I think the plan would screw the non-BCS conferences. Boise State has enough trouble scheduling BCS conference teams as it is now. If there were more incentive for BCS conference teams to play BCS conference teams, there’s no way Boise State or Utah could become eligible. They’re usually trying to ADD BCS games to the schedule, not dodge them. They know they won’t make the big bowl games without wins over BCS conference teams.
Boise chooses not to play more BCS teams because they don’t want to go on the road. Cite.
My point that it’s difficult for a non-BCS team to book non-conference teams stands.
Fresno State is accepting a disadvantage (going on the road) to play teams that the BCS system already assumes are better than Fresno State. Boise State has said they aren’t going to accept that disadvantage and have a tougher time scheduling BCS conference teams because of it. Agreeing to play 2 road games for each home game is like spotting the BCS teams 2 points in the extra road game. Cite.
Would Michigan agree to play two games in Ohio for every game played in Ann Arbor? Of course not. While a smaller team could increase their BCS games by going on the road, it’s not reasonable to expect every team to accept that disadvantage.
Life isn’t fair. You deal with it or you don’t.
The traditional powers have a built in-advantage; that’s the way it is, and that’s they way it’s going to be for the forseeable future. Mid-majors are going to have to live with that, unless and until they get a rare chance to move up to a power conference (And I say this as someone who is a fan of a mid-major). Pretending otherwise is not dealing in reality.
Here’s the schedule Boise needs to play under my proposal:
One 1AA team at home.
One other mid-major in a home-and-home.
Two BCS teams, probably in two-for-ones.
Add 4 conference home games, and you wind up with a median 6.17 home games a year. Once every three years you play two BCS teams on the road. I don’t think that’s too demanding a slate to ask of a team from the WAC who wants to be considered for national championships.
You don’t seem to understand the issue as it is now. Teams are already paying millions of dollars to directional schools in order for them to play road games against the bigs. The reason it’s not a scourge is because that money tends to go to a broad pool of schools and those schools are using that money to improve themselves and win their small conferences. It tends to be the very good Appalachian States that get those payments, not the hopeless Lehighs. Since they aren’t in the same conference as the bigs paying them theres no disincentive to success.
It’s the fact that there’s so few consistently terrible teams that makes it such an issue. The scarcity would make them way too valuable, and you’re insane if you think Duke would be able to insist on a home-and-home with LSU, the fact that Duke is a BCS school would just drive up the cost of the bribe before they agreed to a road game.
It’s different because Indiana is getting millions while Illinois is not. It’s not going to change their scheduling, just their profits.
The point is that it creates an even greater disincentive for the bigs to play games against these schools, locking them on the outside even worse than they are now. You seem under the mistaken impression that anyone other than the LSU and OSU of the world have any negotiating power at all.
See, and this is just where I think you’re overstating the competitive difference, and the degree in which teams would be willing to pay for the right to play against Indiana. It’s still a free market both ways.
If IU wants $2 million to come to LSU (the current rate for money games is actually $500K -$1 M) then LSU is free to call Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, etc, none of whom are consistiently much better than IU (remember – last year “doormat” IU was a bowl team, and Minnesota was 1-11.) And that’s just in the Big 10. LSU can also call up a whole host of BCS mediocrities: Arizona, Stanford, Iowa State, Baylor, UConn, Rutgers, etc… there’s a whole parade of midlevel BCS teams that could take the place of Indiana. Remember – most of them are now obligated to toughen their schedules up, too, if they want to be NC-eligible.
Again, you seem to be saying that teams will pay millions upon millions for Indiana, but not a farthing for Illinois. Sorry, but that flies in the face of economics and common sense.
Yes, it will change the scheduling; LSU’s “easy” game is now a BCS school instead of a Sun Belt. For their part, that BCS school will have a tougher schedule, now, too; the payout is compensation for that, and morever they now have the opportunity to play the bigs. You think the coaches, players and fans of, say, Rutgers wouldn’t like to see their guys get the chance to play a traditional powerhouse once a year? You think that wouldn’t help recruiting? This ain’t the NCAA videogame, where the way to build your program is by beating up on Tulane every season. In the real world, the only way to move up is to play up.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t find this at all persuasive. The big schools that are opting for the easiest possible noncons are ALREADY ducking the good mid-majors. And schools that schedule aggressively will still schedule aggressively, and for the same reason: because the poll voters know that that win over Boise by team A is impressive, but the win over Utah State by team B is not.
The only change this would be sure to have is to set a floor – a minimum acceptable standard for scheduling. It’s not a revolution; it’s just a marginal improvement.
All the BCS conference teams will be scrambling schedule traditional BCS football doormats like Duke, Northwestern, Baylor and [Snark]Notre Dame[/Snark].
Easy. Disband the team, tear down the stadium and never let Lou Holtz appear publicly again.
Come to think of it, this is a pretty good idea no matter what the BCS does.