I’ve made it clear in the past how I felt about Bo Pelini, not so much as a coach, but as a human being. Little has changed as a result of the “melt down” in Pasadena. If anything, my view of him has flipped a bit. My view of his coaching abilities is slipping, whereas he has redeemed himself some in my eyes human being wise, by actually answering questions and vowing to change things and work until things ‘get fixed’.
Saying you’re going to try different things and actually doing different things are not the same thing. Remember when Pelini and company said they were going to be more aggressive and attacking this year? Granted, EVERY coach says they’re going to be more aggressive in the coming year. I’ve yet to hear a coach say “We’ve been too aggressive defensively in recent years. This year we’re just gonna hang back and chill....”. Just like no coach has ever said “Yep, our recruiting class this year sucks, we really didn’t get the guys we needed, and the guys we did get? Yeah, they’re bums...”.
Prior to this season, I lost a lot of followers on twitter due to my less than optimistic take on the upcoming season. How DARE I question the defensive genius of Bo Pelini? Now, two weeks into the season, every radio show I’ve listened to since the UCLA game is filled with Nebraska fans who demand that Pelini be fired.
I think the whole thing is funny, but I need to say this now, in case things get worse (and they very well could). I’m no fan of Pelini’s complex, think first then react defenses, or his insistence that the defensive line lines up a yard off the ball. (That image is a photoshopped exaggeration of the truth but only by about a yard.) I’m not a fan of the two gap scheme either, or the inability to defend against a mobile quarterback..... but that’s not what this blog is about....
I also find it maddening that coach thinks by moving a few underclassmen into the rotation, things will somehow get better. Keep in mind he had all of winter conditioning, spring ball, and late summer two-a-day practices to decide on the guys who are starting on defense. The guys that are failing so badly.
I think he had to have known things were gonna be bad this year on defense even while he said things like, “This year’s defense is light years ahead of where we were last year”.
I don’t think it’s just the players though. I find it hard to believe that Rice’s defense is as talented as ours, even though there was only 7 yards difference between the two when playing UCLA. After all Rice gave up 646 yards against UCLA, while our beloved “Blackshirt” defense gave up 653 yards. Oh, did I fail to mention that powerhouse Rice did statistically BETTER against UCLA? Oops,...my bad...
With that evidence one would have to think that part of the problem has to be the scheme and if we’re talking scheme then you have to talk head coach.
Lets say the angry radio show callers (and the illogical part of my brain) get what they want. Pelini is fired, sacked, dismissed, let go, #@$% canned outta here.
That will be the third coach in a row that only lasted four or five years before being let go. Gone are the days where the coaching staff had hundreds of years of combined experience at Nebraska. And I hate to break it to my fellow Nebraska fans, but who do we get for the money we’re willing to pay them to come and coach at Nebraska?
Last time we went outside of the former coach/player realm to get somebody it was a disastrously long and embarrassing search. Highlighted by fueled up jets left on the tarmac in places like Arkansas returning to Lincoln empty. Granted that search was led by Steve Pederson, the same guy who has now hired like 40 coaches for Pitts football team in the last three years.....but I don’t see Osbourne having much more success. Why? Because we’re Nebraska. I know we think we’re still hot stuff, but outside of the state, not much thought is given to our football program. We’re getting close to the point where the kids we’re recruiting weren’t even born the last time Nebraska won a national championship and in a few short years we will be to the point where we’re recruiting players who weren’t even born the last time Nebraska won a CONFERENCE championship.
Okay, so outside of the program is a no go. How about within the program? A former player or coach? Well, we’re running out of guys there too. Turner Gill? Just got fired after a horrible 2ish year run at Kansas and he’s more of an offensive guy anyway. Same goes for Scott Frost, plus he has no head coaching, or if memory serves me correctly.....no coordinator experience even. Frank Solich would never come back and who would blame him?
Very long term, I see Nebraska like an Iowa/Michigan State, or an Illinois. A traditional Big Ten school that finishes in the middle of the Big Ten (or worse in Illys case), but still has cache in name and name only. Taking turns between them bubbling up to compete in the conference once every ten years or so; even then not making much noise nationally though.
What I’m getting at, is that Nebraska is headed for mediocrity, with or without Pelini. I thought this was the case before we joined the Big Ten and I’m thinking this is more and more the case as the years go on. I picked Nebraska to go 8-4 before the season started and lost followers in the process, but now 8-4 is looking pretty damn good. We should take those while we can get them.
I realize I’m being very “chicken little” about the sky falling on Nebraska’s football future. Believe me, I really really hope I’m wrong. The good news is, I’ve always been this way. The bad news is, I’ve never been to the point where I am now. The point where I can see a not too distant future where we’re struggling to make bowl games and swapping out new coaches a couple times a decade.
More good news is that big programs with the facilities that Nebraska has rarely go away forever. Even current Juggernaut, Alabama, had its lean years. Michigan is still arguably on the mend, but won a BCS game last year. Hell, even Notre Dame, which most everyone had given up on turning into their old selves, won 9 games last year and is looking really good this year.
I must admit the sadistic part of me finds it fun to watch Pelini squirm a little....but hoping we get bad enough that he gets fired? That would be even worse, especially long term. We should be careful what we wish for. Otherwise, we could end being as good as Purdue/Iowa/Illinois, and wishing and hoping for the 8 or 9 win seasons which we used to be so unhappy with.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
My Imaginary Interview With Roger Goodell
TheSmittyBlog: Welcome to my imaginary interview with Roger Goodell. Today, fittingly, my guest will be Roger Goodell.
Roger Goodell: Funny how it worked out like that huh?
TSB: Indeed.
TSB: Also joining us today for this interview taking place completely in my own frighteningly imaginative head will be my trusty dog Roger. He will be equipped with a device that will enable him to engage human beings in conversation. Truly a momentous occasion in scientific histo-
Roger The Dog:
RTD: *Begins licking his own balls*
TSB: Obviously still some issues with the helmet so we’ll get back to it after we work some kinks out. To be honest, the machine is very unstable. We’re not sure how long its circuitry will last. But don’t worry though, we’re going to make use of this magnificent opportunity to venture into the mind of the animal world for the first time in human history. Not a second of this great opportunity to converse with our closest animal brethren will be wasted.... Now back to talking about the state of NFL football.
Roger Goodell: Did you forget I was here?
TSB: No, just stalling, waiting for the truth serum to kick in....
RG: What?
TSB: Nothing...(whispering to the camera) We drugged Commish Goodel with enough truth serum to make even an Indian Elephant admit to cheating on his spouse.
RG: Your imagination sure is a weird scary place.
TSB: You have NO idea......
TSB: Anyhoodles....on to the questions... Mr. Goodell you’re commissioner of arguably the most popular sport in America. What is that like?
