NCAA allowing toe FBS wins to count towards bowl eligibility

[starkvegasdawg]

So no acknowledgement on how much you ****ed up the title. I love it!

3rd post in the thread.

[dantheman4248]

3rd post in the thread.

To be fair a lot of people have that post blocked.

[msbulldog]

I'll just choose to respond to this and speaking indirectly of the other comments.

Yes, I have more interest in watching MSU play SWAC teams than NC State. Probably personal to a degree since I grew up watching Sports Journal and Rob Jay who made the SWAC sound like the coolest football league ever. I would prefer in state SWAC teams over Alabama A&M but I understand the issues with JSU wanting too much money and Valley not having enough scholarships to qualify for bowl eligibility. I guarantee you our players would rather play an in state SWAC team over say Stephen F Austin because some of them grew up pulling for some of them I'm sure and they know players on those teams moreso than other schools.

Now as far as the "meaningless" bowl games- the bowls are probably the biggest reason why our program has steadily been elevating itself over the past decade. MSU gets millions of much needed money for playing in one. It's odd to me that you say that a bowl game against a team like Louisville, Iowa, Michigan, Georgia Tech, and etc. are "meaningless" yet you advocate for playing a "meaningless" regular season game against those teams which would cost MSU more in money and exposure while not helping to elevate the program. Bowl games are about as close as we are going to come to having full exposure on the football program in this day and age because of the time slots.

The people that share my opinion are the ones that know what's best for MSU as a program and want to see it continue to grow. Going 4-8 every year and bragging about having the most difficult schedule in college football doesn't help MSU. We essentially are scheduling the same way Alabama is right now.

Not to be disagreeable Todd, but all SEC bowl money goes into a pot to be split among all teams. The participating teams get a little extra share that usually just covers their bowl expenses, unless it's one of the bigger bowls. Schools carry way more than the football teams to the bowls and pay their expenses. And generally each school has to guarantee so many tickets sold and if they don't sell the schools have to eat them.

[Walkerhill]

Rubbish. Absolute apples and oranges.

Saban does not schedule their marquee non conference games for development. He schedules a high p5 to generate revenue and boost his strength of schedule in anticipation of being evaluated by the CFP. And sometimes to boost recruiting by playing a high profile game in a desirable neutral location that Bama wants to recruit.

It is a calculated risk - the benefits of a loss vs those gains.

And Saban has plenty of 4Q time to develop players on lower tier SEC games.

We would usually play a home and home since our brand is less recognized. So obviously limited recruiting benefit in another teams backyard.

Most years we do not have to worry about cfp evluation.

We would only gain the revenue of a bump on home attendance every other year bit would also lose the away game and only have 7 home games every other. Probably a net loss even with tv thrown in.

It makes sense for Bama but probably not State.

[RiverCityDawg]

I see both sides for a program like ours. I understand why the administration and the coaches would want to schedule these games to guarantee wins, but as a fan I find the FCS games to be a complete waste of time. From an entertainment standpoint I would rather risk losing in order to beat a team with a pulse than wax Alabama A&M 56-3.

The atmosphere is night and day different and the TV viewing quality across the conference would be so much better. On any given Saturday you look at the SEC slate and half the games are laughers. I used to be against more conference games, but I'm to the point where I would like to see maybe 10 conference games, one game against another P5 and then maybe just one against someone like Tulane. Would be tougher for everyone but overall I think it would really improve the product, much more than just expanding the playoff like so many seem to want.

[FISHDAWG]

Speak for yourself buttercup. I live in reality and don't get excited about beating Alabama A&M. Nor do I get aroused by going to the Liberty Bowl.

I'm kinda on this mindset as well ... I think adding an OOC game with one of the P5's was a step in the right direction but didn't quite scratch the itch ... however, I know there can be balance - maybe by voluntarily adding a second P-5 team would get us there (and it doesn't have to be Ohio State - there are plenty of other substantial teams to consider), but I also understand the need for the cupcake games ... the schedules are made so far out that by the time this happened I might be dead so I HAVE to go along with the current format .... Hoops is right about one thing - who really cares about beating Alabama A&M and I swore off ever going to the Liberty bowl again after my last trip there

[Johnson85]

I'm more interested in playing Mississippi Valley than I am NC State to be honest with you.

