NCAA 14 Custom Conference Sim Dynasty -- What if CFB was a Promotion/Relegation league??

What if the college football landscape looked like the European soccer league? I'm about to find out.

Imagine if you will...a world where the best 32 teams were split into 4 eight-team Tier 1 conferences. Every T1 conference plays a round-robin schedule: no championship game. Every conference game matters. Win or go home. Win your conference and you're guaranteed a bid in one of four premier bowl games: either the Rose, the Sugar, or the Orange....or a chance in the only postseason game that actually matters: The Championship Showdown.

If you can't hack it at T1, and you finish last in your conference, buh-bye.

Below T1 is a large pool of hopeful contenders: Tier 2 is made up of 4 16-team feeder conferences. The talent level is a little lower, but if you can emerge on top of your division, and win the Conference Promotion Game, you'll replace the T1 team that falls from the conference you feed into. Fail to manage enough mediocrity to be in the Top 15 in your conference, and your school likely slips to Tier 3. If you're last in your league at T2, you need to pray that you were at least better than two other T2 relegation candidates.

Tier 3 is where the pretenders live. In just two eight-team conferences, these schools dream of swimming up the ranks to play with the big boys. These conferences span the nation with the teams that are not quite terrible enough to have lost league affiliation, but they aren't good. As a yearly congratulations to the teams getting promoted, these schools earn a bid to the ~~Party Bowl~~ Fiesta Bowl. Finish last in your conference of losers, and you are stripped of your league affiliation entirely.

Ah, lowly Tier 4. These schools are booty cheeks. These teams are so bad that they are only loosely affiliated with the championship series. These teams are independent, and will fill their schedules by serving as cannon fodder for better squads. The best two teams each season are slotted into a T3 conference for next season.

Let's see what this looks like:

Tier 1

B1G - Bowl affiliation: Rose Bowl vs. PAC Champion
PAC - Bowl affiliation: Rose Bowl vs. B1G Champion
SEC - Bowl affiliation: Sugar Bowl vs. At-Large
B12 - Bowl affiliation: Orange Bowl vs. At-Large

B1G	PAC	SEC	B12
Ohio St	USC	Florida	Texas
Michigan	UCLA	Alabama	OU
Mich St	Washington	LSU	Notre Dame
Wisconsin	Oregon	Auburn	West Virginia
Iowa	Cal	Georgia	Clemson
Penn St	Stanford	Texas A&M	FSU
Northwestern	Arizona	Arkansas	Miami
Nebraska	Arizona St	Tennessee	Louisville

Tier 2

MAC - Feeder affiliation: B1G
MWC - Feeder affiliation: PAC
SUN - Feeder affiliation: SEC
ACC - Feeder affiliation: B12

MAC	MWC	SUN	ACC
Minnesota	Wash St	Tx Tech	Boston College
Illinois	Oregon St	OK St	Duke
Indiana	Utah	Kentucky	Ga Tech
Iowa St	Colorado	Mizzou	UNC
K-State	Air Force	South Car	Pitt
Purdue	Boise St	So. Miss	Virginia
No. Ill.	Colo St	TCU	Va. Tech
Toledo	Wyoming	Vandy	NC St.
Miami (OH)	Hawaii	Miss. St	USF
Ball St.	Fresno St.	Ole Miss	UCF
Navy	BYU	Tulane	Maryland
Army	UTEP	Tulsa	Rutgers
Cincy	SDSU	Houston	Syracuse
Memphis	SJSU	SMU	Wake
Marshall	UNLV	Troy	ECU
Kansas	Nevada	UL Lafayette	FIU

Tier 3

Conference USA - Bowl affiliation: Fiesta Bowl vs. AAC Champion, Feeder affiliation: MAC/MWC (1 team)
American Conference - Bowl affiliation: Fiesta Bowl vs. CUSA Champion, Feeder affiliation: SUN/ACC (1 team)

CUSA | AAC ---------|----------|---------- NMSU | FAU UNM |N. Texas Utah St |MTSU Rice |UAB UTSA | UConn ODU |Temple Idaho |Ark. St E Mich |La. Tech

Tier 4

Independents - Bowl affiliation: LMAO

Teams
Akron
Bowling Green
Buffalo
Kent St
UMass
C. Mich
W. Mich
TX St.
Ga. St.
So. Alabama
UL Monroe
W. Kentucky

Who will emerge from the depths as a title contender?

