Posted by kmasonbx1 on 3/13/2014 10:48:00 AM (view original):
Posted by girt25 on 3/12/2014 9:01:00 PM (view original):
I don't think the major issue is money-related (although it goes without saying that is a contributing factor). As I'm fond of pointing out, the postseason cash situation has been the same forever, and it used to be quite common for non-BCS teams to be great.
Exhibit A: In Allen (where I spent a lot of time), the following teams either won the title or finished as the runner-up between Seasons 29-40: Southern, Yale, Cleveland State, Boston U, UNLV, Maine, Weber St, Utah, Morris Brown. That's 10 teams in a 12-season span, with a bunch of others making the Final Four. And the postseason cash was just as it is now. Since then (Seasons 41-68), not a single non-BCS school has made the title game.
So what happened? What changed?
The recruits. They "fixed" recruit generation so that there wouldn't be so many elite players. And to be sure, there were way too many elite players. It was a little silly. But the fix went too far, and made it so now only the top teams can get enough top-notch players to be real factors nationally. So, with very rare exceptions, you have to be a top team, and for the most part that only exists in the BCS conferences.
But do you think mid majors should have been making deep runs at that rate? That seems awfully high. Seems like it was too easy then.
I do think baseline prestige needs to be tweaked and should be a floating thing rather than static. For example your Marshall team's baseline prestige should rise with your long run of success. But I do not think a few year stretch should offset 30 seasons of mediocrity. Likewise an A+ baseline shouldn't see their baseline drop just because they had a poor few seasons. But those situations where an A+ has struggled for a long stretch their baseline should surely be dropped. Kind of like ND in real life college football, they are no longer viewed as an A+ prestige by recruits.
Maybe that was a touch high, but there were some really good coaches there, I was the Maine coach, umpikes was @ Southern, majresorter @ Cleveland St, hoosierchap @ BU, and cbriese @ UNLV are all relatively accomplished coaches - the type who probably should be able to make those runs.
I really think that the drag a conference has on a program is much too large. The reason you need to get 9+ humans in a conference isn't just to add postseason bids and get extra cash (although that is a definite plus), it is to eliminate all those D prestiges that hold an accomplished team back. Look at my tenure at Manhattan in Tark; after the following 9 year run (newest to oldest) I was told by Admin (Tarek at that time) that they were capped at an A-, the 17th highest DI prestige in Tark.
29-4, Elite 8
30-4, Final Four
31-3, Final Four
24-8, Sweet 16
35-0, National Champ
26-7, Elite 8
29-3, Sweet 16
29-3, Sweet 16
27-5, Sweet 16