Not every game has to be against a challenging opponent.

Not every game, but you want two of our twelve games to be against teams not even on the same level of play? There is a difference between P5 and G5 schools, but we're still generally playing by the same playbook. There's not really a difference between DII and FCS schools as far as competitiveness except in rare occasions.

I'm fine with an FCS game. I don't enjoy them that much, but it gives us a chance to rest people, play some young people, and get a cheap game towards bowl eligibility. Even if it's not very helpful for the starters, I suspect it gives the younger backups something to get excited and stay focused for, especially with the 4 game redshirt rule. I think all that makes it a good tradeoff, plus if we can play an instate school, it helps them out.

But as to having another one, we already get an FCS game and two G5 games. That's three games that shouldn't be that challenging if we are taking care of our program, unless we just get really unlucky with scheduling. If we didn't have to schedule a P5 OOC, I'd be fine with 3 G5 games just because we have such a tough road in the SEC. But I think scheduling a second FCS game would be ridiculous. The only thing that makes this palatable at all is that it will potentially make buy games with G5 schools more reasonable, as there is always the threat of replacing them with a FCS opponent.

[Captain Falcon]

I like the schedule balance the way it is now. I think the P5 mandate is a good thing, but I also like having at least three nonconference games we can pretty much bank on winning. I don't miss the days where our nonconfence schedule was three C-USA teams and a SWAC team.

Now if the SEC ever goes to a 9 game schedule then I'm fine with playing all mid-major opponents. But as it is right now with 4 nonconference games, I do feel like one of them should be against a respectable team every year. And that doesn't mean you have to play Ohio State or Oklahoma, the P5 teams we have played and are scheduled to play seem appropriate for us.

[Jack Lambert]

Time to call up Mississippi Valley State.

If ole miss could get pass their racist pride they would schedule them twice.

[gtowndawg]

That boggles my mind. A lot of people share your opinion. But I have no interest in watching us play Valley or Alabama A&M or even teams like New Mexico.

I like the easy win games for non conference and here's why (for me). Those are the absolute best time to take my family (at least my boys). There's no nervousness or drama with a big game. It's just easy going, relaxed. We eat, we walk around, we hang out for player pictures with the kids after the game. You know we are going to win and everyone is in a good mode (kids don't care who we beat, just that we won). It's literally just a family day with the game itself being an excuse to be together.

[Irondawg]

A very huge benefit to bowl games that nobody has mentioned is the extra practice time. That's a huge advantage over teams that don't get it. Young guys get tons of extra reps and allows you to iron out some problem spots in the scheme as well as get a feel for some recruiting needs coming out of the bowl game.

That's such a huge advantage I don't know why non-bowl eligible teams haven't pounded the NCAA about the competitive advantage it yields.

[The Federalist Engineer]

I like the easy win games for non conference and here's why (for me). Those are the absolute best time to take my family (at least my boys). There's no nervousness or drama with a big game. It's just easy going, relaxed. We eat, we walk around, we hang out for player pictures with the kids after the game. You know we are going to win and everyone is in a good mode (kids don't care who we beat, just that we won). It's literally just a family day with the game itself being an excuse to be together.

To each his own, but you might as well just watch a spring game. As a coach, you rather play Clemson and Ohio State as exhibition match.

If I were a football fan, it would be more interesting to watch an exhibition game vs Oklahoma and see 85 players participate (red shirts play exhibition) and every snap is interesting.

In fact, for baseball. It would be cool if we played 2 additional exhibition SEC games each weekend. Friday Afternoon and Saturday Noon with non-27 roster players. You will have enough players. This gives development and AB's to players that will otherwise get very limited game play. But it would be great to see our Freshmen vs Gator Freshmen, Vandy Freshman, and Auburn Freshman. We would probably see freshman move into huge roles by May and June after 20 games in the SEC Freshman League.

[BrunswickDawg]

To each his own, but you might as well just watch a spring game. As a coach, you rather play Clemson and Ohio State as exhibition match.

If I were a football fan, it would be more interesting to watch an exhibition game vs Oklahoma and see 85 players participate (red shirts play exhibition) and every snap is interesting.

