Pod system

[Jssanto]

I was listening to talk radio sports today and they interviewed a guy about Maryland. The guy was complaining about the divisions and how tough it is for Maryland. He said schools cannot afford to schedule tough non con games due to the conference schedule.
Then he said the conference is looking at a pod system. What is that? Some type of round robbin olympic format?

 

[76-1]

I was listening to talk radio sports today and they interviewed a guy about Maryland. The guy was complaining about the divisions and how tough it is for Maryland. He said schools cannot afford to schedule tough non con games due to the conference schedule.
Then he said the conference is looking at a pod system. What is that? Some type of round robbin olympic format?

It's been mentioned before on here (and there are several much more well versed in its intricacies than myself)...

My impression was that when "Pods" are discussed it's usually regionally and rival based groups of 4 teams (or more)?that would play each other yearly while rotating the rest of their Big Team games on their schedule throughout the Big Ten with an eye on playing literally everyone over a 3 year period... On paper it could be a good thing "Unless" the Big Ten front office puts us in a Pod" with MI, MSU, and the O$U (something of which wouldn't surprise me in the least)...

 

[i'vegotwinners]

I was listening to talk radio sports today and they interviewed a guy about Maryland. The guy was complaining about the divisions and how tough it is for Maryland. He said schools cannot afford to schedule tough non con games due to the conference schedule.
Then he said the conference is looking at a pod system. What is that? Some type of round robbin olympic format?

schools can schedule all the major conference opponents they want.

they just can't do so, if the scheduling objective is scheduling wins, rather than other schools of their size.

as i dedicated a thread to before, (that no one was interested in), we play 9 conference games every yr.

if you base all bowl and playoff consideration on conference performance alone, (however you want to measure it), that frees up all the schools to sched the 3 non con games however they want, against whomever they want, without any pressure to sched wins instead of who they'd rather schedule for TV and fan interest.

as for still providing revenues/funding for smaller schools, that could still easily be done, just as it was for decade after decade with no problem, when big schools had a small fraction of the financial resources they now do.

 

[mk30]

schools can schedule all the major conference opponents they want.

they just can't do so, if the scheduling objective is scheduling wins, rather than other schools of their size.

as i dedicated a thread to before, (that no one was interested in), we play 9 conference games every yr.

if you base all bowl and playoff consideration on conference performance alone, (however you want to measure it), that frees up all the schools to sched the 3 non con games however they want, against whomever they want, without any pressure to sched wins instead of who they'd rather schedule for TV and fan interest.

as for still providing revenues/funding for smaller schools, that could still easily be done, just as it was for decade after decade with no problem, when big schools had a small fraction of the financial resources they now do.

I’m not opposed to this type of setup. Would certainly make for some interesting scheduling. But it’ll never, ever happen. I think people get some kind of crazy kick out of undefeated teams in a playoff.

 

[i'vegotwinners]

I’m not opposed to this type of setup. Would certainly make for some interesting scheduling. But it’ll never, ever happen. I think people get some kind of crazy kick out of undefeated teams in a playoff.

what people love more than anything, both on tv and in person, are rival major conference match ups.

any rules or policies that inhibit those, especially when totally unnecessary in the first place, are bad rules and bad policy from bad and incompetent administrators.

 

[mk30]

what people love more than anything, both on tv and in person, are rival major conference match ups.

any rules or policies that inhibit those, especially when totally unnecessary in the first place, are bad rules and bad policy from bad and incompetent administrators.

True. I should have said there are clearly some fans of top teams that would be hesitant to endorse this. They are the ones that want to buy "Undefeated Champs" t-shirts. Coaches and admins too.

 

[Euro]

As I posted before, group pods according to NIL money spent.

 

[Courtsensetwo]

As I posted before, group pods according to NIL money spent.

We will leave you to figure that out...

 

[Euro]

As I posted before, group pods according to NIL money spent

 

[IUCX9]

schools can schedule all the major conference opponents they want.

they just can't do so, if the scheduling objective is scheduling wins, rather than other schools of their size.

as i dedicated a thread to before, (that no one was interested in), we play 9 conference games every yr.

if you base all bowl and playoff consideration on conference performance alone, (however you want to measure it), that frees up all the schools to sched the 3 non con games however they want, against whomever they want, without any pressure to sched wins instead of who they'd rather schedule for TV and fan interest.

as for still providing revenues/funding for smaller schools, that could still easily be done, just as it was for decade after decade with no problem, when big schools had a small fraction of the financial resources they now

I didn't like your reasoning before regarding conference-only metrics for bowl consideration.... but that was before the B1G expansion.

