Conference games that don't count

by **Cousin17** on Mon Apr 18, 2005 3:07 pm

I find it annoying that there have been so many conference games played that don't count towards teams' conference records. I am not upset about any one team or a specific game, I just don't know why it needs to be like this. Teams shouldn't get to pick what conference games are going to count towards their records and which ones won't. I think this messes up the seedings for the CCLA playoffs because there are teams that are currently seeded higher than teams they lost to because the head to head game wasn't a conference game that "counted". I guess I would just like to see it done differently next year.

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by **John Paul** on Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:12 pm

Teams don't get to choose which games count. They all got assigned games. Some only played those six assigned games. If some chose to schedule extra games against other CCLA teams, that was up to them. But they did that knowing those games woudn't count in the CCLA standings.

by **mholtz** on Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:37 pm

I agree with JP. The CCLA is a large conference, and because of its northern climate, it's almost impossible for all the teams to play each other, thus it was decided that names would be drawn from a hat, and divisions would be made.

Western Michigan, and Michigan State play for a trophy each year, and as it turns out, they didn't draw each other. I'd rather they play a "non conference" game than not play at all.

by **Cousin17** on Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:19 am

What would be wrong if each team is required to play no more than 6 and no less than 6 conference games next year so that all of them count towards conference records and to avoid having good match-ups that don't count at all?

by **mholtz** on Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:49 am

who decides which 6 games?

that is the problem. Michigan teams would all play each other because it's easier, and you would leave teams like pitt, wvu, and buffalo out in the cold.

by **Cousin17** on Tue Apr 19, 2005 10:50 am

Maybe the "Plains" and "Lakes" divisions should be drawn more geographically. It is kind of Ironic that they are given geographic names but somehow Central Michigan and West Virgina both fall into the "Lakes" region. There are 6 CCLA-A teams in Michigan and 6 not in Michigan. I just think there may be an easier way to do all this next year.

by **John Paul** on Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:01 am

We certainly thought of that. The problem is geography. If you look at our conference, we have six teams in Michigan, and then six spread out in Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsyvania and West Virginia. We decided it wasn't fair to keep the six Michigan teams together and force the other six to play such wide ranging schedules. If we looked at splitting down the geographical center, you end up with Pitt, WVU, Buffalo, Miami, Oakland and EMU in one half - and Michigan, MSU, WMU, CMU, IU and Purdue in the other. I'm sure it will be tweaked for next year, but I'm not sure there's a good solution.

by **Kyle Berggren** on Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:13 am

Allowing only 6 games means every team would have to schedule a nearly completely ooc schedule, which wouldn't be cheap. I think the system you use sounds ideal for the geography and climate you have to play with. The best teams fight their way out of their divisions. If the best teams were all in the same division one year, their conference would be the only thing that matters, and the best teams would make it out of the division. You wouldn't be rewarding a team for choosing a cupcake schedule.

just my 2 cents

by **Cousin17** on Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:16 am

Splitting the conference geographically down the center isn't a bad idea. There would still be a good mix of Michigan/Non-Michigan teams in each region and we could call them CCLA-A East and CCLA-A West.

by **defense_wins_championship** on Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:56 am

Limiting to only six games would be a very bad idea I beleive. If we got paired without Oakland, Michigan, Western and Eastern it would take away our big rivalry games as well as the little bit of national expossure and strength of schedule that we get. While our system might not be ideal I think it's fair and no one complained when the divisions were first drawn out. Plus as was mentioned before, if we limited to only six we would have to get the rest of our schedule out of conference. This would be a problem because I invited about 26 teams in the A division this year up to our place (which is indoors) and still had no takers. That would cost a ton of money to go OOC for more than for or five games. While it would be nice, none of us have the budgets that Michigan has. If we were down in Florida this would be much easier because of so many out of conference teams traveling down there (take a look at South Florida's OOC schedule). The system works and the good thing is that we're not always stuck in the same leagues.