Your dreams of Ohio football being regulated to a new type of D1-AA could be here sooner than you expected. Maybe prayer really does work...

Finally, a prophecy is coming true in your lifetime! 

The powers-that-be have successfully realigned the "major" conferences to clearly delineate the haves and the have-nots, paving the way for a playoff $y$tem  - just for the big boys. 

Now their plans are being publicly vocalized:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130722/big-12-bob-bowlsby-ncaa/?sct=uk_t11_a5

I personally will be saddened to see Ohio eventually be in a lower division. I did think there was true value for the university to be a member of Division 1 (or FBS, or whatever misdirectional term they used to throw you off the scent). I know some others feel this way too. I did think it was cute how some of them thought the MAC champion would get an automatic bid in a playoff system. It was almost as cute as this...





But I know alot of you guys want the small-time, college football of your yesteryear. And now your malt shop memories can be relived once again. Boy the way Glenn Miller played...

And a bigger bonus is now you Ohians can root for both Ohio and Ohio State. Just like it was prophesized in the best  selling book: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the Bobcat will lie with the Buckeye

It will be interesting to see how these changes will affect the fanbase/attendance. I assume the new D1-AA will have some sort of playoff - that might be something that gets the campus riled up. Probably even more than a Pizza or Potato bowl game.

And it's fantasy to think that a Gof5 (i.e., non-AQ) school would be allowed a fair shot to win a national championship under the football playoff system being instituted next year.  The big guys don't want it, so it ain't gonna happen.  I think they'll continue to schedule us for quite a while, simply because they need the home games; there was a Dispatch article a few weeks ago bemoaning the fact that O$U won't ever have eight home games in a season after '14 when the Big Tenfinity and it'll be damned difficult to get even seven if they start playing only other "haves."  The ironic thing is that the more success the "have-nots" have against them, the less likely they'll want us on the schedule.  I think the push to get rid of 1AAs began when App St beat Mich.  With big names like Penn St and Arky losing to non-AQs last year, the big guys don't want to run the risk of embarrassment.  That's probably what's driving them to segregate the b-ball tourney, too. 

Just being honest here but I won't care about football as much if we are in a different division.

From the NYTimes:

■ Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said there was “unanimity” among leaders from five power conferences that significant changes were needed now in the N.C.A.A.

“We all have a sense that transformative change is going to have to happen,” Bowlsby said in Dallas at the start of the Big 12’s football media days. “This is not a time when trimming around the edges is going to make very much difference.”

Bowlsby and the commissioners of the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Pacific-12 and the Atlantic Coast Conference met about six weeks ago to discuss issues, including an N.C.A.A. legislative system that makes it difficult to enact substantial changes or enforce the rules in place. There are also huge gaps in resources between universities in the same divisions.

A.C.C. Commissioner John Swofford also addressed the issue, saying significant changes could be put in place when the N.C.A.A. held its annual convention in January."


On that note, anyone who thought a College Football Playoff was ever going to include schools like the MAC were failing to see a big picture, $$$$. The interesting thing though is the power Basketball Schools that will be left out of the football picture.

I hope Christmas comes soon. Ohio in the ACC would be the best Christmas ever.

Touche and I agree-I wasn't dreaming of Ohio being relegated to a lower division and while part of me is saddened to see this happen, this has been and always was reality for Ohio. 

As I've said before in other threads, never in Ohio's football existence has it been considered part of the collegiate football bigtime and to think that it possibly had the financial werewithal to compete in the massive arms race known as the AQ is folly.  We're excited to finally get a multipurpose facility the type of which a lot of FCS schools (and most of the MAC) have had for years and even at that many alums and faculty  are griping about the costs.  We have a third rate stadium (and that's being generous) which has been discussed recently in other threads as having no immediate plans for upgrade, let alone expansion.  I truly bleed green and white but even I can't say that Peden Stadium is a first rate big time football stadium.  To say otherwise is being intellectually dishonest.   And for Ohio to truly compete on an annual basis as an AQ school would cost tens of millions of dollars that clearly no one has the ability nor desire to pay, heck Ohio cannot even raise the $ for an upgrade to the locker room (didn't another thread state that the Athletics Dept. was only able to raise a little over $100,000 for that project?) and we want to think we should be able compete with the Big 5 conferences?  I love all things Ohio, I really do, but even my Ohio glasses aren't that green that I think Ohio has the financial ability to really compete day-in and day-out with the big boys.

If there's one good thing to come out of this, maybe this will put an end to the ad infinitum talk of Ohio moving to another conference! 

Was that article authored by a Marshall or Temple grad, perchance?

My theory is this: Ohio being relegated to a different/lower conference is a bad thing only in our minds and in our minds only, it really doesn't change reality.  Hang in there with me on this.

What does this division reclassification really mean for Ohio?  How does this change things?  I think it doesn't, except in our own perception.  Our schedule mainly consists of MAC competition now anyway and that won't change.  We will still get to play one big AQ team a year-like another poster said, the AQs have to schedule us non-AQs occasionally just to complete their schedule.  So I see our schedule still basically staying the same.  Our bowl possibilities will probably stay the same.  There was a quote in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer that there could be upwards of 40 bowls in 2014 and afterwards!  We still should be able to have the bowl experiences afforded by Mobile, ALA, Shreveport, LA, New Orleans, etc.

I see what Mike's saying but I posit this: once we get over the shock of not being in the elitist of elistist football divisions we will find out that our football experience won't change a bit, at least not for the negative. 

