Big Sky commissioner wants to re-tool FCS playoff selection process

[SWeberCat02]

Here's the very real Big Sky Conference problem faced by the Montana schools. There are only four flagship schools in the Big Sky Conference, the Montana's, North Dakota and Idaho State. Yes, I'm including Idaho State as it is the land grant school for Idaho.
The rest of the schools are lower tier schools in their states. They have different concerns, different fan bases, than the flagship schools.
This is how the Big Sky winds up with a basketball tournament in a state without a conference school without the benefit of a conference member as a host. The non flagship schools don't draw many fans to their games anyway. So, the priority argument for them is cheaper travel. That's just not good.

Idaho is Idaho's land grant school, and NDSU is North Dakota's. If the Montana schools want to start a conference with Idaho St and UND, go ahead and have fun with that.

 

[One.Cool.Customer]

They need to do away with regionalization.

Amen! Nothing better than a sf Austin circa 2009 ( or any south land conference team) coming up and getting blown out. I enjoy seeing the 'deer in the headlights' look teams give on their first trip to wa-griz...during the playoffs

 

[CDAGRIZ]

I actually think Fullerton has done a pretty good job. Wish he would have brought in NDSU but besides that I think he has bigger plans for the Big Sky in terms of football and he's looking at a much bigger picture down the road. I know he's mentioned the Big Sky and FBS and its been discussed before, eventually trying to separate the BSC into two divisions and looking at moving one of them to the FBS.

I also think the Big Sky had a down year in football and people start looking at it as if its a trend and blaming Fullerton, which in reality is just a bad year, not a trend. I don't like the playoff scheduling, but most FCS schools don't make a ton of $$$ on their football programs so they moved to regionalization in the first two rounds. I hate the fact UM played NDSU and EWU in back to back years in the 2nd round, when they played each other during the regular season.

The only thing I think was a mistake was moving the BSC B-ball tourney to Reno, but they haven't hosted a game yet, so I guess the proof will be in the pudding...

I think he's done an awful job.

FULLERTON: Let's see, why don't we add a bunch of crappy programs to a conference that already only has two programs that can draw more than 10k in attendance. What's that? The BSC will have almost every FCS program in the west so teams won't have as many OOC scheduling options without extensive travel? No worries. They can go ahead and play each other in "non-conference" games that won't count toward their conference records even though another team might have played the same team as a conference game. It makes perfect sense. Everybody doesn't have to play everybody, no two divisions, no conference championship game. I bet SUU wins it inside of five years! Ready, break!

 

[Potomac Griz]

And it's too bad about the low basketball RPI, but realistically, how would some of you change the RPI?

Many years ago (before the conference was ridiculously large like it is now) Fullerton talked about how he wanted teams in the Big Sky to start playing good non-conference schedules. That will help bring the conference RPI up a bit especially if some teams can pull off upsets occasionally. Unfortunately most of the conference each year has an awful non-conference schedule. Some teams don't even seem to try to schedule quality games anymore. If you look back at the NCSS (Non-conference strength of schedule) for each Big Sky team over the years you'll see what I mean. The Griz have had top 100 NCSS 4 of the 5 last years. Last year the Griz had the 25th toughest NCSS in the country. Several teams in the Big Sky had schedules that weren't even in the top 250....and last year was a better year than normal actually in terms of schedules for the Big Sky. That's sad.

Another way to improve RPI would be avoid adding bottom dwellers with little fan support, horrible facilities and programs that haven't been horrible for a long time. Just playing some of the teams in the Big Sky during conference (even if you win) drops your RPI. Last year out of the 12 teams we had 8 that couldn't even crack the top 200 for RPI. Half of the conference couldn't even crack the top 250! Four of them weren't even in the top 300. That's downright pathetic and how it is every damn year.

Look at the RPI of Big Sky teams over the years and you'll start to notice something again...there are just a couple consistent teams that are at least in the top 200 every year (with an occasional and very rare bad year). Griz being one of them.

It gets very old to see year after year teams that schedule good out of conference schedules to help boost RPI, exposure for their team and hopefully pick up an upset or two end up having their RPI plummet when conference play begins.