RG: I’m getting a hard on just thinking about the amount of power I have.
RTD:
TSB: O.....kay..... Maybe a little TOO MUCH truth serum. Someone needs to adjust his IV drip......
TSB: You’ve mentioned you want to make American football an Olympic sport, play more games in Europe, and eventually have team(s) there starting with Jacksonville playing at one ‘home’ game in London once a year for the next three years. My question is...are you stupid or something?
RG: STUPID LIKE A FOX! Jacksonville can’t do any worse attendance wise in Europe than they do here..
TSB: Touche (SP?) Well played sir.
RG: Well, that’s why I pay me the big bucks.
TSB: The main reason I brought you in today was because I’m concerned with the NFL’s increasingly security conscious rules and penalties. I fear that the sport will devolve to be completely nonviolent and therefore unwatchable. How do you justify these new rules?
RG: Well, a lot of former players are suing us because, who knew, playing pro football is hard on the body. So we have to pretend like we care about our players now to prevent more money loss due to litigation. And Lordy Lordy...do I loves me some mon-nay...
TSB: Is that what all of this is about? Money?
RG: More or less, yes...and tv ratings,..I loves me some tv ratings....
TSB: Which leads to more money....
RG: Stop it, you're making my nipples hard.
TSB: Someone GET ON THAT IV DRIP!
TSB: Moving on..... Mr. Goodell, I’m all for player safety, but it seems like only certain positions like Quarterbacks enjoy these added security rules whereas an entire side of the ball (defense) and most of the other positions do not. How do you justify this?
RG: Well Quarterbacks score lots of points; throw lots of pretty spirals. Fans like points and even if Quarterbacks aren’t scoring lots of points, all the penalties move the ball closer to the end zone thingy, which leads to more points,....which leads to more ratings whi-
TSB: I’ll stop you right there, I don’t want to hear about your nipples again...
RG: Plus, most Quarterbacks are white whereas at other positions most players are bl-
TSB: EXCUSE ME?!
RG: Nothing, nothing...want some free tickets?
TSB: Oooo Tickets! What were we talking about?
RG: How important it is to protect Quarterbacks.
TSB: And how important is it?
RG: Very.....except for that Drew Brees guy,...@#$% that guy!
TSB: Speaking of Drew Brees, you came down really hard on the Saints for their alleged bounty scandal. Don’t you think you were a little too harsh?
RG: No! Can you believe Payton was trying to tell his players what they could and couldn’t do? It’s MY JOB to tell the players what they can’t do....which by the way is A LOT. I mean who does he think he is?
TSB: Their Head Coach?
RG: Don’t get smart with me! I’ll suspend your ass!
TSB: Even though I don’t play football?
RG: Yes.
TSB: Speaking of suspensions, you’ve been criticized for frequently suspending players and in some cases overly suspending players. Does this reputation bother you?
RG: You know, it may just be this truth serum IV pumping directly into my veins, but I must say I do regret not fabricating more evidence against Jonathan Vilma.
TSB: Well,...nobody is perfect.
RG: YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH! I AM TO PERFECT! I WILL FINE AND SUSPEND YOUR ASS!!!....Besides...Vilma got his appeal heard.
TSB: By you...the same guy that suspended him...
RG: That’s it! You’re suspended for eleventy hundred games and fined like a ba-gillion dollars!
TSB: K...I’ll get right on that... In the meantime....you mentioned earlier that lots of points on offense is what the fans want. If that is truly the case, wouldn’t Arena Football be more popular?
RG: Arena what?
TSB: I think you just proved my point.
RG: You’re on REAL thin ice you spiky haired little pissant! I’m even more mad at you now, but I’m not sure why..
TSB: In regards to the Saints bounty scandal, was your beef with them more because they found a way to make money outside of their own lucrative contracts, or because bounties were being put out to injure players?
RG: Yes.
TSB: ‘Yes’ What?
RG: Yes, Money. Well that and you let them win one Super Bowl and they think they are hot @#$@.
TSB: So you’re saying the Saints Super Bowl win was fixed?
RG: Of course. We tried to give the Super Bowl to them the year of Katrina, but they still managed to screw that up... So we had to settle for later....
TSB: Why fix the Super Bowl?
RG: It was a great story, great stories sell papers, gathers interest, whi-
TSB: blah blah blah....nipples right?
RG: Right.
TSB: Well I can see this interview is starting to go off the rails....
RTD:
TSB: That reminds me. We’ve got my dogs translation device working pretty good, so lets let him speak for all animal kind, for the first time in human history. You ready for this Mr. Commissioner?
RG: Ready? I’m so excited my -
TSB: PLEASE...no more about your nipples...
RG: Awwww!
TSB: Okay my little buddy! What do you have to say?
RTD:
TSB: Now Roger Buddy,...remember what I said? It has to be a question for our commissioner guest here.
RTD:
TSB: No big deal buddy. Now, go ahead and ask your question
RTD:
RG: Yes......
RTD:
RG: I’m afraid not little guy and I’m afraid I’m gonna have to suspend you from the playoffs for even asking.
RTD:
SADNESSSADNESSSADNESSSADNESS.....WANT BACON SADNESS SADNESS
TSB: Well looks like the translation device finally crapped out, so I’ll have to end this interview. Thanks to the Commissioner for joining us.
RG: You realize I could have you killed right?
Sunday, July 29, 2012
My College Football Conferences (Part 2)
(continued from part 1)*
After going through the BCS conferences in the previous blog I will now discuss the Non-BCS conferences as well as my custom bowl affiliations and permanent divisional cross-over rivalries.
The first conference on the list is Conference USA, which, because of its very broad name and the inability to rename conferences, made for a perfect place to dump teams without regard for geography.
In real life, the conference is set up in the usual 2 divisional conference model, complete with a championship game. In my world though, this original conference has been completely picked apart and very little if anything is the same. So, I’ll only show my version...nah,...screw it,...I’ll show them both just to contrast just how different the two are:
Conference USA as it is now:
East Division:
East Carolina
Marshall
Memphis
Southern Miss
UAB
UCF
West Division:
Houston
Rice
Southern Methodist
Tulane
Tulsa
UTEP
My C-USA:
Arkansas State
Mid Tenn State
Western Kentucky
ECU (East Carolina)
Memphis
Not all conferences went through so much turnover. Case in point, the MAC.
Mid-American Conference as it is now:
East Division:
Akron
Bowling Green
Buffalo
Kent State
Massachusetts
Miami (OH)
Ohio
West Division:
Ball State
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois
Toledo
Western Michigan
The only change here was moving new 1-A UMass to the Big (L)East. Other than that, all things remained the same. In another neat example of my conference moving predicting the future, last year I moved Temple to the Big East. This year, Temple will be in the Big East in real life.
On to another conference that was complete picked apart, but I’d have to say my favorite Non-BCS conference in my set up.
