Expansion Talk 2021

[UgaBlows]

Are they going to struggle as much as A&M and Missouri struggled when they entered the SEC? If they struggle at that same exact level, they will be doing just fine.

Good point

 

[yjack]

This thread is making me think how awful the NFL would be with no salary caps or drafts. Hopefully that isn't where college football is heading.

Forced parity for the sake of entertainment vs unbridled completion?

 

[RonJohn]

It’s a strained analogy at best. But the 4 and 4 star recruits ARE the OBGYN class is the point.

Again, the analogy is strained, but the 4 and 5 star recruits are the “professional” group coming under the umbrella of a professional organization like medicine.

I don't see it that way. You have a 25 football player per year quota. A school could bring in 25 people under 5' and under 100 pounds who have never played football before, or they could bring in 25 superstar high school players. If a medical school has 25 OBGYN spots, they could bring in 25 high school dropouts, or they could bring in 25 students with a 4.0 biology undergraduate degree and a perfect MCAT score.

Also, using the medical school example, say you have 25 spots for medical students, but only 4 spots for OBGYN in a year. You would weed out who you put in the OBGYN spots, not all that could be accepted to the school. If you have 25 students with 4.0 undergrad and perfect MCAT, you could still accept all 25 of them, but only 4 could be admitted to OBGYN. (I haven't paid attention in several years, but I think OBGYN might be a bad specialty to use. Several years ago doctors were trying to get out of that specialty because of lawsuits and insurance costs.)

Aside from the analogy, how do you decide who a "very good" football player is and who isn't if you want to limit schools from signing "too many". Do you use entertainment websites' ratings? Does the NCAA (or whatever regulator body remains) create a group to rate all high school players and use that rating? Do football programs self-regulate and only recruit a small number of "very good" players? How do you keep away from monopoly concerns? NCAA schools do not have a collective bargaining agreement with players. Football programs getting together and deciding who and how many players of certain skill can/cannot attend schools is almost by definition collusion. A player who meets both the academic and athletic requirements to attend and play at a school could be excluded from that school because of the collusive organization of the NCAA (or whatever regulatory body remains). It seems to me like that would be a lawsuit that would be extremely easy to win.

 

[BurdellJacket]

This thread is making me think how awful the NFL would be with no salary caps or drafts. Hopefully that isn't where college football is heading.

I feel quite certain it is heading in that direction. As a matter of fact, I believe it will be impossible not to go that direction and further (of having no caps). The factories will be in bidding wars and the other 85% will be feeding on the bottom.

 

[bobongo]

That's fair.

Although I couldn't find the numbers, I've read on here that graduation rates have been good so far, keeping up the good work of the former regime. The staff seems to take a strong interest in academics for the players that are here.

 

[WreckinGT]

Forced parity for the sake of entertainment vs unbridled completion?

Pretty much. There is a reason that professional sports operate the way that they do. In the end, its a product. A product that contains only a few actual good teams isn't going to thrive very long. Fans of other teams are going to lose interest and take their business elsewhere. If we are going the route of creating a semi pro league, or leagues, while cutting out many teams and leaving many others unable to really compete, we are going to end up with an awful product. Because there is no real governing body or collective motivation to improve the product versus furthering each teams specific interests, its hard to see how it could ever improve.

 

[Richard7125]

With the potential money in NIL, how will the 85 scholarship limit be policed? You could have a lot of walk-ons making a lot of money in NIL that would cover what a scholarship typically covers.

 

[slugboy]

Huh…

 

[RonJohn]

With the potential money in NIL, how will the 85 scholarship limit be policed? You could have a lot of walk-ons making a lot of money in NIL that would cover what a scholarship typically covers.

I don't share that concern. I see two ways that this could be used. They programs could set up NIL income for mid 3* or less players who would be walkons or they could set up NIL income for higher 3* or 4* players go get more better players on the team. The schools are already prohibited from "setting up" NIL contracts. Schools might cheat, but they aren't allowed to be involved in them. So, let's look at the two scenarios:

Would a player who is not able to get a scholarship worth advertising if he has no audience and value on his own? Would fans who want to support their team put money towards a walkon level player, or would they want to try to support the start athletes? If a walkon brings a huge TikTok following with him, he could make money. If he developed a huge following on his own, he could make money with or without a college football program.

