Fighting Muskie
Senior Chief Realignmentologist
Posts: 11,932
Joined: Sep 2016
Reputation: 818
I Root For: Ohio St, UC,MAC
Location: Biden Cesspool
|
RE: Alternate History College Sports Realignment Scenarios
(07-08-2017 04:08 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote: (07-07-2017 08:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: I love the speculative history.
I've always wondered about if an eastern all sports league might have emerged centered around Penn St and attracted both Florida St and Miami. The Florida schools and Penn St would be the stars of the show with VT, Syracuse, WVU, and BC making nice showings through the 90s and 00s. (Sorry Rutgers, Temple, and Pitt you're all still cellar dwellers in this timeline)
The question is would is league be able to earn big tv dollars and its best members not lured away? Perhaps Penn St, much like Texas, would prefer to be king in its league and enjoy having a voting block supporting them.
I'm guessing circa 2004 this league steals GT and Clemson from the ACC to get to 12 and start a title game and to better tie in the Florida schools to the rest of the league.
ACC is reduced to Maryland, UVA, UNC, Duke, NC St, WF and has to add Louisville, Cincy, USF, and UCF.
In 2012 this league expands again to 16 with Duke, UNC, Maryland, and UVA. NC St joins the SEC at roughly the same time (instead of Missouri) and Louisville slips into the Big 12.
I like this idea a lot. If I were to flesh out the present day alignment of this timeline, would it be something like this?
"Eastern Athletic Conference" (EAC)
Eastern: Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, West Virginia
Athletic: Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Penn State, Syracuse, Temple, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Protected crossovers: Boston College/Syracuse, Clemson/Georgia Tech, Duke/North Carolina, Florida State/Miami, Maryland/Virginia, Pittsburgh/Penn State, Rutgers/Temple, West Virginia/Virginia Tech
Big 12
Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Louisville, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech
Big Ten
East: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue
West: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin
Protected crossover: Illinois/Northwestern
Pac-12
North: California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Washington State
South: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, UCLA, USC, Utah
Protected crossovers: California/UCLA, California/USC, Stanford/UCLA, Stanford/USC
SEC
Eastern: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, NC State, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Western: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Protected crossovers: Florida/LSU, Georgia/Auburn, Kentucky/Mississippi State, NC State/Arkansas, South Carolina/Texas A&M, Tennessee/Alabama, Vanderbilt/Ole Miss
Independent
Notre Dame
ACC
East: Central Florida, Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, South Florida, Wake Forest
West: Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa
Obviously, there's a lot of parallelism here. What do you think?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and make the assumption that the 16 member Eastern Conference I described eventually all comes together circa 2011 and that the strength of Penn St, Florida St, and Miami gives it a tv deal that keeps its best schools from being poached.
The Big Ten: unable to go east, in the early 90s they look west to go to 12, adding Missouri and Nebraska.
In the Big 8 the loss of two programs is a big hit. Colorado departs for the Pac 10 who also tries to recruit Texas but is unsuccessful.
The SWC, who recently lost Arkansas to the SEC is down to just 8 members sees the oprtunity to bolster their ranks and pull in the 5 remaining Big 8 schools. (Perhaps instead of absorbing them in a full merger the SWC Disbands and Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, and Houston make the move and BYU joins in as #12)
If Rice and SMU are left out they join the WAC. If/when the WAC expands in 1996 if BYU and TCU aren't in the mix adding SJSU, Tulsa, and UNLV only puts the WAC at 14 instead of 16 and maybe the smaller size makes that league more stable and the MWC never spins off.
|
|