D1 National Championship Game is for BCS Conf. Topic

Posted by irapost on 3/10/2014 4:53:00 PM (view original):
In the past 30 seasons (and probably more) no mid-major team has made the D1 Championship Game. That's telling me that if you do not coach in a major conference (BCS) you have no chance to even get to the NCAA D1 Title game. Is that something that is built into the SIM at this time? Can it be that hard. There are a lot of great coaches that have come up the ranks in mid-major programs. Not good.
If the assertion were changed from "no chance" to "a minuscule chance," there could be no credible opposition to the assertion. If one posits "always" or "never," one counterexample (see Girt) defeats the proposition. However, look at how incredibly hard people have had to reach to prove that it is not impossible to win a D1 championship with a team outside of the power conferences. It's silly season. 

This is the unassailable truth: due to the advantages inherent with the elite programs (Baseline prestige and lots and lots of cash), "if you do not coach in a major conference (BCS) you have no chance a miniscule chance to even get to the NCAA D1 Title game. "Oh, but back in the day, LostMyth ...." "And Girt ...." 

Miniscule: tiny, minute, small. That fits the bill.

Next topic.


3/11/2014 12:16 PM
Still not true. If you don't have a set of good coaches it doesn't matter what conference you're in you have a small chance of competing for a title. You put a group of good coaches in any non BCS conferences and give them 10 seasons, they will routinely have a title contender, even if the BCS conferences were full. Now if you have a BCS conference with just 2 or 3 coaches that conference is going to suck and those 2 or 3 coaches will struggle to field a contender.

Like I said the BCS conferences surely have a built in advantage, but it takes good coaches to take advantage of them, and a group of good coaches can overcome such advantages in a mid major conference.
3/11/2014 12:21 PM
The CUSA in Rupp is just an example of if coaches WANTED to make mid majors viable they could.

The issue is no coaches want to do it in most worlds. It's easier to goto preestablished conferences.

CURRENT Prestige of the CUSA Schools in Rupp

Marshall A+ (NT game last season)
UAB A-
Tulsa A-
Rice A-
UTEP A-
Houston B+
Tulane B+
East Carolina B+
Central Florida B+
S. Mississippi B
SMU C+
Memphis C+

The current state of WIS at D1 is a large hold over from the previous way prestige worked where it was BCS conference or bust. Now it's different. The problem is no coach wants to leave an established program to join a bad team/conference.

I'd be willing to bet if they started a new world D1 would look ALOT different.
3/11/2014 12:34 PM
Posted by tannermcc on 3/11/2014 12:34:00 PM (view original):
The CUSA in Rupp is just an example of if coaches WANTED to make mid majors viable they could.

The issue is no coaches want to do it in most worlds. It's easier to goto preestablished conferences.

CURRENT Prestige of the CUSA Schools in Rupp

Marshall A+ (NT game last season)
UAB A-
Tulsa A-
Rice A-
UTEP A-
Houston B+
Tulane B+
East Carolina B+
Central Florida B+
S. Mississippi B
SMU C+
Memphis C+

The current state of WIS at D1 is a large hold over from the previous way prestige worked where it was BCS conference or bust. Now it's different. The problem is no coach wants to leave an established program to join a bad team/conference.

I'd be willing to bet if they started a new world D1 would look ALOT different.
Exactly this.

There's a stigma that you can't win at a mid major, that just isn't based on reality.



3/11/2014 12:44 PM
There are plenty of coaches at BCS conferences that will never have a shot at a NC game either :) 
3/11/2014 2:04 PM
Posted by kmasonbx1 on 3/11/2014 12:44:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tannermcc on 3/11/2014 12:34:00 PM (view original):
The CUSA in Rupp is just an example of if coaches WANTED to make mid majors viable they could.

The issue is no coaches want to do it in most worlds. It's easier to goto preestablished conferences.

CURRENT Prestige of the CUSA Schools in Rupp

Marshall A+ (NT game last season)
UAB A-
Tulsa A-
Rice A-
UTEP A-
Houston B+
Tulane B+
East Carolina B+
Central Florida B+
S. Mississippi B
SMU C+
Memphis C+

The current state of WIS at D1 is a large hold over from the previous way prestige worked where it was BCS conference or bust. Now it's different. The problem is no coach wants to leave an established program to join a bad team/conference.

