Note for the above:
With the elimination of the need for divisions you could do this basically without telling anyone you were doing it. I think a lot of people object to the term "pods" and it just seems confusing if you are temporarily combining pods to form divisions so the elimination of divisions altogether simplifies things because you don't have to deal with that anymore. You have "quasi-divisions" which rotate:
- NS and EW one year
- NE and SW one year
- NW and SE one year
That said, the "divisions" only exist as a scheduling crutch to make sure that only two teams can go undefeated. Once the schedule is made there are no divisions there are just 16 teams and the best two will go to the CG. Whether or not those teams are from the same temporary "quasi-division" is irrelevant. All that matters is record.
One final thought:
If it were up to me I'd have some really strange tie-breakers in certain situations.
You don't really need a tiebreaker for a two-team tie for #1 because it doesn't matter, both teams are going to the CG. I guess you'd need some method to determine which team wears home jerseys but I could care less what that is.
If you had a tie among three or more teams for #1 my tiebreakers would be:
- H2H2H - with the notation that 2-0 IS better than 1-0 and 1-0 IS better than 0-0 and 0-0 IS better than 0-1#.
- Scoring differential in games among the tied teams*.
- CFP Ranking
If you had a tie among two or more teams for #2 my tiebreakers would be:
- Record against the #1 team - with the notation that 0-0 IS better than 0-1^.
- H2H.
- CFP Ranking.
# For example, suppose that last year Iowa hadn't played either tOSU or M but tied them at 8-1. In that case the tiebreaker would be:
- 1-0 Michigan
- 0-0 Iowa
- 0-1 Ohio State
So the CG would be Michigan and Iowa.
* I like using scoring differential among the tied teams here because I think it most accurately determines the best team. The example I always think of is the BIG12-S three-way tie between Texas, Oklahoma, and TxTech back in 2008:
- Oklahoma beat TxTech by 44 (65-21) and lost to Texas by 10 (45-35) for a scoring differential of +34
- Texas beat Oklahoma by 10 (45-35) and lost to TxTech by 6 (39-33) for a scoring differential of +4
- Texas Tech beat Texas by 6 (39-33) and lost to Oklahoma by 44 (65-21) for a scoring differential of -38
In that scenario I'd put OU and UT in the CG and I think they were clearly the two best teams, the scoring differential demonstrates that IMHO.
Using scoring differential generally as a tiebreaker would be a mistake IMHO because it would encourage contenders to run up the score against hapless opponents. Thus I would NOT favor it. This application is a limited situation in which we are only using scoring differential among the tied teams so running up the score against a bad opponent doesn't help you. It only helps to run up the score against quality opponents.
^ This one is unusual and would be HIGHLY controversial but I would prefer it. My example here is the Big11Ten back in 2006. Ohio State won the league at 8-0 while M and UW were tied for second at 7-1. Michigan's loss was by a FG at Ohio State while Wisconsin's loss was by two TD's at Michigan. Most tiebreaking schemes would put Michigan in over Wisconsin because Michigan beat Wisconsin H2H. My thinking here is that Michigan already had a chance against Ohio State and lost. Lets give Wisconsin a chance. I'd rather see a tOSU/UW game that wasn't played that year than a rematch of tOSU/M.
