Future of College Football and MSU

[Todd4State]

I don't know how much of this is new or surprising but this is mostly from a Ross Dellenger article.

Basically the SEC and Big 10 are going to take over almost completely. This falls in the not surprising category.

As far as the playoff goes they are talking about expanding to 14-16 games eventually and by eventually I mean as soon as possible if the SEC and Big 10 get their way. I personally think they will expand to 16 because that's more games for TV which means more money.

Per the article, the SEC and Big 10 would get four automatic qualifiers for the playoffs with the ACC and Big 12 getting 2 apiece and then 1 automatic qualifier from the G5 and then a potential spot for Notre Dame if they do well enough to qualify. Of course, if you are keeping score at home that would be under a 14 team model but with a 16 team model we're probably looking at 2 at large bids if I had to guess although a 3rd automatic seed from the ACC and Big 12 is also possible.

So, to give everyone some insight on what it would take for MSU to make the playoffs I went through MSU top 25 finishes since the Tyler era because there was no point in going previous to that. And the teams that I believe would have made the playoffs or would have been at least on the bubble the numbers in parenthesis are where the team finished in the polls:

1998 (Bubble)
1999 (12th)
2010 (Bubble- probably just misses the cut) (17th)
2014 (12th- easily qualifies)

So basically, to sum it up it's going to take a 9 win season for MSU to likely qualify for the playoffs in the future. Yes, 1998 won 8 games but that was with an 11 game schedule and if they had a modern 12 game schedule I suspect they likely would have won the other OOC game to give them 9.

And speaking of the schedule, I think it is inevitable that the SEC is going to go to 9 SEC games by 2027. You can look at MSU's future football schedules and see this as MSU has four OOC games scheduled through 2026 and then beyond that 3 each year. Per Dellenger's article, there is also likely going to be at least one SEC/Big 10 game a year in the very near future. I'm not sure how that exactly is going to look in that I don't know if we are going to have to rotate through playing Big 10 teams or if they are going to try to link up "similar" schools- for example we may have a MSU/Purdue rivalry or say MSU/Illinois etc. So, it will be interesting to see how that actually goes down. My hope is that the remaining 2 OOC games are rotated between some of our old regional rivals like USM, Memphis, UAB, and Tulane and maybe South Alabama and then a FCS game which I would personally prefer to be an in state SWAC team. So, obviously that is going to make it more difficult to schedule our way into bowl/playoff eligibility.

Back to the playoffs my guess is that those games will eventually all move to campus except for the actual championship game. I do think the bowls will still exist though as they are quite popular for fans to watch on TV as evidenced by this past year and who doesn't love more football? I do think the Sugar, Rose, Cotton, Peach, Orange, and Fiesta bowls will essentially become what the Citrus, Gator, and Outback Bowls are today. 8-4 type teams like our 2022 team playing on NYD or New Year's Eve or Jan 2.

Also, with the new potential playoff structure and the potential for auto bids it will change how the SEC and other conferences handle SEC Championship Game weekend. Can't see it going away- but I do think it will be used to determine higher seeds. Also you may see the possibility of what amounts to "play in" games" for bids. So for example- two 9-3 teams playing for the final SEC automatic bid. (Potential Egg Bowl or Iron Bowl rematch just one week after those rivalry games but for an automatic bid in the playoffs? Lots of possibilities! AND MORE FOOTBALL!)

So, for MSU I do think it will get more challenging BUT I think with the way things are going we are also going to have some advantages to attract players being in the SEC. If MSU works hard and invests in football AND football recruiting and doesn't make anymore idiotic hires like Zach Arnett I think we can compete and at least be what we were under Dan Mullen.

[Ranchdawg]

You say we will in the near future have a big10 game to play every year and will this big10 team be a permanent yearly game? If permanent I could very well see us drawing Ohio State as our permanent. It would be so like Birmingham/SEC office to do something like that.

[MStateDawg]

You say we will in the near future have a big10 game to play every year and will this big10 team be a permanent yearly game? If permanent I could very well see us drawing Ohio State as our permanent. It would be so like Birmingham/SEC office to do something like that.

All this is being driven by television revenue. They aren?t going to make all these changes and NOT align the marquee teams in each league. We?ll be playing teams like Purdue & Northwestern most years.

[parabrave]

yea CFB till March. ESPN ruining the Game.

[Matt3467]

Even with all of its problems I almost miss the BCS.... Football was a lot more fun to watch and keep up with then at least for me. Players didn't skip out on bowls either.

[CaptainObvious]

It will never be finished in time!