Would a player with multiple scholarship offers go to a school that doesn't offer him a scholarship, but does offer to setup enough NIL income to cover his tuition/books/room/board? If he attended a school that offered him a scholarship, he would have all those items already paid and would be able to keep any NIL income for himself. Would he make a lot of money at a school like Alabama? Even if he is a 4* athlete, that would mean that they have at least 85 players they think are better than him, so would the majority of NIL money go to him or to the 85 people perceived as better than him? If he went to Tulsa, he might be among the top few players there, have his tuition/books/room/board completely paid for and make advertising money on top of that.

 

[RamblinRed]

NIL will be interesting to watch simply because it is new and expectations might not match reality. It feels like alot of athletes and those around them see this as a golden goose, but is it likely to be more like most things were there is a ton of value for a handful of athletes and relatively little value for the vast majority.

I tend to agree that college football is headed down a path it has been on for 40+ yrs - a handful of power players and everyone else is just a bottom feeder looking to survive. Unless you have the kind of measures that professional leagues have that is almost guaranteed to be the outcome. I think professional leagues understand that the league is more important than the team (though they would tend to like a handful of teams in certain markets be more consistently good), college revenue sports are going a different direction.

In the last 40 yrs you have 11 programs that have won multiple NC covering 34 of the 40 years - AL, Clemson, FL, FSU, LSU, Miami, Neb, OSU, OK, Penn St, USC
9 others have won or shared a NC - Auburn, BYU, Col, GT, MI, ND, TN, TX, WA
The number of teams truly competing for a NC is pretty small.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I don't see it that way. You have a 25 football player per year quota. A school could bring in 25 people under 5' and under 100 pounds who have never played football before, or they could bring in 25 superstar high school players. If a medical school has 25 OBGYN spots, they could bring in 25 high school dropouts, or they could bring in 25 students with a 4.0 biology undergraduate degree and a perfect MCAT score.

Also, using the medical school example, say you have 25 spots for medical students, but only 4 spots for OBGYN in a year. You would weed out who you put in the OBGYN spots, not all that could be accepted to the school. If you have 25 students with 4.0 undergrad and perfect MCAT, you could still accept all 25 of them, but only 4 could be admitted to OBGYN. (I haven't paid attention in several years, but I think OBGYN might be a bad specialty to use. Several years ago doctors were trying to get out of that specialty because of lawsuits and insurance costs.)

Aside from the analogy, how do you decide who a "very good" football player is and who isn't if you want to limit schools from signing "too many". Do you use entertainment websites' ratings? Does the NCAA (or whatever regulator body remains) create a group to rate all high school players and use that rating? Do football programs self-regulate and only recruit a small number of "very good" players? How do you keep away from monopoly concerns? NCAA schools do not have a collective bargaining agreement with players. Football programs getting together and deciding who and how many players of certain skill can/cannot attend schools is almost by definition collusion. A player who meets both the academic and athletic requirements to attend and play at a school could be excluded from that school because of the collusive organization of the NCAA (or whatever regulatory body remains). It seems to me like that would be a lawsuit that would be extremely easy to win.

Law suits have been brought against colleges on more than one occasion about who they let in and who they didn’t. I’ve said this before, colleges try to balance classes. I’ve been out of academia for about 25 years so my analogy is figurative and not literal but if Harvard only accepted students with the highest scores who graduated top of their class you would have an entering class that was 62% female and 82% Asian. Many colleges turn away lots of qualified students. Lawsuits about these things generally fail because students are not kept from going to college, they just might have to go to a different college or different program.