I'd be willing to bet if they started a new world D1 would look ALOT different.
Exactly this.

There's a stigma that you can't win at a mid major, that just isn't based on reality.



no, not exactly this. tanner, you say you bet if they started a new world, d1 would look a lot different. for starters, they did - twice. knight and phelan both came out AFTER the change to the way prestige worked. not surprisingly both look just like the old d1 worlds. so that comment is not even close.

to kmason's point, i have to agree with mygeneration. the fact that 12 of the best coaches in the game, including several of the "active top 10" if you will, can work together as a team to make a mid major work, doesn't really say anything about the experience of the users in the normal spectrum. people mention lostmyth but that was not even new engine era. the complaint is the new engine era has worked out mid majors, primarily through the mechanism of changing d1 recruit generation. on this front, i wholly agree. i said the same thing when girt and his band of merrymen (to borrow the phrase) set out to turn CUSA into a power house - if they succeed, it means nothing (in the context of this argument), that cast of coaches is more or less the greatest ever assembled in one conference. if they failed, it would mean a lot - it would mean it was as close to literally impossible as you could get. CUSA is one of the few high prestige mid major conferences as well, their C baseline is not really that far off the B- that has proven time and time again to be more than enough for top tier coaches - plus, geographically, it is ideal.

this is not coincidence, girt architected that conference specifically, to basically give them the best shot you could possibly have of making it work. the disadvantages of C baseline compared to a lower end big 6 conference is simply not enough to outweigh the advantages of having those coaches and the geographical distance - i don't really think anyone should be surprised by their result. of course, its still very impressive, girt's title is still very impressive, im not trying to suggest the opposite, not in the slightest. but when it takes girt (likely the single greatest coach of the past few years) and that cast of coaches to achieve the first and only mid major title in d1 since the new engine came out, this singular example cannot be used to discount the argument in general.

the reality for most coaches is that mid major success is prohibitively difficult - making the choice to stay at a mid major rather than move to the big 6, competitively unfeasible. its one thing to do it with a disadvantage, its another when the disadvantage is so large. when you look across the world, the number of coaches who can maintain top tier d1 programs with a/a+ prestige, with somewhat regular shots at the title, its quite large. of all these coaches, try to imagine how many of those same coaches could compete on that same level in a relatively normal mid major situation - its a tiny %. i believe a coach like girt could go do it on his own, but its still extremely difficult and minimally vastly more difficult than competing at that high level at a BCS school. i just don't think its genuine to point to CUSA Rupp and go "see, its possible!". while true, it goes against the spirit of the argument, nobody is saying its "completely and totally impossible to win" - or at least not the reasonable majority. the argument is the gap is simply too large, and that really comes down to opinion - but the evidence does suggest the gap really is quite large.

3/11/2014 4:55 PM (edited)
Posted by darnoc29099 on 3/10/2014 4:56:00 PM (view original):
Not sure if this post is meant for a specific world, but Marshall and girt25 in Rupp would disagree.

EDIT: I see you mean Smith now.  Posted my response as soon as you clarified.

Of course it can be done and this is the proof. I've said it countless times in other forums on this subject that there are several factors which preclude midmajors from making multiple deep runs in the tournament, none of which is baseline prestige (baseline prestige just gives you a more difficult time in the beginning and less room for error later on):

1) You need 8-10 experienced coaches in the conference. Meaning this cant be a coaches first DI experience. Coaches need to understand non-conference scheduling, recruiting AND gameplanning;
2) Teams need to maintain a human coach even once a human leaves. --- This way vacancies dont lead to teams getting killed by Sims. 

If you have these two things, it not only can but would be done far more often. C-USA is just one group of coaches that actually saw it through and kudos to them.
3/11/2014 4:54 PM
Posted by tannermcc on 3/11/2014 12:34:00 PM (view original):
The CUSA in Rupp is just an example of if coaches WANTED to make mid majors viable they could.

The issue is no coaches want to do it in most worlds. It's easier to goto preestablished conferences.

