they take in from athletics

not all universities use the same admissions criteria for athletics or the same policies about breaking rules....in the pros the requirement for admission is can you play at a level the ownership thinks is worthy of paying you and giving you a spot and the rules are generally handed down by the league as far as behavior

if you want to see college athletics turn into a spending war you would implement a silly plan like this and then teams with resources would make sure they stayed where they wanted to be and teams with large donors would continue to get larger and larger donation while the bottom feeders would do what they do best feed on the bottom

there is no evidence that playing at a "higher level" will lead to more support or fans for many programs.....north Texas will have the fan support they have and even if they somehow rotated into the upper league and there was even a small increase in fan support once north Texas fell back down to the lower level they would lose that support and probably a great deal more....Appy State, Sam Houston, NDSt and others are not going to suddenly develop huge new fan bases because they make it into the upper division and once the split is made most of the teams that are in the lower division would be losing support immediately and they would have next to no chance to move up and again if they did move up it would be short lived at best and then back you go....losing a few more fans along the way after it is proven you can't move up and stay up

stop pretending that schools like north Texas and others do not have their chance now as it is.....all you have to do is win the games you claim you are capable of winning and perform the way you claim you are capable of performing and develop the fan base you claim you are capable of developing.....making the silly claim that "we can't because the big boys (and SMU) won't help us out" really just means you can't or won't

ULM beat Arkansas, they had a decent Baylor team at home after that and lost to them and ended the season on a down note with small fan support overall and even after the Arkansas win their fan support was very small compared to even decent fan support from teams that are willing and able to develop long term support...if they were in the position of having to earn a chance to move up their support would drop to next to nothing VS what they have now which is the chance to at least compete and develop the best fan support they can develop for themselves even if it is small compared to many others

also north Texas did not even win that much at the D1-AA level as a huge school, with tons of alumni in the area, and Texas as a recruiting base and north Texas would be one of the ones in the drop down group and there is little evidence that would be a chance to build winning momemtum and fan support at that level to move up and "dominate"......that was already tried and the move up was just moving up not even having to earn it.....and it was not a huge success or anything that would sustain staying at the higher level.....it would be the same for most every other team in the drop down league

Dude, how do you find the time and energy to ramble through these novelettes?

meangreener · December 18, 2012

What are you talking about? UNT was plenty successful then.

UNT90 · December 18, 2012

I think I read the first sentence of the last paragraph and that was not even correct. We were ranked a number of times in D1aa.
Either way, try to be a little more concise so people will take the time to read some of what you write.

I never read Checkfact's rambles. Partly because there will always be a dig at UNT in there and partly because anyone that has to change screen names because they ruined their 1st one is kinda a Dbag.

GrayEagle · December 18, 2012

I don't believe that there will be another power conference. The 6th slot might be given to the "group of 5" but not to an exclusive consortium.

What we should do is reorganize the MWC, CUSA, and the Big East regionally and the champions, along with the winner of Sun Belt/MAC challenge, playoff for the 6th bowl spot. That way, every FBS member has a chance at a major bowl. The reorganization would save plenty in travel costs and eliminate most of the bickering in jockeying for conference membership.

A 32-team "conference" doesn't sound workable and you've essentially eliminated about 30 from the FBS. Kill that idea before it develops into something even uglier than what we now have.

GL2Greatness · December 19, 2012

I think I read the first sentence of the last paragraph and that was not even correct. We were ranked a number of times in D1aa.
Either way, try to be a little more concise so people will take the time to read some of what you write.

Our last year of D1AA we played Boise State in the playoffs and we were in the top 14 teams. I was on that team and you have no idea what you are talking about. GL2GREATNESS, your rants are ridiculous and epic in length. No one bothers reading this nonsense.