 

[RonJohn]

Law suits have been brought against colleges on more than one occasion about who they let in and who they didn’t. I’ve said this before, colleges try to balance classes. I’ve been out of academia for about 25 years so my analogy is figurative and not literal but if Harvard only accepted students with the highest scores who graduated top of their class you would have an entering class that was 62% female and 82% Asian. Many colleges turn away lots of qualified students. Lawsuits about these things generally fail because students are not kept from going to college, they just might have to go to a different college or different program.

NCAA football programs willingly act as de-facto minor league systems for the NFL. The NCAA has been petitioning Congress for a legal monopoly exemption. If they institute rules that put additional restrictions on student-athletes, it raises the odds of lawsuits. You are referring to lawsuits about diversity vs. some objective metrics such as test scores. Lawsuits would be based on monopoly power abuse, and would probably be initiated by both players and schools. What you are proposing is not based on diversity of race or culture or economics, it is based purely on diversity of quality of applicant. In your analogy, it would be like requiring a medical school to admit only a few top-notch candidates in their top programs and being forced to admit students with lower undergraduate history and lower MCAT scores.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

NCAA football programs willingly act as de-facto minor league systems for the NFL. The NCAA has been petitioning Congress for a legal monopoly exemption. If they institute rules that put additional restrictions on student-athletes, it raises the odds of lawsuits. You are referring to lawsuits about diversity vs. some objective metrics such as test scores. Lawsuits would be based on monopoly power abuse, and would probably be initiated by both players and schools. What you are proposing is not based on diversity of race or culture or economics, it is based purely on diversity of quality of applicant. In your analogy, it would be like requiring a medical school to admit only a few top-notch candidates in their top programs and being forced to admit students with lower undergraduate history and lower

NCAA football programs willingly act as de-facto minor league systems for the NFL. The NCAA has been petitioning Congress for a legal monopoly exemption. If they institute rules that put additional restrictions on student-athletes, it raises the odds of lawsuits. You are referring to lawsuits about diversity vs. some objective metrics such as test scores. Lawsuits would be based on monopoly power abuse, and would probably be initiated by both players and schools. What you are proposing is not based on diversity of race or culture or economics, it is based purely on diversity of quality of applicant. In your analogy, it would be like requiring a medical school to admit only a few top-notch candidates in their top programs and being forced to admit students with lower undergraduate history and lower MCAT scores.

Schools are not simply basing their decisions on race, culture or economics. Those are very real factors for consideration but they are not the reason. The reason has more to do with the purpose of education and enhanced pedagogy. So the school makes decisions that are to achieve a higher purpose.

The higher purpose in college football would be to preserve competition for the sake of the sport. In the Greek ideal of sports, beauty is achieved. Beauty is one measurement of the ideal or truth. College adopted athletics originally as part of this larger purpose of the pursuit of truth. In the Greek ideal, adopted by the academy, body and mind work together toward the ideal.

If the game of football is rigged because only the best athletes are allowed to play at a few specific schools, thus eliminating competition, there is no longer any truth in the pursuit and, technically, it is no longer part of the academy.

I have pulled for Tech all of my life because, rightly or wrongly, it felt like a community that could understand the higher purpose of sport and which disdained the rigged and phony contest which no longer advances truth.

 

[GTBandit22]

I’ve said it before: dream acc-
Zombie BE-
ND
Penn st
Pitt
Miami
BC
VT
Louisville
Cuse

Vs.
Classic ACC

Tech
Clemson
FSU
UNC
Uva
Duke
Wake
Nc State

round robin with 2 rotating cross divisional. 9 conference games. Winner of each takes on the champ of the other.

I would prefer this setup, but would take WVU as a substitute if the Irish get uppity.

if we don’t expand, I hope the big 10 comes calling. I have no love for the ACC, and wouldn’t mind a change

 

[TooTall]

Just wondering,what about adding Liberty to the ACC? Since several of yall want to add WV, academics apparently don't matter. Last losing season was 2005. Went 10-1 last year. Stadium seats 25,000 currently but expandable to 60,000. Have Wake, Duke UNC, Virginia & VT on their futures schedule. Due to online classes has a NATION WIDE 250,000+ alumni base. The largest enroller of new students of every college in USofA since 2018. If we are looking at a subscription based model, they should be considered before WV, where folks cant afford or get high speed internet to stream.

