This is a proposal for a 10-week 9-game scheduling commitment designed for a 16-team league. It solves the "Tie-Breaker Chaos" problem by ensuring that top teams play each other on the field, rather than relying on polls or complex metrics.

• 16 Teams: Split into 4 Groups of 4 (A, B, C, D).
• Weeks 1-3 (Group Play): A full round-robin within your group.
• Week 4 (Bye/OOC): A conference-wide bye week. Schools can schedule a marquee Out-of-Conference game or rest.
• Weeks 5-6 (Power Match): The innovation.
  • Week 5: Two groups host the other two (e.g., A hosts B, C hosts D).
  • Week 6: The roles flip and pairings switch (e.g., D hosts A, B hosts C).
  • The Matchups: Decided after Week 3. You play the team in the opposing group that shares your rank (1st vs 1st, 2nd vs 2nd).
• Weeks 7-10 (Crossover): One group plays the entirety of another group (e.g., Group A plays all 4 teams in Group C).

While placing the "Power Match" games at the end of the season offers better data for tie-breakers, placing them in the Middle (Weeks 5-6) is superior for the product.

• Narrative Tension: It creates distance between the regular season matchup and a potential rematch in the Championship Game.
• Rematch Fatigue: An immediate rematch (Week 12 Power Match followed by Week 13 CCG) feels stale. A rematch of a Week 5 thriller feels like a "Revenge Game."
• Clarity: By Week 7, we know exactly who the contenders are. The "Pretenders" have been weeded out by the Power Match games.

The aim is to eliminate the "Scheduling Quirk" era of college football—where a team like Miami might miss the CCG over a lower-ranked Duke or Virginia simply because they didn't play the right people. This system forces the best to play the best, every single year.

This project simulates a 16-team college football league (SEC or Big XII) split into 4 groups of 4. The goal is to analyze if this structure, combined with "Power Match" scheduling, reduces the frequency of chaotic tie-breakers for the Championship Game (CCG) spots compared to large divisions.

Based on 1000 simulated seasons using real 2025 Elo ratings:

• Baseline (1 Power Match Week): Approximately 51-54% of seasons end with a tie for the top 2 spots (requiring complex tie-breakers).
• Chaos Model (9-Game Random): Approximately 52% of seasons end with a tie. This confirms that simply playing more games (9 vs 8) without structure doesn't solve the tie-breaker issue.
• Enhanced (2 Power Match Weeks): Increasing to 2 Power Match weeks reduces the tie frequency to ~45%.
• Timing: Moving Power Match games to the end of the season (after group and crossover play) offers a marginal improvement over mid-season scheduling, likely because the matchups are based on more mature data.

• Python 3.x
• No external dependencies required (uses standard library).

Run a single season simulation for the SEC:

python3 main.py --league SEC

• --league: Choose SEC or BigXII.
• --sims: Number of simulations to run (e.g., 1000).
• --power-weeks: Number of Power Match games (1 or 2).
• --power-timing: When to play Power Match games (mid or end).
• --evolve-elo: Enable multi-season dynasty mode where ratings carry over.

Check tie frequency with 2 Power Match weeks:

python3 main.py --league SEC --sims 1000 --power-weeks 2

Simulate a 50-year dynasty:

python3 main.py --league SEC --sims 50 --evolve-elo

Below are examples of how a season plays out for a top team from each group under different scheduling models.

Schedule Order: 3 Group Games -> 2 Power Match Games -> 4 Crossover Games

Georgia (Group A)

• Group Play: W vs Florida, L vs South Carolina, W vs Kentucky
• Power Match Week 1: W vs Alabama (Group B leader)
• Power Match Week 2: W vs Texas (Group D leader)
• Crossover: L vs LSU, L vs Ole Miss, L vs Miss State, W vs Arkansas
• Result: 5-4

Alabama (Group B)

