No, more people would probably watch. I don't watch 16/1, 15/2 games. Most often they are ugly, even in the rare occasions when its close.
Cinderellas are relative. NCSU was a Cinderella in 1983. 10 conferences could disappear from Division I and nobody would notice. Probably 15. The tourney was a big deal when there were 250 Division I teams instead of 364 and it was a 48 team tourney.
Now if you were to take gambling out, then that hurts viewership! 64 does make for nice brackets.
I don't see how the P4/5 stay in a 364 school Division I basketball tourney with the NCAA keeping the bulk of the revenue. Some sort of breakaway seems inevitable. But is it a P4/5?, FBS?, or FBS + BE?, or FBS + BE + 3-5 other conferences? Its not going to be all 31 Division I conferences (not counting Pac 12). If 10 conferences dropped to Division II, nobody would notice.
https://sports.yahoo.com/with-college-sports-at-a-critical-juncture-is-project-di-the-answer-everything-is-on-the-table-161809460.html
P5 commissioners (guess Kliavcoff hasn't been excommunicated yet) meeting with NCAA president Baker. SEC and Big 10 don't like Baker's proposal.
Good stuff in article. But this is a big takeaway:
"...In no secret, the two commissioners of the behemoths, SEC’s Greg Sankey and Big Ten’s Tony Petitti, have developed a close relationship, communicate regularly and hold the power to steer college football’s future.
Its direction is quite clear. Both Sankey and Petitti have expressed an intent to both accelerate NCAA governance and condense the amount of schools operating under a single umbrella. “How do you take larger groups and make them smaller to drive forward?” Petitti asked in an interview last year with Yahoo Sports...."
Its simple. The top 4 champs get the byes. Everyone else plays the first round.
I haven't heard specific discussion on whether the top 4 champs are seeded 1 to 4 or if they simply get the bye. I suspect they are 1-4. The fourth, regardless of whether they are ranked #4 or #14, will still get the toughest 1st round winner in the 2nd round.
Georgia had one less loss than Bama. They lost by the narrowest of margins. Had 4 common opponents and blasted two who Bama narrowly beat and did better against UK who both stomped and won solidly over Auburn who Alabama beat on a prayer. In the SEC CCG, Bama got a few breaks and just wanted it more that day. The rest of the season UGA was a better team. It wasn't a fluke they were ranked #1 before the Bama loss. Its not just about FSU.
One thing to feel good about is that we didn't have luck with injuries. Ewers missed 2 games. Brooks was lost for the season in game 10--we had good depth, but Brooks really is a difference maker. Sanders, Whittington and Worthy were banged up pretty much the whole 2nd half of the season. Mitchell may have been the only key offensive playmaker at full strength throughout (and maybe he was hampered and I missed it).
Don't know how many of you noticed it, but the OU player getting a humanitarian award did a horns down while getting the award. He got roundly booed. OU being OU.
Seemed like almost all the Texas fans left real quick after the incompletion. Its hard to get out of the Superdome.
I brought my wife. I thought her curse was over. She's been to 5 Sugar Bowls now and her team has lost every one. She went to 2 when she was in school at UGA, but skipped the one where they beat ND and won the MNC. She went with me to the one vs. the Hokies in '95 when we had a player even older than Stetson Bennet (Ron McKelvey/Weaver for you youngsters). And she was rooting for Georgia when we played them after the 2018 season.
I guess one consolation. The women wearing Burnt Orange were just SO much better looking than the ones in purple.
Yeah. We did better than I expected this season. We had our chance with 1st down from the 12. The other team just had a better plan and executed better.
We had one guy covering tight and the other 10-15 yards back, often not even in front of him, but closer to the center of the field. So they could pass to the soft coverage and get a block from the other guy. When they sent 3 receivers wide, it would be 3 on 3 with only one playing tight.
I really thought we should have gone for it on 4th and 4. Then we only needed a FG to win if we make it. We knew we were only going to have 10-15 seconds if we didn't get the onside kick. But we got lucky with the injury timeout.
I'm sure its been mentioned in these 120 pages, but our pass defense scheme was awful. I guess we were scared of the deep ball so we played soft on the corners. They had a 5 yard gimme every play. And somehow, even though we rarely blitzed, we had one on one all over the field. So 5 receivers vs. 7 defenders, but it was always one on one. Maybe our linebackers were covering the middle with no receivers in the area.
On offense we could score at will, but bogus penalties killed our drives in the first quarter and helped theirs. Two bogus holding calls. Then I had never seen a block below the waist called on the defense before. We should have run more. But Ewers was just out of sync. Too much adrenaline. Still had a chance if he could have executed on one of those last 4 plays.
Well if its against the bylaws he doesn't have the authority. Now, if you are saying ESPN had a legal right to rely on him, that is certainly possible.