Sorry for the confusion dahsdebater yes I agree those schools have a significant advantage not to be dismissed. What I meant to say is that saying Illinois has too high a baseline ( they do) is not fundamentally unfair for game play, but just makes Illinois more attractive that mizzou.

Posted by jslotman on 8/8/2011 9:10:00 PM (view original):
Conference success shouldn't have anything to do with an individual school's prestige. I brought this up in another ticket and haven't seen a response.

This won't be a popular opinion, but I disagree with this. When you're at a bottom-feeder school in a Big-6 conference(say you take over "C" Northwestern), you need to be able to compete first and foremost with your conference mates. Without a conference success bump to prestige, you'd never be able to recruit players good enough to compete in conference, no matter how much cash you had. The players simply wouldn't talk to you.

Posted by wronoj on 8/8/2011 10:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jslotman on 8/8/2011 9:10:00 PM (view original):
Conference success shouldn't have anything to do with an individual school's prestige. I brought this up in another ticket and haven't seen a response.

This won't be a popular opinion, but I disagree with this. When you're at a bottom-feeder school in a Big-6 conference(say you take over "C" Northwestern), you need to be able to compete first and foremost with your conference mates. Without a conference success bump to prestige, you'd never be able to recruit players good enough to compete in conference, no matter how much cash you had. The players simply wouldn't talk to you.

I'm somewhere in between, both points are valid.

I do agree with what wronoj that there is a good reason for conference prestige to play some role.

That said, I agree with js that right now it plays too large a role.

Posted by kannc6 on 8/8/2011 9:06:00 PM (view original):
Girt, I am unsure what there are some gaps there means. Please elaborate. My point is that the best coaches have taken advantage of the rules. They will always do that.. OR's point about the balloon is excellent. I don't see huge issues. New coaches are moving into the top 20 every year in my world and no conference has shown dominance. (a-10) had a good run, but seems to be slipping because coaches are deserting, not because they have not been successful.

I do agree that there should be more flexibility in baseline. Of course some schools have improper bases, but that doesn't affect fairness from a gameplay aspect, just which schools are given the advantage initially.

I thought I elaborated on the gaps in your logic -- you blamed the current state of DI on a lack of interest promotion from Fox. But that's been the case forever, and DI was much healthier and more robust even when Fox was doing nothing for HD. The timeline is clear in that DI went downhill directly after recruit generation.

And this is not the best coaches taking advantage of the rules. (And I say that as the coach of the top program in the top conference in all of HD ... as such I have more reason to rationalize and idealize the status quo than anyone, but I know it's bad for the game.) A lot of the best coaches are not even in BCS conferences, and a lot of mediocre coaches are in BCS conferences and simply riding others' coattails. This is not about "the best coaches taking advantage of the rules" whatsoever. That notion is silly.

This is about a setup that makes it extremely difficult for those outside the BCS to succeed in a meaningful way, and the fact that it's driven many coaches -- good, bad and mediocre -- from DI in such numbers that it's turned almost all of the non-BCS conferences into ghost towns. That's incredibly self explanatory.

Ok call my logic silly, but I disagree completely. Many coaches have success through levels of the game, but struggle when they get to the top levels of the game. I disagree that it is too hard to get to the top levels. This is a dynasty game and it should take many years to get to the top. Coaches are doing it right now in iba. Many people become disappointed they are no longer as successful when they get to the top. Prestige has issues, and recruit generation isn't perfect, but people have ******* about something since day one and will continue to do so. I have no faith in the implementation of a new recruit generation. To call it the biggest problem in the game is a exaggeration.

To say that the top coaches do not take advantage of all of the weapons at their disposal is well...silly...we have seen the slippage of our (iba) premiere conference after the departure of lm2 and others. The biggest reason for their departure is a fear of baseline, the decline is not about recruit generation.. They are good coaches and they are going to good conferences. Smart people do that. Funny thing is I dont particularly like the way recruits are done, but I think this whole chicken little attitude is...dare I say.....silly

The game is dying a natural death on the heels of its purchase by fox. The game has essentially reached it potential without some external driving force... No one wants to be at the bottom of d1, when they can be a star at d2.. That is onky natural. Prior ownership had flaws, but had a passion for his product. Current ownership doesn't seem to care...

Finally I think the problems of the have nots in bcs conferences are as serious or mores that that of the mid majors... Taking a c school in a bcd is a very tough road..

Honestly, I feel like you're speaking a different language than I am.

Ok call my logic silly, but I disagree completely. Many coaches have success through levels of the game, but struggle when they get to the top levels of the game. I disagree that it is too hard to get to the top levels. This is a dynasty game and it should take many years to get to the top. Coaches are doing it right now in iba. Many people become disappointed they are no longer as successful when they get to the top.
I didn't say that it's too hard to get to the top levels, or that coaches are struggling when they get to the top levels. Not sure where that's coming from. It feels like you're responding to something I'm not even saying, creating some kind of bizarre straw man.

Prestige has issues, and recruit generation isn't perfect, but people have ******* about something since day one and will continue to do so. I have no faith in the implementation of a new recruit generation. To call it the biggest problem in the game is a exaggeration.
Again, the non-BCS desertion from DI coincides exactly with the recruit generation change. And coach after coach have cited this as the biggest problem.