My Sun Belt Conference:
UAB - (University of Alabama Birmingham)
UL Lafayette - (University of Louisiana Lafayette)
Louisiana Tech
Tulane - (Also in Louisiana)
UL Monroe - (University of Louisiana Monroe)
Southern Miss
Troy - (Alabama)
Seeing as I wasn’t allowed to change conference names, I liked that there were enough small teams from Louisiana and elsewhere in the southeastern US to make up a conference called “The Sun Belt”.
Now, it’s time for the last real conference:
My Western Athletic Conference:
Nevada
San Diego State
Fresno State
UNLV
Hawai'i
San Jose State
Another good name/geographical fit with the WAC, refugees and castoffs after all the moving dust settled.
Last group of teams, if you can call it that, the Independents. So called, because they are not in any conference. Not really even going to list them here. Just the other service academies and Notre Dame. Only real change from real life is that I moved newly independent BYU to the MWC. As I said in my previous blog, I would have like to have Air Force in with Independents, but I just couldn’t get it to work....yet...
Occasionally, when these larger conference championship having conferences form it is necessary to separate teams that previously had a long standing rivalry. The solution to this in many cases is a yearly permanent crossover game. For example, Illinois and Northwestern were separated by the divisions of the new Big Ten. To keep the rivalry going on a yearly basis (both teams are in Illinois), they play a yearly cross divisional game. The rest of the cross divisional games are rotated so that all teams in the other division eventually play.
This permanent cross divisional rivalry would have been great when the Big 12 formed, keeping the Nebraska/Oklahoma game going on a yearly basis...but I’m sure Texas nixed that.
I didn’t set up permanent cross divisional rivalries for every conference. Pretty much only did it for conferences that already did so.
Here are mine:
Big Ten Permanent Division Crossovers:
Nebraska vs Penn State
Iowa vs Michigan State
Wisconsin vs Ohio State
Illinois vs Indiana
Purdue vs Northwestern
Big 12 Permanent Division Crossovers:
Kansas vs Houston
KSU vs TCU
Oklahoma vs Texas
Oklahoma State vs Texas Tech
Mizzoo vs Texas A&M
Iowa State vs Baylor
This match up is based mostly on traditional strength, or in these teams’ cases, lack thereof. In recent years, ISU has been on the upswing and Baylor had its first heisman trophy winner last year. For the most part, in real life they’ve been the basement dwellers of their respective conferences. I find it somewhat fitting that in real life they’re both improving although I’d expect Baylor to take a dive this year now that RG3** has graduated.
SEC Permanent Division CrossOvers:
As far as I know, I left these crossovers as-is. The lone exception being Georgia Tech replacing South Carolina in the Arkansas/South Carolina crossover.
What to do when all is said done? The conferences have played their games and it’s time to ship the teams off to BCS bowls.
Orange Bowl
Growing up watching Nebraska lose to one team or another from Florida every year, it seems fitting to tie my new conference with an entire division full of Florida teams to this bowl and I did just that. Same deal with the Big 12 I tied them to this bowl in remembrance of when the Big Eight champion automatically went to the Orange Bowl. I can still remember seeing the Oranges landing on the field from the stands during waning moments of a last game of the season victory over Oklahoma.
Rose Bowl
Kept the Pac 12/Big Ten thing going. Never going to happen though as my Nebraska team and perhaps eventually the other team I’m playing as (Washington State) will normally be undefeated and headed to the National Championship game instead. Even if one or the other of my teams loses the odds that BOTH teams I’m playing as lose in a single season is ridiculously slim. All that being said, no reason to keep the match up going on paper.
Sugar Bowl
In the coming years the SEC and Big 12 winners will meet in a new bowl called the Champions Bowl. For the same reasons as the above Rose Bowl, only in real life, I don’t see this happening very often. For now, as far as I can recall, the SEC is currently tied to the Sugar. That and the fact that it’s played in Atlanta makes for a good fit.
The Big East and MWC’s both have automatic bids in my set up as well, but not tied to any specific bowl, leaving a one bowl at large spot to pacify the Non-BCS conferences.
Thank you to everyone for reading my little manifesto. I realize it may not mean much to most, and nothing at all to some, but it is something that is very enjoyable to me and I felt the need to share.Thank you for letting me do so.
Lots of people have hobbies, mine just happens to be living in my own little football world. Where I have the conferences set up in a way that makes my game uniquely my own.
Thanks again for reading.
*= Makes sense doesn’t it?
**= In making that link I learned he was born in Japan....never would have guessed that...
After going through the BCS conferences in the previous blog I will now discuss the Non-BCS conferences as well as my custom bowl affiliations and permanent divisional cross-over rivalries.
The first conference on the list is Conference USA, which, because of its very broad name and the inability to rename conferences, made for a perfect place to dump teams without regard for geography.
In real life, the conference is set up in the usual 2 divisional conference model, complete with a championship game. In my world though, this original conference has been completely picked apart and very little if anything is the same. So, I’ll only show my version...nah,...screw it,...I’ll show them both just to contrast just how different the two are:
Conference USA as it is now:
East Division:
East Carolina
Marshall
Memphis
Southern Miss
UAB
UCF
West Division:
Houston
Rice
Southern Methodist
Tulane
Tulsa
UTEP
My C-USA:
Arkansas State
Mid Tenn State
Western Kentucky
ECU (East Carolina)
Memphis
Not all conferences went through so much turnover. Case in point, the MAC.
Mid-American Conference as it is now:
East Division:
Akron
Bowling Green
Buffalo
Kent State
Massachusetts
Miami (OH)
Ohio
West Division:
Ball State
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois
Toledo
Western Michigan
The only change here was moving new 1-A UMass to the Big (L)East. Other than that, all things remained the same. In another neat example of my conference moving predicting the future, last year I moved Temple to the Big East. This year, Temple will be in the Big East in real life.
On to another conference that was complete picked apart, but I’d have to say my favorite Non-BCS conference in my set up.
My Sun Belt Conference:
UAB - (University of Alabama Birmingham)
UL Lafayette - (University of Louisiana Lafayette)
Louisiana Tech
Tulane - (Also in Louisiana)
UL Monroe - (University of Louisiana Monroe)
Southern Miss
Troy - (Alabama)
Seeing as I wasn’t allowed to change conference names, I liked that there were enough small teams from Louisiana and elsewhere in the southeastern US to make up a conference called “The Sun Belt”.
Now, it’s time for the last real conference:
My Western Athletic Conference:
Nevada
San Diego State
Fresno State
UNLV
Hawai'i
San Jose State
Another good name/geographical fit with the WAC, refugees and castoffs after all the moving dust settled.
