I said this 6 months ago and I will say it again, the logical realignment is 4 conferences not 5. 4 conferences at 16 schools each is not enough. To make sure the major current P5 conferences avoid an anti-trust law suit, there needs to be 4 conferences at 20 schools each. 20 is easier to schedule than 18. With 20 schools each conference has 4 Pods of 5 schools where the schools will play their oldest and most traditional rivals every year for 4 games and then every school in another Pod for 5 more conference games.

For example, Iowa would play WI, MN, IL and NW every year.

The B1G team plays the Pac 12 team in the Rose Bowl for one semi-final and the SEC plays the other conference champ in the Sugar or Orange Bowl every year.

This maintains tradition and is logical. It is like the NFL.

If this was set up, then the Big 12 would not have got screwed.

I would like to see the B1G add OU, OK. State, Kansas, KSU, U Conn. and another eastern school like UVA or Temple for balance.

The words "logical" and "college football" should never be used in the same sentence. Any attempt to make sense of this haphazzard system is a fool's errand.

Notre Dame is not joining any conference anytime soon. These conference commissioners are not colleagues, they are competitors. That means this is a very different system than the NFL – which has everyone working towards the same singular goal.

There is too much money and too many egos involved to allow the system to ever function at an optimal, well organized level. This is not a singular system like so many people mistakenly assume it is. Expansion decisions and raids of other conferences are not carefully choreographed.

Rather college football is a series of semi-compatible systems that occasionally work together when they believe they can profit from doing so. The XII and the Big Ten are not divisions within the same league, they are separate leagues with some overlapping profit motive.

The best analogy here is not the NFL – it's the UEFA champions league (soccer) in Europe where the best teams in all the various European domestic leagues get together to determine an overall continental champion. The people who run the English Premier League don't really care about the health and well being of Serie A in Italy or the Bundesliga in Germany. In fact, they see them as competitors and know that if either of those two strong leagues were to ever weaken, that would be to the EPL's gain. However, it is in their financial interest to occasionally work together so they each hold their noses and do so.

College football is very much like that dynamic and should probably be seen through that prism when discussing this issue.

(12-08-2014 10:29 AM)Hawkeye Fan Wrote:  I said this 6 months ago and I will say it again, the logical realignment is 4 conferences not 5. 4 conferences at 16 schools each is not enough. To make sure the major current P5 conferences avoid an anti-trust law suit, there needs to be 4 conferences at 20 schools each. 20 is easier to schedule than 18. With 20 schools each conference has 4 Pods of 5 schools where the schools will play their oldest and most traditional rivals every year for 4 games and then every school in another Pod for 5 more conference games.

For example, Iowa would play WI, MN, IL and NW every year.

The B1G team plays the Pac 12 team in the Rose Bowl for one semi-final and the SEC plays the other conference champ in the Sugar or Orange Bowl every year.

This maintains tradition and is logical. It is like the NFL.

If this was set up, then the Big 12 would not have got screwed.

I would like to see the B1G add OU, OK. State, Kansas, KSU, U Conn. and another eastern school like UVA or Temple for balance.

I like 8X8 more than 4X16 (although they are very similar)

8 X 10 is the most logical IMO.... Sounds far cleaner than 4 X 20 even though it's roughly the same thing.

This is never going to be a neat, tidy singular league with four divisions of 20 teams that each play nine conference games and have a conference championship game. It is always going to be sloppy and messy and corrupt. That is just the culture of college football and it will never change.

However, with a little bit better organization of the postseason it can be a little less sloppy and less corrupt. That should be our goal.

(12-08-2014 10:42 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  The words "logical" and "college football" should never be used in the same sentence. Any attempt to make sense of this haphazzard system is a fool's errand.

Notre Dame is not joining any conference anytime soon. These conference commissioners are not colleagues, they are competitors. That means this is a very different system than the NFL – which has everyone working towards the same singular goal.

