Precisely. Don't forget that the Buckeyes were pre-anointed at the beginning of the season. They held up their end of the bargain so no other team had a chance. It's so ingrained that when Michigan played them close they were acclaimed as the unquestionably 2nd best team in the country and would still be there if USC (another media love child) hadn't cornholed Notre Dame (the media's first born).
I'm looking at realignment entirely--there wouldn't be an SEC as it currently exists. Perhaps all 12 teams continue in 1A, but quite frankly Vandy hasn't made the committment to winning I would like to see. As it stands now, Vandy gets a share of SEC bowl money and never has to spend it on bowl travel. They have no incentive to work hard, especially when they will realize a greater windfall if there are 2 SEC BCS teams. If Arkansas beats Florida close, the Rose passes us over, and the Gators end up in Miami, then Vanderbilt would have gotten more money by allowing Florida to win their close game with them than if Vandy had won. The way I figure it, you could realign all the way down the chain and introduce relagation as it is done in European soccer leagues. If you are terrible and are always the bottom dweller, then you get sent down to the lower divisions. And yes, it gets rid of certain rivalries if both teams no longer are competative. Does anyone really believe that Navy will ever be a serious year to year challenge for Notre Dame. Under your scenario, you really do have a 16 team playoff--the first round is the Conference CGs. Thats fine, but why don't we go ahead and seed at that point. Let's face it, why should Florida have to beat Arkansas to get in when Central Michigan got to play Ohio? I don't want to only play the same 11 teams every year. When I was at LSU, we had home games against aTm, Miami (OH & FL), UNC, TOSU, & FSU. I miss those days. Either way, ours are better plans than the current one. GEAUX TIGERS
You can't just dismantle every conference on principle alone. Part of what makes college football the best sport in America is the tradition and rivalries. Just in the last 15 years, since we have started playing all the west teams and Florida every year, we have developed some pretty heated rivalries. For example, any situation where we don't play Auburn, Bama, Florida every year would be an outrage. You can't just throw away the Ole Miss rivalry because they are down right now. Hell, Arkansas usually gives us all we can handle and is getting more and more heated every year. That's just looking at it from the point of view of 1 school. Multiply that times the number of D-1 schools, and that's how many problems your idea faces. To eliminate the teams I need to, all I'm going to do is make the minimum requirements for D-1A a little stricter. Example, the need to average 15,000 fans per home game is a bit out dated. To have schools with that little attendance in the same class as us who have that many in just the student section is rediculous. The only reason I'm realigning a couple of the smaller conferences is because some of them make absolutely no sense geographically. Why the hell is LA Tech in the same conference as all west coast teams and HAWAII?!? And yes you could consider the championship games round 1 of the playoffs. And yes Florida has to play Arky, and Central Michigan would play Ohio. What that does, is in round 2, Central Michigan now has to play @ Sec winner (hypothetically if the seeding matches right). Which gives Florida/Arky an enormous advantage.
Does anyone think Miss St. will be a serious year to year threat to beat LSU any time soon? By your logic, there is no reason to ever play this game again.
Just curious: would all of these conference realignments everyone is suggesting affect all sports, or just football?