Right now the Big Sky is bloated as a conference and it's not bloated with good teams with good facilities or good fan support... It's bloated with teams that don't even seem to give a rats ass about their own basketball programs, don't even make an attempt at scheduling quality opponents, and probably were a big part of the reason as to why the conference championship tournament is now going to be hosted at a neutral location and ALL 12 teams are going to participate (seriously...wtf...)

It's almost like the people making the decisions for the Big Sky and voting on this crap are doing everything they can to make our conference worse, more of a laughing stock, and making sure that we have to play in the play-in game or get a shitty seed every year. Quality over Quantity would be nice when adding teams...but no they seem to think cramming as many teams into the conference as possible & having every conference team participate in the tournament is a good idea.

 

[marceagfan5]

I actually think Fullerton has done a pretty good job. Wish he would have brought in NDSU but besides that I think he has bigger plans for the Big Sky in terms of football and he's looking at a much bigger picture down the road. I know he's mentioned the Big Sky and FBS and its been discussed before, eventually trying to separate the BSC into two divisions and looking at moving one of them to the FBS.

I also think the Big Sky had a down year in football and people start looking at it as if its a trend and blaming Fullerton, which in reality is just a bad year, not a trend. I don't like the playoff scheduling, but most FCS schools don't make a ton of $$$ on their football programs so they moved to regionalization in the first two rounds. I hate the fact UM played NDSU and EWU in back to back years in the 2nd round, when they played each other during the regular season.

The only thing I think was a mistake was moving the BSC B-ball tourney to Reno, but they haven't hosted a game yet, so I guess the proof will be in the pudding...

I think he's done an awful job.

FULLERTON: Let's see, why don't we add a bunch of crappy programs to a conference that already only has two programs that can draw more than 10k in attendance. What's that? The BSC will have almost every FCS program in the west so teams won't have as many OOC scheduling options without extensive travel? No worries. They can go ahead and play each other in "non-conference" games that won't count toward their conference records even though another team might have played the same team as a conference game. It makes perfect sense. Everybody doesn't have to play everybody, no two divisions, no conference championship game. I bet SUU wins it inside of five years! Ready, break!

I think the end result or at least the plan for it is Fullerton thinks he can divide the conference into an FBS and FCS division. Its a slippery slope to walk and if the Big Sky is stuck with a Mega FCS conference that could be considered a failure, I'm willing to give it a few years to see how it all shakes out as I still think the Power 5 BCS conferences are eventually going off to their own division, as if they haven't already.

Montana is the school getting screwed in this situation so I can see how Griz fans aren't happy. Montana is the pride of the Big Sky in terms of athletics, fans, $$$, so it sucks on your end because you are stuck in a conference with a bunch of FCS schools with little support that are mostly regional universities. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of other options out there for the Griz...and I'm pretty sure you guys are tied to MSU at the hip in terms of going somewhere else...

 

[CDAGRIZ]

Man, I almost forgot about that potential Sac State BSC tournament venue. They were going to play the conference tournament in a ballroom!

 

[billings_poke]

FCS playoffs are a weird compromise to me. Regionalization, lack of seeding, the whole bidding thing, etc. seems like the deck is a bit stacked in the playoffs depending on who you are and not the team you have on the field or the year they had..

 

[kemajic]

FCS playoffs are a weird compromise to me. Regionalization, lack of seeding, the whole bidding thing, etc. seems like the deck is a bit stacked in the playoffs depending on who you are and not the team you have on the field or the year they had..

Do you think "the deck is a bit stacked in the playoffs" is reserved for FCS?

 

[RABIDAWG]

IMHO, certain teams (you know who you are) should drop to Div II based on school size, enrollment forecasts, athletic facilities, etc. This would trim the BSC a little. Unfortunately, UM is headed that direction thanks to our "flagship" leadership.

 

[billings_poke]

FCS playoffs are a weird compromise to me. Regionalization, lack of seeding, the whole bidding thing, etc. seems like the deck is a bit stacked in the playoffs depending on who you are and not the team you have on the field or the year they had..

Do you think "the deck is a bit stacked in the playoffs" is reserved for FCS?

nope.