Warrior General Games

Executive Summary(If you Read nothing else read this):GLB2 "The College Years" For those who love college football and those who love rivalries. Instead of having every team that makes it to pro continually creating "farm" teams to get feeder players, there would be a separate alternative (not a replacement for the current system) a GLB2 - College system. Where teams would carry up to 11 players from each of the 4 pre-vet year groups (Sophomore , Seasoned, Journeymen, Professional) and battle it out for a 4 team playoff and bowl spots. Team could join conferences or remain independent and it would be built on the same calendar schedule GLB2 currently uses.

The IDEA: GLB2 represents an improvement on GLB1 in several key areas: smaller roster sizes, toons over dots, better gameplay balance, and greater build diversity. However the greatest improvement may rest in the efforts made to enhance overall rivalries. Perhaps no level of football has a better record of rivalries than college football. In addition to proposing a new way to generate rivalries you have to consider the effects on the rivalries and competitive balance once teams make it to the pro’s. Some franchises will want to stay at the Pro level and continually bring in veteran players to do so. Some franchises will want to drop to the lowest level and start all over. Other than owner inactivity, nothing will be as corrosive to rivalries and overall continuity than teams creating “shell franchises”. However, being realistic about it, that’s what teams will do. So rather than have teams create shell franchises (either by themselves or through a friend as an owner) why not offer an alternative that would both be fun and improve overall league consistency? It also doesn’t represent a total shift for GLB2, let teams who want to form at the lowest (rookie) level and work their way up, this would be in parallel with, not as a substitution for, the current league setup.

The “How to”
Overview:

156 Teams (Equivalent of 13 Leagues)

Each Team could sign up to 11 players from the Sophomore, Seasoned, Journeyman, Professional career tier (Seasons 2-5 of a player’s life).

Teams would be limited to 1 SupersStar per class.

A 4 Team Playoff. Bowl Games for some other teams who don't qualify for the playoffs.

Same Game Structure GLB2 uses now, 14 “League” games and 16 ladder games. Ladder game generation would be unaffected.

11 Conferences in 5 Possible formats (8, 10, 12, 14 or 16 Teams)

The remaining teams would be independents.

All Teams could agree to one “rival” school (basically a sent invitation and an acceptance); independent teams would set two rival schools (one from any conference or independent and one only independent).
Teams would be free to sign with a conference that invites them unless they have an existing non-expiring deal with a current conference.

Teams would have control of a certain part of their schedule through the use of open dates, selection of conference affiliation, and the role of their conference commissioner.

Strength of Schedule and Quality Wins would play a major part in rankings and playoff/bowl game determination.

Conferences provide more access to bowl games but less freedom of scheduling.

Hopefully this is the first one to go truly EPIC with the membership voting on it.

Scheduling:
Rivalry & Conference Games would schedule first and be done automatically
Would use a widget similar to the current “Challenge” function, exactly half the teams with open dates would be “at home” in any given week and the other half would be “on the road”(See Technical Note 1).

Week by Week Schedule
Start of the Season: All Rivalry Games & Conference Games would be scheduled. All open weeks would appear as home or away and owners could begin scheduling.
Game 1: Rivalry Game , All Teams would play their “top” rival. (Rival agreements would be good for two seasons with the only caveat being you could not agree to a rivalry with an in conference opponent).
Game 2: Teams in a Conference would play their first conference game. Independents would play their second rival (required to be an independent team).
Day 5 Rollover: Any open week not scheduled already would be auto-scheduled at rollover, producing random matchups between home and away teams.
Week 13:
• 16, 14 &12 Team Conferences Would Play their conference championship (Meanwhile the 2nd place team in division A plays the 2nd place team in division B, so on and so forth)

• 10&8 Team Conferences Would Play their final Conference Game
• Independents would be playing whomever they scheduled for this day for the final regular season game

Week 14:Inter-Conference Scrum
Each Conference Commissioner would select and agree to an inter-conference scrum partner on two season deals (Home&Away). The top 8 teams in each conference would square off against each other (This would help sort out rankings). All Independents and remaining conference teams without a partner (including the one conference left without a partner) would have a random draw pairing teams closest in the overall rankings.

