Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I’m realizing the Medina-friendly tournament won’t have traditional seeds. They’re the great barrier to competitive games. The very best play the very worst when we have the most games. There’s a lower chance like teams play one another. As the theoretically most even teams are literally divided.

If you could avoid gamesmanship, I’m thinking this Medina-run event spend the first weekend matching up like seeds. So the 1s play a four team tournament, as do the 2s, 3s etc. We think throwing VT and Stanford into a play-in is good for competitiveness, this supercharges it! In the second weekend, we can pair 1-2, 3-4, 5-6. It would make for a weird final weekend, but we’re here to maximize competitive games, damn if we haven’t done it.

The downside would be, you end up with some gamesmanship, manipulating seeds, so, an alternative would be completely random seeding. Maybe The top two seeds, meat and round one, but if more competitiveness is the Medina dream, well, that would work toward it.

You are making some major leaps here from what I've said to what you've typed.  

I want competitive games, yes.  

The Portal and NIL have already degraded the competitiveness of the bottom four seeds.  I provided the data above but in short, after an all-time great run from 2021-2023 the 13-16 seeds have completely collapsed and only won two games over the past three tournaments.  That ties the fewest ever in three consecutive tournaments and it is getting worse as both wins were back in 2024.  

I honestly do appreciate @MaximumSam 's contention that the top seeds have earned and should get easier games but to me there is a limit.  Once you get to the point where the top seeds are effectively getting a bye, IMHO you have gone too far.  We have reached that point as evidenced by the 0-32 record of the #13-16 seeds in the last two tournaments.  

The situation has changed over the past couple of years.  There were 38 tournaments from expansion in 1985 through 2023 and in those 38 tournaments the #13-16 seeds managed to pull off a first round upset 67 times.  That works out to an average of just under twice per tournament.  That is enough upsets to provide at least some level of excitement.  From 1985-2023 there were 608 games between top-4 and #13-16 seeds and the underdogs won 67 which is approximately once in nine tries.  

The new reality is that the #13-16 seeds simply cannot compete.  Let's not ignore that reality.  Let's also not pretend that nothing has changed because it has, this is a new situation.  Prior to the Portal and NIL the #13-16 seeds were obviously not as good as the #1-4 seeds but they did win sometimes.  Now they don't.  

I'd like these games to be at least marginally competitive.  If we are expanding to 76 teams anyway we could easily improve the competitiveness of the bottom teams in the 'real' 64-team tournament by relegating the worst 24 teams in the NCAAT to a play-in round where half of them get eliminated.  That provides more plausibly competitive games in the R64 while still giving the top seeds a major advantage in that they will still be playing low seeds.  

I’m struck by the idea we might not really be talking about that much more competitiveness.

It isn't THAT much but it is an incremental improvement.  Here is a chart of performance by each seed in the first two rounds from 1985-2026 (41 tournaments):

Note the massive drop from the #12's to the #13's and it's mirror which is the massive drop from #4 to #5.  The rest of the seeds are each just slightly, incrementally less successful than the seed ahead of them but the drop from #12 to #13 is humongous.  #12 seeds are 58-106 (.354) in the first round while #13 seeds are 33-131 (.201).  

The #13-16 seeds have always been substantially worse than the teams ahead of them and now with the Portal and NIL is is worse.  They are no longer just bad, they aren't competitive.  The 1/16 through 4/13 games have effectively become byes for the top seeds.  They were always easy games but not THIS easy.  

Relegating the bottom seeds to a play-in reduces that.  I'm suggesting a 19-seed tournament with a play-in round of:

• 14 vs 19, winner plays #3
• 15 vs 18, winner plays #2
• 16 vs 17, winner plays #1

What that would effectively do is make the 16's better because they would be what used to be #14's and make the 15's better because they would be what used to be 13's, etc.  

They aren't going to win anywhere close to half of their games against the #1-4's but at least they'd have a chance.  I think it *MIGHT* get us back to where we were before the Portal and NIL made it completely impossible for the bottom seeds.  

Seems like we’re mostly just talking about minimizing a set of teams you feel are distasteful, and “competitiveness” is a bit of a cover.

Why do you insist on questioning my motives instead of looking at the impact of the Portal and NIL on competitiveness and acknowledging that the competitiveness of the 1/16 through 4-13 games has been seriously degraded.  I see that as a problem that can be solved.  

Which is fine. But it seems weird to dance around. I don’t think you’re actually hankering for Vandy-Va Tech. You just don’t seem to want Vandy-McNeese.

Vandy/McNeese was a 5/12 game  and I haven't really looked at the impact of the Portal and NIL on them.  There was only one 5/12 upset this year and that is less than the average of about 1.3 per year but that isn't a statistically significant difference and the last two years there were two each year so the three-year average is slightly above the long-term average but again, the difference isn't statistically significant.  

