Why we should add....( how to fix perception)

[mrand247]

We've been talking about why this conference sux....
Personally I don't think that it does, but what I do think that sucks is us only having 10 teams and playing in a round robin format.

While its great because you get to see how each team looks in a head to head match up, the problem is that cannibalization of records is too high. The the perception of 2 losses being bad isn't really true for our conference....in a round robin conference its to be expected. If we had a 14 league conference where good teams could miss each other we would be a lot happier around here because at the end of the season we would have a whole lot more 1 and 2 loss teams.

Its compounded when every year pollsters go back and look at previous years final records to start this years rankings. By default the bigger conferences are going to start ahead just based on more teams with better won/loss records.

For these reasons alone its critical to add teams...they can be bottom feeders to allow everyone else to fatten their records against.

Thoughts?

 

[Mr. Freeze]

1) the conference does suck,

2) adding more teams is only going to make it suck more,

3) adding teams and going to divisions and playing 8 conference games, only helps the teams that don't make the championship game, bc if you make the CCG that's a 9th conference game,

4) the mountain west and WAC had CCGs and no one ever thought they were good conferences. The reason the Big XII is looked down on is because 60% of the league has historical win percentages less than 55%. If you took OU and UT and stuck them in the Mountain West and changed that conferences name to the Big XII, the east and west coast seriously would think no less of OU and UT. OU and UT are the only brands that matter in this conference, any time they get beat the national media perceived they must be down, no matter how good Baylor or TCU are. Every conference game in the current big XII other than the RRS is a lose lose for OU and UT on the national level.

 

[gabbo34]

1) the conference does suck,

2) adding more teams is only going to make it suck more,

3) adding teams and going to divisions and playing 8 conference games, only helps the teams that don't make the championship game, bc if you make the CCG that's a 9th conference game,

4) the mountain west and WAC had CCGs and no one ever thought they were good conferences. The reason the Big XII is looked down on is because 60% of the league has historical win percentages less than 55%. If you took OU and UT and stuck them in the Mountain West and changed that conferences name to the Big XII, the east and west coast seriously would think no less of OU and UT. OU and UT are the only brands that matter in this conference, any time they get beat the national media perceived they must be down, no matter how good Baylor or TCU are. Every conference game in the current big XII other than the RRS is a lose lose for OU and UT on the national level.

Yep, right now any school that does well besides OU or UT is seen as an indictment of conference strength...not a sign of it.

Which is too bad because if you threw Baylor or TCU kids in uniforms for run of the mill state schools in other conferences - NC State, Cal, Maryland, Arkansas....they would arguably get a lot more credit. But being small private school's with little history hurts the conference perception.

I actually think TCU is climbing out of that. Baylor throwing up on themselves in bowl game and their OOC conference schedule has them viewed with a fair amount of skepticism.

But there is no question the perceived quality of the conference as currently constructed - goes as OU and Texas goes. That's really not any different than the old Big 8. (Newsflash - home schedules sucked back then too). What has changed is conference expansion has made the perception that other conferences are deeper and better.

I'd argue that's really only the case with the SEC. Maybe the B10...maybe. The ACC isn't as deep as the B12. But they won a natty recently...and have a lot of school's that hold more football cred (Miami, V. Tech) - even if they've been worse than Baylor and TCU the last 6 years.

 

[Sooner Redzone]

The conference schools and particular AD's care about the revenue. If they could find two schools that would increase the TV contracts proportionately they would be all in. They can't.