The “Top 30” & Rankings

The Top 30 Teams would be considered “ranked” teams similar to the AP Top 25. The Rankings would be released for the first time on League Week 6. Rankings would only consider the 14 regular season games plus bowl games with the league title and spots 1-4 determined “on the field”. Rankings would consist of the following components:
Won-Lost-Tied Percentage (60%)
Overall Strength of Schedule (8%)
Quality Wins vs 13 (7%) (Counts & Ranks # of Victories against teams with 13 or more wins)
Quality Wins vs 12 (5%) (Counts & Ranks # of Victories against teams with 12 or more wins)
Quality Wins vs. 10 (5%) (Counts & Ranks # of Victories against teams with 10 or more wins)
Quality Win vs. 7 (5%) (Counts & Ranks # of Victories against teams with 7 or more wins)
Bad Loss vs. 5 (4%) (Inverse order credit counts & ranks losses against teams with 5 or fewer wins)
Team Loss Count (3%) (Ranking of the # of Team loses in inverse order)
Ranking of Team Prestige (3%)

The Script to determine rankings would only need to be run after rollover on each “league week” and would be published in the morning, while only the top 30 would be considered ranked the script would generate 1-156.

Playoffs & Going Bowling

Playoffs: After week 14 at rollover when rankings are determined the top 4 teams according to the rankings are entered into the playoffs. With the caveat that only one team per conference will be admitted. Week 15 would be the first round of the playoffs with team 4 at team 1, team 3 at team 2. The winners would meet Week 16 to determine the College GLB 2 National Title.

Bowl Games: In addition to the playoff teams 38 bowl games will be available for teams to enjoy the post-season. (80 Total teams participating a little more than half). The Post-season Games come in 4 Varieties:
5 Major Bowl Games (Occur during Week 16)
10 Low-Major (Occur during Week 16)
11 Mid-Tier Bowl Games (Occur during Week 15)
12 Minor Bowl Games (Occur during Week 15)

Bowl games will be awarded in one of two ways, either through a conference agreement or through an “at-large” which selects the highest ranked team available that doesn’t match up conference opponents. If a commitment is unfulfilled that spot in the Bowl game is listed as “open” and treated in at at-large format until a conference signs an agreement with that Bowl. Up to 44 bowl spots maybe committed to conferences as a whole and each conference may, prestige granting, sign up to half its members into bowl guarantees.

Conference Expansion + Conference & Team Prestige

Team prestige and conference prestige, along with expansion slots earned expire 3 seasons after earned.

Each Major Bowl Game and Playoff Game won would generate 1 expansion slot for the conference winning it (these are credited to the conference and would not be added on inviting a new team). A total of 7 per season and 21 total in the 3 seasons.
Conferences will need exactly the number of expansion slots to go to a higher number of teams, however no team wishing to renew will need to leave a conference due to an expiration of expansion slots. Conferences may always replace one or an odd number of departing teams to remain even, however a conference losing two or more teams will need sufficient maintenance expansion slots to remain at its current size.

Conference Desired Size Up-Sizing To Maintain
16 Teams 8 Expansion Slots 4 Expansion Slots
14 Teams 6 Expansion Slots 3 Expansion Slots
12 Teams 4 Expansion Slots 2 Expansion Slots
10 Teams 2 Expansion Slots 1 Expansion Slot

Team Prestige, teams would earn prestige in a number of ways and the prestige would be collected over the course of 3 seasons. Team prestige would be a slight factor in team ranking (resulting in better bowl invites) as well as contributing to conference prestige. Items which add prestige:
Finishing with a winning record – 1 Point
Being Invited to a Bowl Game- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Minor, Mid-Tier, Low-Major, Major, or Playoff, respectively)
Winning a Bowl Game – 1, 2, 3, 5, 8(Minor, Mid-Tier, Low-Major, Major, or Playoff, respectively)
Finishing a Season Ranked 21-30: 3 Points
Finishing a Season Ranked 11-20: 5 Points
Finishing a Season Ranked 6-10: 8 Points
Finishing a Season Ranked 2-5: 10 Points
Winning a National Title: 20 Points

