The Working Population:

By 2035 the youngest of the Boomer Generation will be 73 so it is safe to say that by 2030 that virtually all of the generation will be retired. Two key leading economic factors will then be in play.

The labor force will shrink by 1/3rd or a little more as subsequent generations will not be able to keep pace with the retirement of the Boomers. And, most importantly, Boomers will be an enormous drain on Social Security and Health Care. Inescapably this means that a major tax burden will have to be placed upon the existing working population. The good news is that this particular down turn financially will be short lived and the shrinking work force will mean stronger competition for jobs which will mean larger incomes for the work force. I'm sure immigration will be used to fill the work force from the bottom and that it will help to offset a portion of the SSI and Health Care payouts.

What this means for our Universities is that Federal Grants will likely be cut, Corporate Grants will be harder to attain, and enrollment and tuition will be key to supporting the strongest of the schools. It is why a Harvard study recently suggested that 50% of all colleges and Universities would be bankrupt within a 10 to 15 year span as we move forward from today.

What it also means is that the last truly vested generation of this nation will be passing and the subsequent generations will actually own less real property, have less personal savings, and briefly a higher cost of living. I say briefly because by the mid 2040's the number of living Boomers will be well within the numbers that the subsequent generations can support. At that time there will be a new economic renaissance for those still working.

What this means however for our cherished sports is that ticket prices will have to come down and that means the burden of supporting the costs of athletics will shift more toward Media revenue than has been the historical norm. Right now TV revenue account for between 1/3rd to 1/5th of the total revenue of the highest earning athletic departments in the country.

HD TV, travel costs, and shrinking disposable income have already started to take a toll on attendance.

So these trends will lead to the following trends in realignment:

1. An emphasis on playing closer rivals which means that priority to consolidation within a region, by division, if not by the whole conference, will become an emphasis. So far flung conferences and divisions with outliers will be a thing of the past.

2. Look for larger and larger undergraduate enrollments at the surviving schools. This will be necessary to streamline state budgets, and to support through undergraduate tuition the research programs of the post graduate schools.

I think this will mean that campuses with available space will utilize that for housing and brick and mortar facilities and those constrained will utilize on line courses in numbers never before seen. It will be interesting to see which of those two approaches will prove to be the most efficient. 18 year old kids don't want to stay at home, but the economy may force them to do so. So maybe online courses will win out over larger campuses. I suppose that will depend on the cost of housing because the overwhelming desire will be for the kids to get away from home and experience their first personal accountability in a social situation conducive for relationship building as well as study.

Streaming

Choice will no doubt drive the future delivery models of programming and with the advance of technology making individual viewing options available for almost everything pressures for schools with the largest number of actual viewers will stress conference relationships. However the need for the support structure (officials, standards, scheduling, etc.) will likely hold conferences together.

What streaming will do however is place an emphasis that the collection of schools within a conference all contribute to the overall media revenue. This means their athletic programs will have to be competitive across the money sports, that their travel crowd size will be factored in more heavily, and that means that once again proximity to opponents will be emphasized.

If there is a big hold on realignment in 2024 that disappoints many of us it will be because we are still in an unclear transitional period and taking a flyer on schools 600 miles away and more is likely going to be on hold. In fact I'd say the focus would be upon destinations under a 6 hour drive from your home stadium.

So What Might Future Conferences Look Like?

I would suspect the PAC will remain essentially the same but perhaps minus Colorado and a couple of the lesser impact schools which will not have to be voted out, but due to economic and population reasons may be downsized by internal choice, or at least state choice.

Where the radical changes will occur are in the East, North, Southeast and Southwest.

The present shape of the SEC and Big 10 took shape when people traveled by rail. I think those old cores will hold because they were originally formed for the same reasons, ease and affordability of travel.

But I do think they will grow their sphere of influence within their core footprint.

Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri might very well be of interest to the Big 10 by 2035. Penn State, Rutgers and Maryland may not.

So we could see a major retraction from the additions made under the cable market footprint subscription fee expansion period and quite frankly that may be a very good thing.

