3 Offseason Thoughts - Expansion Landmines By Matt Zemek
Staff Columnist
Posted May 19, 2010
Expansion rightly remains an appropriate and urgent point of focus in the college football community. Here are three more thoughts on the issue which don't seem to be gaining much (if any) traction.
1) As conference expansion gets explored – and we know it’s not a matter of if, but when – college football needs to get smart on a number of issues. Let’s start with the least important elements of expansion and reconstruction, and then work toward the more significant dimensions of this vexing umbrella subject.
One issue to think about is the alignment of a 16-team (or even a 14-team) superconference, not just for the Big Ten, but any league that will ultimately take this step. As schools like Alabama face difficulties filling dates on their schedules, it’s worth exploring the notion that in a super-sized league, there should simply be more conference games. The Pac-10’s willingness to play round-robin ball serves as a noble example of how a conference title – the main gateway to the BCS, as is appropriate – is enhanced when everyone plays more backyard brawls against brother teams.
In a 16-team league, thoughts naturally turn to “How will the two 8-team divisions be organized?” In a 14-team league, how will the 7-team divisions be formatted? Here’s what strategists in Big Ten offices and other conference headquarters should think about (and I’ve seen no evidence that they are doing as much): If you’re going to take the step of expanding to a league whose number of teams exceeds the amount of games in a college football regular season (12), craft the internal structure of your league to minimize travel and maximize consistency.
What would this mean? It means that if Rutgers joined the Big Ten, the Scarlet Knights should not then play the Western-most teams in the conference. If Missouri joined, the Tigers should not then play the Eastern-most teams in the league.
In a separate but related vein, this also means that – relative to the concern facing Alabama football right now – the Big Ten should decide to play all of its games in conference. (Hey, it has its own network, right?) In a 16-team league, have a team play every opponent in its own division, but don’t stop there. Sub-divide the two divisions (let’s say East and West) into a Group A and a Group B. Have teams in the East play every team in “West A” every year and stick to that schedule. Have teams in the West play “East B” every year and stay with that plan, too. Competitive balance, geographical proximity, and annual consistency will reduce a whole lotta cat-fights among league schools, and they’ll force teams in all leagues to get better, lest the complaint of competitive imbalance emerges. A 14-team league could adopt a similar policy, although that would make it harder to subdivide two divisions.
2) When – not if – the superconferences emerge, how would the BCS be re-designed? Should the Football Bowl Subdivision shed teams and give them to the Football Championship Subdivision? Should the FBS create an “FBS 2,” with teams from the MAC and other non-power conferences playing in lower-tier bowls but not against the big boys? Long story short, I don’t see these structural questions being addressed, particularly in connection to how they’d affect the competitive integrity of major college football.
3) A supremely important issue under the umbrella of expansion is the size of all major conferences. At a press conference earlier this week, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said the following: "I would be shocked if we got larger, that [other conferences] would automatically get larger." Delany – like other commissioners – is playing coy and trying to mask the Big Ten’s intentions here, like a third-string quarterback who gives dummy signals from the sidelines when a play is sent in by the coach. Delany surely knows that Big Ten expansion will create additional superconferences elsewhere in the country. The lust for TV dollars and prime media markets will be too great, and the leagues that are throwing buckets of cash to ESPN right now will want to re-structure their current deals. Last time I checked, 2 + 2 still equals 4, or rather, billions plus billions equals many more billions.
When – not if – superconferences are formed, college sports as a whole must think not about the big-ticket schools who will rise to the top, but the conferences in the lower tier of Division I football (and basketball). Delany pointed to lagging population growth in the Big Ten’s geographic footprint as a prime reason for the conference’s consideration of expansion. Quite evidently, a lot of socioeconomic and demographic factors are motivating Delany and other conference honchos as they pore over data and hear out trial-balloon proposals in boardrooms and other places where power brokers gather. In this process, who will look out for the WAC and the Sun Belt? Who will ensure that THOSE population centers – more downmarket in nature – get the economic bump and research infusions THEY need?
The importance of this particular issue cannot be overstated.
