There was a saying started six years ago on what was then called Twitter that’s been bouncing around my head lately, and perhaps also those of some college football administrators:
Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.
Some years ago, in fact shortly after that phrase entered the lexicon, I wrote this: “A suggestion for the SEC: Keep traditions, ditch divisions.” That wasn’t the first time I made the argument, and other writers made it too.
Advertisement
Weirdly enough, they did. So did most other conferences. Everyone came to the same conclusion: The division structure had led to annual matchups that had become stale and unexciting, especially as conferences got larger. Plus there was realignment, and it was easier to end divisions than rearrange them, and it would create better games — which it has.
The only problem: We now have potential chaos in deciding who plays in conference championship games.
GO DEEPER
A suggestion for the SEC: Keep traditions; ditch divisions
In larger conferences, where many of the top teams don’t play each other, there will be ties and complicated tiebreaker scenarios. The Big Ten and ACC each currently have three unbeaten teams that don’t play each other. In the SEC, there are five teams with one or zero conference losses, and there’s a real chance they will need to go to the fourth tiebreaker, the combined record of each team’s conference opponents. There is a scenario in which Georgia could be the nation’s No. 1-ranked team but not make the SEC championship. And other conferences have wacky possibilities.
Ah, so getting rid of divisions was a bad idea! If you had divisions, everybody within the division would have played each other, and you just match up the winner of each division, and voila, a clean system, right? Do we now regret the consequences of our own actions?
Nah. Not in the slightest.
We need to remember why we got rid of divisions in the first place. The stale schedules, where teams played the same six or seven teams per year, and only two or three from the other division. In the SEC’s old format, which had one permanent cross-division opponent, some matchups would only occur twice every 12 years. Georgia still hasn’t played at Texas A&M, but it could count on annual games against the same SEC East rivals like South Carolina, Kentucky and Vanderbilt.
Advertisement
Something had to change, and it was going to even without Oklahoma and Texas joining the conference. But that super-charged the move, and the result has been a season of great games.
Alabama-Georgia? That was a cross-division game in the old format, and not originally scheduled for this season.
GO DEEPER
Who’s to blame for college football’s impending conference tiebreaker nightmare?
Georgia-Texas? A cross-division game that also might not have happened. Vanderbilt’s upset of Alabama, the Arkansas win over Tennessee that caused a field storming, South Carolina’s near-upset at Alabama, LSU’s comeback win at South Carolina … all formerly cross-division games that may not have happened. In the Big Ten, you have Oregon’s win over Ohio State, USC’s trip to Michigan, who knows whether they would have been on this year’s schedule in a division structure.
Ending divisions has made the regular season more compelling, in this and future years. Every team will play each other at least twice every four years in the SEC format, where in the coming weeks we will see Texas A&M go to South Carolina, Georgia go to Ole Miss and LSU go to Florida.
Yes, figuring out who will make the conference championship game may be a headache. It may end up an unsatisfying matchup. But it’s a worthwhile trade off for the variety of games we’re getting.
That should be the basis: Give us great games in the regular season, then work around that. Don’t solve one smaller problem by taking away something more important.
Divisions also weren’t always perfect in determining champions. Steve Spurrier was miffed his South Carolina team routed Georgia in 2012, but South Carolina lost two other games and Georgia didn’t lose again. Sometimes the division winner depended on who drew the better cross-division games that year.
And if someone is left out of their conference championship on an obscure tiebreaker, the system leaves room to mitigate that: The expanded College Football Playoff, which leaves room for at minimum three non-championship game participants, and probably more.
Advertisement
Is having conference championship games in the first place the issue? Perhaps. That’s a decision each conference will need to make on its own, though you have to determine a champion somehow, especially if the Playoff continues giving automatic bids to champions.
Does the SEC need to go to nine games? Almost certainly, but even then it still means teams won’t play six of the other teams. Unless someone wants to go to a 15-game schedule, there will not be a perfect round robin.
Not having mega-conferences would be a better solution here. Smaller conferences where everyone plays each other. What a concept. But too late for that.
One out-of-the-box idea: Rotating divisions, so you get some structure for championship game purpose but keep schedule variety. Worth considering? Yes, if administrators are willing to try to make it work logistically. Or just put up with the new system, because all in all it’s not so bad.
College football is imperfect. It always has been and probably always will be. But we’re seeing something great this year, intriguing matchups and closer games, created by a variety in scheduling that was held back in the world of divisions. If it means some issues for conference championship games, so be it. We should still be fine with the consequences of our actions.
(Photo of Georgia quarterback Carson Beck at Texas: Tim Warner / Getty Images)
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