What we might also see out of the Big 10 and SEC is a refocusing on large state schools with massive undergraduate enrollments that support their research endeavors and all of whom are within a reasonable travel distance.

So look for a concentration of like schools within regions and by like I'm talking about size, not academics, and not necessarily historical ties.

What Might This Look Like?

Big 10:

Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska

Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin

SEC:

Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, South Carolina

ACC:

Georgia Tech, Kentucky, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia, Virginia Tech

Maryland, Notre Dame, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, West Virginia

SWC II:

Arkansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech

Arizona, Arizona State, New Mexico, Brigham Young, Colorado, Utah

PAC:

California, Cal Los Angeles, Nevada, San Diego State, Southern Cal, Stanford

Boise State, Nevada Las Vegas, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State


The travel within divisional play is as local as it can be. The schools are large draws whether public or private, but the small privates have essentially been eliminated from the existing conferences.

Here is a suggestion for what the private associations may look like:

Private School Conference:

Army, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Northwestern, Syracuse

Duke, Miami, Navy, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest

Air Force, Baylor, S.M.U., T.C.U., Tulane,

(03-09-2018 12:49 PM)JRsec Wrote:  The Working Population:

By 2035 the youngest of the Boomer Generation will be 73 so it is safe to say that by 2030 that virtually all of the generation will be retired. Two key leading economic factors will then be in play.

The labor force will shrink by 1/3rd or a little more as subsequent generations will not be able to keep pace with the retirement of the Boomers. And, most importantly, Boomers will be an enormous drain on Social Security and Health Care. Inescapably this means that a major tax burden will have to be placed upon the existing working population. The good news is that this particular down turn financially will be short lived and the shrinking work force will mean stronger competition for jobs which will mean larger incomes for the work force. I'm sure immigration will be used to fill the work force from the bottom and that it will help to offset a portion of the SSI and Health Care payouts.

What this means for our Universities is that Federal Grants will likely be cut, Corporate Grants will be harder to attain, and enrollment and tuition will be key to supporting the strongest of the schools. It is why a Harvard study recently suggested that 50% of all colleges and Universities would be bankrupt within a 10 to 15 year span as we move forward from today.

What it also means is that the last truly vested generation of this nation will be passing and the subsequent generations will actually own less real property, have less personal savings, and briefly a higher cost of living. I say briefly because by the mid 2040's the number of living Boomers will be well within the numbers that the subsequent generations can support. At that time there will be a new economic renaissance for those still working.

What this means however for our cherished sports is that ticket prices will have to come down and that means the burden of supporting the costs of athletics will shift more toward Media revenue than has been the historical norm. Right now TV revenue account for between 1/3rd to 1/5th of the total revenue of the highest earning athletic departments in the country.

HD TV, travel costs, and shrinking disposable income have already started to take a toll on attendance.

So these trends will lead to the following trends in realignment:

1. An emphasis on playing closer rivals which means that priority to consolidation within a region, by division, if not by the whole conference, will become an emphasis. So far flung conferences and divisions with outliers will be a thing of the past.

2. Look for larger and larger undergraduate enrollments at the surviving schools. This will be necessary to streamline state budgets, and to support through undergraduate tuition the research programs of the post graduate schools.

I think this will mean that campuses with available space will utilize that for housing and brick and mortar facilities and those constrained will utilize on line courses in numbers never before seen. It will be interesting to see which of those two approaches will prove to be the most efficient. 18 year old kids don't want to stay at home, but the economy may force them to do so. So maybe online courses will win out over larger campuses. I suppose that will depend on the cost of housing because the overwhelming desire will be for the kids to get away from home and experience their first personal accountability in a social situation conducive for relationship building as well as study.

Streaming

Choice will no doubt drive the future delivery models of programming and with the advance of technology making individual viewing options available for almost everything pressures for schools with the largest number of actual viewers will stress conference relationships. However the need for the support structure (officials, standards, scheduling, etc.) will likely hold conferences together.