To say that the top coaches do not take advantage of all of the weapons at their disposal is well...silly...
Again, you are responding to something I have not said. Just weird.
You claimed that what's happening is simply "the best coaches taking advantage of the rules" but offered up nothing to support that. What I said was this has nothing to do with the very best coaches -- that many of the very best coaches are not in BCS conference, many mediocre coaches are, and many of the best coaches dropped DI teams after this change. Your argument does not make sense, at least not the way you've presented it.

we have seen the slippage of our (iba) premiere conference after the departure of lm2 and others. The biggest reason for their departure is a fear of baseline, the decline is not about recruit generation..
Fear of baseline? Baseline wouldn't matter all that much if it was more feasible for low-mid DI teams to make deep runs and meaningfully increase their prestige, and more feasible for low/mid teams to recruit players who (at least in 2-3 seasons) can compete with BCS schools. This is how it was before the change, and there were a ton of extremely successful low/mid DI programs. Now there are incredibly few. The baseline prestige of these schools was the same before when a ton of them were successful. So clearly that's not the issue.

They are good coaches and they are going to good conferences. Smart people do that. Funny thing is I dont particularly like the way recruits are done, but I think this whole chicken little attitude is...dare I say.....silly
LOL. Chicken little attitude. If you wanted to attempt to call it chicken little when OR, VD, myself and others predicted this would happen the minute we saw the new recruit generation, then sure, you could've called it chicken little at that time. Of course, you would've been proved to have been wrong, because it had the very crippling effect on DI that OR, myself and others predicted from the beginning.

The game is dying a natural death on the heels of its purchase by fox.
You are either responding to things I'm not saying, or alternatively ignoring the things I am saying. Again, the game thrived for a long time after the Fox purchase ... and the game was never promoted/advertised before Fox. So how in the world can you claim that Fox/lack of advertising is the culprit? Again, that simply does not follow logically.

CS has responded to my ticket, and their response is basically that they don't have a problem with conference success having an impact on a given school's prestige.  I just keep coming back to the fact that a school in Allen ACC went 0-27 at one point in the not-too-distant past and never dropped below a B, but has now gone from a B to an A- strictly on one good Elite Eight run and the fact that the ACC pretty much dominated the NT this season. 

Allen DI is just an impossible situation right now, and I'm not sure there's a way it can be fixed.  Either recruit generation needs to be changed, there needs to be less randomness in early entries,  or prestige (both baseline and conference impact) needs to be changed in some form or fashion, or we're going to continue in a situation where one group of 8-10 coaches are truly the only ones with a shot at winning the NT in any given season. 

Got a reply to my ticket as well:

Thanks for the feedback. We're always looking for ways to improve the game, so we'll take this into consideration for future changes.

Lol, we'll take it into consideration. They might as well just tell you to f**k off.

This is why I rarely submit tickets.  I've yet to have one resolved to the customer's satisfaction. 

I got a response from seble confirming that they are aware of the current problem in DI.

Despite getting an annoying, semi-automated response, getting lots of tickets does move the needle on their awareness and sometimes even on action. They're worth sending.

Posted by jslotman on 8/9/2011 9:30:00 AM (view original):
CS has responded to my ticket, and their response is basically that they don't have a problem with conference success having an impact on a given school's prestige.  I just keep coming back to the fact that a school in Allen ACC went 0-27 at one point in the not-too-distant past and never dropped below a B, but has now gone from a B to an A- strictly on one good Elite Eight run and the fact that the ACC pretty much dominated the NT this season. 

Allen DI is just an impossible situation right now, and I'm not sure there's a way it can be fixed.  Either recruit generation needs to be changed, there needs to be less randomness in early entries,  or prestige (both baseline and conference impact) needs to be changed in some form or fashion, or we're going to continue in a situation where one group of 8-10 coaches are truly the only ones with a shot at winning the NT in any given season. 

Conference/basline holding up teams isn't just in Allen.  The Big East in Crum isn't nearly as dominant as Allen ACC, but below is Syracuse's recent history:

Season	Coach	Overall W-L	Home W-L	Road W-L	Neutral W-L	Conf W-L	Rank	RPI	Prestige	Notes
47	marengom	0-26	0-13	0-13	0-0	0-16		302	-
46	wisefella99	0-27	0-9	0-17	0-1	0-16		294	B-
45	wisefella99	0-27	0-18	0-8	0-1	0-16		322	B-

They are currently at a B prestige, having moved up after marengom took over (and he should be celebrated for doing so - that was as toxically bad a situation as I've ever seen, wise gave walkons schollies, there were 8 SO and 4 FR on that team that would struggle to win 10 games in DIII). 

I don't have a huge problem with this.  I think the site has made the argument that despite time being mismanaged, the elites are still the elites, and kids are still going to want to play in a BCS conference to play in front of big crowds and on TV.  That argument and wrono's point that a team needs to be able to compete with conference mates is enough to convince me that there needs to be a limit to how far teams can fall.  You can debate whether or not B is low enough, and I wouldn't argue too much that that team might have bounced back too quickly. 

Latest response from CS: 

I understand your argument, but conference is always going to be a factor in prestige. I think that's not really the cause of what you're pointing out. It's more about baseline prestige than conference.

Posted by girt25 on 8/9/2011 11:08:00 AM (view original):
I got a response from seble confirming that they are aware of the current problem in DI.

Despite getting an annoying, semi-automated response, getting lots of tickets does move the needle on their awareness and sometimes even on action. They're worth sending.

Do you mind posting the response?

wasn't the situation with wisefella some sort of protest because he didn't get a job despite having won a national championship in the last couple of seasons?  Like he was at A+ and wasn't eligible for an A- gig (or something to that effect).