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While conferences expand to 14 and, no doubt, 16 in the near future, I have to wonder:
what is the ideal conference size?
Me? I think they got it right in the recent past: 12.
to me, 12 is ideal. but only if a conference played an 11 game round robin (good by, cupcakes, from schedule) and eliminated divisions. I'm thinking of something like this to cover the nation with realignment and teams heading back to their own regions:
Big East for the northeast
ACC for the south atlantic
Big Ten for Midwest/Great Lakes
SEC for the mid south
Big 8 revival and expansion for the Great Plains
SWC revival for the southwest
MWC for the Rockies
Pac 12 for the west coast
I'd love to see such a conference play such a schedule. If the conference is won outright during the season, that team is champion. If two teams are tied at season's end, they play the championship game. If three of more teams tie, two are chosen by formula (head to head, point differential, that sort of thing).
In case of no championship game, which already would have been scheduled, a high ranking team would be invited to play the league champion in an "invitational game".
If 8 major conferences could be set up (I floated this idea before), their champs could go into an 8 team play-off starting with 4 NYD bowls.
If there could be the right amount of broadcast revenue sharing, there wouldn't be the need to "expand conference footprints" which, BtW, I think is totally screwing the game. There are just too many teams to keep the association between them meaningful, too many rivalries lost, and too much smacking of $$$$$ to make these super conferences work, at least for the fans.
16 with 4 divisions of 4 teams
Use the NFL's scheduling format with a difference
Each division rival plays each other once per season and one divisions once on a rotating basis
Plus one permanent non division rival to keep rivalries intact
Example
SEC
West:
Missouri
Texas A&M
Arkansas
LSU
Central:
Ole Miss
Mississippi St
Tennessee
Kentucky
Middle:
Vanderbilt
Alabama
Auburn
Georgia
East:
Florida
South Carolina
Virginia Tech
NC State
Or two divisions of 8, 11 conference games 7 within 4 outside of division
Division winners plus two wild cards play a six team conference postseason
Then the conference winners advance to the national playoff of six
Six conferences of 16 each- 96 d1A schools
Last edited by onceahogalwaysahog; 12-01-2012 at 07:05 AM..