Last group of teams, if you can call it that, the Independents. So called, because they are not in any conference. Not really even going to list them here. Just the other service academies and Notre Dame. Only real change from real life is that I moved newly independent BYU to the MWC. As I said in my previous blog, I would have like to have Air Force in with Independents, but I just couldn’t get it to work....yet...
Occasionally, when these larger conference championship having conferences form it is necessary to separate teams that previously had a long standing rivalry. The solution to this in many cases is a yearly permanent crossover game. For example, Illinois and Northwestern were separated by the divisions of the new Big Ten. To keep the rivalry going on a yearly basis (both teams are in Illinois), they play a yearly cross divisional game. The rest of the cross divisional games are rotated so that all teams in the other division eventually play.
This permanent cross divisional rivalry would have been great when the Big 12 formed, keeping the Nebraska/Oklahoma game going on a yearly basis...but I’m sure Texas nixed that.
I didn’t set up permanent cross divisional rivalries for every conference. Pretty much only did it for conferences that already did so.
Here are mine:
Big Ten Permanent Division Crossovers:
Nebraska vs Penn State
Nebraska/Penn State have a history together in non-conference match ups. This is also the real life crossover game, so I just kept it intact.
Iowa vs Michigan State
Because I moved both Michigan teams to the other division, this is a unique match up to my game. I liked the way it sounded. Two typically middle of the road Big Ten teams, seems fair.
Minnesota vs Michigan
This is actually a trophy game in real life. In real life, this is a divisional game. So in my setup, I thought it necessary to keep the battle for the jug intact.
Wisconsin vs Ohio State
Another unique match-up in my setting. The main reason I went with these two teams is they are normally on par with each other, so it was mostly a fairness thing.
Illinois vs Indiana
Went with this because it was a good border battle match-up. Not only between the two teams involved, but because it is pretty much my border between divisions.
Purdue vs Northwestern
I would like to say this was an awesome fit that I had tons of reasons for, but it pretty much is just a “what was left over” match-up. That and I didn’t mind giving my Boilermakers a cupcake for their permanent crossover.
Big 12 Permanent Division Crossovers:
Kansas vs Houston
I don’t have a lot of awesome reasons for this one, but I nonetheless really liked the idea of this match-up. Don’t really have a reason for that other than it just “felt right”.
KSU vs TCU
Didn’t realize it until now but this is a purple team battle. As with the other Big 12 crossovers, I tried to go with team playing style and traditional level of success.
Oklahoma vs Texas
The Red River Rivalry, even though I nerfed the Longhorns into total suckitude, I still felt the need to the preserve this rivalry. In last year’s game, I played Oklahoma every year as Nebraska which meant a loss every year for the Sooners Haven’t started doing that in this year’s game, but in case I do, this will (sort of) balance out a scheduled loss against me with a scheduled win against the hapless (thanks to me) Longhorns.
This match-up was also the main reason I went with permanent crossovers in my Big 12, because even when the Big 12 had 12 teams they didn’t do permanent crossovers.
Oklahoma State vs Texas Tech
They are traditionally pass heavy spread teams. This is another “felt right” match-up.
Mizzoo vs Texas A&M
A match-up of this year’s newest SEC teams. I liked this match-up, too. Actually, come to think of it, I was pleased top to bottom with the Big 12 crossovers, makes me wish I could play cpu vs cpu in online mode.
Iowa State vs Baylor
This match up is based mostly on traditional strength, or in these teams’ cases, lack thereof. In recent years, ISU has been on the upswing and Baylor had its first heisman trophy winner last year. For the most part, in real life they’ve been the basement dwellers of their respective conferences. I find it somewhat fitting that in real life they’re both improving although I’d expect Baylor to take a dive this year now that RG3** has graduated.
SEC Permanent Division CrossOvers:
As far as I know, I left these crossovers as-is. The lone exception being Georgia Tech replacing South Carolina in the Arkansas/South Carolina crossover.
What to do when all is said done? The conferences have played their games and it’s time to ship the teams off to BCS bowls.
Orange Bowl
Growing up watching Nebraska lose to one team or another from Florida every year, it seems fitting to tie my new conference with an entire division full of Florida teams to this bowl and I did just that. Same deal with the Big 12 I tied them to this bowl in remembrance of when the Big Eight champion automatically went to the Orange Bowl. I can still remember seeing the Oranges landing on the field from the stands during waning moments of a last game of the season victory over Oklahoma.
Rose Bowl
Kept the Pac 12/Big Ten thing going. Never going to happen though as my Nebraska team and perhaps eventually the other team I’m playing as (Washington State) will normally be undefeated and headed to the National Championship game instead. Even if one or the other of my teams loses the odds that BOTH teams I’m playing as lose in a single season is ridiculously slim. All that being said, no reason to keep the match up going on paper.
Sugar Bowl
In the coming years the SEC and Big 12 winners will meet in a new bowl called the Champions Bowl. For the same reasons as the above Rose Bowl, only in real life, I don’t see this happening very often. For now, as far as I can recall, the SEC is currently tied to the Sugar. That and the fact that it’s played in Atlanta makes for a good fit.
The Big East and MWC’s both have automatic bids in my set up as well, but not tied to any specific bowl, leaving a one bowl at large spot to pacify the Non-BCS conferences.
Thank you to everyone for reading my little manifesto. I realize it may not mean much to most, and nothing at all to some, but it is something that is very enjoyable to me and I felt the need to share.Thank you for letting me do so.
Lots of people have hobbies, mine just happens to be living in my own little football world. Where I have the conferences set up in a way that makes my game uniquely my own.
Thanks again for reading.
*= Makes sense doesn’t it?
**= In making that link I learned he was born in Japan....never would have guessed that...
Monday, July 23, 2012
My College Football Conferences
The year was 2009ish* I was listening to Jason Peter’s radio show in a park with my girlfriend at the time’s dog. Missouri was all but begging to get out of the Big 12 and get into the Big Ten. I’m not positive but I think the governor was even involved.
Jason and his co-host poked fun at Joe Paterno for suggesting the Big Ten needed to add a 12th team so the conference could hold a championship game. Jason also joked, wouldn’t it be cool if Nebraska ended up in the Big Ten? Right..........that would never happen...
Today:
Things change in life, even over the course of a few years. These unfathomable, unforeseeable and in some cases (“like how could Nebraska ever in the Big Ten?!”**) downright laughable, can come to pass.
These unseen changes can therefore create understandable unforeseen domino effects.
One of the effects of all this team shuffling was EA Sports, makers of the annual college football video game, saw the writing on the wall and enabled players to shuffle teams to different conferences. The first year this was very limited, but admirable at the time on such short notice.
That year's game let you only swap teams, you could move teams but each conference had to end up with the same number of teams they had to begin with. The following year, the game added the ability to alter not only the teams in a conference but the size of said conference and its bowl affiliation.