In fact, for baseball. It would be cool if we played 2 additional exhibition SEC games each weekend. Friday Afternoon and Saturday Noon with non-27 roster players. You will have enough players. This gives development and AB's to players that will otherwise get very limited game play. But it would be great to see our Freshmen vs Gator Freshmen, Vandy Freshman, and Auburn Freshman. We would probably see freshman move into huge roles by May and June after 20 games in the SEC Freshman League.

Back before Freshmen were eligible to play, SEC football teams had JV squads just like high school. I've often wondered if doing something like that with your redshirts and walk-ons would be worth it.

[HoopsDawg]

A very huge benefit to bowl games that nobody has mentioned is the extra practice time. That's a huge advantage over teams that don't get it. Young guys get tons of extra reps and allows you to iron out some problem spots in the scheme as well as get a feel for some recruiting needs coming out of the bowl game.

That's such a huge advantage I don't know why non-bowl eligible teams haven't pounded the NCAA about the competitive advantage it yields.

Scheduling tougher/more interesting games doesn't necessarily mean we won't make a bowl. My prefered schedule would be 10 conference games, 1 Power 5 game, 1 Group of 5 game.

[Johnson85]

Scheduling tougher/more interesting games doesn't necessarily mean we won't make a bowl. My prefered schedule would be 10 conference games, 1 Power 5 game, 1 Group of 5 game.

It does necessarily mean that we will make fewer bowls.

That's not necessarily a bad thing if you value the regular season more than bowls. I would enjoy your preferred schedule more in any one year as far as watching individual games. Not sure if over time it would be more enjoyable b/c it would mean more losing seasons, and I'm not sure how people would adjust to that. I think in general people stay more excited about teams like our 2012 team, that won 8 games without being very good, than our 2009 team, that won 5 games while being pretty good.

Even though people were pumped with 2009 after Croom, I'm not sure they'd like hovering between say 5 and 7 wins with the occasional 4 or 8 win season versus your schedule versus 6 and 8 with the occasional 5 or 9 win season against our typical recent schedules.

If we were going to make our schedule harder, I'd prefer that we trade out a G5 team in exchange for a P5 team, so have 8 SEC, 2 P5 OOC, a G5, and a FCS. If we added another SEC team, with UGA and FL reestablishing themsevles, That puts us in a position where we could have schedules like 2009 on a pretty regular basis. We're usually going to play a couple of top ten teams and a team in the teens just in our west schedule and often times two teams in the teens if Auburn and A&M are good. In years where we play 4 top 20 teams, that's an embarassment of riches as far as competition for most schooles. Add 2 east teams other than UK, and presumably we'll play UF or UGA 2 out of three years, and then if you catch UT or USCe on a good year, that's another potentially good team. That'd be fun in any one year, but very rarely would we walk out of a schedule like that with more than 6 wins, and over time, I think that will dampen enthusiam for the program.

[HoopsDawg]

It does necessarily mean that we will make fewer bowls.

That's not necessarily a bad thing if you value the regular season more than bowls. I would enjoy your preferred schedule more in any one year as far as watching individual games. Not sure if over time it would be more enjoyable b/c it would mean more losing seasons, and I'm not sure how people would adjust to that. I think in general people stay more excited about teams like our 2012 team, that won 8 games without being very good, than our 2009 team, that won 5 games while being pretty good.

Even though people were pumped with 2009 after Croom, I'm not sure they'd like hovering between say 5 and 7 wins with the occasional 4 or 8 win season versus your schedule versus 6 and 8 with the occasional 5 or 9 win season against our typical recent schedules.

If we were going to make our schedule harder, I'd prefer that we trade out a G5 team in exchange for a P5 team, so have 8 SEC, 2 P5 OOC, a G5, and a FCS. If we added another SEC team, with UGA and FL reestablishing themsevles, That puts us in a position where we could have schedules like 2009 on a pretty regular basis. We're usually going to play a couple of top ten teams and a team in the teens just in our west schedule and often times two teams in the teens if Auburn and A&M are good. In years where we play 4 top 20 teams, that's an embarassment of riches as far as competition for most schooles. Add 2 east teams other than UK, and presumably we'll play UF or UGA 2 out of three years, and then if you catch UT or USCe on a good year, that's another potentially good team. That'd be fun in any one year, but very rarely would we walk out of a schedule like that with more than 6 wins, and over time, I think that will dampen enthusiam for the program.

