This is what constitutes forward thinking in today’s college athletics:
The future College Football Playoff format could have a major impact on whether the Big Ten eliminates divisions or changes the number of its annual conference games, Iowa athletics director Gary Barta told The Athletic.
The Big Ten currently has East and West divisions and plays a nine-game conference schedule that includes three cross-divisional games. Big Ten administrators have discussed dropping to eight games beginning in 2023 so it can create matchups with teams from the Pac-12 and ACC conferences, with which the trio has a working arrangement called The Alliance.
There also are serious discussions about the Big Ten ending divisional play with schools playing three opponents annually and cycling through the other 10 teams either every other year or two years on, two years off.
“We’ve had several conversations,” Barta said. “One of the things that we’re watching is whether it’s related to The Alliance, which we’re talking through and/or, what gives us the best opportunity to have the most success in the College Football Playoff format?
It’s not about your conference anymore. It’s about creating a glide path to the playoffs. (And, maybe, sticking a finger in Greg Sankey’s eye.) Never mind what got your sport to its current level of popularity. This is how stupid people who think they’re smart sound.
Lately, I tell myself before the start of every season if I can just get five more good years out of college football, I’ll be happy. There’s no reason for me to change my mindset, sadly.
Get The Picture 
The key to “success in the College Football Playoff format” is recruiting and coaching a team that can compete with Bama, UGA, Clemson, and/or Ohio State. But apparently galaxy brains like Barta would rather busy themselves rearranging deck chairs. OK then.
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Did he even watch the UGA/MI game? All that word soup and they just don’t get it. It’s having the players that make plays.
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He talked about matchups with ACC/Pac 12…they have no interest in playing SEC teams regularly during the season.
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My first takeaway as well. Dropping to 8 conference games and scheduling games with the ACC or Pac 12 annually is merely an attempt to give them a “data point” against teams outside of the B1G for the committee to look at.
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At least they dropped that “Leaders and Legends” bullshit!
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Thank JoPa for that!
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Glad that the pearl clutching over the B1G over playing a far more difficult 9 game conference schedule than SEC teams that play 8 games is going to die.
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Hell we won the National Championship. College football could end today and I’d be happy.
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I keep thinking I’m glad we won one before ESPN and this bunch of fools burn the whole thing to the ground.
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Hope UGA football gets to pulllaaay somebody before long…GO DAWGS!
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At my age I find my tolerance for BS has greatly diminished. I no longer feel compelled to write checks when I know my personal experience or enjoyment does not matter. My 5 year clock started ticking on 1/10/2022 subject to annual one year extensions based on performance of Georgia football primarily. My only other remaining season tickets are for gymnastics which I would have already let go if it did not so please my granddaughter.
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“…if it did not so please my granddaughter.”
WTG, G’dad!!!!
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Gymnastics, MBB, M Tennis. Josh has got his work some serious work to do. G and M T all performing at way less than acceptable levels.
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Oops. Meant to say Josh has some serious work to do.
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“We want to ease in the back door and so we can get smoked in the first round like Notre Dame and Oklahoma. You still get paid if you get embarrassed, right? Good.”
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“The Alliance”?
How stupid.
Is that supposed to scare the SEC?
They probably call the SEC “The Axis” in closed meetings.
What they need to do is publicly admit that the SEC has historically been and is and will continue to be the superior football conference and will thus dominate the playoffs until teams like Michigan and PSU catch up in talent, intensity and coaching.
In other words, accept reality and quit with your attempts to bend it to fix your butthurtedness.
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The regular season is already being diminished and it’s only a matter of time until it’s no more important than any other sport’s meaningless games. The trophy at the end is all that matters, or at least it will be in a few more years. I’m mostly resigned to it at this point, I was hopeful that the people in charge might get a clue but they keep successively getting replaced with people who give even less of a shit about what makes the sport unique and only care about TV ratings and money. The NFL has bigger ratings so clearly you have to be the NFL – except NFL fans don’t give a shit about college football and never will. The playoff format isn’t the barrier to entry for those fans, it’s the lack of give-a-shit.
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and i hate it when i hear other presumed diehards spew wordmash that amounts to nothing more than he and i should feel a sense of URGENCY to…rope in these casual fans who never have and never will give a shit about college football in October.
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Yeah, “the ratings aren’t as good” doesn’t equal “the sport is in trouble” to me, especially when I can point to so many other factors that would depress the ratings beyond lack of fan interest.
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Huh… What a coincidence. I’m still looking for the cheat codes to EA Sports NCAA Football 2014, too. 🙄
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If the headliner to this is a reference to one of the funniest books ever written, then spot on!
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Ignatius J. Reilly approves (not really). He also makes the occasional cheese dip.
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Senator…This blog post nicely compliments the post today on transfer rules. The college football that we know and love is going away sooner than later. Who knows how the new product will look and whether any of us will care (I grew up a huge college basketball fan yet never watch now). As I said in the other post, thank gawd we finally got over the hump in 2021!
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7yr old me loved basketball. Now it’s a revolving door of discombobulated talent that never has time to gel. Bythe time you get to know a player on a team you like, he’s gone. Anyone that does stay suffers because he’s relearning all new teammates.
Like, hello, i can go to a GD summer AAU game if i want to see a meaningless showcase of raw talent and not much actual basketball (as we all once knew it).
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I’ll bet if you took a poll of true SEC fans, they probably would be happy if the SEC was by itself. Think about it, prior to the BCS era what only mattered was winning the SEC. It was the only thing that you could control. Anything else was gravy. The SEC championship game is just that.
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Reality…the SEC is doing great. We should work with them and have some historic cross-division games. Bama in the U?! Michigan at Sanford?!
Fantasy…the SEC are bullies. We’re going to form an Alliance and be better than them!
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I know that it would never happen, but the SEC could immediately end whatever narrative will be associated with The Alliance adding a B1G, Pac 12, or ACC game OOC each year by requiring SEC members to play no less than 2 teams annually from a P5 conference, no less than one G5 opponent annually, and no more than 1 opponent from FCS within two or three year period.
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*no more than 1 opponent from FCS within any given two or three year period.
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