CURRENT Prestige of the CUSA Schools in Rupp

Marshall A+ (NT game last season)
UAB A-
Tulsa A-
Rice A-
UTEP A-
Houston B+
Tulane B+
East Carolina B+
Central Florida B+
S. Mississippi B
SMU C+
Memphis C+

The current state of WIS at D1 is a large hold over from the previous way prestige worked where it was BCS conference or bust. Now it's different. The problem is no coach wants to leave an established program to join a bad team/conference.

I'd be willing to bet if they started a new world D1 would look ALOT different.
Exactly.
3/11/2014 4:55 PM
Posted by kmasonbx1 on 3/11/2014 12:21:00 PM (view original):
Still not true. If you don't have a set of good coaches it doesn't matter what conference you're in you have a small chance of competing for a title. You put a group of good coaches in any non BCS conferences and give them 10 seasons, they will routinely have a title contender, even if the BCS conferences were full. Now if you have a BCS conference with just 2 or 3 coaches that conference is going to suck and those 2 or 3 coaches will struggle to field a contender.

Like I said the BCS conferences surely have a built in advantage, but it takes good coaches to take advantage of them, and a group of good coaches can overcome such advantages in a mid major conference.
The first part of this is spot on. You need good coaches. When I took over LSU in the SEC 20+ seasons ago, I had never seen a worse Big 6 conference. Coaches kept leaving and I would beg them to stay. But the contention was we cant compete with the ACC or Big 12 they have to big of an advantage in terms on $$$, prestige etc. Unfortunately, those coaches werent that experienced, as they filtered out and we filtered in a group of younger guys that understood the game better, along with some heavy hitters like OR and John, the conference has not only turned around but we are annually in the top three after often times finding ourselves 7th or 8th. Good coaches are the key.
3/11/2014 4:58 PM
Posted by mmt0315 on 3/11/2014 4:55:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tannermcc on 3/11/2014 12:34:00 PM (view original):
The CUSA in Rupp is just an example of if coaches WANTED to make mid majors viable they could.

The issue is no coaches want to do it in most worlds. It's easier to goto preestablished conferences.

CURRENT Prestige of the CUSA Schools in Rupp

Marshall A+ (NT game last season)
UAB A-
Tulsa A-
Rice A-
UTEP A-
Houston B+
Tulane B+
East Carolina B+
Central Florida B+
S. Mississippi B
SMU C+
Memphis C+

The current state of WIS at D1 is a large hold over from the previous way prestige worked where it was BCS conference or bust. Now it's different. The problem is no coach wants to leave an established program to join a bad team/conference.

I'd be willing to bet if they started a new world D1 would look ALOT different.
Exactly.
another "exactly" on a very inaccurate post... surprising :)

of course, you guys could just be referring to the top part, not any of the conclusions at the bottom. i think that part contains a reasonable opinion.

i, obviously, disagree with that opinion. to me, the question is more of can a coach viably compete in the standard mid major situations, not the top 2% of ideal situations. having an entire cast of 10-12 committed coaches (or 8-10 as someone suggested earlier) is an unreasonably high standard to me and many others. given the population in d1 outside of the big 6, its very difficult to put these kind of conferences together. many coaches other than girt have tried - most have substantial struggles. to get people REALLY committed to that conference over the period of at least a year, possibly more, its just not that easy. which again, suggests the plight of the relatively normal coach in the relatively normal situation is that mid majors are prohibitively difficult, making coaches feel forced to jump to the big 6 (ill even give 2 std deviations on that, a very aggressive position, it seems to me - im talking the middle 95%, so examples of the top 2.5% do not apply)

i don't think it should require a half dozen great coaches to make this work - the amount of influence that gives a single great coach over his individual situation is far too small.

3/11/2014 5:07 PM (edited)
all this said i agree its mostly the poor strategy of coaches at mid majors that makes it so difficult to succeed there. its all about the level of success, i suppose. its very difficult to be one of the 10 best programs in the world (not teams, programs). however, if you play it right, its easier to make the NT at a mid major than it is with low end BCS teams. this thread being about title games, however, i have to agree with the "its too hard" folks. 
 