Is this sim something you guys would enjoy updates on, at say, 5 year intervals? I'm looking forward to it, since I'm stuck inside today watching it rain. :D Thanks for reading this far.

Posted May 30, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC · edited

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teebob21OP•6 yr. ago

Questions I am asking myself as I set this up:

Will the cutthroat level of competition at T1 result in a bunch of mediocre records that end up in plummeting prestige, and a rise of lower-tier schools?
Will a T2 school get a BCS bid...and go on to win a title? I can see it happening. Especially if T1 starts stabbing each other in the back and we have a bunch of 9-3 conference champs.
Is the CPU going to choke on this level of scheduling complexity? (Probably not)
Is eight teams per conference enough at T1? That's only seven conference games.

Kyrie2468•6 yr. ago

Im guessing no divisions in each conference?

teebob21OP•6 yr. ago

The game will force divisions on the big T2 conferences. I haven't yet decided how to split them. North/south, east/west? Does it even matter since these conferences will be fluid? I still need to think about that. Geography and tradition aren't as much of a thing anymore in this league, although I tried to keep a little sensibility in terms of geography.

I've decided to play the T2 championship games at the big NFL stadiums for a little flair. MWC @ Mile High, MAC in Ford Field (I think that's the default), Sun Belt in the Superdome or maybe in Atlanta; Cotton Bowl is an option....still trying to figure out where to send the ACC...Jacksonville maybe at the WLOCP? Or I could just send them to the Kibbie Dome.

ejruiz777•6 yr. ago

Honestly, those starting T2 conferences are interesting as heck, and I wouldn't event hate playing in those T3 groups!

Might make sense to go 10-12-10 for fewer non-conference games, or even 16-8-8 so that the top tier is less inclusive of the bottoms.

I'm super curious to hear about how it turns out, so good luck!

teebob21OP•6 yr. ago

Might make sense to go 10-12-10 for fewer non-conference games,

I considered this...I wanted to make the T1 schools exclusive without dead weight...but that means fewer non-con games as you point out. I also wanted to make it a challenge to win yourself out of T2.

even 16-8-8 so that the top tier is less inclusive of the bottoms.

This was my original idea - four 16 team superconferences. However, a team like Nebraska could lurk here as a mediocre 7-5 team for ages and never fall to the second tier. (Sound familiar? :D) I don't want that. Average teams should get their teeth kicked in at T1, and fall to the next level.

I also like the idea of round robin schedules with no championship game, to emulate the Premier league. Perhaps I expand to nine-team conferences at T1?

ejruiz777•6 yr. ago

Makes sense! I'd just roll with what you've got and see what happens. Only so far pen and paper can get you. Keep us posted!

teebob21OP•6 yr. ago

Only so far pen and paper can get you. Keep us posted!

As soon as I finish cooking dinner, I'm headed to the basement to fire up the PS3!

crowd_favorite•6 yr. ago

This is cool... I tried something similar to this recently - it’s pretty fun - I think it’s made an old game feel fresh... The most interesting thing to happen so far is about 7yrs in a CPU coach at Army won tier 2 (I call it the FBS-2 Natty) and then got hired at relegated Ohio State (who went 2-10 the year prior) and won tier 2 AGAIN but with Ohio State this time and he’s got the Buckeyes relevant up in FBS-1 again... I just took over at Duke after they were relegated TWICE... So trying to claw back into relevance with them in a conference with mostly old Sun Belt schools

teebob21OP•6 yr. ago

Simming Year 1 as we speak....

Florida State currently in mid-season form with a 2-3 record and ranked #17

I'm the OC at FAU as Joey Freshwater....we pound the rock on Saturday afternoons and I pound coeds on Saturday night

icyinfernos•6 yr. ago

I used to do something similar where I’d put the top 32 in two conferences for them to duke it out. It’s always pretty funny because you end up having 4 and 5 loss teams in the top 10

icyinfernos•6 yr. ago

I’ve tried this out recently. I think you should make the ACC a third tier conference and C-USA a second tier since ACC teams tend to get into the top 25 a lot more than any of the other second tier conferences.