Football Funhouse Rookie Thread - 1st Downies

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dirty shrimp money: Jan 8, 2001

A look at the bowl system and conferences of the Football Bowl Subdivision:

The Football Subdivision is controlled by the almighty Bowl Championship Series, basically a cartel made of the presidents of the schools in the six major conferences, the BCS corporate steering committee, and executives of the ESPN television network. The BCS determines access to the five top postseason bowls -

Rose Bowl - Pasadena, CA. It's the first bowl, played in the afternoon on January 1. Traditionally the winner of the Pac-10 Conference vs the winner of the Big 10 Conference. Will take the winner of a non-BCS conference if the Big 10 or Pac-10 team makes the BCS National Championship.

Fiesta Bowl - Glendale/Phoenix, AZ. Usually played on the evening of January 1 but has moved down the calendar to get a prime time network spot. A newer bowl grown out of the WAC's lack of bowl tie-in but quickly gained prominence. Usually takes the winner of the Big 12 Conference and another selection among available teams (called an at-large), but now seems to take the winner of a non-BCS conference, or two non-BCS conference schools like it did last year.

Sugar Bowl - New Orleans, LA. The second bowl, usually played on January 1 but as late as the 4th. Usually takes the winner of the Southeast Conference and an at-large.

Orange Bowl - Miami Gardens/Miami, FL. First played in 1935. Takes the winner of the Atlantic Coast Conference vs an at-large.

BCS National Championship - Rotates among the sites of the BCS bowls. Matches the two top-ranked teams in the BCS poll for a de-facto college football championship game, like a college version of the Super Bowl.

These are the FBS conferences:

- Major Conferences, AKA Auto-Qualifying ("AQ") Conferences, AKA BCS Conferences

The top six conferences control most of the money, and dominate the standings, polls, and prestige of FBS.

Atlantic Coast Conference: A mixture of fairly high-end academic schools along the eastern seaboard. Has potent football programs but is generally more famous for basketball.

Southeast Conference: Generally considered the best football conference. Comprised of extremely large state schools (and private Vanderbilt) in the Deep South. Their stadiums are large, their fans are crazy, their programs are rich and deep and powerful, and their fans on SA can be found in BYOB.

Big Ten Conference: Eleven (soon twelve) schools in the northern states. The Big Ten was the first athletic conference and all ten are extremely strong academic schools. The US's two largest stadiums belong to the Big Ten - Michigan Stadium and Penn State University's Beaver Stadium. Both seat somewhere over 110,000.

Big East Conference: The Big East is a 16 school conference for basketball and eight for football in the eastern and northern states. It is the smallest of the six BCS conferences and it is regularly mentioned in conference realignment doomsday scenarios.

Big 12 Conference: The Big 12 is located in the Midwest and Texas. It stands at 12 schools currently, but is losing two members over the next two years. The conference is operationally controlled by two titanic programs - the University of Texas at Austin and University of Oklahoma.

Pacific 10 Conference: Located along the Pacific Seaboard and Arizona, but is expanding to include the Universities of Utah and Colorado. Generally strong academic schools, left-leaning, but resistant to change. Has not really embraced the BCS. This conference was dominated by the University of Southern California for years, but with sanctions and other teams stepping up this looks to be coming to an end.

- Mid-Major Conferences, AKA Non-Autoqualifying (Non-AQ), AKA Non-BCS Conferences

The next five conferences put together make less money than a single BCS conference. Mostly these schools have small-time football program, or new programs, or are in some cases keep football teams to satisfy Title IX requirements. However, these conferences do hold serious teams who hold their weight against the big boys with no trouble.

Mountain West Conference: The Mountain West is considered the top non-BCS conference. Its programs split off from the Western Athletic Conference about ten years ago to build their own base. They have done an extremely good job doing so, and three teams have developed into regulars in the Top 25. In fact, you can find Texas Christian University and newcomer Boise State University regularly in the Top Ten. The MWC (with Boise State) has three BCS bowl appearances to its credit with two wins. It is currently on track to become a BCS Conference for the 2013 season.

Western Athletic Conference: The WAC was created in the 60s for schools in the Western and Rocky Mountain States with growing populations and programs. Its power peaked in the 80s with champions in football and basketball, but their influence has waned as time wears on. The WAC has been almost totally dominated by Boise State University in the last decade (seven championships in ten years), but it is moving to the Mountain West in 2011. The remaining members are 0-1 in BCS bowls.

Conference USA: Conference USA is spread out regionally from eastern North Carolina to west Texas. CUSA used to be the best non-BCS conferences, but the Big East stole most of its power in 2005 when the ACC raided the Big East for members. The remaining members have had little luck establishing themselves nationwide but once in a while a CUSA team climbs the polls.

Mid American Conference: Established among the smaller schools in the Northern states and shares footprint with the Big Ten. These schools play in the shadow of their Big Ten neighbors and thus have problems generating interest; however they are much too good to drop down to the Championship Subdivision. The MAC's schools have sent some good quarterbacks to the pros, most notably Ben Roethlisberger from Miami University (the one in Ohio).

Sun Belt Conference: The Sun Belt is the newest football conference, formed in the last decade. Its teams are mostly new programs to Division I looking to get in on the money. It's generally considered the weakest of the FBS conferences. Because of the newness of the programs, or lack of finances involved, the conference's teams are known best for renting themselves out to get beat down by BCS conference schools (mostly the SEC).

Independents: Additionally, three schools play without being in a conference - the United States Military Academy (plays as Army), the United States Naval Academy (plays as Navy), and Notre Dame University. These three schools do not have the benefit of eight conference games, though all have regularly scheduled games they play every year - such as the Army-Navy game. Notre Dame enjoys a special status generally equal to that of a BCS conference school and has a unique television deal with the NBC television network to broadcast its games nationwide.

dirty shrimp money fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jul 6, 2010