A smart move on EA’s part, at the time team conference musical chairs were in full force and there was no way to know who was going to be left out and who was going to be sitting in what conference chair when it was all over.
From this real life mess, and these real life changes, a new tradition has emerged, every year since the earliest most limited version of the conference team moving ability, I have scoured over the teams (now up to 123 in this years version) to come up with conferences that suit my desires most.
I don’t have OCD, but when it comes to putting teams in conferences, my brain tends to churn on the different possibilities endlessly until I am completely unable to stop thinking about it. In fact as I write this, I worry that in sharing what I ended up with THIS year I’ll spot some things that I just HAVE to change....and be back to lying in bed at night thinking things like....”If I move Tulsa to THIS conference then I can......” on and on until I fall asleep, awash in my team moving puzzle.
So, at the risk of sending myself into another team moving binge, I’m going to share with you the conferences I ended up with and why I put them that way.
I will include the real life versions*** compared with what I ended up.
Even in its third year of existence the conference editor still has its limitations. You cannot completely delete a conference or create new ones. Nor can you have less than 4 teams in a conference or more than 16. These additional limitations only add to the puzzle-like nature of my OCDesque ponderings of what team I should put where.
I’ll start alphabetically and move through the BCS conferences. Called BCS conferences because they are the traditional power conferences and a team winning such a conferences gets an automatic bid to play in a BCS bowl. Named because these bowls rotate hosting the National Championship game.
ACC as it is now:
Atlantic Division
Boston College
Clemson
Florida State
Maryland
North Carolina State
Wake Forest
Coastal Division
Duke
Georgia Tech
Miami (FL)
North Carolina
Virginia
Virginia Tech
You’ll notice that Florida State and Miami(FL) are in different divisions, I personally don’t like this, but it was done for the same reason Ohio State and Michigan were put into different divisions in the Big Ten. The idea from the powers that be were hoping that those two teams will someday meet in the conference championship. If they are in the same division they will never meet in the conference championship. I know this sounds dumb, but I’ll put in a frame of reference so that my more local readers can see why this was done the way it was done.
Growing up, Oklahoma/Nebraska was the defacto Big Eight conference championship. If they were in the same division in sort of a “Super Big Eight”, the Oklahoma/Nebraska game would never play for the conference title.
Another cool thing about the ACC is that they used portions of the conferences full name, to name the divisions: Atlantic Coastal Conference = Atlantic Division + Coastal Division. I sort of wish the Big Ten went that route instead of Legends and Leaders..... Big Ten = Big Division + Ten Division...nope,...makes too much sense...
All that being said, this is my fantasy college football world...and I ended up putting almost all of the Florida teams in the same conference, and I scrapped the division names even though I just got done talking about how neat they were....
MY ACC - My Changes in Italics
Carolina Division
North Carolina
Duke
NC State
Clemson
South Carolina^ - Swapped with Georgia Tech from the SEC
Wake Forest
Florida Division
Florida State
FIU - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
USF - Moved from the Big East
Florida Atlantic - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
Miami^
UCF - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
The game may not allow you to rename or eliminate conferences, but it does let you change the names of divisions within conferences. As you can imagine I had a lot of fun with this. This ability also ended up affecting where teams were entirely.
This is the first example of what you will see as a running theme. State based divisions/conferences. In this case all teams in the Carolina Division are either in North or South Carolina, Florida the same,...
Some would take issue with adding FAU, FIU and even UCF to the same conference/division. With the more traditional powers of FSU and Miami, the facilities mismatch between the teams is staggering, and I have to admit it does bother me a little. In the end, I just liked the Florida vs Carolina conference.
Big 12 as it is now:
Baylor
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
TCU
Texas
Texas Tech
West Virginia
Yes,....West Virginia is now in what was once the Big Eight plus a few refugee teams from Texas.....I won’t comment on that....
My Big 12 - My Changes in Italics
Big Eight Division
Kansas State
Iowa State
Oklahoma State
Kansas
Missouri - Moved back from the SEC which they will be in for the first time this year to their original home in the Big 12
Oklahoma
Texas Division
Texas^
TCU
Texas A&M - Moved back from the SEC which they will be in for the first time this year to their original home in the Big 12
Texas Tech
Baylor
Houston - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
The Big Eight division is made up of teams from the original Big Eight, minus Colorado and Nebraska. The Texas Division name, I originally struggled with as it is the exact same as a team in that division, but alternatives like “Southwestern” and “Lone Star” division didn’t really tickle my fancy.
For some reason, I really really badly wanted to include Tulsa in with their Oklahoma brethren, but I just couldn’t get it to work. Doing so resulted in what I will simply refer to from here on out as the “implosion” phenomenon. Moving one team results in a domino effect that results in a completely unworkable mess that I end up not even being able to finish. So, I had to leave them out at the cost of my OCDness just to keep the almost chemical like balance stable enough to avoid “implosion”.
Cool side note, I had the same set up for the Big 12 in last year's game, but TCU hadn’t made any indication they wanted in the Big 12. A year later....I don’t have to move them at all.....things keep changing...
Big East as it is now:
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Louisville
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
South Florida
Syracuse
Temple
The Big East is so full of folly in real life it is often referred to by unkind non-Big East fans as “The Big (L)East. The problems with the Big East in the recent past and the near future are enough to fill a blog in its own right. This blog is going to be epically long enough as is, so I’ll skip straight to my variation of the conference:
My Big East - Pretty much everything is turned upside down here, so just assume pretty much everything is changed. Added () to explain where some of these schools are to those who may not be familiar.
N England Division
Boston College
Rutgers (New Jersey)
Syracuse (Upstate New York)
Pittsburgh
Connecticut
Louisville
UMass
Virginia Division
Virginia Tech
Maryland
Marshall (West Virginia)
Cincinnati
Virginia
West Virginia
Temple (Philadelphia)
I tried to got with the State conference theme again. I realize not everyone in the Virginia division is in Virginia and a few of the schools in the “N England” division are not in New England, but in my defense in the coming years, the Big East is set to add San Diego State and Boise State,...teams which as you can gather, couldn’t be farther from the east,...so cut me some slack....
That being said, I know I promised myself that I wouldn’t let my writing of this blog make me re-think/re-organize things, but I may just reorganize teams within the divisions. My geography looks messed up a bit...could be better...perhaps I’m wrong.
Also, with the addition of UMass, in real life, to the 1-A level, I got to add Marshall to the Virginia division. This makes the Big East bigger than most conferences in my game, but I don’t mind as much. There is some truth to the “Big (L)east” backlash and I don’t mind only one team emerging as champion from this set of 14.... Kinda seems to even the playing field, at least in my mind.
As you might guess “N England” stands for “New England”, but Division name character limitations prevented me from using the name I wanted. Come to think of it, that was why I didn’t go with “Southwestern” for the Texas half of my Big 12 conference.
