Appendix to A Radical Proposal

Previously, I posted an outline of my proposal to fix college football, here is what it looks like (don't pay attention to the teams, they can be moved around and could finish anywhere within the tier, I only payed attention to wether a team was tier 1, 2, or 3 (and that was done a few years ago), and then to what region they would fit in):

Tier 1 A (South)	Tier 1 B (East)	Tier 1 C (Midwest)	Tier 1 D (West)
Florida	Penn State	Oklahoma	Texas	Automatic Bid to Round Robin Championship
Georgia	Boston College	Minnesota	USC	Play in to Roud Robin Losers join Blue teams in 16 team playoff
LSU	Ohio State	North Western	Texas Tech	Playoff Teams - Championship game is a "major" bowl
Alabama	Uconn	Michigan State	Boise State
South Carolina	VA tech	Nebraska	Cal
South Florida	WVU	Kansas	Oregon State	Play-in to playoffs, Losers go to minor bowl games
Florida State	UNC	Tulsa	Utah	Relegation groups with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place of middle teir
Miami	Pitt	Missouri	Oregon
GA Tech	Wake Forest	Western Michigan	BYU
Ole Miss	Cinci	Oklahoma State	TCU	Automatic Relegation

Tier 2 A (South)	Tier 2 B (East)	Tier 2 C (Midwest)	Tier 2 D (West)
Vandy	Rutgers	Ball State	Fresno State	Automatic Promotion
Clemson	Wisconsin	Texas A & M	Arizona State	Promotion Groups
East Carolina	Buffalo	Houston	Colorado
Auburn	Michigan	Rice	New Mexico
Virginia	Notre Dame	Louisiana-Lafayette	Hawaii
Kentucky	Illinois	Air Force	San Jose State
Troy	Maryland	Iowa	Arizona	One game survial match
Miss State	Navy	Kansas State	UCLA	One game survial match
Memphis	Louisville	Arkansas	Nevada	One game survial match
Tennesse	Central Michigan	LA Tech	Stanford	Automatic Relegation

Tier 3 A (South)	Tier 3 B (East)	Tier 3 C (Mid West)	Tier 3 D (West)
Florida International	Army	North Texas	Washington	Automatic Promotion
UAB	Syracuse	Baylor	UTEP	One game promotion match
Tulane	Kent State	Northern Illinois	Idaho	One game promotion match
Louisiana-Monroe	Akron	Iowa State	New Mexico State	One game promotion match
Florida Atlantic	Toledo	SMU	UNLV
Midd Tennessee State	Temple	Arkansas State	San Diego State
Duke	Miami OH	Western Kentucky	Wyoming
NC State	Eastern Michigan	Bowling Green	Utah State
Southern Miss	Ohio	Indiana	Colorado State
UCF	Marshall	Purdue	Washington State

After the 9 game regular season taking place over 10 weeks, here is what week 11 would look like:

Play-in for Championship Division			Playoff play-in			Middle to Bottom pro/rel
Georgia	vs.	Boston College	South Florida	vs.	WVU	Troy	vs.	Louisiana-Monroe
Minnesota	vs.	USC	Kansas	vs.	Oregon State	Maryland	vs.	Akron
						Iowa	vs.	Iowa State
						Arizona	vs.	New Mexico State
						Miss State	vs.	Tulane
						Navy	vs.	Kent State
						Kansas State	vs.	Northern Illinois
						UCLA	vs.	Idaho
						UAB	vs.	Memphis
						Syracuse	vs.	Louisville
						Baylor	vs.	Arkansas
						UTEP	vs.	Nevada

Week 11 would also include the first of the three games in top to middle pro/rel groups.  Based on the above regular season, this is how those groups would look:

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D	Group E	Group F
Florida State	UNC	Tulsa	Utah	Miami	Pitt
Mizzou	Oregon	GA Tech	Wake	Western Michigan	BYU
Clemson	Wisconsin	Texas A&M	Arizona State	East Carolina	Buffalo
Houston	Colorado	Auburn	Michigan	Rice	New Mexico

Week 11 would feature a total of 28 games.


