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Football conference expansion and realignment is, iMHO, going in the wrong direction to the extremes. In reality, it seems that we may be heading for 4 super conferences, each representing the N, S, E, & W of the nation with 16 schools in each for a total of 64. This would, if implemented, slash quite a few current BSC schools who won't make the cut.
going the other direction here on city-data are calls for 8 conferences of 16 teams each or something akin to it. the premise seems to mix both the majors and mid-majors into one group so that the college tournament would look very much like the NCAA's march madness. Schools included will number well into the 100's.
to me, there is a golden mean smack in the middle of two, one that allows the set up to be chiefly built around schools that are either majors of schools that border on that status and could compete at that level.
My proposal thus is to have 8 conferences bit each conference would have only 12 members thus with a total of 96. my goal would be to blanket each region of the nation with a conference and in most cases that conference would have footprints of existing or former conferences. Indeed, every effort could be made to include a whole conference or its original footprint into the new system.
the following would be the regions covered; for each I will give a current or former conference that basically covered its footprint although these lines do not have to be etched in stone. they're just a baseline to work from:
Northeast (basically original Big East country in the MidAtlantic and N England)
Southeast (basic ACC footprint of the schools south of the Mason Dixon line)
South Central (original SEC, probably not dipping into MO or TX)
Great Lakes/Midwest (original Big Ten footprint)
Great Plains (largely the old Big Eight country)
Southwest (largely the old SWC)
Rocky Mountains (a good per cent of the MWC schools)
West Coast (Pac 10 before it became Pac 12 would be the model here)
Each of the conference champions would play in a New Years bowl game as the first round of an 8 school tournament. the following week, an East and West semi-final would be held, to be followed one week later by the national championship. I would hope for no divisions in each conference, but a round robin 11 game conference schools and a conference title game only to break a tie on top.
YOU CHALLENGE…..if you choose to accept it…..is to design 8 conferences (with existing or new names) to cover the 8 regions above and give each conference 12 teams based on what you feel would be the 96 schools that could operate in that top tier of college football. Thus you might (or might not) weed out existing BCS schools on the basis of whether or not you think they can maintain their status and then include a number of non-BCS schools that you already see playing at a BCS level of competition.
It would be very interesting to see the way different forumers approach this 96/8/12 set up. Good luck to any who take the challenge.
I like doing these. As far as who to cut and who to keep, I went by this list I made a few years ago. I picked only the top 96 teams by my arbitrary "power score" based on various factors, from attendance and enrollment, to wins, and even endowment. This is a partial listing of data:
I like doing these. As far as who to cut and who to keep, I went by this list I made a few years ago. I picked only the top 96 teams by my arbitrary "power score" based on various factors, from attendance and enrollment, to wins, and even endowment. This is a partial listing of data:
I reshuffled the divisions and leagues to fit Duke, Temple, and Wake Forest. WVU was moved to the Rebel Conference to fit Temple in Metropolis, and two Georgia teams were added to Rebel to make way for Duke and Wake. Arkansas was moved to Cowboy, and Tulane dropped out to make room. MTSU dropped out of the Rebel conference, leaving room for the two from Georgia.
...solid league. Maybe I should make up for the lack of mountain teams by splitting the west north and south, not coastal and mountain, but I went by the criteria given.
I reshuffled the divisions and leagues to fit Duke, Temple, and Wake Forest. WVU was moved to the Rebel Conference to fit Temple in Metropolis, and two Georgia teams were added to Rebel to make way for Duke and Wake. Arkansas was moved to Cowboy, and Tulane dropped out to make room. MTSU dropped out of the Rebel conference, leaving room for the two from Georgia.
...solid league. Maybe I should make up for the lack of mountain teams by splitting the west north and south, not coastal and mountain, but I went by the criteria given.
Great job! That Rustler Division in the Cowboy Conference would probably be the toughest division in College Football. At the very least comparable to the Gulf Division.
I also would probably trade out Tulsa for UNT as Tulsa is traditionally a much stronger program, at least recently. You'd have to find another team to fit into the Crossroads.
College football is so money driven, it is impossible to think logically about breaking up teams into smaller conferences that don't have intriguing matchups and TV markets to make the networks salivate.
The Cowboy conference -- moronic name by the way -- is nothing more than the old Southwest Conference put back together with two (increasingly irrelevant) Big 8/12 schools and a patsy.
There is nothing intriguing about an inbred, Texas-centric conference. That's why the SWC broke up and had to merge with the Big 8 to survive.
This is awesome. I'm working on my conferences based off Hamtonfordbury's rankings system. This is an awesome thread.
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