Al_4_ISU

On the one hand, it exemplifies what makes this thread great. On the other hand, it's ketchup on a choice cut of beef. But this thread isn't about the fucking rules. Play on, player.

I was in Tulsa 3-4 weeks ago (the day it came out, actually) and my cousin was trying to get me to come back for it. Dead ass middle of planting season, so there's absolutely no chance.

This is exactly where those schools are now. They have no chance at being competitive going forward. All they have is being able to brag about being in the Big 10 or SEC. They will live vicariously off the wins of the blue bloods and act like they contributed something. It's a super Aggy existence. In this new model, they'd actually have a chance to win the division in a good year and get to the playoffs, because the blue bloods have been spread around and a blue blood can slip up from time to time. But they are also the EXACT schools who stand to lose financially in this arrangement. Right now they get paid for their association with the blue bloods. That wouldn't happen here. The blue bloods would make more money than they do currently, because they aren't sharing equally with schools that generate so much less. The schools in the Big 12 and ACC probably go sideways financially, but we get rid of these stupid fucking nationwide conferences and have road games you can mostly drive to against schools who's fans you interact with daily. The G5 probably aren't making much more money either. But they have guaranteed access, which is the most important thing to them. They at least have an objective path towards having a shot. I get it. You like being able to say "get the fuck out of my treehouse". This definitely eliminates that aspect of college sports, and truthfully, that's probably the biggest hang up. No one really acknowledges it, but that's a huge motivator for a lot of the people making these decisions. But if this was structured properly you could achieve giving the blue bloods the money they crave (and truthfully generate), you can give the middle programs sensible geography for their scheduling, and you can give the lower programs access.

In the proposed set up I think you would see far more interesting out of division match ups than you see today, and that's one thing that would likely raise the value of this product. The games you're describing will have a baked in audience consisting of those fanbases and probably no one else. Not any different than today. What would be different is that in a set up that completely removes the narrative driven subjectivity that has pushed college football to it's current insanity, there is no incentive for the heavy hitters in different divisions to avoid each other outside of divisional play. Right now basically every team in the country plays 1 (many play 3) boring-ass tune up games. This is all because average programs are trying to squirrel away wins for bowl eligibility and the major programs are trying to avoid non-conference blemishes to their playoff resume. When those games don't matter towards who makes the playoffs, you open the door for better early season games. You could even make it a rule that teams can't schedule outside the 80 (or whatever). There's an opportunity and way to structure this that makes it a gain for almost every program in the country if it's done right.

The beer might represent the later.

The NFL didn't force those moves, the owners did. I don't think the NFL is a good model for CFB, but blowing up the conferences as we know them, making geographic playing arrangements, and distributing revenue on an earned basis is a far more logical path than the one we're on. What you have in CFB right now is the potential of the actual haves bringing a bunch of subsidized schools with them into another division. If you're going to do that, it might as well be more inclusive in terms of who actually gets to compete, and end the subsidization. I think in a Super League with merit based revenue, you'd see the Texases of the world make more, and the Purdues make less. And that makes complete sense.

When there's a playoff that all these leagues feed into, instead of provincial bowl games, I think that would go away. Because all of these divisions feed into the same national playoff, every game has theoretical relevance in relation to every other game. NFL fans on the east coast don't ignore the games on the west coast because at the end of the day those are all teams that their team could have to play, and the big brands would draw eyeballs from everywhere in this arrangement. These aren't conferences that are little clubs of like-mindedness and camaraderie. They are divisions that constitute a larger league. Because every D1 fanbase in America has a stake in this final outcome, there will be nationwide interest. If the SEC and Big 10 wall themselves off, no one outside is going to care all that much. There are enough people "inside" that circle to be quite financially viable, but maxing out financially tends to come from having the most people invested and watching. The NFL has never outright attempted to alienate potential viewers.

Swap Mizzou for Wisconsin and sign my ass up.

Same. Pretty much everything I've read from people who've heard it is that the lead singles aren't anywhere near the best stuff on it. Really getting excited for this now. Thus far Waxahatchee is my album of the year. I've been a big fan of Katie Crutchfield for a few years (the Plains album a few years back was phenomenal) and this is as good as anything she's done.

I’m saying that it seems like everyone always assumed this was the arrangement

My wife would drive you insane. It's not nasally, but she sounds like she came off the set of Fargo.

Yeah, that was when "The Underdog" was actually a rock radio hit.

Why is that newsworthy?

Absolutely spot on. The bulk of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, central Illinois, and non-rural Missouri have a fairly neutral accent. Slight southern/redneck/country vibes, but pretty neutral. One of the best examples of it I can think of is ISU's old PxP guy Pete Taylor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5lfy9f-MUw The Minnesota/Wisconsin accent extends into northern Iowa and most of the Dakotas. There's even a difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin if you know what to listen for. I live in the northeast part of Iowa and even that specific region has a mix of the Minnesota and Wisconsin variations because it's kinda surrounded by both, and culturally isolated from the rest of Iowa (most of our local media comes out of Rochester MN or La Crosse WI for example). Farther west of me along the northern border, it's indistinguishable from the Minnesota accent. The eastern Midwest is something I don't have much experience with. I haven't been east of Milwaukee since probably 2017 or so.

I'll submit:

I like to think they'd be listening to Queens of the Stone Age on their way to purchase Rage Against the Machine reunion tour tickets. Cause that's what I was doing as a slightly older (22) person in 2007.

Fuck me running.

I just think it's a real different thing than Spirit In the Sky or The Doors. None of those are songs that I would kinda group together mentally, I guess.

Jim Carroll's "People Who Died"?

I'm thinking the guy who won a natty at UK as a player has a pretty damn good idea of what being the coach at UK is like. Doesn't mean he'll succeed there, but he knows exactly what he's walking in to.

I think it’s a good strategy for all of humanity. Only thing that truly makes me feel better.

As a normie that had a rough patch a few years back, I never started drinking to deal with unpleasant emotions, but I found it was a temporarily relief from them and then it started using it as a coping mechanism. Thanks to my wife and parents saying something it never got to the point where I had a full on problem, but it definitely could have. I met with a therapist for awhile back in those days and her assessment was that I wasn't an alcoholic, but I had a maladaptive coping mechanism. I didn't drink for awhile after that, and ever since, when I'm feeling really down I go to exercise to clear my mood. I do still drink, but it's always either with friends as a social lubricant, or occasionally, one or two at the end of the day as part of a wind down. Although I rarely drink in that setting any more these days either. It feels akin to drinking to deal with pain, which is what I was doing 7-8 years ago.

I’ve always wondered who that was about and always assumed it was some non-famous friend of theirs.

We Will Never Wake You Up In the Morning?

Yeah, exactly. JTE’s never even mentioned explicitly. The line about the daughter not being old enough to remember this gruesome self inflicted death is effective because it’s so god damn jarring.