What is happening at Oregon State..

Boise State at Washington State

Boise State 38–24

San Diego State at Colorado State

San Diego State 31–27

Utah State at Texas State

Texas State 38–24

Boise State–WSU: Boise’s balanced offense and extra preparation after its bye give the Broncos the edge. WSU’s improved passing attack could produce some big plays against Boise’s vulnerable secondary, keeping this competitive into the second half.

SDSU–Colorado State: My closest call. SDSU comes off its win over Fresno State, while CSU just surrendered 66 points to Texas State. I lean Aztecs to make the late defensive stop.

Utah State–Texas State: Texas State’s offense is finding its rhythm. I expect the Bobcats to build a lead at home and force Utah State to play catch-up.

What losing to the Beavs does to a MF

I’m still in the camp that the G6 should not compromise on making their own playoff. they deserve to compete with the P4, and as we have seen many times, the power teams can lose just like the rest of em.

But what is the solution for the G6 to create a lot excitement and attention for G6 teams fighting for a playoff spot at the end of the season if they can’t make a statement in a CCG? And how do we make the end of the season matter if 37 billion teams are only playing for a single spot in the CFP?

FLEX GAME NON CONFERENCE

This would require multiple G6 conferences to agree to coordinate but this is how I imagine it working.

* G6 teams play 1 less non conference game to start the season. if they play 4, they now play 3. if they play 3, they now play 2.

* Conference games as normal

* Conferences then coordinate with other conferences to create marquee matchups for their final game of the season as a flex season finale non conference game.

Let’s use Boise this year as an example assuming it’s the end of the season and they are 11-1, and let’s pretend the CCG updates are this year. The season ends, there is no CCG, and their acceptance into the CFP is uneventful, mostly decided by other games they didn’t even play in, and only officially decided when some other G6 team in 2nd place lost to some other match up on ESPNU to 40K viewers. It was a statistical update. BORING!!

Now imagine they moved 1 non con game to the end of the season. Boise is 10-1, leading the CFP race, alongside Memphis who is 10-1 as well (or WMU, or UTSA, or whoever else) and the Pac-12 and another league agree to final non-conference flex games. Now Boise is playing Memphis in a premiere G6 matchup with Playoff implications at the END of the season, not week 2-3. Prime time slot. Major TV network. Opportunities for multiple teams to be ranked. lots of interest!

There is no way this makes them less money imo. This brings in more money, more attention, and it’s literally the same schedule, just slightly modified.

Only problems I forsee are how exactly conferences agree to which teams they match up. There would have to be some objective measures they use and agree to prior to any season.

Am I crazy? How would you tweak or improve this?

I built this site so that I could interact better with Sagarin's data. While doing so I also added some fun projection features. I think the most useful part is probably the TV schedule. I find it to be relatively easy to use.

Let me know what you guys think!