You're right. People are extremely dumb.

[gtowndawg]

It does necessarily mean that we will make fewer bowls.

That's not necessarily a bad thing if you value the regular season more than bowls. I would enjoy your preferred schedule more in any one year as far as watching individual games. Not sure if over time it would be more enjoyable b/c it would mean more losing seasons, and I'm not sure how people would adjust to that. I think in general people stay more excited about teams like our 2012 team, that won 8 games without being very good, than our 2009 team, that won 5 games while being pretty good.

Even though people were pumped with 2009 after Croom, I'm not sure they'd like hovering between say 5 and 7 wins with the occasional 4 or 8 win season versus your schedule versus 6 and 8 with the occasional 5 or 9 win season against our typical recent schedules.

If we were going to make our schedule harder, I'd prefer that we trade out a G5 team in exchange for a P5 team, so have 8 SEC, 2 P5 OOC, a G5, and a FCS. If we added another SEC team, with UGA and FL reestablishing themsevles, That puts us in a position where we could have schedules like 2009 on a pretty regular basis. We're usually going to play a couple of top ten teams and a team in the teens just in our west schedule and often times two teams in the teens if Auburn and A&M are good. In years where we play 4 top 20 teams, that's an embarassment of riches as far as competition for most schooles. Add 2 east teams other than UK, and presumably we'll play UF or UGA 2 out of three years, and then if you catch UT or USCe on a good year, that's another potentially good team. That'd be fun in any one year, but very rarely would we walk out of a schedule like that with more than 6 wins, and over time, I think that will dampen enthusiam for the program.

Totally agree.

[Johnson85]

You're right. People are extremely dumb.

If you look at it like that, the people that think you're dumb for caring at all about a team you don't play for and don't work for probably have a better argument.

Sports fandom isn't rational or logical, so you can't really say people are dumb for preferring 4 top 25 matchups a year and an average of 7.5 wins a year and a bowl game 8 out of 10 years over 6 top 25 matchups a year and an average of 6 wins a year and a bowl game 5 out of 10 years. There's just not a smart or dumb way to look at that b/c caring to begin with is not logical.

[Todd4State]

Not every game, but you want two of our twelve games to be against teams not even on the same level of play? There is a difference between P5 and G5 schools, but we're still generally playing by the same playbook. There's not really a difference between DII and FCS schools as far as competitiveness except in rare occasions.

I'm fine with an FCS game. I don't enjoy them that much, but it gives us a chance to rest people, play some young people, and get a cheap game towards bowl eligibility. Even if it's not very helpful for the starters, I suspect it gives the younger backups something to get excited and stay focused for, especially with the 4 game redshirt rule. I think all that makes it a good tradeoff, plus if we can play an instate school, it helps them out.

But as to having another one, we already get an FCS game and two G5 games. That's three games that shouldn't be that challenging if we are taking care of our program, unless we just get really unlucky with scheduling. If we didn't have to schedule a P5 OOC, I'd be fine with 3 G5 games just because we have such a tough road in the SEC. But I think scheduling a second FCS game would be ridiculous. The only thing that makes this palatable at all is that it will potentially make buy games with G5 schools more reasonable, as there is always the threat of replacing them with a FCS opponent.

No I don't want 2 FCS teams in a TYPICAL year- but this is not a typical year. I only think we should play the one like we do now. I think more than one FCS team in a TYPICAL year is too many.

I personally don't like that we have to play the P5 game because it costs MSU more money and it's difficult for us to schedule home and homes. And I don't like the SEC telling us what we have to do with our OOC schedule. But it is what it is.

As it is I'm OK with how we schedule currently for the most part within the parameters that MSU controls. If I could change something it would be just go to a 9 game SEC schedule and then have 2 OOC G5 games, and one FCS game. I would much rather watch us play a SEC team than K-State even if it's Vanderbilt or Mizzou. I also think we schedule our P5's way too far in advance and if we have to play one I would like to see a Kickoff Classic thrown in there every three years or so. I have no idea why Ole Miss gets invited to those and we have only had that happen once.

[Todd4State]

You're right. People are extremely dumb.

Actually what's dumb is going back to a model of scheduling that didn't work and hurt our program while going away from the one that has led to our best program building era in a ten year stretch. But hey! We got to see Nebraska!