What I don't want is the 13-16 seeds becoming completely irrelevant which they now are.  0-32 over the last two years is the worst two-year run since expansion for the 13-16 seeds.  In fact, prior to the last two years the worst ever two-year run for the 13-16 seeds was 1-31 and that only happened once (2003/4).  Prior to the last two years the two-year average was for about 3.5 of the 13-16 seeds to make it out of the first round.  

I don't really care about Vandy/McNeese because we are still (at least for now) seeing some 5/12 upsets but we are NOT seeing 13+ upsets anymore and that is an issue to at least contemplate.  

I had a couple of thoughts after thinking about this.  Maybe they could start on Monday night and have 2 games at each site for 3 straight days.  But of course that's a really, really quick turn around.  Essentially 24 hours after the selection show.  Maybe there would be a way to notify the 4 teams involved 48 hours in advance,  which probably wouldn't work because those normally would be the last team picked.

I think there are two problems with a Monday turnaround:

First is simply the logistics of the travel.  The selection show is Sunday AFTER the B1GCG so it is Sunday evening then the teams playing on Monday would have to get on a plane and fly out THAT night for Dayton or wherever they were headed.  It is possible but, as I see it, the problem is that it wouldn't just be the four teams that actually DID play on Monday.  Every team in line to potentially play on Monday would have to have a plane chartered and sitting on the runway just in case.  

Second is the fatigue factor.  Suppose that Washington or Northwestern had lost the B1GCG:

• On Tuesday Northwestern beat Penn State.  
• On Wednesday Northwestern beat Indiana and Washington beat USC.  
• On Thursday Northwestern lost to Purdue and Washington lost to Wisconsin but consider if they had won.  
• On Friday Northwestern would have played Nebraska and Washington would have played Illinois.  
• On Saturday Northwestern would have played UCLA and Washington would have played Michigan.  
• Sunday is the B1GCG.  

Then if one of them got a play-in spot and had to play a game on Monday that would be either their sixth game in six days (Washington) or their seventh game in seven days (Northwestern).  

Or maybe they could move the traditional first and 2nd rounds from Thur-Sun to Fri-Mon.  Then you could have 3 straight days at Dayton from Tues to Thur.  2 games each day.  This idea makes a little more sense to me.

I think this is a great idea.  I've long been a proponent of moving the traditional first and second rounds from Thur-Sun to Sat-Tue to put the two busiest days on the weekend when more of us could actually watch.  

I think there are two problems with a Monday turnaround:

First is simply the logistics of the travel.  The selection show is Sunday AFTER the B1GCG so it is Sunday evening then the teams playing on Monday would have to get on a plane and fly out THAT night for Dayton or wherever they were headed.  It is possible but, as I see it, the problem is that it wouldn't just be the four teams that actually DID play on Monday.  Every team in line to potentially play on Monday would have to have a plane chartered and sitting on the runway just in case. 

Second is the fatigue factor.  Suppose that Washington or Northwestern had lost the B1GCG:

• On Tuesday Northwestern beat Penn State. 
• On Wednesday Northwestern beat Indiana and Washington beat USC. 
• On Thursday Northwestern lost to Purdue and Washington lost to Wisconsin but consider if they had won. 
• On Friday Northwestern would have played Nebraska and Washington would have played Illinois. 
• On Saturday Northwestern would have played UCLA and Washington would have played Michigan. 
• Sunday is the B1GCG. 

Then if one of them got a play-in spot and had to play a game on Monday that would be either their sixth game in six days (Washington) or their seventh game in seven days (Northwestern).  I think this is a great idea.  I've long been a proponent of moving the traditional first and second rounds from Thur-Sun to Sat-Tue to put the two busiest days on the weekend when more of us could actually watch. 

Yup, I think this is the future. 

Play-in games will be played on Thur & Fri.   
Round of 64 games on Sat & Sun
Round of 32 games on Mon & Tues
Sweet 16 games on Sat and Sun
Elite 8 games on Mon & Tues
Final 4 games on Sun
NCG on Tues

Looking forward to where Site B might be. Hearing it's supposed to be a western location to balance the geography. Albuquerque? Tucson? Las Vegas? Oklahoma City?

I heard one fan suggest Omaha,  which is not the craziest idea.  No pro teams to compete with for attention,  but a history of college ball support. 

Although Ok Ciry or ABQ might better geographically

Yup, I think this is the future. 

Play-in games will be played on Thur & Fri. 
Round of 64 games on Sat & Sun
Round of 32 games on Mon & Tues
Sweet 16 games on Sat and Sun
Elite 8 games on Mon & Tues
Final 4 games on Sun
NCG on Tues

Hmmmm. Mildly don’t like that. 

I think the timing of the first weekend’s games can be poor. But moving off the first two days of first round would be quite the vibe shift.

Why? Screw geography. The West is already way over-represented in the tournament. Dayton is also not great, because who wants to go to Dayton in March?

...

Put it somewhere people want to go - a reward so to speak.

Nashville would be ideal.

Easy access to international travel, plenty of hotels, great transportation. Oh, and a little entertainment.

Does Dayton have another arena?