Promotion/Relegation? Pogo's custom conferences for NCAA12

[Pogo27]

I've long thought the solution to the non-BCS conference teams complaints about BCS bowl bids was pretty simple: adopt the European soccer style system of promotion and relegation.

For those that don't know, the promotion/relegation system takes the bottom team in the top conference and replaces them with the top team from the bottom conference (in soccer, it's 3 teams at a time out of a league of 20).

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to do this with NCAA 12, and here's the system I came up with. I'll be using it for one of my offline dynasties and probably doing an online dynasty using this system as well.

First thing's first. In NCAA 12, there are 11 division 1 conferences. You can't delete conferences and you can't add new conferences. So there's an oddman out. I created 5 top conferences (BCS Conferences) and each has a Feeder Conference tied to it.

EDIT (July 22): All right, danknerd went through the trouble of creating all the Ivy League schools in Team Builder (which, if you read through the posts, you'll see the discussion about them, etc), so here's the finalized starting conference set up I'll be using.


BCS Conference: Pac-12
Arizona
Arizona State
Cal
Colorado
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Utah
Washington
Washington State

Their feeder conference: WAC
BYU
Boise State
Fresno State
Hawai'i
Idaho
Nevada
San Diego State
San Jose State
UNLV
Utah State


BCS Conference: Big 12
Baylor
Houston
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
TCU
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech

Their feeder conference: MWC
Air Force
Colorado State
New Mexico
New Mexico State
North Texas
Rice
SMU
Tulsa
Utep
Wyoming


BCS Conference: Big Ten
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Northwestern
Ohio State
Purdue
Wisconsin

Their feeder conference: MAC
Bowling Green
Central Michigan
Cincinnati
Eastern Michigan
Kent State
Louisville
Miami (Ohio)
Ohio
Toledo
Western Michigan


BCS Conference: SEC
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Kentucky
Mississippi State
Ole Miss
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt

Their feeder conference: C-USA
Arkansas State
Louisiana Tech
Memphis
Southern Miss
Troy
UAB
UCF
UL Lafeyette
UL Monroe
USF


BCS Conference: ACC
Boston College
Clemson
Florida State
Georgia Tech
Maryland
Miami (Fla.)
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Penn State
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest

Their feeder conference: Sun Belt
Buffalo
Connecticut
Duke
ECU
Marshall
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Syracuse
Temple
West Virginia


The Ivy League in the Big East league slot.


The leftovers: Independents
Army
Navy


danknerd also made a spreadsheet for the conferences (including divisions, and came up with some nice names for the divisions even) and it's available here.

I'll be promoting/relegating one team per alignment (five teams total) per season.

There will be one more edit in this post regarding suggestions for what Ivy League teams to put in place of what TeamBuilder teams. The only reason that edit will come is for how rivalries work with Team Builder teams. For example, I'm going to suggest Harvard & Yale replace FIU/FAU in order to keep one of the most important football rivalries in the nation intact.

There are other Ivy League rivalries, but Harvard/Yale is the only actual Football rival within the Ivy League I know of. [EDIT: Untrue. Just found out Cornell/Penn have a football rivalry.]

Other Ivy League rivalries I know of include:
Cornell/Harvard: men's hockey
Cornell/Princeton: men's lacrosse
Princeton/Penn: men's basketball

As for the teams being replaced... I think WKU/MTSU may have a rivalry that can be used, and surely between Akron/NIU/Ball State, there's a rivalry in here, right?

Other rivalries worth noting:
Princeton/Navy
Yale/Army

So, if you play as Princeton, Yale, Navy, or Army in this setup, you should be sure you're scheduling that non-conference rivalry. The game won't count it as a rivalry, but for realism sake...


[EDIT: Version 3 will be incoming. Need to close the gap between Big Ten & MAC.]

