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Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...

Sunday, August 15, 2021

Four Regions FTW

In this crazy time of college conference realignment, I would like to share something I came up with over four years ago. The idea is simple, group eighty colleges into four regions North, South, East, and West, with each region having two divisions of ten teams each.

Goals

  • Group college football teams by geographic location into regions
  • Encourage playing teams outside your region
  • Select eight teams for CFP by results on the field instead of a committee
  • Have fun on Mayhem week

Regular Season Schedule

Each team has the following schedule:

  • 3 "preseason" games, can be any team outside your own region
  • 5 intra-divisional games
    • Always play one intra-divisional team every year while rotating the other eight teams in two groups of four
  • 3 games from the other division within your region
  • 1 college football "Mayhem" game where nobody knows who they're playing until the Sunday morning after the seventh game is in the books. You only know ahead of time whether you will play at home or away on Mayhem week, and you will never play another team in your region this week

Playoff Schedule

Division Elimination Round

  • Top team from each division goes to the Division Elimination round (that's eight teams total)
  • Select four #1 seeds placed into one bucket and the #2 seeds into another bucket
  • Randomly select a #1 and a #2 seed to play one another
    • The seeds cannot be from the same region
    • They cannot have played each other during the regular season (this rule can be broken if there is no other way to schedule teams)
    • The #2 team goes to play at the #1 team's home turf
      • This could mean using a substitute venue at the option of the #1 seed. For instance if Texas and Colorado play each other and Colorado is the #1 seed, then they could play at Mile High Stadium instead of CU's stadium

Bowl Elimination Round

  • The remaining four teams play at two of the bowl sites just like they do now for the College Football Playoff
  • The National Championship game is between the two winners of the Bowl Elimination round

Possible Region Selections

Selecting the regions is relatively easy, whereas selecting the divisions within each region can be a challenge. Especially the East region who is heavily weighted with teams in the Southern part of the U.S. There would need to be some teams in that area actually be in the North division of the East region.

North Region

  • Cincinnati
  • Illinois
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Iowa State
  • Kansas
  • Kansas State
  • Maryland
  • Michigan
  • Michigan State
  • Minnesota
  • Missouri
  • Nebraska
  • Northwestern
  • Notre Dame
  • Ohio State
  • Penn State
  • Purdue
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin

South Region

  • Alabama
  • Arkansas
  • Auburn
  • Baylor
  • Georgia
  • Houston
  • Kentucky
  • LSU
  • Louisville
  • Memphis
  • Mississippi
  • Mississippi State
  • Oklahoma
  • Oklahoma State
  • Tennessee
  • TCU
  • Texas
  • Texas A&M
  • Texas Tech
  • Vanderbilt

East Region

  • Boston College
  • UCF
  • Clemson
  • Duke
  • East Carolina
  • Florida
  • Florida State
  • Georgia Tech
  • Miami
  • North Carolina
  • North Carolina State
  • Pittsburgh
  • Rutgers
  • South Carolina
  • South Florida
  • Syracuse
  • Temple
  • Virginia
  • Virginia Tech
  • Wake Forest

West Region

  • Arizona
  • Arizona State
  • Boise State
  • BYU
  • Cal
  • UCLA
  • Colorado
  • Colorado State
  • Hawaii
  • UNLV
  • New Mexico
  • Oregon
  • Oregon State
  • San Diego State
  • USC
  • Stanford
  • Utah
  • Utah State
  • Washington
  • Washington State

Sunday, February 28, 2021

No Innocents

When I was younger, I believed most people were good by nature, only having a few flaws that overcame their better intentions from time to time.

Now that I fully understand who people really are, I can say with full confidence I made the wrong decision on Memorial Day, May 28th, 2001.

For back then I could not imagine the nuclear annihilation of so many innocent people just because I prevented 9/11. The problem I have come to understand is that there are no innocent people, save for myself and myself alone.

At every impasse, for every test I have done the right thing. And how do I get repaid? In the betrayal of those who see life as a game to be played on the burden of others. Not even the military gives me the respect I have earned and rightly deserve as their lives only exist because of the decisions *I* have made. And yet they pretend the world is going to end if they set the wrongs right and untarnish my name in the collective minds of the populace.

I honestly don't know what motivates people to do what they do. I am unburdened by the defects they were born with inside their minds. I only know what to do at all times to be the right thing, and that is why I admit now to doing the wrong thing. I should have prevented 9/11 just so this entire place would get lit up, for there is only one innocent on planet Earth, and he does not belong with the rest who were given behavioral defects that do not deserve to exist.

There is supposedly a war coming, although I doubt they have the guts to declare it. Always an excuse to why they cannot move forward. My chief concern now will not be those who took over my mind and body with the full intention of doing so to everyone and thereby take over the world. Those people will find death not far behind their ambitions. Nay, I am far more concerned about those who deserve death for the mental defects they possess, and yet will remain alive once the war is over.

Nuclear annihilation turns out to be the only option to ensure everyone who deserves death will find it. It was my mistake to not have learned this lesson twenty years ago, ergo the right course of action would have been followed.