Future Big Sky Scheduling

[uofmman1122]

FiveThirtyEight had a great article today on a slightly unorthodox, but very appealing conference scheduling system that's based on high school debate scheduling (or for even bigger nerds, similar to the arena matchmaking system in Hearthstone).

Basically, three of the eight conference scheduled games would be against "rivals", kind of like the awful system that is in place now, split out in the season on different weeks (ex. rivalry games would be conference week 3, 5, and 7, or interchangeable with OOC games if OOC games are happening later in the year). So for example, we'd play Idaho week 3, EWU week 5, and MSU week 7.

The remaining five conference games would be split into two groups. The first two would be strong vs weak and then strong vs strong based on the previous season's results. So we'd play a team like Portland State for our weak game and maybe Weber as our strong game based on 2016 results.

And here's the rub: the remaining three games would be played (as closely as possible) between teams of the same conference record, if they haven't already or aren't scheduled to play in a future week. That way, weeks 4, 6, and 8 would make sure that the best teams have to play each other each year.

Silver's article's point is that this would make conference championship games unnecessary, but since we don't have a championship game, at the very least it would put an end to the horribly unbalanced scheduling that this conference has. It would also do a great job of weeding out pretenders who have soft early schedules, as well as not punishing strong teams that got a tough opening few games, as they would play the weaker teams in the lead up to the end of the year slobberknockers.

I didn't cover everything in complete detail, but reading this was incredibly interesting as a BSC football fan who hates our conference scheduling. Take a read if you have time and let me know what you think.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/make-college-football-great-again/

 

[Grizzly Oredigger]

I could see tie-breakers getting complicated with a 6-way tie for first...only kind of kidding

I do like the intent of the idea although it would most likely never happen

 

[mcg]

Great idea! My simple minded idea would for the last week if the season to be "wildcard week" with the first place team playing the second place team, 3 vs 4 ect...

Obviously a scheduling and logistical nightmare, but a least the conference champ would have to 'play somebody'

 

[IdaGriz01]

Hmmm ... think I have a headache. Took me awhile to wrap my head around it, but it does seem like a better idea than the some of the outrageous in-conference SOS mismatches we get with the current system. (And, as discussed on some other threads, all the big conferences see the same thing.)

First negative: "It's never been done before." (At least in football.) That's usually enough for stick-in-the-mud bureaucrats.

But the notion is hard to grasp, and I'm not sure how you'd sell it to season-ticket holders. Maybe knowing the OOC, "rivalry" games, and the first two conference games would be enough ... but having "TBD" penciled in for a lot of the later games in the season might put a damper on sales. It would certainly take a better PR (educational) campaign that is likely to happen from the Big Sky or UM.

 

[G-BEARS]

I might have to reread it incase I misunderstood it. But it sounds to me that that would be even worse for the griz. If Idaho does claim us as a rival, we will play Idaho, Eastern, and Msu every year who it seems like should be top conference opponents most years. And then we'd play the 'strong conference opponents' it seems to me with the rivalry aspect we would be playing a tougher schedule than most Big sky teams because of this, whether thats a good thing or a bad thing is a different debate, but I feel that this would make the already unfair Big sky even more unfair.

 

[kemajic]

Ignores the issue that many fans travel long distances to the games and have to plan the trip, accommodations, etc. Less likely to do that when you don't even know the schedule. It could have a hit attendance-wise not unlike playoff games now.

 

[G-BEARS]

I honestly think this would screw things up to another degree than it already is...

 

[G-BEARS]

Ignores the issue that many fans travel long distances to the games and have to plan the trip, accommodations, etc. Less likely to do that when you don't even know the schedule. It could have a hit attendance-wise not unlike playoff games now.

I'm pretty sure you would still know the schedule in the summer before.

 

[IdaGriz01]

Ignores the issue that many fans travel long distances to the games and have to plan the trip, accommodations, etc. Less likely to do that when you don't even know the schedule. It could have a hit attendance-wise not unlike playoff games now.

I'm pretty sure you would still know the schedule in the summer before.

You would not know all the later games using his approach. First, IMO, you would only do two “rivalry” games since Big Sky teams play only eight conference games, not the nine that he uses in his formula. His formula has rivalry games as 2, 4 and 7 in conference (note that he has two games after the last rivalry game). So a Big Sky version would put those at (say) 2 and 7. As an example, I picked an older schedule where we played EWU (our other rivalry game, shown with an *) as the second conference game of the season. Here’s what fans would see when season tickets went on sale:

South Dakota
Appalachian State
Liberty

NAU
EWU*
No Colo
Flex #1
Flex #2
Flex #3
MSU*
Flex #4

By his method “flex or power-paired matchups” have teams play “against others with similar records that they haven’t played previously and that they aren’t already scheduled to play against in the future.” Not sure how you would sell tickets to a schedule with that much unknown -- and not much better even if you did have a third (known) rivalry game.

 

[IdaGriz01]

In my posting just above on this topic, I did not label which games were Home and which Away. That was because I figured it wouldn't make much difference for season ticket holders. They'd know when they had to be in Missoula for a home conference game ... and past history says they don't much care who the opponent is.

Then, recalling back when we were season ticket holders, I realized that Away games would matter a lot too. And that's true even more, now that we've given up our season tickets (winter travel is much more of a challenge to us old folks). When the schedule comes out, we always check to see what Away games -- at ISU, obviously, for us -- we might want to try to get to. I'm sure that's true of a lot of fans. But under this guy's scheme, for the "flex" Away games ... you would not know where it would be until the Saturday evening before that game. Seems like a deal-breaker to me.

 

[kemajic]

Ignores the issue that many fans travel long distances to the games and have to plan the trip, accommodations, etc. Less likely to do that when you don't even know the schedule. It could have a hit attendance-wise not unlike playoff games now.

I'm pretty sure you would still know the schedule in the summer before.

You need to read the article again.

 

[G-BEARS]

Ignores the issue that many fans travel long distances to the games and have to plan the trip, accommodations, etc. Less likely to do that when you don't even know the schedule. It could have a hit attendance-wise not unlike playoff games now.

I'm pretty sure you would still know the schedule in the summer before.

You need to read the article again.

Yeah you're right...