Conference Prestige, Conferences would have their prestige determined by the following formula:
40% (Average Prestige of all teams in the conference)
30% (Average Prestige of the Conference Core, ignores the top 2 and bottom 2 in terms of prestige)
20% (Average Prestige of the 4 Most Prestigious Teams in the Conference)
10% (Prestige of the Top Team in the Conference)

Role of the Conference Commissioner
The conference commissioner is responsible for several key aspects: Selecting teams to play in the conference including retaining current teams or adding new ones. Agreeing to bowl game tie-ins. Scheduling an opponent for the inter-conference scrum.

Conference Renewal: From Day One to Day 20 of the season conference commissioners can negotiate with existing conference members to remain in the conference for the following season. Teams may sign a one to four season agreement with their current conference. At day 20 the 500 flex for the team owner is deducted for the following season (though would be returned if the owner went inactive, etc.). After Day 20 , no existing member maybe invited back to the conference for the following season. (See Miscellaneous Notes at bottom for team owners going inactive after day 20)

Invite New Teams: Day 21 to Day 34 allows the commissioner to invite new teams, either to replace members not renewing or using expansion slots (upsizing the conference). New invitee’s who accept will be added to the league the following off-season and sign a 3 season agreement(One size fits all). If an owner goes inactive after signing an agreement for conference renewal the commissioner may replace them during the new conference invite period –or- if they go inactive after day 34 (and are not replaced by an existing GM) may be replaced during the 3 day off-season.

Sign Bowl-Tie Ins: Beginning on day 10 conference commissioners will receive invites to sign a bowl tie in starting with Major Bowl Games and new offers will be generated every 3 days working their way down to minor bowl games until day 33. Conference Prestige is a major factor in which Bowl Games invite which conferences to submit members(See Tech Note 2).

A Conference would be dissolved if: More than 50% of the members fail to renew or their conferences cumulative prestige falls below 15. IF a conference is dissolved the commissioner is also dismissed and a randomly generated 8 team conference will fill their spot the following season.

A Conference Commissioner would be dismissed if:
They go inactive
Fails to renew
They fail to field “qualified” bowl teams for all their slots in two consecutive seasons

You can skip this if you hate details just my way of showing the Mods that its not vastly difficult or too combersome to code.

Technical Note 1 Resolving Scheduling (Skip me if you hate details)
At the beginning of the season each team would be assigned a temporary 5 digit identification number. The number would be composed of two parts, the first would be the conference ID (with independents treated as a “conference of one”) and the last two numbers would be the teams order within the conference (assigned by the conference commission explained later).
- This would mean that the team in conference Alpha, would begin 00101-00109.
- Independents would start stacking immediately after the conferences in order of the permanent GLB2 team ID. So, with 11 conferences the oldest GLB2 independent would be 01200.
Generating this 5 number “place holder” will be used to ensure that exactly half the teams are home and half away on any league day. Team schedules would alternate, so that teams whose first three numbers are odd would be at home league weeks 3,5,7,9,11 and those who are even would be at home league weeks 4,6,8,10,12.
Rivalry and Conference Games would be scheduled first. After that, for all open dates remaining, team owners would simply see @ or vs. in that week for their schedule for weeks 3-13. Team owners would have until day 5 of the GLB season to fill the open games on their schedule by inviting an opponent using the same method as teams do now for challenge games. The only restriction would be that team can only challenge an “away” team or a “home” team depending on what their schedule is for that week (Note: Since all teams in the same conference would be home or away in an open date they could not “reschedule” each other).
Technical Note 2 Bowl Scheduling & Bowl Invites & Bowl Qualification (Skip Me if you Hate details)

Bowl Tie-Ins:
Bowls Would “invite” a conference to sign bowl agreements in order (Major, Low-Major, Mid-Tier, and Minor).

Major Bowls (Day 10) – Invite one team each from the 7 most prestigious conferences Bowl Invite with specify conference champion. The top 3 offers will be made “with replacement” this means that if the Conference Champion is awarded a playoff spot the 2nd Place team in the Conference will automatically participate in this Bowl. Offers made “without replacement” become “at-large” if the conference champion is awarded a playoff spot. All offers will be for 3 seasons. All Major Bowls invites not accepted by day 13 are extinguished and become “open” until the next season.