• Group Play: W vs Auburn, W vs Tennessee, W vs Vanderbilt
• Power Match Week 1: L vs Georgia
• Power Match Week 2: L vs LSU
• Crossover: W vs Texas, W vs Texas A&M, W vs Oklahoma, W vs Missouri
• Result: 7-2

Schedule Order: 3 Group Games -> 4 Crossover Games -> 2 Power Match Games

Georgia (Group A)

• Group Play: L vs Florida, W vs South Carolina, L vs Kentucky
• Crossover: W vs LSU, W vs Ole Miss, W vs Miss State, W vs Arkansas
• Power Match Week 1: L vs Alabama (Matched based on 5-2 record)
• Power Match Week 2: L vs Texas A&M (Matched based on 5-3 record)
• Result: 5-4

Alabama (Group B)

• Group Play: W vs Auburn, W vs Tennessee, L vs Vanderbilt
• Crossover: W vs Texas, W vs Texas A&M, L vs Oklahoma, W vs Missouri
• Power Match Week 1: W vs Georgia
• Power Match Week 2: W vs Ole Miss
• Result: 7-2

Teams and groups are defined in config.py. You can modify the groups or update Elo ratings there. The current ratings are based on Warren Nolan's 2025 projections.

A common critique of dynamic scheduling is the difficulty of travel planning. A proposed solution to make this viable:

1. Pre-Set Rotations: The Home/Away designation is fixed years in advance.
   • Example: In 2026, Group A is guaranteed to Host Group B in Week 8.
   • Benefit: Home fans know they have a game. Away fans know they are traveling to one of 4 specific campuses.
2. Staggered Scheduling:
   • League 1 (e.g., SEC): Plays Power Match weeks in Mid-October.
   • League 2 (e.g., Big XII): Plays Power Match weeks in Late November.
   • Benefit: This allows each league to dominate the TV ratings for a specific month and avoids cannibalizing viewership.
3. The "6-Day Window": TV networks already use a 6-day selection window for kickoff times. This system extends that concept to the opponent selection, which fits within existing operational workflows for broadcasters.

If Group A has three teams tied at 2-1 in group play (A beat B, B beat C, C beat A), we need a deterministic way to rank them 1-2-3 to match against Group B.

Recommended Tie-Breaker Hierarchy:

1. Head-to-Head: (Busted in a circle).
2. Record vs Crossover Group: Since the entire Group A plays the entire Group C (or similar), they have 4 Common Opponents.
   • Logic: If Team A went 4-0 against the Crossover Group, but Team B went 3-1, Team A is ranked higher.
   • Why it works: It rewards performance against the rest of the league, not just the internal rock-paper-scissors.
3. Capped Point Differential: If still tied (e.g., both went 4-0 vs Crossover), use point differential in the Group Games, capped at +17 per game.

Because of the risk of interlocking defeats, End-Season Power Match is superior.

• Mid-Season: You only have 3 data points (Group games) to break a circular tie. This is often insufficient.
• End-Season: You have 7 data points (3 Group + 4 Crossover). The "Record vs Crossover Group" tie-breaker is fully available before you select the Power Match opponent, ensuring the best team gets the #1 seed matchup.

The Group System relies on symmetry. An odd number of teams breaks the pairing logic. Two solutions exist:

Find a partner league that also has an odd number (e.g., ACC).

• Mechanism: The "Leftover" team from the SEC plays the "Leftover" team from the ACC during the Power Match week.
• Benefit: Preserves 1v1 pairings for the top 16 teams while giving the 17th team a competitive Power-4 opponent.

The league contracts an external "Donor" team (e.g., New Mexico, Hawaii, or a recently departed school) to fill the 18th slot.

• Mechanism: The Donor agrees to play whoever is left over in the Power Match pairing (usually a mid-tier or lower-tier team).
• Sweetener: To make this attractive, the game can be a Road Game for the Donor (giving the league team a valuable home gate) or a "Buy Game" with a premium payout.
• Exit Fee Clause: Teams leaving the league could be contractually bound to serve as the "Donor" for 4 years, ensuring the league has time to find a permanent replacement.