Pac 12 coaches critical of SEC for only playing 8-game conference schedule

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per ESPN:

Several Pac-12 coaches took aim at the SEC during their spring teleconference Thursday, criticizing the league's decision to stick with an eight-game conference schedule that they believe could disrupt the equity of the selection process as the sport moves into the College Football Playoff era.

"I've been saying this for three years now: I think if we're going to go into a playoff and feed into one playoff system, we all need to play by the same rules," said Stanford coach David Shaw, whose team has played in four straight BCS bowl games, including three in his tenure. "Play your conference. Don't back down from playing your own conference. It's one thing to back down from playing somebody else. But don't back down from playing your own conference."

"I would like to see everybody operate under the same set of rules or restrictions or regulations or whatever word you want to throw in there," UCLA coach Jim Mora said. "I think the Pac-12 is an incredibly competitive conference. I look at the teams that make up this conference and I think anybody can beat anybody on any given week. I think the same can be said for the SEC. And yet we play nine games against each other. I like that.

"I think we like that as a conference and I think we take pride in that because we're interested in competing against the best week in and week out. We try not to schedule too many patsies."

http://espn.go.com/college-football...-decision-maintain-8-game-conference-schedule

Go Gophers!!
 

Alvarez weighs in:

On the different schedule models between major conferences: It's not my place to decide what they want to do with their scheduling. That's up to them. We've chosen to go to nine [in the Big Ten], strength of schedule is a factor. If you're not at nine then your nonconference scheduling is important. You take a look at us, we're playing LSU. I think it will be obvious which schools tried to play up and understand that strength of schedule is important. They do so with nonconference games.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/100237/uws-alvarez-talks-playoff-procedures

Go Gophers!!
 

What's interesting is a 9 game conference slate means one less payday, per BCS Team (or whatever the big conferences are called now that the BCS is over), for the lower-tier conference teams. What it does do is make scheduling easier for the U (only have to fill 3 games) and will make demand for our NC games higher therefore we can pay teams even less to come in. So the MAC teams and their athletic budgets look to suffer from this change.
 

PAC has been doing the 9 game conference schedule for a number of years. Before the expansion everybody played everybody each year. It was great for the fans.
 

I'd like to see the playoff committee really reward aggressive non-con scheduling. I would love a world where there are no FCS matchups for the major conference teams, and only one mid-major per year. If the major conference scheduled more teams against each other, it would make comparing the conferences easier.
 


Ideally I'd like to see the B1G move to ten conference games. Although moving to nine will be an improvement.
 

Hopefully one day the B1G will go to a 12 game conference schedule. That is the only way to determine the competitive ranking of the conference schools. It would be ideal if the regular season schedule was expanded to 13 games so that every B1G team could play all the B1G conference members. That would give real value to a set of season tickets. Every game would truly help to determine a conference championship. With the addition of the East Coast teams, it would also make for some interesting road-trip destinations and attractions. New York City and Washington D. C. could provide some nice extended stay opportunities. And there would be no more meaningless cup-cake games.
 

imthewalrus said:
Hopefully one day the B1G will go to a 12 game conference schedule. That is the only way to determine the competitive ranking of the conference schools. It would be ideal if the regular season schedule was expanded to 13 games so that every B1G team could play all the B1G conference members. That would give real value to a set of season tickets. Every game would truly help to determine a conference championship. With the addition of the East Coast teams, it would also make for some interesting road-trip destinations and attractions. New York City and Washington D. C. could provide some nice extended stay opportunities. And there would be no more meaningless cup-cake games.
Click to expand...

Wren, first let me congratulate you on the brevity of your post. Second, I agree with you on every point. Well said.
 




To the point of the thread -

The SEC is the strongest conference. They, more than any other conference, would risk having more one or two loss teams with an expanded conference schedule. I agree that in an ideal world they'd be held to the same standard as other power conferences, however, until their conference becomes less dominant, I get why they wouldn't.
 

hyaluronic said:
To the point of the thread -

The SEC is the strongest conference. They, more than any other conference, would risk having more one or two loss teams with an expanded conference schedule. I agree that in an ideal world they'd be held to the same standard as other power conferences, however, until their conference becomes less dominant, I get why they wouldn't.
Click to expand...

The way to begin chipping away at the SEC Conference will be to de everything a conference can do to NOT be a "watered-down" cheap imitation of the SEC Conference. Let them have a couple of undefeated teams and about four more teams with one lone defeat and then a bunch of barely 500 teams that have played NO ONE out side their own conference. The B1G can make itself unique from the SEC by striving to have every team play every other team in the conference. The Pac what ever they are and the Big Twelve can do the same thing.

Then, one by one, the bottom teams of the SEC Conference will become weaker and weaker in the eyes of football fans every where. Eventually, the SEC schedule will be more closely examined and perhaps even criticized. Divide that conference and that conference will begin to lose just a bit of it's reputation.

Along the way: the B1G will begin to regain some of it's swagger. The PAC10 started a bit of a rebound during the years that every team in that conference played every other team from the conference. And, my season tickets to my Golden Gopher Football Games would be worth a LOT more to me. I LOVE Big Ten Football (B1G now to some...but always Big Ten Football to me!)
 

imthewalrus said:
The way to begin chipping away at the SEC Conference will be to de everything a conference can do to NOT be a "watered-down" cheap imitation of the SEC Conference. Let them have a couple of undefeated teams and about four more teams with one lone defeat and then a bunch of barely 500 teams that have played NO ONE out side their own conference. The B1G can make itself unique from the SEC by striving to have every team play every other team in the conference. The Pac what ever they are and the Big Twelve can do the same thing.

