It has been suggested by the great coach, bbunch of Longwood, that the CVAC and Heartland conferences, the 2 most full conferences in D2 Iba, begin playing a Heartland-CVAC challenge.  Mr. bbunch, as a representative of the Heartland, your challenge is accepted.  Let's use this thread to discuss the format of the challenge.

Let the discussion begin.

My suggestion would be that we play the challenge in either game 4 or game 10 of the non-confernece slate, with a preference for game 10.  That gives all of our FR time to mature a bit and for us all to figure out what we have in our teams before playing the challenge.  I would suggest we use RPI from the season before the schedule is set to set up the matchups.  So in this case, if we start the challenge with season 57, the matchups would be based off of season 55 RPIs and Heartland #1 would play CVAC #1, so on and so forth.  The only complicating factor is that in a lot of cases, the #1 teams from both conferences will be playing in the Yarnell.  If that happens, CVAC #1 will play Heartland #2 and Heartland #1 will play CVAC #2.  All other matchups would be the same (3 vs. 3, 4 vs. 4, etc.).

As for determining home and away, let's alternate season's using the following setup based off of the Heartland's final standings.

Season 1:
Heartland teams 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 all play at home.
Heartland teams 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 all play on the road.

Season 2:
Heartland teams 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 all play on the road
Heartland teams 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 all play on the road.

I will gladly serve as commisioner for the challenge if that is ok with everyone.  We will need one person telling everyone who to schedule.  I would nominate caesari as the Challenge's record keeper.  He can update us every season on the results of the challenge and how the series stands over time.  Lastly, I would nominate Mr. davefilby as our game recapper (check out what he was doing on the D2 Iba thread last season...the man can write a mean recap!).

Thoughts?

CVAC season 55 final standings:

Using my suggestion for matchups, the matchups for the first challenge would be:

Pfeiffer @ St. Mary's (TX)
Incarnate Word @ Longwood
Belmont Abbey @ Rockhurst
Oklahoma Panhandle St. @ Limestone
Barton @ N. Alabama
Valdosta St. @ Queens U (NC)
Erskine @ St. Edwards
Drury @ Coker
Anderson @ W. Florida
W. Alabama @ Mount Olive
St. Andrews Presbyterian @ Montevallo
Lincoln @ Lees-McRae

WHOO!! So, let me ask a question: Will matchups be based on the teams' records from the season before hand? ie since I went 10-17, would that make me  schedule Mount Olive, since our records are the closest? Actually, some in the Heartland are closer, so maybe we'd do it off final standings (either West v West and East v East, or overall conference standings). Thoughts?

caesari, I think using final RPI standings makes the most sense.  That way in theory we are matching up the most closely matched teams.  West vs. West and East vs. East could be interesting too.

That's probably true. Sounds good to me. So we are going to close noncon with this? We could open with this as well, and make it a 2 week thing...

I think just a 1 game challenge is best.  If you look at what the major conferences in D1 in real life do when they have challenges it is 1 game for everyone.

Fine by me.

Sounds fun to me!

I would also add that I would encourage our teams to play each other in additional non-confernece games as well, not just in the challenge.  I have historically played Longwood and Limestone a lot and would love to keep rivalries going there if I'm not playing those teams in the Challenge or Yarnell.

I like the one game format, but would suggest a scheduling tweak. 

In game 1, the 12 seeds from each conference meet.  Game 2 the 11 seeds meet, and etc until game 10 when the remaining top 3 seeds in each conference square off. 

I like this because:
a) I don't want to do 12 writeups in one day  
b) I like the idea of the challenge building over the course of non-con.  You've got something to track each day as opposed to everything happening in one day.  That's one of the things I like about the Yarnell, that you can see how if unfolds for 5 games.

Scheduling might be a tad more difficult, but manageable IMO.  It does extend through the Yarnell, but the odds of a 4 seed or lower in the Yarnell should be remote.

Regardless of how we schedule, I'm guessing we'll need to have a little flexibility, especially the first time.  With 24 individuals, something will get messed up.

sounds great to me, count me in (Limestone)

I also like the idea of trying to schedule it with some games earlier in non-conference like dave said.

I plan to keep playing some other teams anyway in heartland... (I need the easy wins*)


*jk

I like that idea dave.  We can spread it out over the 10 days of non-conference play starting with the 12 vs. 12 game.  The only tweak I would suggest is having 3 vs. 3 and 4 vs. 4 at game 9 and 1 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2. (which in most seasons will really be 1 vs. 2 and 2 vs. 1 since both conferences tend to put a team in the Yarnell) at game 10.