Seriously, I'd rather join the Kudzu League(Ivy League of Engineering Schools

State
Vandy
Ga. Tech
Duke
Wake
Rice
Purdue
MIT


😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[gtowndawg]

So, for MSU I do think it will get more challenging BUT I think with the way things are going we are also going to have some advantages to attract players being in the SEC. If MSU works hard and invests in football AND football recruiting and doesn't make anymore idiotic hires like Zach Arnett I think we can compete and at least be what we were under Dan Mullen.

Most important part

[Choctaw Dawg]

I don't think they are going to drop the NY6 Bowls for playoff games, although I would prefer more playoff home games myself. Those looked awesome.

And yeah, if Dellenger is already floating out there that the SEC is going to 9 conference games than it is pretty much a done deal already. They weren't going to flip the schedule in 2026 and cut out some huge rivalry games simply because of a schedule rotation.

[Todd4State]

You say we will in the near future have a big10 game to play every year and will this big10 team be a permanent yearly game? If permanent I could very well see us drawing Ohio State as our permanent. It would be so like Birmingham/SEC office to do something like that.

I have no idea if it will be a permanent opponent or rotate since this is still very much in discussion. More than likely it will be someone similar to MSU like Purdue, Maryland, Illinois, Minnesota, etc. if I had to guess if it is permanent.

[Todd4State]

Even with all of its problems I almost miss the BCS.... Football was a lot more fun to watch and keep up with then at least for me. Players didn't skip out on bowls either.

I think skipping out on bowls could be easily solved with NIL.

[Todd4State]

I don't think they are going to drop the NY6 Bowls for playoff games, although I would prefer more playoff home games myself. Those looked awesome.

And yeah, if Dellenger is already floating out there that the SEC is going to 9 conference games then it is pretty much a done deal already. They weren't going to flip the schedule in 2026 and cut out some huge rivalry games simply because of a schedule rotation.

You may very well be right about the NY6 bowl games. Especially at first.

I think they're going to have discussions like "weeelllll if you are Alabama and you're undefeated and then you have to play 12-2 Texas in the Cotton Bowl is that really fair to Alabama?"- spoken in Kirk Herbstreit's whiney beta make voice.

[BrunswickDawg]

I think skipping out on bowls could be easily solved with NIL.

Yeah - Use the bowl payout as direct NIL Bonus. Winning team gets a bigger check than the loser.

[coachnorm]

This expansion is going to be a nightmare and not a fantasy when the important players that drive the CF market transfer out due to the portal and NIL considerations. All these football fans are going to forgo their Christmas Holliday routines to attend games when the quarterback leaves the team to get enrolled at his new school? Also there is also something called burnout and fatigue of the college football fan base watching a watered down product evolved for the play off and not the regular season like it used to be?

[Coach34]

It doesnt matter who our coach is
We dont have the money to build rosters like the top half of the SEC on a yearly basis
We are not making a playoff in this current age and system
9 SEC games only makes it worse on us- especially if in addition they add a B10 game to the OOC. That will just require a team to have even more depth

Bama, Mississippi, and SC all won 9 games this season and missed the playoff. Our program is now a yearly fight to get to 7 wins. I get wanting to be optimistic and all- but reality should be setting in.

[R2Dawg]

This expansion is going to be a nightmare and not a fantasy when the important players that drive the CF market transfer out due to the portal and NIL considerations. All these football fans are going to forgo their Christmas Holliday routines to attend games when the quarterback leaves the team to get enrolled at his new school? Also there is also something called burnout and fatigue of the college football fan base watching a watered down product evolved for the play off and not the regular season like it used to be?

Yep I know I felt the fatigue this year. I hardly watched when bowl season came around. Yeah MSU sucking caused some of it but just too long a season, I ready for basketball come Jan. Aug to Feb for football is too much. The product is so watered down and over hyped it is hard for me to watch that long now. Kinda like NBA is now how all star game went. Just a crappy product in so many areas.

[R2Dawg]

It doesnt matter who our coach is
We dont have the money to build rosters like the top half of the SEC on a yearly basis
We are not making a playoff in this current age and system
9 SEC games only makes it worse on us- especially if in addition they add a B10 game to the OOC. That will just require a team to have even more depth

Bama, Mississippi, and SC all won 9 games this season and missed the playoff. Our program is now a yearly fight to get to 7 wins. I get wanting to be optimistic and all- but reality should be setting in.

In the short term, I agree but this thing isn't static. More changes will come; eventually they will balance the field like pro sports to market lesser programs. They have to or it will fall off the map. What the NFL has done in small markets or NBA too with teams that were historically bad can win down the road. It will happen in NCAA football too or sport will die.

