A Modest Realignment Proposal

[NJDuck]

 

Interesting take on realignment/playoff.  In spite of the idea coming from a 'Dog' up North with a slight jab to their hated rival Oregon.  All in fun though.

 

College football conferences are messy and confusing.  Let[s start over.

 

A year ago, Max took a stab at a different sort of conference realignment. It was a system built around four major conferences with 16 teams each, plus minor conferences affiliated with the majors. The key qualification is that it would be possible for the teams from the lower conferences to jump into the higher conferences through on-field success with a system of promotion and relegation. The conferences were reasonably balanced in terms of geographic diversity, team quality, and market viability. It was a good system. 

 

Alas, we’re no closer to resolving the ongoing fight over conference alignment. A lot has changed in the last year, but none of those changes have brought us much closer to true stability. With that in mind, I started to revisit Max’s idea: what would it look like if we started from scratch and wanted to build conference alignment and scheduling in college football without the ultimate control of TV networks, the CFP, and other interests removed from fan experience? 

 

When I started to think through the idea, there were a few guiding principles that I knew I wanted to preserve:

• I love the promotion/relegation system. It preserves and restores the sanctity of the regular season. Of course, a few teams in the middle of a conference will have games that don’t matter much at the end of the year, but with relatively small divisions, most games will have great importance for most teams. 
•  
• At the same time, I need to find a way to preserve the most important regional rivalries. Fan rivalries and the history attached to them are the sorts of things that distinguish college football from most other major American sports. The number of 100-year-old college football rivalries is probably longer than the list of 100-year-old rivalries in all major American sports combined. 
•  
• While I’m not the biggest fan of the tournament structure at the end of the season, I recognize that I’m in the minority on that question. The ideal system should have an exciting postseason that doesn’t negate the games played in the regular season.
•  
• With those criteria in mind, I came up with two options for a new conference alignment and schedule. 

A Modest Realignment Proposal

WWW.UWDAWGPOUND.COM

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College football conferences are messy and confusing. Let’s start over.

 

[Jon Joseph]

Conference reshuffling is fun. But I expect no P5 expansion anytime within the next 5 years (I am probably wrong here) other than the Pac-10 adding SDSU and SMU.

 

I think the below would make sense and would prevent CFB from going to 2, 20 to 24-team conferences and officially becoming NFL-Lite. (This could happen regardless if players are found to be employees.) The Atlantic and Pacific Conference (A+P if the name is available if not the Coast-To-Coast Conference) would be a solid #3 in a CFB world of Power 4 conferences and would be far stronger in every metric than the B12.

 

Pacific Division - Pod partners would play every season. 10 conference CFB games with 8 intra-division and 2 cross-division. CFB and CBB would be contested cross-division. All other sports would be contested intra-division with cross-division post-regular-season tournaments for CBB, baseball, softball, golf, tennis, etc., and cross-division dual meets in track, etc. (10 games would allow Notre Dame, see below, to continue to play USC and Navy every season and Stanford could be designated as a permanent Irish cross-division opponent.)

 

North - Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State

 

South - Cal, SDSU, Stanford, Utah

 

East - Arizona, ASU, CU, SMU

 

Atlantic Division - With the number of ACC teams in this division the ACC would be eliminated and the onerous media deal that runs through 2036 would disappear. ACC schools would 'leave' the ACC with no exit fee issues. Hopefully, ESPN and other third-party broadcasters such as NBC would come with the money and the ACC network would expand to cover the A+P Conference. Notre Dame would have a difficult choice. Notre Dame's scheduling deal with the ACC would go away and ND would have to choose between the A+P and the B1G. In order to incent ND to play football and all other sports in the A+P, the A+P would allow ND to keep its NBC deal and receive a 90% A+P media share. Syracuse is in if ND is not.

 

South - FSU, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami

 

East - Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest

 

North - Clemson, Notre Dame (Syracuse,) Virginia, Virginia Tech

 

Size goes to size in business and we will see further CFB expansion, contraction, and perhaps a move to Ivy/D3 for a number of programs.