Alternate History Sports / It's College Game Day!

**Posted by mf aint** 10/28/2021 8:17 pm

I like option 1, geographically just makes more sense in my brain

**Posted by Dan O'Mac** 10/28/2021 8:22 pm

I'd like to have a bid process for bowls. I.E. as the owner of the AltFL's Emperors, I'd submit to have a bowl in our stadium.

**Posted by Gritty** 10/28/2021 8:39 pm

Dan O'Mac wrote:
I'd like to have a bid process for bowls. I.E. as the owner of the AltFL's Emperors, I'd submit to have a bowl in our stadium.

Yeah we'll do a bowl nomination process so we can discuss all that.

**Posted by FC Macbeth** 10/28/2021 8:43 pm

Gritty wrote:
Love the progress people are making on their schools. Our number has settled down at a perfect number - 32. That means that we should be able to have 4 conferences of 8 teams. Ideally the conferences would have an even number of teams. That'll help scheduling next year. While people are designing their schools I want us to build out the conferences and bowl games. This will set up our Legacy Project for the AltCAA (more on that to come!).

We received a number of ideas in terms of conferences. Most of them were rather similar so I decided to synthesize them into two main options. It is important to note that these are not the final options but rather starting points. I already see a few places that we could tinker (especially around the Great Lakes + finding another Western school). But the main structure is there. Most of the submissions suggested four conferences...for those that had more conferences I built in the idea of smaller divisions within conferences. Here are the two main ideas from the submissions. We'll worry about conference names once we lock these downs. If you have any ideas to tinker just respond below. We'll gather the suggestions and move on from there. Here's also the map again - I highlighted the schools according to option 1.

A couple of things to consider. Due to the length of the college football season we will be having a 10 game regular season.

This means that every school will play a seven-game conference schedule every year with the rivalry game coming at the end.

That leaves three weeks to schedule non-conference games.

24/32 schools will be eligible for bowl games at the end of the season.

Each conference will have a designated Major Bowl game that they will send their champion. The major bowl games will serve as the first round of the 8 team playoff. The champions will be ranked 1-4. The champions will then host an at large school. 1v8, 2v7, 3v6, 4v5 in each of the major bowl games. The winners will then advance to the semi-finals.

For fun, we will have bowl games for those schools not in the playoff. There will be 6 additional Minor Bowl games.

For example:
Major Bowl Game 1 - West Champions vs. At Large
Major Bowl Game 2 - East Champions vs. At Large
Major Bowl Game 3 - Plains Champions vs. At Large
Major Bowl Game 4 - Great Lakes Champions vs. At Large
Minor Bowl Game 1 - West #2 vs. East #2
Minor Bowl Game 2 - Plains #2 vs. Great Lakes #2
Minor Bowl Game 3 - West #3 vs. Great Lakes #3
Minor Bowl Game 4 - Plains #3 vs. East #3
Minor Bowl Game 5 - West #4 vs. Plains #4
Minor Bowl Game 6 - East #4 vs. Great Lakes #4

If conferences send at large teams to the playoff then everyone gets moved up a slot. We'd then fill the backend with at-larges.

From here we will discuss the merits of the options, Adjust if necessary. Then eventually vote. We'll then come up with conference names, logos and start to develop our bowl games. Once all of that is done we can start exploring the legacy project.

Gritty, I think you didn't update my college. Would it be too late to change it?

**Posted by Gritty** 10/28/2021 8:48 pm

Nope PM the update. Oh Victoria now right?

**Posted by Burmy87** 10/28/2021 10:21 pm

Option #2 please...WIT wants their in-state, Minnesota AND Chicago rivalries.

**Posted by Section30** 10/28/2021 11:56 pm

I also would personally like Option 2

**Posted by QCS** 10/29/2021 12:07 am

I personally would rather we experiment more with divisions. 4 conferences of 8 seems... dull for what college sports could bring. Obviously we don't have as many schools as in real life but I think we go a little more creative than what's presented here. The massive amount of schools in the Midwest are kinda messing with us right now, but maybe we use that to our advantage and have a massive conference of the Midwest?

**Posted by Gritty** 10/29/2021 10:38 am

So I'm down with whatever everyone would like. Just a few things to think about. We need the conferences to be as close to even as possible. So try breaking down 32 teams in creative ways. If the conferences aren't even then some teams will be able to schedule more non-conference games which can throw things off balance wise.

When it comes to dubbing conference champions - the only fair way to do that would probably be conference record. This because I assume people are excited to be able to schedule their own non-conference games. And overall records wouldn't be fair in that case. So the fewer teams that are in a conference, the few games that a team would play. So if we get rid of at larges (or most of them) theoretically a team could go 4-6, (4-0) in conference and then make the playoff over a school who is 7-3 (2-2) in conference.

We can really only have 8 playoff teams if we want a decent regular season. So by adding conferences we will be limiting the number of at large teams.

So some breakdowns could be (32 teams)

4 conferences of 8.
8 conferences of 4
4 conferences of 5, 2 conferences of 6

Once, again I am flexible just want us to consider the execution in addition to the creativity and the granular regional ideas. Our conferences are actually more regionally focused than the real life ones.

**Posted by mf aint** 10/29/2021 11:36 am

Yea conference champs have to be determined by conference record, then at-large bids take into account overall record (ideally finding the next 4 best teams regardless of conference affiliation). Gotta be the 4 conferences of 8 teams, in terms of balance nothing else is even close. The West looks settled regardless, so I'll leave eastern/central/southern alignment to those with a hat in the ring