[gtowndawg]

They really need to be studying the NBA right now. It's a case study of something very popular that's killing itself off as we speak and they aren't sure how to correct it now. Once you start losing a ton of TV market share it's hard to get it back. People move on and find other things to do with their time. MLB is another great example. 42 million people watched the World Series in 1980. 10 million watched in 2020. Once the masses lose interest, you're in trouble.

[Turfdawg67]

yea CFB till March. ESPN ruining the Game.

Greed goes way beyond the media dude.

[R2Dawg]

They really need to be studying the NBA right now. It's a case study of something very popular that's killing itself off as we speak and they aren't sure how to correct it now. Once you start losing a ton of TV market share it's hard to get it back. People move on and find other things to do with their time. MLB is another great example. 42 million people watched the World Series in 1980. 10 million watched in 2020. Once the masses lose interest, you're in trouble.

Yeah they playing with fire. The fans they loose are die hard fans too not fair weather fans.

[Cooterpoot]

I don't know how much of this is new or surprising but this is mostly from a Ross Dellenger article.

Basically the SEC and Big 10 are going to take over almost completely. This falls in the not surprising category.

As far as the playoff goes they are talking about expanding to 14-16 games eventually and by eventually I mean as soon as possible if the SEC and Big 10 get their way. I personally think they will expand to 16 because that's more games for TV which means more money.

Per the article, the SEC and Big 10 would get four automatic qualifiers for the playoffs with the ACC and Big 12 getting 2 apiece and then 1 automatic qualifier from the G5 and then a potential spot for Notre Dame if they do well enough to qualify. Of course, if you are keeping score at home that would be under a 14 team model but with a 16 team model we're probably looking at 2 at large bids if I had to guess although a 3rd automatic seed from the ACC and Big 12 is also possible.

So, to give everyone some insight on what it would take for MSU to make the playoffs I went through MSU top 25 finishes since the Tyler era because there was no point in going previous to that. And the teams that I believe would have made the playoffs or would have been at least on the bubble the numbers in parenthesis are where the team finished in the polls:

1998 (Bubble)
1999 (12th)
2010 (Bubble- probably just misses the cut) (17th)
2014 (12th- easily qualifies)

So basically, to sum it up it's going to take a 9 win season for MSU to likely qualify for the playoffs in the future. Yes, 1998 won 8 games but that was with an 11 game schedule and if they had a modern 12 game schedule I suspect they likely would have won the other OOC game to give them 9.

And speaking of the schedule, I think it is inevitable that the SEC is going to go to 9 SEC games by 2027. You can look at MSU's future football schedules and see this as MSU has four OOC games scheduled through 2026 and then beyond that 3 each year. Per Dellenger's article, there is also likely going to be at least one SEC/Big 10 game a year in the very near future. I'm not sure how that exactly is going to look in that I don't know if we are going to have to rotate through playing Big 10 teams or if they are going to try to link up "similar" schools- for example we may have a MSU/Purdue rivalry or say MSU/Illinois etc. So, it will be interesting to see how that actually goes down. My hope is that the remaining 2 OOC games are rotated between some of our old regional rivals like USM, Memphis, UAB, and Tulane and maybe South Alabama and then a FCS game which I would personally prefer to be an in state SWAC team. So, obviously that is going to make it more difficult to schedule our way into bowl/playoff eligibility.

Back to the playoffs my guess is that those games will eventually all move to campus except for the actual championship game. I do think the bowls will still exist though as they are quite popular for fans to watch on TV as evidenced by this past year and who doesn't love more football? I do think the Sugar, Rose, Cotton, Peach, Orange, and Fiesta bowls will essentially become what the Citrus, Gator, and Outback Bowls are today. 8-4 type teams like our 2022 team playing on NYD or New Year's Eve or Jan 2.

Also, with the new potential playoff structure and the potential for auto bids it will change how the SEC and other conferences handle SEC Championship Game weekend. Can't see it going away- but I do think it will be used to determine higher seeds. Also you may see the possibility of what amounts to "play in" games" for bids. So for example- two 9-3 teams playing for the final SEC automatic bid. (Potential Egg Bowl or Iron Bowl rematch just one week after those rivalry games but for an automatic bid in the playoffs? Lots of possibilities! AND MORE FOOTBALL!)

So, for MSU I do think it will get more challenging BUT I think with the way things are going we are also going to have some advantages to attract players being in the SEC. If MSU works hard and invests in football AND football recruiting and doesn't make anymore idiotic hires like Zach Arnett I think we can compete and at least be what we were under Dan Mullen.

9 team SEC schedule isn't happening soon. Virtually no one supports it. It would take a big, really big increase in money to consider it.