What streaming will do however is place an emphasis that the collection of schools within a conference all contribute to the overall media revenue. This means their athletic programs will have to be competitive across the money sports, that their travel crowd size will be factored in more heavily, and that means that once again proximity to opponents will be emphasized.

If there is a big hold on realignment in 2024 that disappoints many of us it will be because we are still in an unclear transitional period and taking a flyer on schools 600 miles away and more is likely going to be on hold. In fact I'd say the focus would be upon destinations under a 6 hour drive from your home stadium.

So What Might Future Conferences Look Like?

I would suspect the PAC will remain essentially the same but perhaps minus Colorado and a couple of the lesser impact schools which will not have to be voted out, but due to economic and population reasons may be downsized by internal choice, or at least state choice.

Where the radical changes will occur are in the East, North, Southeast and Southwest.

The present shape of the SEC and Big 10 took shape when people traveled by rail. I think those old cores will hold because they were originally formed for the same reasons, ease and affordability of travel.

But I do think they will grow their sphere of influence within their core footprint.

Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri might very well be of interest to the Big 10 by 2035. Penn State, Rutgers and Maryland may not.

So we could see a major retraction from the additions made under the cable market footprint subscription fee expansion period and quite frankly that may be a very good thing.

What we might also see out of the Big 10 and SEC is a refocusing on large state schools with massive undergraduate enrollments that support their research endeavors and all of whom are within a reasonable travel distance.

So look for a concentration of like schools within regions and by like I'm talking about size, not academics, and not necessarily historical ties.

What Might This Look Like?

Big 10:

Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska

Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin

SEC:

Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, South Carolina

ACC:

Georgia Tech, Kentucky, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia, Virginia Tech

Maryland, Notre Dame, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, West Virginia

SWC II:

Arkansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech

Arizona, Arizona State, New Mexico, Brigham Young, Colorado, Utah

PAC:

California, Cal Los Angeles, Nevada, San Diego State, Southern Cal, Stanford

Boise State, Nevada Las Vegas, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State


The travel within divisional play is as local as it can be. The schools are large draws whether public or private, but the small privates have essentially been eliminated from the existing conferences.

Here is a suggestion for what the private associations may look like:

Private School Conference:

Army, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Northwestern, Syracuse

Duke, Miami, Navy, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest

Air Force, Baylor, S.M.U., T.C.U., Tulane,

I'm not sure the leagues would need to be equal in number. I can't see the B1G ever letting go of PSU or PSU wanting to leave the B1G. To me its much more reasonable for the B1G and Nebraska to amicably part ways for the self interest of both. As you pointed out the tv deal is not the whole revenue factor and we could see a narrowing of the revenue differences between the B1G/SEC with the right Big 12 makeup. The PAC its hard to say but if this is geography based then we are not splitting the PAC between the B1G & Big 12 or combining the PAC & Big 12. They may always be the weakest of the leagues because the only good options were mentioned above.

If this ever happened I think its more likely to see the ACC coastal schools NC, Duke, Va., ND, Va. Tech or Ga. Tech go to the B1G.

The SEC takes most of the southern ACC schools: FSU, Clemson, NC st, Va Tech or Ga. Tech, Miami & WVU.

The Big 12 basically gets back who they lost: Neb, Missouri, A&M, Colorado(?, if not maybe Louisville) plus Arkansas. Yes, they need to smooth over the past differences but if they do that is a great league again for content. That leaves the league at 14.

The PAC stays the same or if they have to replace Colorado with someone. There really isn't a way to make travel condensed on the west coast and any additions weaken that league not strengthen the league outside of possibly a BYU which we know the problems with.

Yes, the SEC is the only real tight geographic league but the advantage to the larger 18 team leagues is for travel concerns thats a bigger deal in non-revenue sports. For instance in the B1G, you have the traditional midewest and the more eastern schools. You don't have to have Minnesota playing North Carolina very often in non-revenue sports. In those situations make the schedules much more regional and close. Even the Big 12 you have northern and southern schools for non football sports. Again, there is no way to fix the PAC so the best you can hope for is cheap airfare and cities selected on that basis.