Low-Major Bowl Invites Round 1 (Day 13). Up to 10 committed slots are offered. All conferences who have not signed an agreement to have their Conference Champion play in a bowl game yet will receive a 3 season offer to commit to a Low-Major Bowl. The top 2 offers will be made with replacement as an option if the Conference Champion receives either a playoff or Major Bowl Invite.

Low-Major Bowl Invites Round 2 (Day 16). Any of the remaining 7 slots not yet accepted will be offered to conferences without replacement. The formula for determining which conferences receive tie-ins will be modified prestige, so that it’s that it factors both the most prestigious and the number of tie-ins already agreed to. [Conference Prestige* 100 - (Number of Bowl Tie-Ins*10)]. All Low-Major Invites not accepted by day 19 are treated as open. (This would be the first time someone who already signed a major invite would get to add a second bowl-tie in)

Mid-Tier Bowl Invites Round 1 (Day 19). 6 Offers Submitted All “With replacement” for selection to playoff, major bowl, or Low-Major Bowl using Modified Prestige Counter Above. Offers not accepted by Day 22 are offered in Round 2.

Mid-Tier Bowl Invites Round 2 (Day 22) 7 Fresh offers plus any not accepted from Round 1 are offered via Modified Prestige Counter Above without replacement. Any offers not accepted by Day 25 are extinguished and are treated as open for that season.

Low Bowl Games Round 1 (Day 25) 7 Offers Submitted All “With replacement” for selection to playoff, major bowl, or Low-Major and Mid-Tier Bowl using Modified Prestige Counter Above. Offers not accepted by Day 28 are offered in Round 2.

Low Bowl Invites Round 2 (Day 28) 7 Fresh offers plus any not accepted from Round 1 are offered via Modified Prestige Counter Above without replacement. Any offers not accepted by Day 28 are offered on day 31

Low Bowl Invites Final Round (Day 31) No Fresh Offers but any offers remaining are offered equally to all conferences on a first come first serve, one a piece basis. Any unaccepted offers by day 34 are treated as open for that season.

Bowl Scheduling: On Rollover after league game 14 the final regular season rankings are released. Bowls and playoff games are scheduled the following rollover in the following order:
1. Playoff Teams: Top Ranked 1-4 Are scheduled
2. Major Bowls: Conference Tie-Ins are processed. Any remaining teams are scheduled in the “at-large” format inviting teams in order of ranking.
3. Low-Major Bowls: Conference Tie-Ins are processed. A list of unassigned teams “qualified” for a low-major bowl are generated and then scheduled in at-large slots in order of overall ranking.
4. Mid-Tier Bowls: Conference Tie-Ins are processed. A list of unassigned teams “qualified” for a mid-tier bowl are generated and then scheduled in at-large slots in order of overall ranking.
5. Low Bowls: Conference Tie-Ins are processed. A list of unassigned teams “qualified” for a low-Low bowl are generated and then scheduled in at-large slots in order of overall ranking.
6. Any unfilled slots remaining in bowl games are filled by teams in order of overall rankings.

Bowl-Qualified: Each of the bowl tiers has their own definition of “qualified”. Conference Commissioners must take care not to over schedule bowl tie-ins. Games offered “with replacement” will not generate a failed to fill qualified team scenario, though they may create a situation whereby they cannot fill their next obligation with someone qualified.
Fully Qualified for a Major Bowl Game means a Top 20 Ranking
Fully Qualified for a Low-Major Game means a Top 30 Ranking – or – having 10 or more regular season wins
Fully Qualified for a Mid-Tier Game means a Top 30 ranking – or greater than or equal to 9 regular season wins
Fully Qualified for a Low Bowl Game: Means 7 or more regular season wins

Miscellaneous Note 1 (Skip me if you hate details)
Staring out: The GLB2 College experience will begin with 11 conferences of 8 randomly assigned teams. Teams will have their conference agreement set at 1 season. The commissioner may or may not invite them to stay and teams are free to go independent or sign with another conference.