Week 12 would start the Championship Division round robin, as well as the first round of the Bowl Qualifying Playoffs.  It would also feature the 2nd group play game of the battle for the top tier. (23 games)

Round Robin		Bowl Qualifying Playoffs		Losers play in minor bowls
Florida		(1)Boston College	vs.	(16)Cal
Penn state		(2)Minnesota	vs.	(15) Nebraska
Oklahoma		(3)LSU	vs.	(14)Va Tech
Texas		(4)Ohio State	vs.	(13)South Carolina
Georgia		(5)Northwestern	vs.	(12)Boise State
USC		(6)Texas Tech	vs.	(11)Michigan State
		(7)Alabama	vs.	(10)South Florida
		(8)Uconn	vs.	(9)West Virginia

Week 13: 2nd round of the Championship Division (CD) round robin, and the 1/4 finals of the Bowl Qualifying Playoffs. (7 games)

Week 14: 3rd round of the CD and the Semi finals of the BQP (5 games)

Week 15: 4th round of the CD (3 games)

Week 16: Minor Bowls (5 games). Tier 2 and tier 3 winners. Tier 1 play-in losers.

Week 17: Bowl games of top/middle pro/rel groups (12 games)

Week 18: BQP round of 16 losers bowl games (4 games)

Pre Jan 1: BQP 1/4 final losers bowl games (2)

January 1: BQP 3rd place game, BQP final, final round of CD (3 games). Total of 5 games.

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Here is a table of the total number of games played:

Games played
All teams	Min 9
Tier 1 champs	14
Tier 1 2nd place winner	15
Tier 1 2nd place loser	12,13,14
Tier 1 3rd to 5th place	11,12,13
Tier 1 6th place winner	12,13,14
Tier 1 6th place loser	11
Tier 1 7th to 9th place	12
Tier 1 10th place	9
Tier 2 champs	10
Tier 2 2nd to 4th place	12
Tier 2 5th and 6th place	9
Tier 2 7th to 9th place	10
Tier 2 10th place	9
Tier 3 champs	10
Tier 3 2nd to 4th place	10
Tier 3 5th to 10th place	9

A Radical Proposal for Change in the American College Football Landscape

**If you want a view of what this system looks like click on this link to see my Appendix to this post**


I have had this idea for a while, but with all the conference realignment of the past few years, I have never felt this strongly about the system that will be described below.  Its roots come from European and Brazilian association football structures, which I find fitting, because the current college football landscape is the American sporting culture that most closely resembles that of Europe; they are both very regional with a very heavy emphasis on entrenched powers, that really only rise and fall relative to the other entrenched powers of other regions.  This proposal is not meant to be realistic, it starts from a position of everything being on the table, while taking into account the history and tradition of the Bowl System.


The Proposal:
At the time I first came up with the idea, there were exactly 120 teams participating in College football, and the proposal works best for 120, but could also fit 124, 128, etc.  For the purposes of simplicity, this proposal will work with a 120 team FBS (aka DI-A) structure.  The proposal is also dependent on the NCAA (or some other body) assuming total control of football.


Step 1: Rank Order all 120 teams (using an average BCS score over a weighed 5 year period with the most emphasis going on the most recent season)


Step 2: Split them into 3 groups of 40 (1-40, 41-80, 81-120).  (for the initial split, I would be fine with


Step 3: Within each tier of 40 teams, split up into 4 divisions of 10 teams each by geography.


Step 4: Each team plays the other 9 teams in its division*.  This is the entire regular season. There are no non-conference games.
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In the top tier (1-40), the 4 division advance to a Championship Division.  They are joined by the 2 winners of play in games contested between the 2nd place finishers.  The 6 teams in the Championship Division play a 5 game round robin schedule consisting of 2 home, 2 away, and a final neutral site Bowl Game (which is chosen first).  The team with the best record after the 5 games is the Undisputed National Champion. A tie is broken by the head to head match between the two teams in the Championship Division round, and three way ties are broken by point differential within Championship Division round games only (for the purposes of point differential, all OT games are counted as +1 for the winner and -1 for the loser, regardless of actual final score)


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The losers of the play-in game join the 3rd, 4th, and 5th place teams, plus 2 winners from play in games contested between 6th place teams, in a 16 team knockout tournament.  The Championship game of this tournament is a Bowl game, and bowl placement for the other teams is dependent on how far the teams advance in the tournament.


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The losers of the 6th place play-in game play in a minor bowl game. In same bowl pool as winners of the middle tier divisions.


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7th, 8th, and 9th place teams in the top tier join 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, place teams from the middle tier in 6 groups of 4 teams.  The teams in these groups each play 1 home, 1 away, and one neutral bowl game.  The teams that finish in 1st and 2nd place in the group play the next season in the top tier, the 3rd and 4th place teams in the group play the next season in the middle tier.


The groups are formed at random with the following rules in mind:
Each group has 2 tier one teams and 2 tier two teams
No group can have 2 7th place teams
No group can have 2 4th place teams
No group can have teams from the same division (i.e. no rematches)


After the groups are picked, the mid level bowls choose their matchups first, and the other two games are scheduled.
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Last place teams in the top tier are automatically relegated to the middle tier, and all first place teams in the middle tier are automatically promoted to the top tier. First place teams are in same bowl pool as top tier 6th place play-in losers.