That being said, I could be very wrong.  It's all semantics anyway-football as we know it won't exist within the next 30 years given what we're finding out about the damage concussions caused by football does to the players that play it.

currently the TV money given to the FBS is split 72/27 between the Haves and the Have Nots, how much worse can it get? And call me a Socialist, but why can't every conference get a reasonably similar share and let the big behemoth schools reap the rewards of higher ticket sales and merch revenue?

the whole system is rotten.

Did anyone verify the Bix XII's commisioner's name with someone higher up than an NTSB intern?  "Bowlsby"?  Really?

Assistant commisioner for student athlete assistance Ms. Launderer and Big XII Director of Compliance Mr. Getzoff were nowhere to be found in this article.  Auditor Jim "Fingers" Enron was also unavailable for comment due to his meeting with his counterpa... err...  a similarly titled official at the Big X.

I made this exact point before the meltdown.

Every Non-AQ should be pulling AQ games off their schedule immediately. Yes, you take a short term $ hit. However, in the long run, the AQ's realize that they can't sustain themselves without the Non-AQ's. Ohio State is going to go from 4 Non-Con Home Games per season to 3, potentially even 2? Plus, they'll have to deal with potentially losing one of these key Non-Con Road Games early in the season to destroy any National Championship hopes.

Who is Ohio State going to play in the Non Con when the Non-AQ's pull out? Vandy? Colorado? Baylor? Those are bottom feeders of the SEC, Pac-12, and Big 12. They won't accept only playing in Columbus. No, they'll want return games, in stadiums they have invested heavily in, and for fanbases who are going to be more and more rabid. Or will they fill it with 3 or 4 FCS schools? I'm sure the jags in Columbus will be happy to shell out $70 a game for Iona, Samford, and Austin Peay. Maybe for one season, tops. That will get old real quick.

Excellent point on Indiana.  Should be great to hear that they Hoosiers had to schedule 4 difficult road games in their non-conference in order to keep their budget intact. All you are doing is replacing Akron with Indiana and tarnishing IU to near-directional status in the process.

I'll say it again. Stop playing the AQ's in football and do it now. The message will be received loud and clear. If some of these Presidents would grow a pair, this would all come to a screeching halt and we would have had our seat at the table a couple years ago.

I can't do everyone's job for them.

That really is the guy's name.  Let's face it, the Ohio A&M's of the world have been trying hard for decades now to eliminate the in-state competition and now it looks like they will get their way.  Fine, screw 'em.  I won't watch a down of "Premier Division" college football, especially if they start paying the players something beyond laundry money.

In a way, this may actually help Ohio and the have nots a little.  I say this because you can bet that what little emphasis there is currently at the BCS schools to get their "student-athletes" to perform in the classroom is going to go straight out the window.  The so-called "students" will be pressured to devote 100% of their time to athletics and forego their studies (like they aren't already).

That could mean that some four and five star athletes who have half a brain in their heads and realize that they are just one torn ligament or tendon away from the end of their athletic careers may gravitate towards the "Champions" division where they will be required to maintain adequate academic progress throughout their entire collegiate career.  Those students would have a leg up on their BCS counterparts when their careers are over and they get out into the cold, cruel, real world competing for jobs.  It should also go without saying that with the cost of college being what it is getting a full scholarship isn't exactly something to sneeze at no matter how much money the big BCS school dangles in front of you.

Besides, I think it would be fun to see my beloved Bobcats in a new division with a realistic playoff format instead of the fraud the BCS powers cooked up.  I'd like to see us compete against the service academies.  I'd like to see some of the current 1-AA teams, like Northern Iowa,  or some of the Ivys, (how cool would it be to watch Harvard on the Hocking take on Ohio on the Charles?) in our division.

I would also point out that with so many people turning away from live commercial-ridden TV programming in favor of the same on a time shifted basis on the internet without commercials, one of the few avenues still available where the big media providers know they can attract eyeballs willing to sit through ads is live sporting events.  And they're willing to pay big bucks for the content too.  Play their cards right, and the Championship division teams could attract Mitt Romney money for their product, possibly even surpassing the miserly share of the pie they currently get from the NCAA.

In short, I'm saying that maintaining academic integrity ought to have some value and attraction to a certain class of athletes.  I'd much rather watch them play than a troop of dullards from Enormous State University whose next stop is the take out window at Wendy's after they get cut from whatever NFL team was dumb enough to draft them (looking at you Cleveland Browns).

More interesting to me will be the reaction of the very few BCS schools who still profess to maintain some sort of academic standards for their athletes.  Duke, Notre Dame, Stanford and Northwestern come to mind.  I suppose as long as the mega-bucks flow they'll be able to rationalize the hypocrisy.  I don't think Ohio should go that route.

Ohio State's OOC schedule every year consists of 3 home buy-out games with non-AQs and 1 home and home with a lower tier AQ. That's 7 of 8 home games every two years. If they no longer play buy out games that will mean 3 less home games every two years.

Last year OSU avgd $5.2 million in ticket rev/game. 7 home games - 6 buyouts = $30.4m in OOC ticket rev every two years. If they have to switch to an even number of home and away OOC games then their ticket revenue would be 4 home games X $5.2m= $20.8m. That's a net loss of -$9.6m + travel expenses for 3 additional  road games every 2 years.

That's not chump change, even for a cash cow. Plus you'll have to factor in a potential loss in overall ticket and merchandise sales when a team that thrives on the money from bandwagon fans starts to lose some fans off the bandwagon. Under the curent structure bandwagon buckeyes are almost always guaranteed a preseason top 25 ranking plus 3 or 4 easy home games in Sept that are low anxiety, high probability wins. It's one big party for everybody. But, what happens when they start going 2-2 or 1-3 in Sept?