superior to 18 game round robin? the concept of two-games home and away against each opponent solves that issue.

Odd number is so much worse for the sports that play a lot of games, if one team has to be idle each set of games. For football which has fewer games, its more workable. But still which football team wants to be idle on the final weekend of the college football regular season? I guess if a team has a bid to conference championship game wrapped up, maybe they would enjoy the extra week of rest there. But then isn't that a little bit of competitive imbalance for the conference (to have one team entering the conference championship game with an extra week of rest)?