Big Ten as it is now:
Legends
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Leaders
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin
As I stated earlier, the Big Ten got organized based on the hope that Ohio State and Michigan would someday meet in the championship, just like their end of the year match up meant for so many decades. Another reason the divisions were set up this way was to preserve as many yearly rivalries as possible and prevent one division from being way better and dominant over another division (as was the case with the Big 12 toward the end of it’s actually have 12 teams and a championship).
Such reasons don’t make much sense in my world. After all, I’m playing as Nebraska, which means I’ll more than likely be winning not only the conference every year but also the national championship....so no real need to worry about divisional balance then....
Like last year, I didn’t move any teams to or from the Big Ten, just swapped divisions for some teams to create an East/West geographical alignment, which if you haven’t noticed already...I kinda have a thing for.
Last year I went with the ACC division naming method, naming the Divisions “Big” and “Ten”. This year, I went with “Plains” and “Lakes”. I realized this doesn’t make 100% sense and I may change it back to “Big” and “Ten”, but at the time, Lakes and Plains, felt right:
My Big Ten:
Plains Division
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Northwestern (it's by Chicagoish)
Illinois
Iowa
Lakes Plains
Michigan
Indiana
Ohio State
Michigan State
Penn State
Purdue (it's in Indiana)
Like Tulsa, I’m always tempted to shoehorn both Pitt and Notre Dame (which is in Indiana in case you didn’t know) into the Big Ten, especially since Notre Dame already has yearly rivalries with Michigan State, Michigan, and Purdue, but they would both have to be added to the Eastern division, resulting in the need for two more teams in the western (plains) division,... It would also result in myself playing in the biggest conference in my game (16 teams), which I wasn’t fond of when I first made this set up,...but now that I think about it, it would provide more variety.....and perhaps allow me to play as Purdue without much annoyance of playing the same teams twice every year....hmm...
Anyway...at the time, adding Notre Dame and Pitt would result in implosion so I left it be.
MWC as it is now:
Air Force
Boise State
Colorado State
Fresno State
Hawaii
Nevada
New Mexico
San Diego State
UNLV
Wyoming
My MWC:
Mountain Division:
Utah
Tulsa
Air Force
Colorado State
Utah State
Colorado
BYU
Wyoming
West Division:
SMU
UTEP
New Mexico State
North Texas
UTSA
Rice
New Mexico
Texas State
The Mountain West Conference isn’t a BCS conference in real life, but with sixteen teams total and if the Big East gets to keep their BCS affiliation, I’m cool with them having BCS status in my little college football world.
The two divisions are a north/south split using the ACC division naming method. I realize “west” doesn’t really fit the division made up of mostly texas teams, but I think of “Wild West”, which makes me think of people in cowboy hats, which seems to fit Texas....screw you...it made sense to me.
Some things did bother me about this arrangement. I already talked about Tulsa,...but also, I don’t really like having Air Force in there. They fit geographically (Ft. Collins Colorado), but I prefer to have all the service academies as independents. I had trouble finding teams to fill the mountain division though, so there they stayed.
I really like how UTEP is sort of the linch-pin of the West division, as it is actually closer to the New Mexico schools than any of other Texas teams. Not sure why this brings me such joy...but it does.
Also of note, two of the three teams new to the 1A level are in the Mountain division, Texas State and UTSA, the road runners....cool team name if you ask me...I wish them the best of luck.
Pac 12 as it is now:
North Division
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
Washington
Washington State
South Division
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
UCLA
USC
Utah
My Pac 12:
Calizona Division
UCLA
Stanford
Arizona State
USC
Arizona
Cal
Northwest Division
Washington State
Washington
Idaho
Oregon
Oregon State
Boise State
Only change here is I moved Colorado and Utah to the MWC and moved in the two Idaho schools. Boise fits pretty good, but with their tiny Kibbie Dome (capacity 18,000) in a little place called Moscow, Idaho doesn’t really jive well with UCLA’s Rose Bowl (92,000), but I like the geographical fit and I have a soft spot for Idaho.
I thought about make a custom version of Idaho with a bigger stadium, but I was in a hurry to play and never did it....maybe next year.
Last year, I had a complete “California” division with the addition of Fresno State and San Diego State, but this year I moved Arizona and Arizona State back in their place. The result is a conference that is a combination of California and Arizona “Calizona”. Calizona sounds like some sort of lasagna/pizza hybrid Pizza Hut is about to introduce.....
Neat fictional sandwiches aside... now I’m wondering if I left Arizona and Arizona State in the MWC like I had last year, I could move Tulsa....crap! Nevermind...stop thinking about that!......I’m sure I tried that and I’m sure it didn’t work.
Another aspect of this conference is that I’m playing as Washington State. So, I had extra interest in this conferences make up when I got things started.
< insert link to previous blog here> As you might recall from a previous blog ol’ Wazzo is my new second favorite team, although I found it hard not to still play as Purdue, I just didn’t want to be playing Big Ten teams twice every season if I played as Nebraska too,...wait,...we already covered that didn’t we? My bad.
SEC as it is now:
East Division:
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Missouri
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
West Division:
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
LSU
Mississippi State
Ole Miss
Texas A&M
My SEC:
East Division:
Florida
Tennessee
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
West Division:
Mississippi State
Alabama
LSU
Arkansas
Ole Miss
Auburn
Other than the swap I mentioned earlier with Georgia Tech for South Carolina, I just restored the SEC back to how it was before they added Missouri and Texas A&M before this season.
I toyed with the idea of moving Florida to the ACC’s all Florida division but the result was, as you might have guessed, implosion.
That’s it for now. As I write this, I’m not ever sure all of this will fit on a single blog, for now though, this is it for part 1. The 2nd part will consist of the non-BCS conferences, my custom bowl affiliations, and permanent cross divisional rivalry set-ups.
* = I think
**= Me in 2009
***=As of today, things could change depending on what Texas has up their ass
^ = This is a team that I replaced with a much more horrible version with the team creator tool. They look exactly the same as the real life version of the school except the suck really really hard. In every case I can think of this is because I really really hate said school.
Jason and his co-host poked fun at Joe Paterno for suggesting the Big Ten needed to add a 12th team so the conference could hold a championship game. Jason also joked, wouldn’t it be cool if Nebraska ended up in the Big Ten? Right..........that would never happen...
Today:
- Missouri is in the SEC
- Nebraska is in the Big Ten
- Colorado is in the Pac 12
- Texas A&M is in the SEC
- TCU and West Virginia are in the Big 12
- The radio show was canceled
- I broke up with that girlfriend and never really see that dog anymore and haven’t been to that park in ages.
- Joe Paterno has since been fired after coaching at Penn State since dinosaurs roamed the field, dying a few days/weeks/whatever later and turned into some kind of anti-christ.
