Conf. Championship on neutral site?

[Mc2guy]

Originally Posted by saden1

In principle this is not a bad idea because home field advantage gives teams such a huge advantage. And if you're approaching the game as a championship game then you should play it on a neutral site. I think you'll most certainly separate the really good teams and those that just get by. The only thing I don't like about it is that the home team fans won't be able to go to the game easily.

Isn't it the point to get homefield advantage when you have the better record? What incentive does a team have to even show up for games if they have zero incentive to win after clinching their division? Imagine a team from a bad conference who has the division won by week 11 or 12. They would have 4 games with no incentive to play to win outside of pride. That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by Mc2guy

Isn't it the point to get homefield advantage when you have the better record? What incentive does a team have to even show up for games if they have zero incentive to win after clinching their division? Imagine a team from a bad conference who has the division won by week 11 or 12. They would have 4 games with no incentive to play to win outside of pride. That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

If winning the SB isn't enough of an incentive I don't know what is. The only teams that have the luxury of sitting their players right now are those who already have 12+ wins and have already clinched a bye week...and often times these teams do in fact sit their players out which kinda washes the argument that teams will get complacent and not play towards the end of the season. The first round bye week is a huge incentive to make sure you win more games than the rest of your conference.

All I'm saying is there is a huge deal of strategy involved if the championship game was played in the neutral site too. Also, this kind of structure works for the NCAA so I don't see how it's a totally bad thing.