3/11/2014 5:13 PM
Yeah...thought I bolded it --- exactly on the top part....Im not arguing the point that its not easier at a BCS school, that would be foolish. BCS conferences have 4 big time advantages:

1) Usually have more human coaches;
2) Have better conference prestige;
3) Have better baseline for individual schools; and
4) Usually have more experienced and better coaches.

I will say this, you are arguing a different point. How many coaches would be able to succeed in a Big 6 conference at an Elite, if the remainder of the conference was all run by Sims? We will never know, but few if any would be my guess. The fact coaches arent willing to because they want the easier route is each individuals right as a paying customer, but to say it cant be done because of baseline prestige is simply not accurate. To judge fairly you must take a given situation where all things are otherwise equal and then judge the results. In this topic the only way to do that is to compare other conferences of like manner. 

If you still have an ID in Knight, come join us --- the six guys in our conference are all hanging around for the long haul. With your coaching resume, it might actually be the equivalent of adding two!
3/11/2014 5:18 PM
Posted by mmt0315 on 3/11/2014 5:18:00 PM (view original):
Yeah...thought I bolded it --- exactly on the top part....Im not arguing the point that its not easier at a BCS school, that would be foolish. BCS conferences have 4 big time advantages:

1) Usually have more human coaches;
2) Have better conference prestige;
3) Have better baseline for individual schools; and
4) Usually have more experienced and better coaches.

I will say this, you are arguing a different point. How many coaches would be able to succeed in a Big 6 conference at an Elite, if the remainder of the conference was all run by Sims? We will never know, but few if any would be my guess. The fact coaches arent willing to because they want the easier route is each individuals right as a paying customer, but to say it cant be done because of baseline prestige is simply not accurate. To judge fairly you must take a given situation where all things are otherwise equal and then judge the results. In this topic the only way to do that is to compare other conferences of like manner. 

If you still have an ID in Knight, come join us --- the six guys in our conference are all hanging around for the long haul. With your coaching resume, it might actually be the equivalent of adding two!
well, ill agree WE are arguing different points :)

i think the common coach is much less concerned than you, about how an elite coach does with UNC in an 11 sim ACC compared to how they do with Steven F Austin in an 11 sim southland. this comparison, which i believe is what you are suggesting, *in no way* reflects the reality of the situations the common users face - or really, the situations any HD users face. there is no 11 sim ACC except for very new worlds and for that reason, what happens in that situation frankly is irrelevant to the discussion IF there is a problem. it is, however, relevant in the discussion of HOW to fix/address the problem because it can weigh into the discussion on root causes.

when you say, "to judge fairly you must take a given situation where all things are otherwise equal and then judge the results". this is only true when you try to pinpoint exact causes - but has nothing to do with assessing if there is an issue between situations when the reality is there are a great deal of differences between said situations. speaking to the reality by judging hypothetical situations that are completely unrealistic - it gets you nowhere. even if you test the 1 coach ACC theory, it has no bearing on the actual difficulty of coaching an actual HD mid major compared to an actual HD BCS school, at the high level of competition.

also, frankly, i disagree the argument is about baseline prestige causing this issue. this issue reached new heights in the new engine - i believe the issue is linked to recruit generation - thats what changed in d1, not baseline prestige. obviously, the two work together to create the current situation, so i suppose it is hard to point to one but not the other in a vacuum. still, the average coach is mostly just upset there is an issue, pinning it on a root cause is very much a secondary concern. so i think the first issue is, mid majors have it too tough - without a root cause attached. there is a secondary and related debate about why - but really, its tough for people to have that conversation when many reject the hypothesis in the first issue :)
3/11/2014 5:49 PM (edited)
The prestige change was made in 2012 to put less emphasis on baseline prestige.

Knight and Phelan started in 2008.
3/11/2014 5:48 PM
Posted by tannermcc on 3/11/2014 5:48:00 PM (view original):
The prestige change was made in 2012 to put less emphasis on baseline prestige.

Knight and Phelan started in 2008.
can you clarify what change you are talking about? the change that dramatically changed the way baseline prestige works came about 6 years ago. i recall no significant change in baseline prestige in 2012. are you referring to the change in the window of time used to calculate prestige, that went along with jobs? if so, i strongly disagree that put less emphasis on baseline prestige, at least at a significant level. it put less emphasis on the last season...
3/11/2014 5:50 PM
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