This is what I think you will see:

ACC Southeast Division

Miami, Georgia Tech, Carolina, Duke, UVa
Florida State, Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech

ACC Northeast Division

Michigan State, West Virginia Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland
Purdue, Pitt, Penn State, Louisville, Boston College

ACC mid-west

Nebraska, Iowa State, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin
Ohio State, Indiana, Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan

SEC East

Florida, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
Tennessee, Alabama, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State

SEC West

Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor
Texas A&M, LSU, Missouri, Kansas State, Texas Tech, TCU

PAC
The PAC remains the same at 12

(03-13-2018 03:28 PM)XLance Wrote:  This is what I think you will see:

ACC Southeast Division

Miami, Georgia Tech, Carolina, Duke, UVa
Florida State, Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech

ACC Northeast Division

Michigan State, West Virginia Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland
Purdue, Pitt, Penn State, Louisville, Boston College

ACC mid-west

Nebraska, Iowa State, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin
Ohio State, Indiana, Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan

SEC East

Florida, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
Tennessee, Alabama, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State

SEC West

Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor
Texas A&M, LSU, Missouri, Kansas State, Texas Tech, TCU

PAC
The PAC remains the same at 12

+1. Why not? If you're gonna go, go B1G!

(03-13-2018 03:28 PM)XLance Wrote:  This is what I think you will see:

ACC Southeast Division

Miami, Georgia Tech, Carolina, Duke, UVa
Florida State, Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech

ACC Northeast Division

Michigan State, West Virginia Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland
Purdue, Pitt, Penn State, Louisville, Boston College

ACC mid-west

Nebraska, Iowa State, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin
Ohio State, Indiana, Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan

SEC East

Florida, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
Tennessee, Alabama, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State

SEC West

Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor
Texas A&M, LSU, Missouri, Kansas State, Texas Tech, TCU

PAC
The PAC remains the same at 12

I like those groupings but I think your overly optimistic that the ACC brand is higher than the B1G!

(03-13-2018 01:39 PM)Win5002 Wrote:  

(03-09-2018 12:49 PM)JRsec Wrote:  The Working Population:

By 2035 the youngest of the Boomer Generation will be 73 so it is safe to say that by 2030 that virtually all of the generation will be retired. Two key leading economic factors will then be in play.

The labor force will shrink by 1/3rd or a little more as subsequent generations will not be able to keep pace with the retirement of the Boomers. And, most importantly, Boomers will be an enormous drain on Social Security and Health Care. Inescapably this means that a major tax burden will have to be placed upon the existing working population. The good news is that this particular down turn financially will be short lived and the shrinking work force will mean stronger competition for jobs which will mean larger incomes for the work force. I'm sure immigration will be used to fill the work force from the bottom and that it will help to offset a portion of the SSI and Health Care payouts.

What this means for our Universities is that Federal Grants will likely be cut, Corporate Grants will be harder to attain, and enrollment and tuition will be key to supporting the strongest of the schools. It is why a Harvard study recently suggested that 50% of all colleges and Universities would be bankrupt within a 10 to 15 year span as we move forward from today.

What it also means is that the last truly vested generation of this nation will be passing and the subsequent generations will actually own less real property, have less personal savings, and briefly a higher cost of living. I say briefly because by the mid 2040's the number of living Boomers will be well within the numbers that the subsequent generations can support. At that time there will be a new economic renaissance for those still working.

What this means however for our cherished sports is that ticket prices will have to come down and that means the burden of supporting the costs of athletics will shift more toward Media revenue than has been the historical norm. Right now TV revenue account for between 1/3rd to 1/5th of the total revenue of the highest earning athletic departments in the country.

HD TV, travel costs, and shrinking disposable income have already started to take a toll on attendance.

So these trends will lead to the following trends in realignment:

1. An emphasis on playing closer rivals which means that priority to consolidation within a region, by division, if not by the whole conference, will become an emphasis. So far flung conferences and divisions with outliers will be a thing of the past.