All Bowl Games the first season are set to open status (no one has prestige). Bowl Scheduling to conference tie-ins will being the following season as would conference expansion (no one would own open slots)

Independent Teams would have a check box on their home page similar to reschedule to rookie option which would allow them to accept auto-invites to conferences during the off-season. This would be for newly formed conferences or replacing an owner who went inactive after day 20.

All new teams after season 1 would begin as independents.

If the College Experience becomes too popular with more demand for teams and players to go to college teams either more independents could be created(Up to 30) or a Division II could be spawned using the GLB2 standard league format with league winners being promoted to Division I Independents the following season to replace inactive, sold teams as necessary.

There is a reason people want the College Bowls to go away for a tournament.

Originally posted by bhall43
There is a reason people want the College Bowls to go away for a tournament.

With all due respect if you read this (and I realize its long) before going thumbs down there is a 4 team playoff that comes after a round where conference champions square off. Bowl games are there for teams not qualifying for the playoff.

lol I dont even use the thumbs thing man

Originally posted by bhall43
lol I dont even use the thumbs thing man

Fair enough, perhaps someone who just hates long posts because it popped up while I was posting the tech comment, I was like WOW someone read through the whole thing already huh?

In any case just think it gives a much better way to preserve rivalries below vet level in the future, provides a solution for owner atrophy (owners who quit from other tiers), gives a new wrinkle on the system, eliminates the need for too many farm organizations, and would be fun and entertaining while also preserving the basic game rules already established (had I screwed with scheduling it would end up as never going to happen). Above all I think would be very fun knowing your playing your rival again every season all be it with 11 new players each season.

Tldr

Originally posted by hoshdude7
Tldr

Understood..its a simple idea with alot of details..thus the executive summary at the top.

This is eerily similar to Cheerleaders, albeit much more tongue-in-cheek

Originally posted by bhall43
There is a reason people want the College Bowls to go away for a tournament.

Tbh I strongly prefer the bowl system to playoffs, for college at least.

Originally posted by Laggo
This is eerily similar to Cheerleaders, albeit much more tongue-in-cheek

Maybe the college players can all have cheerleaders. And all the cheerleaders look like that pink hair sloot from lazytown

Originally posted by E-A-G-L-E-S
Tbh I strongly prefer the bowl system to playoffs, for college at least.

TBH, I think this is a strong combination of both. A short 4 team playoff with bowls around it for other teams. With 11 conferences you'd still get a regular game wheby say the Champion of the Southwest Conference plays the Pacific Conference Champion annually in the Digital Daggers Bowl or something.

Please no. College football is stupid. A bunch of great players in college come up to the NFL and get DESTROYED, the latest being Tavon Austin. I have no interest in college bowls and their stupid system that doesn't even award the best team because they dont even have a proper playoffs. I think the NFL might just have the right idea.

There have always been divisions in the NFL, and playoffs, and I think there always will be. Its the best way.

Originally posted by 3ebfan511
Please no. College football is stupid. A bunch of great players in college come up to the NFL and get DESTROYED, the latest being Tavon Austin. I have no interest in college bowls and their stupid system that doesn't even award the best team because they dont even have a proper playoffs. I think the NFL might just have the right idea.

There have always been divisions in the NFL, and playoffs, and I think there always will be. Its the best way.

The 49,670,895 who purchased a ticket to watch a college football game in 2012 would disagree with you.
1.8 Million attended a bowl game in person.
71 Million households watched at least one college football game on TV
http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/20114/college-football-its-big

I'd say the market of fans of college football is pretty robust and providing an alternate league structure , while also ensuring there are another set of leagues for those who prefer to the current system would seem to carry a great deal of merit.

Originally posted by 3ebfan511
Please no. College football is stupid. A bunch of great players in college come up to the NFL and get DESTROYED, the latest being Tavon Austin. I have no interest in college bowls and their stupid system that doesn't even award the best team because they dont even have a proper playoffs. I think the NFL might just have the right idea.

There have always been divisions in the NFL, and playoffs, and I think there always will be. Its the best way.

Idiot