 

[4shotB]

Just wondering,what about adding Liberty to the ACC? Since several of yall want to add WV, academics apparently don't matter. Last losing season was 2005. Went 10-1 last year. Stadium seats 25,000 currently but expandable to 60,000. Have Wake, Duke UNC, Virginia & VT on their futures schedule. Due to online classes has a NATION WIDE 250,000+ alumni base. The largest enroller of new students of every college in USofA since 2018. If we are looking at a subscription based model, they should be considered before WV, where folks cant afford or get high speed internet to stream.

We cannot take schools like Liberty or WV and survive in the long term and I have to know? trust? hope? our league officials get this. The SEC has added Texas and OU. Of the options we have before us, we need Penn State and ND. This at least holds serve with the SEC's move. If we take schools that have been mentioned like Liberty, WVU, UCF, Cincy, USF, ECU, Houston, Baylor, etc. looks like amateurish and desperation moves. I say get the two I mentioned or get into the B10. You know how excited we all get when BC or Louisville rolls into BDS? That's what we get (or even worse) with all these B list schools.

 

[bobongo]

I’ve said it before: dream acc-
Zombie BE-
ND
Penn st
Pitt
Miami
BC
VT
Louisville
Cuse

Vs.
Classic ACC

Tech
Clemson
FSU
UNC
Uva
Duke
Wake
Nc State

round robin with 2 rotating cross divisional. 9 conference games. Winner of each takes on the champ of the other.

I would prefer this setup, but would take WVU as a substitute if the Irish get uppity.

if we don’t expand, I hope the big 10 comes calling. I have no love for the ACC, and wouldn’t mind a change

I like this setup. Not fond of 16-team conferences, but if it has to be that big this is a good arrangement. Agree with WVU as a replacement for Notre Dame, too.
Only problems: getting Penn State, and Miami being in the same division as all those northern schools.

 

[TooTall]

We cannot take schools like Liberty or WV and survive in the long term and I have to know? trust? hope? our league officials get this. The SEC has added Texas and OU. Of the options we have before us, we need Penn State and ND. This at least holds serve with the SEC's move. If we take schools that have been mentioned like Liberty, WVU, UCF, Cincy, USF, ECU, Houston, Baylor, etc. looks like amateurish and desperation moves. I say get the two I mentioned or get into the B10. You know how excited we all get when BC or Louisville rolls into BDS? That's what we get (or even worse) with all these B list schools.

My only reason for including them is their huge nation wide alum base which will stream. That's where eyes are going to be moving. I'm just throwing them out there as an outside the box team. I've been on the PSU and ND train since before tickets were being sold! And when we beat BC and louisville, I rather enjoy them coming to BDS.

 

[bobongo]

We cannot take schools like Liberty or WV and survive in the long term and I have to know? trust? hope? our league officials get this. The SEC has added Texas and OU. Of the options we have before us, we need Penn State and ND. This at least holds serve with the SEC's move. If we take schools that have been mentioned like Liberty, WVU, UCF, Cincy, USF, ECU, Houston, Baylor, etc. looks like amateurish and desperation moves. I say get the two I mentioned or get into the B10. You know how excited we all get when BC or Louisville rolls into BDS? That's what we get (or even worse) with all these B list schools.

You might not like WVU, but surely you don't see them as being on the same level as Liberty, or anywhere remotely near it. Liberty is ridiculous.

 

[4shotB]

My only reason for including them is their huge nation wide alum base which will stream. That's where eyes are going to be moving. I'm just throwing them out there as an outside the box team. I've been on the PSU and ND train since before tickets were being sold! And when we beat BC and louisville, I rather enjoy them coming to BDS.

I do appreciate out of the box thinking. However, if they are only seating 25,000 then apparently those people aren't all that interested in FB.