Things change in life, even over the course of a few years. These unfathomable, unforeseeable and in some cases (“like how could Nebraska ever in the Big Ten?!”**) downright laughable, can come to pass.
These unseen changes can therefore create understandable unforeseen domino effects.
One of the effects of all this team shuffling was EA Sports, makers of the annual college football video game, saw the writing on the wall and enabled players to shuffle teams to different conferences. The first year this was very limited, but admirable at the time on such short notice.
That year's game let you only swap teams, you could move teams but each conference had to end up with the same number of teams they had to begin with. The following year, the game added the ability to alter not only the teams in a conference but the size of said conference and its bowl affiliation.
A smart move on EA’s part, at the time team conference musical chairs were in full force and there was no way to know who was going to be left out and who was going to be sitting in what conference chair when it was all over.
From this real life mess, and these real life changes, a new tradition has emerged, every year since the earliest most limited version of the conference team moving ability, I have scoured over the teams (now up to 123 in this years version) to come up with conferences that suit my desires most.
I don’t have OCD, but when it comes to putting teams in conferences, my brain tends to churn on the different possibilities endlessly until I am completely unable to stop thinking about it. In fact as I write this, I worry that in sharing what I ended up with THIS year I’ll spot some things that I just HAVE to change....and be back to lying in bed at night thinking things like....”If I move Tulsa to THIS conference then I can......” on and on until I fall asleep, awash in my team moving puzzle.
So, at the risk of sending myself into another team moving binge, I’m going to share with you the conferences I ended up with and why I put them that way.
I will include the real life versions*** compared with what I ended up.
Even in its third year of existence the conference editor still has its limitations. You cannot completely delete a conference or create new ones. Nor can you have less than 4 teams in a conference or more than 16. These additional limitations only add to the puzzle-like nature of my OCDesque ponderings of what team I should put where.
I’ll start alphabetically and move through the BCS conferences. Called BCS conferences because they are the traditional power conferences and a team winning such a conferences gets an automatic bid to play in a BCS bowl. Named because these bowls rotate hosting the National Championship game.
ACC as it is now:
Atlantic Division
Boston College
Clemson
Florida State
Maryland
North Carolina State
Wake Forest
Coastal Division
Duke
Georgia Tech
Miami (FL)
North Carolina
Virginia
Virginia Tech
You’ll notice that Florida State and Miami(FL) are in different divisions, I personally don’t like this, but it was done for the same reason Ohio State and Michigan were put into different divisions in the Big Ten. The idea from the powers that be were hoping that those two teams will someday meet in the conference championship. If they are in the same division they will never meet in the conference championship. I know this sounds dumb, but I’ll put in a frame of reference so that my more local readers can see why this was done the way it was done.
Growing up, Oklahoma/Nebraska was the defacto Big Eight conference championship. If they were in the same division in sort of a “Super Big Eight”, the Oklahoma/Nebraska game would never play for the conference title.
Another cool thing about the ACC is that they used portions of the conferences full name, to name the divisions: Atlantic Coastal Conference = Atlantic Division + Coastal Division. I sort of wish the Big Ten went that route instead of Legends and Leaders..... Big Ten = Big Division + Ten Division...nope,...makes too much sense...
All that being said, this is my fantasy college football world...and I ended up putting almost all of the Florida teams in the same conference, and I scrapped the division names even though I just got done talking about how neat they were....
MY ACC - My Changes in Italics
Carolina Division
North Carolina
Duke
NC State
Clemson
South Carolina^ - Swapped with Georgia Tech from the SEC
Wake Forest
Florida Division
Florida State
FIU - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
USF - Moved from the Big East
Florida Atlantic - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
Miami^
UCF - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
The game may not allow you to rename or eliminate conferences, but it does let you change the names of divisions within conferences. As you can imagine I had a lot of fun with this. This ability also ended up affecting where teams were entirely.
This is the first example of what you will see as a running theme. State based divisions/conferences. In this case all teams in the Carolina Division are either in North or South Carolina, Florida the same,...
Some would take issue with adding FAU, FIU and even UCF to the same conference/division. With the more traditional powers of FSU and Miami, the facilities mismatch between the teams is staggering, and I have to admit it does bother me a little. In the end, I just liked the Florida vs Carolina conference.
Big 12 as it is now:
Baylor
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
TCU
Texas
Texas Tech
West Virginia
Yes,....West Virginia is now in what was once the Big Eight plus a few refugee teams from Texas.....I won’t comment on that....
My Big 12 - My Changes in Italics
Big Eight Division
Kansas State
Iowa State
Oklahoma State
Kansas
Missouri - Moved back from the SEC which they will be in for the first time this year to their original home in the Big 12
Oklahoma
Texas Division
Texas^
TCU
Texas A&M - Moved back from the SEC which they will be in for the first time this year to their original home in the Big 12
Texas Tech
Baylor
Houston - Snagged from a lessor Non-BCS conference
The Big Eight division is made up of teams from the original Big Eight, minus Colorado and Nebraska. The Texas Division name, I originally struggled with as it is the exact same as a team in that division, but alternatives like “Southwestern” and “Lone Star” division didn’t really tickle my fancy.
For some reason, I really really badly wanted to include Tulsa in with their Oklahoma brethren, but I just couldn’t get it to work. Doing so resulted in what I will simply refer to from here on out as the “implosion” phenomenon. Moving one team results in a domino effect that results in a completely unworkable mess that I end up not even being able to finish. So, I had to leave them out at the cost of my OCDness just to keep the almost chemical like balance stable enough to avoid “implosion”.
Cool side note, I had the same set up for the Big 12 in last year's game, but TCU hadn’t made any indication they wanted in the Big 12. A year later....I don’t have to move them at all.....things keep changing...
Big East as it is now:
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Louisville
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
South Florida
Syracuse
Temple
The Big East is so full of folly in real life it is often referred to by unkind non-Big East fans as “The Big (L)East. The problems with the Big East in the recent past and the near future are enough to fill a blog in its own right. This blog is going to be epically long enough as is, so I’ll skip straight to my variation of the conference:
My Big East - Pretty much everything is turned upside down here, so just assume pretty much everything is changed. Added () to explain where some of these schools are to those who may not be familiar.
N England Division
Boston College
Rutgers (New Jersey)
Syracuse (Upstate New York)
Pittsburgh
Connecticut
Louisville
UMass
Virginia Division
Virginia Tech
Maryland
Marshall (West Virginia)
Cincinnati
Virginia
West Virginia
Temple (Philadelphia)
I tried to got with the State conference theme again. I realize not everyone in the Virginia division is in Virginia and a few of the schools in the “N England” division are not in New England, but in my defense in the coming years, the Big East is set to add San Diego State and Boise State,...teams which as you can gather, couldn’t be farther from the east,...so cut me some slack....