What are you talking about? UNT was plenty successful then.

from 1982 to 1994 while north Texas was in D1-AA (13 seasons) they were 66-77-3

went to the playoffs 4 times (30.7%) of the time....only made it past the first round one time

ranked 4 times (30.7%)

this as one of the largest (possibly the largest) school in D1-AA, in a metro area with several million people, that is a very hot recruiting area, in a state that is possibly the biggest recruiting area

if that is considered plenty successful, rankings and playoffs to brag about, or that means I was incorrect in saying north Texas did not win that much.....well perhaps you need to up your expectations and standards ......a losing record over 13 seasons by a large margin and only making the playoffs 31% of the time and only making it past the first round one time is not really very good especially considering what is available in the DFW metromess and Texas to work with and considering the size of some of the schools in D1-AA and the size of their alumni base and media markets

here are the season records

1982: 2-9-0

1983: 8-4-0

1984: 2-9-0

1985: 4-6-1

1986: 6-4-0

1987: 7-5-0

1988: 8-4-0

1989: 5-6-0

1990: 6-5-0

1991: 3-7-1

1992: 4-7-0

1993: 4-7-0

1994: 7-4-1

that is 6 winning seasons and 7 losing seasons and conference co-champs one time and conference champs one time....in the Southland with ULM and see you later McNeese State and the like

a losing record overall, more losing seasons that winning, and only two conference championships (one shared) is not exactly doing well unless you have extremely low standards

in 1982 on 12 teams went to the playoffs (about 10% of the D1-AA teams) so a school with the resources, size, and location that north Texas had should have been able to do better than those metrics above.....unless you think those are good metrics...

wardly · December 19, 2012

I think our main concern is if the Big East adds 3 more teams in the West to compliment SDSU,BSU,SMU,Baylor, and Tulane in order to create a true Western Division.They can only come trom MWC,CUSA,and Sun Belt.In fact,CUSA looks a lot like the Belt.If Tulsa and S.Miss. leave,we are still in better shape than being in the Belt,but not by much.

Arkstfan · December 19, 2012

I think our main concern is if the Big East adds 3 more teams in the West to compliment SDSU,BSU,SMU,Baylor, and Tulane in order to create a true Western Division.They can only come trom MWC,CUSA,and Sun Belt.In fact,CUSA looks a lot like the Belt.If Tulsa and S.Miss. leave,we are still in better shape than being in the Belt,but not by much.

It's not about the money.

It's not about power ratings.

It's not about TV markets.

It's not about prestige.

What matters is being in a league where rivalries can develop. In the post-raid world there isn't going to be enough TV dollars to matter and history shows the top champ who would get the BCS bid is just as likely to come from a weak conference as a strong conference. It's about being able to compete and sell tickets.

Shof · December 20, 2012

It's not about the money.
It's not about power ratings.

It's not about TV markets.

It's not about prestige.

What matters is being in a league where rivalries can develop. In the post-raid world there isn't going to be enough TV dollars to matter and history shows the top champ who would get the BCS bid is just as likely to come from a weak conference as a strong conference. It's about being able to compete and sell tickets.

A couple weeks ago rumors were floating around about ASU and the MWC. Anything "new" on that front? Definitely a good group of schools there; but only if enough Eastern MWC schools remain for a divisional split east/west.

Shof

Arkstfan · December 20, 2012

A couple weeks ago rumors were floating around about ASU and the MWC. Anything "new" on that front? Definitely a good group of schools there; but only if enough Eastern MWC schools remain for a divisional split east/west.
Shof

The rumors persist but I don't see anything imminent. The MWC isn't doing anything until they know that no one is coming back and they won't know that until another MWC defects to the Big East.

Harry · December 20, 2012

The rumors persist but I don't see anything imminent. The MWC isn't doing anything until they know that no one is coming back and they won't know that until another MWC defects to the Big East.

Boise seems to hold the cards. If they were to stay in the Mountain West or commit to the Big East it would clarify things significantly. But the problem is they won't do that and here is why. There is a 20 million dollar auto bcs bowl bid in 2013 and they have as good a shot as any to get it! That autobid and to a lesser extent the MSG basketball tourney is the biggest card Aresco has right now.