Its interesting to look at where a league is primarily based. There are a few core regions of the country for athletics and it doesn't make a lot sense to cross between regions.

AQ Conferences
B1G: Illinois (Northwestern, Illinois)
PAC: California (USC, Stanford, UCLA, California)
B12: Texas (TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas)
SEC: Alabama (Auburn, Alabama)
ACC: North Carolina (Wake Forest, Duke, UNC, NC State)

G5 Conferences
MWC: California (SDSU, SJSU, Fresno St)
CUSA: Texas (UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, Rice)
SBC: Georgia (Georgia State, Georgia Southern)
AAC: Florida (Central Florida, South Florida)
MAC: Ohio (Toledo, BG, Kent St, Akron, Miami, Ohio)

Note among the AQ conferences that outside of TAMU in the SEC there is no other case of an AQ conference having a member in a core state of another AQ conference.

In the G5, the MW doesn't overlap any conference's core but the AAC overlaps the MAC with Cincinnati and CUSA with Houston/SMU. Georgia is now the big recruiting state for the SBC with 2 in-state schools and Appy/Troy satelliting it.

Are you just basing this on the state with the most teams in each conference?

(04-03-2013 10:21 PM)krux Wrote:  Are you just basing this on the state with the most teams in each conference?

Mostly yes. I first wanted to tie it to regional recruiting areas like California, Texas, Florida, Ohio but then I realized it didn't fit all situations.

My observation is the AAC doesn't make much sense trying to dip into every G5 homeland when they could be the strongest G5 league in Florida if they added say Florida International.

AAC (hypothetical): Cincinnati, Temple, UConn, UMass, Army, Navy, ODU, ECU, UCF, USF, FIU, FAU

I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

(04-03-2013 11:39 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

Good points. I was wondering about that myself for the B1G. I decided to go with Illinois since it was the most populated state and in the middle of B1G territory.

(04-03-2013 11:39 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

Plus, Ohio is where the bulk of the Big 10's recruits come from. I figured out once that 1/3 of high schoolers in Big 10 territory that are rated 3, 4, or 5-star by Rivals come from Ohio.

Still, the Big 10 is more like the SEC in that there is a lot of balance among the members. Everyone brings something significant to the table, and there's really no center of the league. Even if you didn't have the OSU-MU rivalry, it would still be an important conference just because of the sheer size of the schools involved. 1/2 of the Big 10 schools are among the biggest 10 in the country by student count and alumni base, and even the 2nd smallest Big 10 school would be in the top half of every other conference in America.

(04-03-2013 11:39 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

Well, the B1G offices are in Chicago though.

(04-03-2013 11:39 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

Contrary to popular opinion, the ACC wasn't built off of the UNC-Duke rivalry. Before the mid to late 1980's, NC State was UNC's main rival. At that point, the conference had been in existence for over 30 years.

The UNC-Duke rivalry has grown far beyond a conference rivalry. It is THE top college sports rivalry, and one of the top sports rivalries period.

(04-04-2013 07:23 AM)mpurdy22 Wrote:  

(04-03-2013 11:39 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

Well, the B1G offices are in Chicago though.

The BIG EAST was based in Prov., RI. SU, STJ, SH, RU, and UCONN have more in common with NYC than Prov. and media days and the BE tourney were all held in NYC. COnference HQ isn't everything.

(04-04-2013 08:01 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(04-04-2013 07:23 AM)mpurdy22 Wrote:  

(04-03-2013 11:39 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

Well, the B1G offices are in Chicago though.

The BIG EAST was based in Prov., RI. SU, STJ, SH, RU, and UCONN have more in common with NYC than Prov. and media days and the BE tourney were all held in NYC. COnference HQ isn't everything.

Agreed. And that's why the new Big East will be HQ'ed in NY.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

(04-04-2013 06:26 AM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  

(04-03-2013 11:39 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  I would give the B1G to Michigan-Ohio. Michigan and Michigan State have WAY more pull than NW and Illinois. And yes, I know you are limiting this to one state, but I think that Michigan and Ohio State act together on just about everything, and the conference is built off of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the way that the Big XII is built off of the Texas-OU rivalry, the Pac-12 is based off of the USC-UCLA rivalry (Stanford-Cal is #2), the ACC is built off the UNC-Duke rivalry, and the SEC has too many rivalries to have a dominant rivalry.

Good points. I was wondering about that myself for the B1G. I decided to go with Illinois since it was the most populated state and in the middle of B1G territory.

and that is where the B1G home office is.

(04-03-2013 10:17 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  Its interesting to look at where a league is primarily based. There are a few core regions of the country for athletics and it doesn't make a lot sense to cross between regions.