If your suggestion is to work... we would need the following:

Two 8-team divisions, with two 4-team pods each for a total of four pods.

Play everyone in your pod plus 1 from each other pod. Pod leaders enter a 4 team playoff for B1G title. Semifinal losers playback other.

Rest of teams enter "consolation bracket" (2nd vs 2nd, etc).

That's 8 confernce games, including a championship game. Final standings determine bowl eligibility. No need for tie breakers with the playoff and consolation brackets. Allows you to schedule 4 major conference teams every year.

 

[i'vegotwinners]

I didn't like your reasoning before regarding conference-only metrics for bowl consideration.... but that was before the B1G expansion.

If your suggestion is to work... we would need the following:

Two 8-team divisions, with two 4-team pods each for a total of four pods.

Play everyone in your pod plus 1 from each other pod. Pod leaders enter a 4 team playoff for B1G title. Semifinal losers playback other.

Rest of teams enter "consolation bracket" (2nd vs 2nd, etc).

That's 8 confernce games, including a championship game. Final standings determine bowl eligibility. No need for tie breakers with the playoff and consolation brackets. Allows you to schedule 4 major conference teams every year.

that sounds great till someone doesn't like their pod that yr, or their 3 crossover games that yr.

with a sixteen school conference, there literally is no "fair" way to sched conf games for ranking, without some schools having much easier roads than others.

creating a "formula" to access conf standing is "arguably" more fair, (if the formula if fair), but that has it's issues as well.

and doing as we now do with very imbalanced non conf schedules factoring into bowl and playoff eligibility, is just as potentially unfair as pods or a formula.

point being, there is no perfectly "fair" way to do it, and every yr one way of doing it could be more unfair than others, which each way being more or less fair changing from season to season.

therefore for now, i'll leave how we sched in conf aside, and only speak to the non conf games issue.

besides leaving non conf games completely OUT of any and all considerations for bowl and playoff eligibility totally freeing up schools to sched much more fan and tv friendly non conf games, what it also would do is allow coaches to look at more players in the non conf games, without any fear that one bad play or series can totally f up your season.

coaches could give multiple QBs a look in non conf season under real game conditions, which they don't really get to see much, if any, these days in practice.

same with all the other positions.

does Joe Burrow ever go to LSU, if OSU scheds 3 or 4 non conf opponents against other major conf schools and OSU's coach can give multiple QB playing time in 3 or 4 non conf games.

does the Ramsey/Penix dual a couple yrs ago take on a different light if both get their chance in several non conf games against competitive opponents?

and in both situations, coaches don't have to worry that looking at multiple players at multiple positions in non conf play could affect their bowl or playoff chances.

with the transfers becoming wide open, making the right call on your QB is big, especially since under the current set up, coaches are very reluctant to sub QBs once one is picked from no contact practices, because that 1 bad play or series can sabotage your season with the current rules.

 

[IUCX9]

that sounds great till someone doesn't like their pod that yr, or their 3 crossover games that yr.

with a sixteen school conference, there literally is no "fair" way to sched conf games for ranking, without some schools having much easier roads than others.

creating a "formula" to access conf standing is "arguably" more fair, (if the formula if fair), but that has it's issues as well.

and doing as we now do with very imbalanced non conf schedules factoring into bowl and playoff eligibility, is just as potentially unfair as pods or a formula.

point being, there is no perfectly "fair" way to do it, and every yr one way of doing it could be more unfair than others, which each way being more or less fair changing from season to season.

therefore for now, i'll leave how we sched in conf aside, and only speak to the non conf games issue.

besides leaving non conf games completely OUT of any and all considerations for bowl and playoff eligibility totally freeing up schools to sched much more fan and tv friendly non conf games, what it also would do is allow coaches to look at more players in the non conf games, without any fear that one bad play or series can totally f up your season.

coaches could give multiple QBs a look in non conf season under real game conditions, which they don't really get to see much, if any, these days in practice.

same with all the other positions.

does Joe Burrow every go to LSU, if OSU scheds 3 or 4 non conf opponents against other major conf schools and OSU's coach can give multiple QB playing time in 3 or 4 non conf games.

does the Ramsey/Penix dual a couple yrs ago take on a different light if both get their chance in several non conf games against competitive opponents?

and in both situations, coaches don't have to worry that looking at multiple players at multiple positions in non conf play could affect their bowl or playoff chances.

with the transfers becoming wide open, making the right call on your QB is big, especially since under the current set up, coaches are very reluctant to sub QBs once one is picked from no contact practices, because that 1 bay play or series can sabotage your season with the current rules.

Maybe. But the thread was about pods... so....