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5th and 6th place teams in the middle tier have no post-season


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7th place teams in the middle tier host 4th place teams in the bottom tier. 8th place teams in middle tier host 3rd place teams in bottom tier, and 9th place teams in middle tier play AT 2nd place teams in bottom tier.  The winners of these games play the next season in the middle tier and the losers play the next season in the bottom tier


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Last place teams in the middle tier are automatically relegated to the bottom tier, and champions of bottom tier divisions are automatically promoted to the middle tier, and play against a fellow bottom tier champion in a bowl game


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There is no post-season for teams finishing 5th or worse in the bottom tier.


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*The 9 game regular season could be done in two ways, either half the teams play 4 home games and the other half play 5 (in which case the next season would have to flip, and if the numbers didn't work out that that was possible, a running tally would be kept from the start of the system and schedule makers would try to always get teams closest to playing a net of 0, with the guarantee of the split always being 4/5 or 5/4 in any one year.  OR a split of 4, 4, and 1.  It most likely that the 4/4/1 split would only work at the top tier level if it was to work at all, and that the middle and bottom tier teams would simply do a 4/5 and 5/4.  In a 4/4/1 system, after the divisions were set at the end of the previous year, teams would be required to find a partner and pair up their one neutral site game.




The system is run entirely on merit.  There are no voters, no polls (apart from the initial rankings in the first year of the proposal).  EVERY single week of the regular season there are TWENTY games played between teams that are in top 40.  I can't stress that point enough about how exciting that would be. Round Robins >>>>>  play-offs, where one bad game can cost you everything, but the people who need playoffs are appeased some as well, because this system has a playoff.


Teams would know every week that they had a chance of beating the team that they were playing.  No more cupcake games!  No more free wins for big time programs, every win must be earned.  Because the system is fluid, no team is locked in to its place.  If your programmed gets turned around into a winning machine, no amount of politics is going to keep you from proving just how good you are.


In the top and middle tiers, every game matters to every team.  There is a difference between each finishing position and that difference cannot be made mute because a bowl selection committee thinks the lower placed team will travel better.




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I would also propose as an addition to these changes to have a spring playoff in April and May, consisting of 128 teams (with the DIII and DII champions plus the top 6 from DI-AA also participating). Teams would be allowed to schedule whoever they wanted in the first round (i.e. a rivalry game that was not played the previous fall) and all other rounds would be subject to a random draw, FA Cup style, with the championship game being played in a northern city.

Liverpool 2011/2012 squad

The state of the squad as it stands today.  Suspect there will be a few comings and goings.  Currently we could fit everybody on the books into the Premier League squad list barring two senior players.  To be honest there are a couple of players in this category that would not be missed to much by the fans if they were left off. In the example, El Zhar and Insua are the odd men out.

Current homegrown senior players:

1. Steven Gerrard

2. Jaime Carragher

3. Glen Johnson

4. Joe Cole

5. Stuart Downing

6. Jay Spearing

7. Brad Jones

8. Andy Carroll

Emiliano Insua

Current senior non home grown (max of 17)

1. Pepe Reina

2. Doni

3. Daniel Agger

4. Philipp Degen

5. Martin Škrtel

6. Sotirios Kyrgiakos

7. Fabio Aurelio

8. Maxi Rodríguez

9. Alberto Aquilani

10. Charlie Adam

11. Lucas

12. Christian Poulsen

13. Raul Meireles

14. Dirk Kuyt

15. Luis Suarez

16. David N'gog

17. Jose Enrique

Nabil El Zhar

On Loan:

       Homegrown:

Peter Gulacsi (loan to Hull City)

Stephen Darby (loan to Rochdale)

Martin Hansen (loan to Bradford City)

        Non-Homegrown:
Villiyan Bijev (loan to Genk) - 1993

1990 2011/12:

Martin Kelly

Jordan Henderson

Nathan Eccleston

Emmanuel Mendy

1991 12/13:

Dani Pacheco

David Amoo

Michael Roberts

Danny Wilson

1992 13/14:

Jonjo Shelvy

Matthew McGiveron

Michael Ngoo

1993 14/15:

Nikolaj Køhlert

Krisztián Adorján

John Flanagan

Conor Coady

Andre Wisdom

Stephen Sama

Kristjan Gauti Emilsson

Jakub Sokolik

Jamie Stephens

Craig Roddan

Adam Hajdu

--------------2011/12 Youth Cup---------------------------------

Jack Robinson

Lewis Hatch

Joe Rafferty

Toni Silva

Henoc John Mukendi

Patrik Poór

Suso

1994 15/16:

Peter Aylmer

Josh Sumner

Matthew Regan

Tyrell Belford

Adam Morgan

Brad Smith

Tom King

Tom Walsh

-----------2012/13  Youth Cup------------------------

Raheem Sterling

Jordan Lussey

Jack Dunn

Kristoffer Petersson

Ryan McLaughlin

Yusuf Mersin

 1995 16/17:

Yalany Baio

Sam Gainford

Nathan Quirk
Michael Wilson

Connor Wearing

-----------2013/14 Youth Cup--------------------- 

David Moli

Players in italics are on loan/likely to go out on loan

Consult wikipedia if you want to go further down the rabbit hole of U16s that would technically be eligible, the ones I hear the most hype about are the new signings O'Hanlon and Jones as well as Sinclair and Williams.  On a further youth note, I couldn't find birthdays for Baio, Gainford, Quirk, Wearing, and Wilson so I just threw them all in as 1995, I'm sure some of them are 1994, but their listed youth cup eiligibility dates should be more or less correct.  It was difficult finding confirming info on the status of Nacho, Marco Bueno, Marc Pelosi, and Villiyan Bijev.  Since his trial ended I have seen Nacho play for the U18s so the reports of him signing are likely to be true (still would like some D.O.B. info).  Haven't seen Pelosi or Bueno in a youth kit yet, so I will hold off in putting them on.  Bijev is reportedly on loan to Racing Genk for a year until his Bulgarian passport is good enough to get him a work permit in the UK, that means that he is likely to never actually play in an academy league match for Liverpool, maybe he will feature in next years, NextGen U19 if LFC participate again.

An explanation of the color coding if you couldn't figure it out:

Not going to make it

Small Chance of making it

Decent Chance of making it

Good Chance to make it

Currently proving that they can make it/have made it

Just because I colored someone yellow doesn't mean I don't rate them, its just a simple fact that not everybody can make it

How Exactly is a Rainbow Made?

In order to clear up the name of the blog to any possible Philistines who happen to come across this corner of the internet, it's a reference to the great cinematic masterpiece of the 21st Century, Joe Dirt, and the scene in which the title character first meets Kicking Wing:

A little about me:
I was born in DC and raised in its Maryland suburbs, but recently moved to Boston.  I'm a somewhat recent college graduate.  And I haven't decided how personal I want this thing to get.  I see it mostly as a place to put down my crazy ideas in a more permanent fashion and if necessary I would be able to just send links to people instead of having to dig up some document on my computer or write something all over again.


The blog will likely cover sports as that is something I know a bit about, as well as economics and libertarian political theory.  It's possible some stuff on comedy, food, pop culture, film, and other things could find their way in here too; certainly wouldn't rule it out.  Things will not be kept short, the jokes will be taken too far.


Lots of dudes my age claim to be sports fans, and I'm sure they are, many of them probably know more about baseball or the NBA than I do, but as a general sports fan, I'm tough to beat.  And by general, I do not mean the main American sports, I mean all sports. Especially football in ALL of its codes.  But also golf, tennis (only for the slams), lacrosse, hockey, moto GP, biathlon, MMA, and boxing.  Sports were a much bigger part of my life back in my college and especially during my unemployed periods shortly after college, when I had access to all kinds of sports cable channels. My teams:  Redskins, Liverpool FC, Terps (football, bball, lax), Caps, Nats, Zards, Brisbane Broncos, Geelong Cats, and then there are too many individuals that I root for or against to list.  I would have to say that College Football is the closest thing I have to any religious beliefs at the moment, but I spend most of my sports time educating myself more about association football (not only do I follow LFC's 1st team very closely, but I watch their youth and reserve games regularly as well, plus I like to keep up with the latest goings on in the Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, various youth international tournaments, Ligue 1*, Russian Premier League*,  Brasileirão*, Campeonato Paulista* Argentine Primera* (* indicating that I was only able to follow these leagues during the above mentioned period of unemployment and cable sports pack subscription)).




I also dabble in Austrian Economics, although I have dedicated a pretty serious amount of time to this subject, I still would feel like such a n00b if I said too much.  Posts in this arena will probably only criticize very basic arguments made by other laymen, regardless of wether or not I agree with their conclusions.  Although I feel that the average libertarian is probably more informed than the average dem or republican, most are still susceptible to internet pwnage from the right or the left if they aren't studied up.


Posts that are in the pipeline:
How to fix College Football
How to fix soccer in America
Appealing to 'non-libertarians' on libertarian grounds






It just does.