AQ Conferences
B1G: Illinois (Northwestern, Illinois)
PAC: California (USC, Stanford, UCLA, California)
B12: Texas (TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas)
SEC: Alabama (Auburn, Alabama)
ACC: North Carolina (Wake Forest, Duke, UNC, NC State)

G5 Conferences
MWC: California (SDSU, SJSU, Fresno St)
CUSA: Texas (UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, Rice)
SBC: Georgia (Georgia State, Georgia Southern)
AAC: Florida (Central Florida, South Florida)
MAC: Ohio (Toledo, BG, Kent St, Akron, Miami, Ohio)

Note among the AQ conferences that outside of TAMU in the SEC there is no other case of an AQ conference having a member in a core state of another AQ conference.

In the G5, the MW doesn't overlap any conference's core but the AAC overlaps the MAC with Cincinnati and CUSA with Houston/SMU. Georgia is now the big recruiting state for the SBC with 2 in-state schools and Appy/Troy satelliting it.

The thrust of your argument really comes apart with the lower conferences. All of the realignment has forced these conferences to move their "Core Regions." The MWC used to have its core in Utah, but with both of its top schools leaving, it eventually had to go out of its core region to replace them. The same is true for the SBC, which is really centered around Alabama. The AAC or whatever, was a Northeast based conference, until it fell apart and had to scramble to refill its ranks. As a side note, why did you pick Alabama for the SEC instead of Miss or Tenn?

SEC Could be Mississippi centric with Ole Miss and Mississippi State, or Tennessee centric with Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

(04-04-2013 09:11 AM)vinman3 Wrote:  SEC Could be Mississippi centric with Ole Miss and Mississippi State, or Tennessee centric with Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

It isn't just the number of teams. It's how much pull the teams have. Alabama + Auburn > Vandy + UT or UM + MSU

I see it more as core regions they occupy (even with schools that expand beyond the original core) rather than individual core states:

SEC - the Old South

B12 - Great Plains

B1G - Rust Belt

ACC - East Coast

PAC - West Coast

The SEC conference office is in Birmingham, Alabama. The Big Ten office is in Park Ridge, Illinois. The Pac 12 office is in Walnut Creek, California. In addition to those states having the most or being tied for the most members in the conference, they also have the conference office.

(04-04-2013 09:11 AM)vinman3 Wrote:  SEC Could be Mississippi centric with Ole Miss and Mississippi State, or Tennessee centric with Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

The SEC core is Georgia / Alabama / Mississippi / Tennessee. And Alabama is surrounded by Georgia, Tennessee and Mississippi, so if you are going with a single state, may as well be Alabama. Where the skies are so blue.

The Big 10 core are the five Great Lakes states (note how I avoided naming that whole state that according to song I don't give a damn for), and Illinois is the most populous of the five, with the biggest city in the Big Ten footprint, so may as well make it Illinois.

But the roaming core problem is exactly the problem with the Sunbelt and Conference USA. If bilateral moves were possible, and fan travel and away fan ticket sales were driving the bus, one conference would focus on Louisiana and Texas, the other on Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas, and there would be a boundary somewhere between the two based on how many FBS qualified schools there are to divide between the two. But conference realignment has involved conferences establishing a totem pole, and conferences higher up the totem pole raiding conferences lower down, so we got this situation of the Conference USA clustering in Texas and the Atlantic border south and much of the Sunbelt lying in between those clusters.

Sun Belt I'd say Alabama or Louisiana.

Alabama: Two members. Home of the bowl that has taken the champ three of past four years, major recruiting area. Six members (2 football only) to the west, three to the east.

Louisiana: Two members (formerly three) two (one non-football) in Arkansas bordering Louisiana on the north. Two (one non-football) in Texas bordering on the east. Site of conference HQ. Site of oldest affiliated bowl. New site of conference basketball tournament. Louisiana and Arkansas contain the only charter football members to play every season of Sun Belt football.

(04-03-2013 10:17 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  B1G: Illinois (Northwestern, Illinois)

Michigan (Michigan, Michigan State)
Indiana (Indiana, Purdue)

(04-03-2013 10:17 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  SEC: Alabama (Auburn, Alabama)

Mississippi (Mississippi, Mississippi State)
Tennessee (Tennessee, Vanderbilt)

(04-03-2013 10:17 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  SBC: Georgia (Georgia State, Georgia Southern)

Louisiana (Louisiana, Louisiana-Monroe)
Alabama (Troy, South Alabama)

(04-03-2013 10:17 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  AAC: Florida (Central Florida, South Florida)

Texas (SMU, Houston)

(04-04-2013 11:08 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(04-04-2013 09:11 AM)vinman3 Wrote:  SEC Could be Mississippi centric with Ole Miss and Mississippi State, or Tennessee centric with Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

It isn't just the number of teams. It's how much pull the teams have. Alabama + Auburn > Vandy + UT or UM + MSU

yeah but um and msu have way more pull than ill and nw. if league offices are going to count, then the be which still has the c7 as members, is centered in ri.