That being said, I know I promised myself that I wouldn’t let my writing of this blog make me re-think/re-organize things, but I may just reorganize teams within the divisions. My geography looks messed up a bit...could be better...perhaps I’m wrong.
Also, with the addition of UMass, in real life, to the 1-A level, I got to add Marshall to the Virginia division. This makes the Big East bigger than most conferences in my game, but I don’t mind as much. There is some truth to the “Big (L)east” backlash and I don’t mind only one team emerging as champion from this set of 14.... Kinda seems to even the playing field, at least in my mind.
As you might guess “N England” stands for “New England”, but Division name character limitations prevented me from using the name I wanted. Come to think of it, that was why I didn’t go with “Southwestern” for the Texas half of my Big 12 conference.
Big Ten as it is now:
Legends
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Leaders
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin
As I stated earlier, the Big Ten got organized based on the hope that Ohio State and Michigan would someday meet in the championship, just like their end of the year match up meant for so many decades. Another reason the divisions were set up this way was to preserve as many yearly rivalries as possible and prevent one division from being way better and dominant over another division (as was the case with the Big 12 toward the end of it’s actually have 12 teams and a championship).
Such reasons don’t make much sense in my world. After all, I’m playing as Nebraska, which means I’ll more than likely be winning not only the conference every year but also the national championship....so no real need to worry about divisional balance then....
Like last year, I didn’t move any teams to or from the Big Ten, just swapped divisions for some teams to create an East/West geographical alignment, which if you haven’t noticed already...I kinda have a thing for.
Last year I went with the ACC division naming method, naming the Divisions “Big” and “Ten”. This year, I went with “Plains” and “Lakes”. I realized this doesn’t make 100% sense and I may change it back to “Big” and “Ten”, but at the time, Lakes and Plains, felt right:
My Big Ten:
Plains Division
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Northwestern (it's by Chicagoish)
Illinois
Iowa
Lakes Plains
Michigan
Indiana
Ohio State
Michigan State
Penn State
Purdue (it's in Indiana)
Like Tulsa, I’m always tempted to shoehorn both Pitt and Notre Dame (which is in Indiana in case you didn’t know) into the Big Ten, especially since Notre Dame already has yearly rivalries with Michigan State, Michigan, and Purdue, but they would both have to be added to the Eastern division, resulting in the need for two more teams in the western (plains) division,... It would also result in myself playing in the biggest conference in my game (16 teams), which I wasn’t fond of when I first made this set up,...but now that I think about it, it would provide more variety.....and perhaps allow me to play as Purdue without much annoyance of playing the same teams twice every year....hmm...
Anyway...at the time, adding Notre Dame and Pitt would result in implosion so I left it be.
MWC as it is now:
Air Force
Boise State
Colorado State
Fresno State
Hawaii
Nevada
New Mexico
San Diego State
UNLV
Wyoming
My MWC:
Mountain Division:
Utah
Tulsa
Air Force
Colorado State
Utah State
Colorado
BYU
Wyoming
West Division:
SMU
UTEP
New Mexico State
North Texas
UTSA
Rice
New Mexico
Texas State
The Mountain West Conference isn’t a BCS conference in real life, but with sixteen teams total and if the Big East gets to keep their BCS affiliation, I’m cool with them having BCS status in my little college football world.
The two divisions are a north/south split using the ACC division naming method. I realize “west” doesn’t really fit the division made up of mostly texas teams, but I think of “Wild West”, which makes me think of people in cowboy hats, which seems to fit Texas....screw you...it made sense to me.
Some things did bother me about this arrangement. I already talked about Tulsa,...but also, I don’t really like having Air Force in there. They fit geographically (Ft. Collins Colorado), but I prefer to have all the service academies as independents. I had trouble finding teams to fill the mountain division though, so there they stayed.
I really like how UTEP is sort of the linch-pin of the West division, as it is actually closer to the New Mexico schools than any of other Texas teams. Not sure why this brings me such joy...but it does.
Also of note, two of the three teams new to the 1A level are in the Mountain division, Texas State and UTSA, the road runners....cool team name if you ask me...I wish them the best of luck.
Pac 12 as it is now:
North Division
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
Washington
Washington State
South Division
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
UCLA
USC
Utah
My Pac 12:
Calizona Division
UCLA
Stanford
Arizona State
USC
Arizona
Cal
Northwest Division
Washington State
Washington
Idaho
Oregon
Oregon State
Boise State
Only change here is I moved Colorado and Utah to the MWC and moved in the two Idaho schools. Boise fits pretty good, but with their tiny Kibbie Dome (capacity 18,000) in a little place called Moscow, Idaho doesn’t really jive well with UCLA’s Rose Bowl (92,000), but I like the geographical fit and I have a soft spot for Idaho.
I thought about make a custom version of Idaho with a bigger stadium, but I was in a hurry to play and never did it....maybe next year.
Last year, I had a complete “California” division with the addition of Fresno State and San Diego State, but this year I moved Arizona and Arizona State back in their place. The result is a conference that is a combination of California and Arizona “Calizona”. Calizona sounds like some sort of lasagna/pizza hybrid Pizza Hut is about to introduce.....
Neat fictional sandwiches aside... now I’m wondering if I left Arizona and Arizona State in the MWC like I had last year, I could move Tulsa....crap! Nevermind...stop thinking about that!......I’m sure I tried that and I’m sure it didn’t work.
Another aspect of this conference is that I’m playing as Washington State. So, I had extra interest in this conferences make up when I got things started.
< insert link to previous blog here> As you might recall from a previous blog ol’ Wazzo is my new second favorite team, although I found it hard not to still play as Purdue, I just didn’t want to be playing Big Ten teams twice every season if I played as Nebraska too,...wait,...we already covered that didn’t we? My bad.
SEC as it is now:
East Division:
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Missouri
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
West Division:
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
LSU
Mississippi State
Ole Miss
Texas A&M
My SEC:
East Division:
Florida
Tennessee
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
West Division:
Mississippi State
Alabama
LSU
Arkansas
Ole Miss
Auburn
Other than the swap I mentioned earlier with Georgia Tech for South Carolina, I just restored the SEC back to how it was before they added Missouri and Texas A&M before this season.
I toyed with the idea of moving Florida to the ACC’s all Florida division but the result was, as you might have guessed, implosion.
That’s it for now. As I write this, I’m not ever sure all of this will fit on a single blog, for now though, this is it for part 1. The 2nd part will consist of the non-BCS conferences, my custom bowl affiliations, and permanent cross divisional rivalry set-ups.
* = I think
**= Me in 2009
***=As of today, things could change depending on what Texas has up their ass
^ = This is a team that I replaced with a much more horrible version with the team creator tool. They look exactly the same as the real life version of the school except the suck really really hard. In every case I can think of this is because I really really hate said school.
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