From CFN: " The head honchos of the Pac-10, Mountain West, and the WAC need to find ways to promote football in the Pacific and Mountain time zones. They should create an event called the “Western Football Classic.” Credit for this idea goes to CFN reader Kelly Velayas, but I’m tweaking it. With the woefully ineffective Tom Hansen departing as Pac-10 commissioner, football fans in California and Oregon need to make their voices heard in Walnut Creek (the California town where the Pac-10’s offices are located), as a new boss prepares to run the league. Mr. Velayas proposed that on the first weekend of December, the Mountain West Conference champion should play the Western Athletic Conference champion on a neutral field, with the winner going to the Rose Bowl against the Pac-10 champion. When the Rose Bowl’s TV contract with ABC expires, that idea might have legs, but the longstanding tie with the Big Ten could very definitely stand in the way of such a plan. My recommended solution? Make the Western Football Classic a two-game event on the first weekend of December involving four seeded teams with a provision for no rematches of regular-season games. Have the champions of all three leagues—the Pac, the MWC, and the WAC—participate. Then invite the best second-place team in the three leagues (based on a certain set of criteria and/or rankings) as a wild-card entry. Play one game in Denver every year—for the Mountain time zone fans—and one game in a rotation of suburban Phoenix (Glendale or Tempe), Los Angeles and San Francisco for Pacific time zone fans. If the Western Football Classic had made its hypothetical debut this season, what would the landscape have looked like on the first weekend of December?" http://cfn.scout.com/2/829438.html
I think this would be a step up over the title games by the Big 12 and SEC. Sort of a Western Playoff if you will that probably would annually thrust the winner into the title game if their record was otherwise pretty clean.
Sure... why not have 1 team representing 3 conferences and nearly 1/2 of the United States... while 1 team from SEC, ACC, Big East and Big12 move on.... As Rick said.. no thanks. Besides, the Pac10 has a round-robin. The Mountain West has a round-robin. The WAC has a round-robin as well. They all know exactly who their conference champ is AND how their conference champ fared against all members of the conference. You want to take 28 teams and have them 'playoff' to 1... in the meantime, your conference of 12 gets 1. Only an SEC fan would find this fair...
On a related note... I just noticed that the Florida Gators have lost to at least one member of the SEC West every single year since 1998 and they have won 2 NCs in that time frame... Thank God you don't have to play them all
Shows you just how tough the SEC is to win em all. Florida has won 4 BCS bowls in that span of time out of 5 tries including 2 BCS Championships so the performance against non-conference behemoths in the postseason isn't too shabby. 8)
Yeah, it can be easier to get tripped up by conference foes, given that they tend to know your program better than other teams. Minimizing the risk by playing as few conference games as possible is one way to protect yourself.
I think the simple solution is for the Pac-10 to annex two of the following: Utah, BYU, Boise St., or Fresno St. Then they can play a championship game. While they're at it, let the Big 10 pick up Notre Dame and become the Big twel..oh that's already taken (is there anyway to incorporate a 12 into Big Ten??). Anyway, let that conference play a championship game too. Let the Big East pick up a few teams while we're at this and let them play a championship game as well. If all that happened, we'd be getting a lot closer to the NCAA bringing about a playoff. All you'd have to do is somehow make the other teams left out form a "super conference" and seed the winners and have them play each other. Wait, I'm starting to sound like Lou Holtz. Forget I said anything....
I believe 9 is 9 no matter how you slice it. Yeah, there is the chance that you could have to play a conference foe twice in the SEC (if a team you play in the reg. season also makes the championship game) but I would argue that that make it even tougher to survive.
post-season being the operative word... I would say that, for as long as we've been posting together, the perception is that the East in the SEC is much better than the West. I have also held that the West more than holds their own against the East. Yet Florida continues to be beaten by teams from the SEC West and you refuse to acknowledge the potential toughness of playing every team in your conference.... Instead, your answer is to make everyone do things the way you do. The SEC was a 10 team conference, they chose to go to the 12 game format. I'm not saying winning the SEC isn't tough. It is. At the same time, I find it laughable at the notion you don't see it to be at least as tough to beat every member school in your conference. Let us not lose sight of the fact that this topic was started because you found it 'reasonable' that we take 3 entire conference who determine their champions in a round-robin fashion (28 teams total) and eliminate them down to 1 team... Why don't we just force the SEC, Big 12 and Big East to have a single rep for each of those 3?
What would be the point in playing a Western Football Classic. Michigan is already "Champions of the West". It's right there in the fight song!!
It would appear that, lately, the western most border of the United States for Michigan would be the western borders of Arcadia and Sierra Madre.
Let's see...you can slice it, dice it and puree it but 9 is indeed nine....er nein...er... :shock: :wink:
OK... That was never my position... You guys decided to go the 12 team route and that is fine. So, you are telling me that your 12 team super conference format is the same as having 3 conferences (28 teams) play it down to 1 team? Is that your position here?
And all BCS conference teams play nine conference games in their twelve game regular season schedule?
Just what SEC fans are you referring to Corey? It can't be MCG, he posted the article but said it was a step up from the SEC and ACC and would most likely vault the winner into the Championship game. But I didn't see where he supported it. I don't support it. So what SEC fan you talking about? But while you are complaining constantly about the SEC, you also constantly say the round robin is better. Fine that's your opinion, but pushing that point while knocking those conferences that don't see things that way is a sure way to never reach agreement. Your always blaming the SEC for the shortcomings you perceive in the system does nothing to promote the system you prefer.
The SEC has had the Championship game for 17 years. By my memory the champions are as follows. Florida 7 Tennessee 2 Georgia 2 LSU 3 Auburn 1 Alabama 2 That makes the East 11 and the West 6, better than 65% in the East. This decade it's 5 - 4 for the East. Just FYI
Pac-10 plays a round robin. All conference teams play the other nine. How many conference games do all SEC teams have on their schedule for next season?