There is too much money and too many egos involved to allow the system to ever function at an optimal, well organized level. This is not a singular system like so many people mistakenly assume it is. Expansion decisions and raids of other conferences are not carefully choreographed.

Rather college football is a series of semi-compatible systems that occasionally work together when they believe they can profit from doing so. The XII and the Big Ten are not divisions within the same league, they are separate leagues with some overlapping profit motive.

The best analogy here is not the NFL – it's the UEFA champions league (soccer) in Europe where the best teams in all the various European domestic leagues get together to determine an overall continental champion. The people who run the English Premier League don't really care about the health and well being of Serie A in Italy or the Bundesliga in Germany. In fact, they see them as competitors and know that if either of those two strong leagues were to ever weaken, that would be to the EPL's gain. However, it is in their financial interest to occasionally work together so they each hold their noses and do so.

College football is very much like that dynamic and should probably be seen through that prism when discussing this issue.

The NFL is the most well run and profitable sports league in the world. A logical system like the NFL should be the goal.

If 79 teams sign up for this, then ND has no choice.

(12-08-2014 10:51 AM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  8 X 10 is the most logical IMO.... Sounds far cleaner than 4 X 20 even though it's roughly the same thing.

Logical is not going to happen. But true logical is 6X12. You have enough for money making ccgs, you retain rivalries and don't have to do 18 years of schedules, like the B1G has, to try to make it work. And it leaves you 7 slots for additions. UConn and BYU are P5 type schools who are sitting outside the window. The other 5 are arguable, but the candidates would be Temple, Cincinnati, ECU, USF, UCF, Memphis, Tulane, Houston, SMU, Hawaii, San Diego St., Fresno St., UNLV, Boise St., Colorado St. and New Mexico.

128 teams in FBS.

64 of them in contract conferences, plus ND.

If we purely look at logic, the math says 2 large groups, each composed of 8 divisions of 8 schools each.

(12-08-2014 10:59 AM)Hawkeye Fan Wrote:  The NFL is the most well run and profitable sports league in the world. A logical system like the NFL should be the goal.

If 79 teams sign up for this, then ND has no choice.

Well sure the NFL should be the goal. Also, it would be wonderful if we had a world without guns, nuclear weapons and mean people. However, here on planet earth, none of those things are ever going to happen.

As such, we're probably better off striving for realistic goals.

If you think for even a fraction of a second that a guy like Jim Delany is going to relinquish his power to have a better, more equitable system, then what the hell of you been watching all these years?

If you think that Mike Slive is going to give up some of his power so that Wake Forest is treated as Alabama's equal, then I don't know what to tell you.

College football has never function as a singular league and it never will function as a singular league. That option officially went out the door the second the Supreme Court sided with Oklahoma and Georgia in their lawsuit versus the NCAA back in the early 1980s.

Look, I am totally with you in spirit. I wish that all of these conferences would get together and work as one collective unit. That would lead to a lot better decision-making and a lot less hard feelings across the board. Also, by working together better, the college football powers that be could preserve some of the major rivalry games and common sense match ups that have been victims of all this realignment.

However, if I have learned nothing else in the past two decades it is that when you comes to college football, it is every school/league for itself and anyone who is not thinking that way risks being left behind. Ask Houston. Ask Cincinnati. Ask Connecticut. It is inarguably an every school for itself system and there's no two ways about it.

Also, I don't see Notre Dame's decision to remain independent in football as being any different than the behavior of everyone else within this self interest driven system. I don't see any white nights here, just a bunch of greedy people trying to gobble up every nickel they can. Notre Dame just happens to hold a stronger negotiating position than most others so they can dictate their terms to a higher level.

However, you can bet your bottom dollar that if Ohio State thought it could go independent and make more money it would do it in a New York second. The same goes for Texas, Alabama, Michigan, USC, you name it.