Then, one by one, the bottom teams of the SEC Conference will become weaker and weaker in the eyes of football fans every where. Eventually, the SEC schedule will be more closely examined and perhaps even criticized. Divide that conference and that conference will begin to lose just a bit of it's reputation.

Along the way: the B1G will begin to regain some of it's swagger. The PAC10 started a bit of a rebound during the years that every team in that conference played every other team from the conference. And, my season tickets to my Golden Gopher Football Games would be worth a LOT more to me. I LOVE Big Ten Football (B1G now to some...but always Big Ten Football to me!)
Click to expand...

No doubt, unintended consequences could put an end to SEC dominance. Perhaps this is the impetus that leads to it, perhaps it will just be the natural ebb and flow of college football. I'm just saying that I get why the SEC, for now, would choose to go a different path. Whether or not that's the best path, we don't know. I hope whatever they choose is not the best path. ; o )
 

If the majority of recruits continue to come from the south and California, then the Big Ten will continue to be an inferior league.
 



I don't ever see the B1G going to a 12 (or 13) game conf schedule. Reasons:
1. would make it harder for a team to go undefeated, or w/ 1 loss and qualify for national playoff
2. The top teams in the conference would not be able to schedule the marquee non-conf games -
vs. Alabama, LSU, Stanford, etc.
3. The teams that play Notre Dame would lose that game from their schedule. ($$$$$$$$$)
4. Lack of diversity in a schedule. I (and I think a lot of fans) enjoy seeing the Gophs play some
different teams in the non-conf schedule. Personally, I would rather see a non-conf game
against a TCU or even an Iowa State, as opposed to playing a bad B1G team.
5. Bad for Gopher hole. We would lose all those wonderful threads where people complain that
Team X got a more favorable schedule than the Gophs.
 

There is nothing that can be done about the population shifts in the United States for the sake of football and football alone. However, just as the current "rust-bucket" states used to be football powerhouses, there will most likely eventually be economic conditions that may dictate just where people will locate themselves in the future. Who knows, perhaps the new energy trends will help bring job-seekers back to some of the rust bucket areas. People will gravitate towards jobs, quality of life and other opportunities. More energy resources just may bring manufacturing back to places such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and some other mid-western states. Grow the jobs back in the rust bucket areas and the populations there will grow and the schools will show more kids enrolled and who knows where it will all go from there?

So I firmly believe that the Big Ten should be the Big Ten and play only the Big Ten teams during the regular season. Let the world know that the B1G BIG TEN spirit exists and can be found only in Big Ten Stadiums across the land. Let them know when the Big Ten crowns it's champion there will be no doubt about who that champion should be because head to head competition speaks with real authority. And then, let the play-offs begin! Let the SEC play their cupcake games during their ooc portion of their schedules. Let the rest of the conferences play only their own conference rivals. Limit the SEC to cupcake early season games. Don't go into their neck of the woods, play in their heat and humidity before their packed houses and tough crowds and provide tv ratings for them only to lose to them early in the season so they can be praised for the remainder of the season as being superior. Let them be forced to play their conference rivals if they want decent early season games. You can NOT continue to try to do things the way they have been done for the past ten or fifteen years when population demographics are moving against you. Let the SEC have their 8 game schedule plus cupcakes. Make the B1G a real Big Ten Conference!
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I don't ever see the B1G going to a 12 (or 13) game conf schedule. Reasons:
1. would make it harder for a team to go undefeated, or w/ 1 loss and qualify for national playoff
2. The top teams in the conference would not be able to schedule the marquee non-conf games -
vs. Alabama, LSU, Stanford, etc.
3. The teams that play Notre Dame would lose that game from their schedule. ($$$$$$$$$)
4. Lack of diversity in a schedule. I (and I think a lot of fans) enjoy seeing the Gophs play some
different teams in the non-conf schedule. Personally, I would rather see a non-conf game
against a TCU or even an Iowa State, as opposed to playing a bad B1G team.
5. Bad for Gopher hole. We would lose all those wonderful threads where people complain that
Team X got a more favorable schedule than the Gophs.
Click to expand...

Forget Notre Dame. They want to play ACC teams and Army, Navy or the Air Force. Maybe B.Y. They and Michigan didn't renew their long-term contract. They wanted nothing to do with the Big Ten when they were invited to join. They fell into bed with the ACC.
Iowa State bought out the last ooc games we had scheduled with them. They already are playing a Big Ten Team. They would be better off playing all the teams in their own conference than playing iowa and Minnesota. They need to compete against the teams in their own conference a lot better. They have actually done pretty darn well against iowa 2nd or 3rd ooc game of the season...since they started playing them every year, but the hawgseyes are more a state population favorite in iowa and what good has it done those darn Clones?

And, the Big Ten Network is looking at providing about $45 million per season to Conference teams within a few years. Believe me, $$$$$$ is no worry. Especially if the Student Athletes continue to provide all the action for the Conference at such a low cost.
 


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