** This thread discusses the Content article:
College Football Realignment Proposal **
I like Conference Championship Games. The idea that conferences could grow to ten eleven teams and crown a 'conference champion' without each team getting a shot to play every other is terrible. What happens when Iowa doesn't play either Michigan or Ohio State, and they go undefeated while one of these teams do as well? Isn's this a far worse situation than the fact that the NCAA can't decide it's overall champion? Shouldn't a conference be able to at least decide their own championship first?
With that in mind, I've often come up with proposals to get the 6 BCS Conferences to 12 teams each. I also take a shot at making divisions for conferences that don't already have them...
I also assumed Notre Dame will never join a conference, and completely ignored other sports (for example, the Big East has 16 teams in basketball, 8 in football, currently). Some of my moves I tried to think about what sort of reputation the schools have, others are strictly geographic. But without a dramatic re-working the geography is never going to make sense.
SEC:
Trades Arkansas for [i]Louisville, and Vanderbilt for [i]Clemson
PAC-12 (my only regret is Cal/Stanford go to opposite geographical divisions, but they could lock as each others annual rival, so no big deal):
North: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, California, [i]Boise State
South: USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford, [i]Hawaii
Big XII:
Trades Iowa State for [i]Arkansas
Little Twelve:
East: Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, [i]Miami (OH)
West: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, [i]Iowa State
ACC (No one knows what division each team is from week-to-week anyways, just sub them out):
Trades Clemson for [i]Vanderbilt
Big Non-West:
North: Connecticut, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, West Virginia, [i]Penn State
South: South Florida, [i]Marshall, Cinncinnati, TCU, Central Florida, Florida Atlantic
Comments, anyone? It's not perfect, but it's what I've got right now. At any rate, you'd at least have more confidence in a conference champion from one of these conferences, as they'd be forced to play the 9th conference game. Plus you give some more of the little guys a shot. I would have liked to find a home for BYU, Utah, SMU, Fresno State, but by the time you add a 7th conference you get in big trouble. The other guys would still have a shot under the Wetzel Plan, which is probably the most "fair" and reasonable propsal I've heard as far as a playoff scenario.
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