I live in Pennsylvania and it makes me laugh when I hear fans of Ohio State or Michigan or Penn State complain about the arrogance and demanding nature of Notre Dame. They all live in the same neighborhood, Notre Dame just happens to drive a nicer car.

Getting to "logical" is a process. And often a very, very long process, the larger the monolith being asked to move toward a higher form of logic. But just as there was a time when unjust system-embedded work without monetary compensation was once just accepted as an unchangeable norm, yet now slavery is now not the norm and not acceptable... suggests we eventually... maybe generations later, but eventually... come around toward egalitarianism and fairness and logic.

(12-08-2014 12:53 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Also, I don't see Notre Dame's decision to remain independent in football as being any different than the behavior of everyone else within this self interest driven system. I don't see any white nights here, just a bunch of greedy people trying to gobble up every nickel they can. Notre Dame just happens to hold a stronger negotiating position than most others so they can dictate their terms to a higher level.

However, you can bet your bottom dollar that if Ohio State thought it could go independent and make more money it would do it in a New York second. The same goes for Texas, Alabama, Michigan, USC, you name it.

I live in Pennsylvania and it makes me laugh when I hear fans of Ohio State or Michigan or Penn State complain about the arrogance and demanding nature of Notre Dame. They all live in the same neighborhood, Notre Dame just happens to drive a nicer car.

I grew up there and I laugh too. It is not "arrogance" or "demanding". It is self interest and self determination.

All of the other schools have decided that it is in their best self interests to join, dissolve and change conference affiliation as it suits them.

The only difference is that ND has decided that its self interests are best served by not being in a football conference.

(12-08-2014 10:42 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  The words "logical" and "college football" should never be used in the same sentence. Any attempt to make sense of this haphazzard system is a fool's errand.

Notre Dame is not joining any conference anytime soon. These conference commissioners are not colleagues, they are competitors. That means this is a very different system than the NFL – which has everyone working towards the same singular goal.

There is too much money and too many egos involved to allow the system to ever function at an optimal, well organized level. This is not a singular system like so many people mistakenly assume it is. Expansion decisions and raids of other conferences are not carefully choreographed.

Rather college football is a series of semi-compatible systems that occasionally work together when they believe they can profit from doing so. The XII and the Big Ten are not divisions within the same league, they are separate leagues with some overlapping profit motive.

The best analogy here is not the NFL – it's the UEFA champions league (soccer) in Europe where the best teams in all the various European domestic leagues get together to determine an overall continental champion. The people who run the English Premier League don't really care about the health and well being of Serie A in Italy or the Bundesliga in Germany. In fact, they see them as competitors and know that if either of those two strong leagues were to ever weaken, that would be to the EPL's gain. However, it is in their financial interest to occasionally work together so they each hold their noses and do so.

College football is very much like that dynamic and should probably be seen through that prism when discussing this issue.

Agreed. I have been saying this for years now about realignment.

(12-08-2014 12:53 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Also, I don't see Notre Dame's decision to remain independent in football as being any different than the behavior of everyone else within this self interest driven system. I don't see any white nights here, just a bunch of greedy people trying to gobble up every nickel they can. Notre Dame just happens to hold a stronger negotiating position than most others so they can dictate their terms to a higher level.

However, you can bet your bottom dollar that if Ohio State thought it could go independent and make more money it would do it in a New York second. The same goes for Texas, Alabama, Michigan, USC, you name it.

I live in Pennsylvania and it makes me laugh when I hear fans of Ohio State or Michigan or Penn State complain about the arrogance and demanding nature of Notre Dame. They all live in the same neighborhood, Notre Dame just happens to drive a nicer car.

Ohio State and Alabama won't go indy because it would anger too many traditionalist fans who donate money and buy season tickets. But if it wasn't for that contingent, they could absolutely make more money as a football indy.

The do-able way in which Ohio State and Alabama can make more money is by demanding that conference revenue be divided according to the relative value of each program rather than giving every conference member an equal share. And, IMO, that fight will be fought again, sooner rather than later.