[Goldmember2]

this is a dope idea man, i like it.

who know's how a team like CMU might perform in the big 10 with a boost in conference prestige to help their recruiting. Who knows, they might hang around long enough to keep a traditional power completely out of the big show for a while. i might have to try this

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by Goldmember2

this is a dope idea man, i like it. who know's how a team like CMU might perform in the big 10 with a boost in conference prestige to help their recruiting. Who knows, they might hang around long enough to keep a traditional power completely out of the big show for a while. i might have to try this

Yea, like I said, the Big Ten is kind of a problem for me here because of how weak the MAC is (and I don't know if you noticed, but Penn St is in the ACC now, giving then the potential to end up in the same conference with Pitt after promotion).

But remember, for a team to stay in the upper conference, they really don't have to win all that many games. They just have not finish last.

The knock against Boise State has always been "Yeah, but what would they do in a real conference?" Well, we'll get to see with this system. After year 1, you move them into the Pac-12 for Washington State (most likely scenario I believe). Now think of this conference a few years down the road. Nevada and BYU end up replacing Washington and Arizona?

This system, after about 5+ seasons of use, will ensure that the top conference stays very strong. Maybe you lost your starting QB and HB and end up finishing last. So you go down for a season, but if your program is really good enough to deserve being in a BCS conference, you should be right back up after one season, right?

And you're exactly right about the recruiting thing. European soccer works kind of the same. The top division teams have more income and can afford better players, etc. If USF wins C-USA and replaces Vandy in the SEC, will they be able to hold off relegation for a couple of seasons, and will 3 years in the SEC be enough of a recruiting boost to turn USF into a legitimate SEC powerhouse?

It's definitely an interesting experiment.

[Dirty Turtles]

I like this idea, but I'd personally probably put Houston in the MWC and keep Nebraska in the Big 12, Penn St in the Big 10 and Duke in the ACC for at least the first season.

I might have to steal this idea for another dynasty.

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dirty Turtles

I like this idea, but I'd personally probably put Houston in the MWC and keep Nebraska in the Big 12, Penn St in the Big 10 and Duke in the ACC for at least the first season. I might have to steal this idea for another dynasty.

If you put Houston in the MWC, then who do you take out of the MWC?

As for Penn St, Duke, etc... it's centered around Notre Dame. Notre Dame is pretty far west to be playing in the Big East, in my opinion. And Penn State is way farther east than the rest of the Big Ten. As I mentioned in the earlier post, Penn State in the ACC... certainly a departure from tradition, but... they're in the same group of 22 teams with Pitt now, and I think that makes for an interesting rivalry game.

And I just moved Duke down to the Big East in order to make space for Penn State yet keep them in that same group of 22 teams where they can work back up to the ACC (if they're good enough).

[Dirty Turtles]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pogo27

If you put Houston in the MWC, then who do you take out of the MWC? As for Penn St, Duke, etc... it's centered around Notre Dame. Notre Dame is pretty far west to be playing in the Big East, in my opinion. And Penn State is way farther east than the rest of the Big Ten. As I mentioned in the earlier post, Penn State in the ACC... certainly a departure from tradition, but... they're in the same group of 22 teams with Pitt now, and I think that makes for an interesting rivalry game. And I just moved Duke down to the Big East in order to make space for Penn State yet keep them in that same group of 22 teams where they can work back up to the ACC (if they're good enough).

I'd drop Wyoming out of the MWC. Notre Dame makes sense in both the Big East and Big Ten. They play a lot of Big 10 teams and are more geographically suited for it over the Big East, but they are affiliated with the Big East in all other sports.

I dunno, it's something I will mull over when I "borrow" your idea. It's a great one and will make for some fun/interesting scenarios.

[moylan1234]

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...u-make-19.html

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dirty Turtles

I'd drop Wyoming out of the MWC. Notre Dame makes sense in both the Big East and Big Ten. They play a lot of Big 10 teams and are more geographically suited for it over the Big East, but they are affiliated with the Big East in all other sports. I dunno, it's something I will mull over when I "borrow" your idea. It's a great one and will make for some fun/interesting scenarios.

Yea, the Big East affiliation with all the other sports is the only reason why ND makes sense in the Big East. I had them in the Big East originally, but reconsidered. But moving Nebraska to the Big 12 and all that makes sense too.

This is just kind of a base for people to go off and make their own little tweaks.