The P5s expand the conferences for geographic reasons for Conference $$ via TV. Getting to the point of turning a conference in it's own League would just backfire in terms of CFB interest. I think the NCAA should step in when it comes to that and limit the teams when it comes to Football, since there's limited games.
Quote:But I can't imagine that any of them would be happy with the result. The ten 9 team conferences include pretty much all of the P5 plus the MWC and AAC.
9-team conferences = 8 Conf Games + 4 OOC. Yeah, you play everyone in your conference. There's that benefit, but I think it's over cooking the soup. There's nothing wrong, IMO, with having two relatively Equal divisions in a conference where you play everyone in your division + about half in the other division.
That's why I'd top it at 12 (6 each division). 5 in-division + 3 other-division = 8 games. +4 OOC.
You could go 5 in-division + 4 of 6 other-division = 9 games + 3 OOC. That would More than cover it, playing a majority of your other-division opponents. There can be a little mystery & separation when going for a Conf Championship game. But overcooking it with 16 teams where you barely play any is overkill in that direction.
If Each Conf was Forced to Have 12-max *and* you wanted better conference setups:
P12
ACC
(-Wake Forest, Boston College)
B1G
(-Rutgers, Maryland)
SEC
(-Vanderbilt, South Carolina)
B12
(+ South Carolina, Houston)
MAC
MWEST
AAC
(+ Maryland)
CUSA
(-FLAtlantic)
SUNB
(+FLAtlantic)
All have 12, but 4 Leftover Teams: (Wake Forest, Boston College, Rutgers, Vanderbilt) + 4 Independents Forced into a Conference (ND, Army, UMass, BYU)
= 8. Too few, so I think they'd steal a few new from G5s, and the G5s may shift around.
If they banned Independents, it would be ND joining the ACC -- and would probably shift another ACC team out to join those no-conf-turned-new-conf. But wouldn't be a bad conference. Other G5s would want to join to make a new one. :)
Basically, at the end of the day, Maxing conferences at 12, we'd have 11 conferences, not 10. Which I'm fine with. No sense in having over 12 a conference.