2. Look for larger and larger undergraduate enrollments at the surviving schools. This will be necessary to streamline state budgets, and to support through undergraduate tuition the research programs of the post graduate schools.

I think this will mean that campuses with available space will utilize that for housing and brick and mortar facilities and those constrained will utilize on line courses in numbers never before seen. It will be interesting to see which of those two approaches will prove to be the most efficient. 18 year old kids don't want to stay at home, but the economy may force them to do so. So maybe online courses will win out over larger campuses. I suppose that will depend on the cost of housing because the overwhelming desire will be for the kids to get away from home and experience their first personal accountability in a social situation conducive for relationship building as well as study.

Streaming

Choice will no doubt drive the future delivery models of programming and with the advance of technology making individual viewing options available for almost everything pressures for schools with the largest number of actual viewers will stress conference relationships. However the need for the support structure (officials, standards, scheduling, etc.) will likely hold conferences together.

What streaming will do however is place an emphasis that the collection of schools within a conference all contribute to the overall media revenue. This means their athletic programs will have to be competitive across the money sports, that their travel crowd size will be factored in more heavily, and that means that once again proximity to opponents will be emphasized.

If there is a big hold on realignment in 2024 that disappoints many of us it will be because we are still in an unclear transitional period and taking a flyer on schools 600 miles away and more is likely going to be on hold. In fact I'd say the focus would be upon destinations under a 6 hour drive from your home stadium.

So What Might Future Conferences Look Like?

I would suspect the PAC will remain essentially the same but perhaps minus Colorado and a couple of the lesser impact schools which will not have to be voted out, but due to economic and population reasons may be downsized by internal choice, or at least state choice.

Where the radical changes will occur are in the East, North, Southeast and Southwest.

The present shape of the SEC and Big 10 took shape when people traveled by rail. I think those old cores will hold because they were originally formed for the same reasons, ease and affordability of travel.

But I do think they will grow their sphere of influence within their core footprint.

Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri might very well be of interest to the Big 10 by 2035. Penn State, Rutgers and Maryland may not.

So we could see a major retraction from the additions made under the cable market footprint subscription fee expansion period and quite frankly that may be a very good thing.

What we might also see out of the Big 10 and SEC is a refocusing on large state schools with massive undergraduate enrollments that support their research endeavors and all of whom are within a reasonable travel distance.

So look for a concentration of like schools within regions and by like I'm talking about size, not academics, and not necessarily historical ties.

What Might This Look Like?

Big 10:

Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska

Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin

SEC:

Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, South Carolina

ACC:

Georgia Tech, Kentucky, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia, Virginia Tech

Maryland, Notre Dame, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, West Virginia

SWC II:

Arkansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech

Arizona, Arizona State, New Mexico, Brigham Young, Colorado, Utah

PAC:

California, Cal Los Angeles, Nevada, San Diego State, Southern Cal, Stanford

Boise State, Nevada Las Vegas, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State


The travel within divisional play is as local as it can be. The schools are large draws whether public or private, but the small privates have essentially been eliminated from the existing conferences.

Here is a suggestion for what the private associations may look like:

Private School Conference:

Army, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Northwestern, Syracuse

Duke, Miami, Navy, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest

Air Force, Baylor, S.M.U., T.C.U., Tulane,

I'm not sure the leagues would need to be equal in number. I can't see the B1G ever letting go of PSU or PSU wanting to leave the B1G. To me its much more reasonable for the B1G and Nebraska to amicably part ways for the self interest of both. As you pointed out the tv deal is not the whole revenue factor and we could see a narrowing of the revenue differences between the B1G/SEC with the right Big 12 makeup. The PAC its hard to say but if this is geography based then we are not splitting the PAC between the B1G & Big 12 or combining the PAC & Big 12. They may always be the weakest of the leagues because the only good options were mentioned above.

If this ever happened I think its more likely to see the ACC coastal schools NC, Duke, Va., ND, Va. Tech or Ga. Tech go to the B1G.

The SEC takes most of the southern ACC schools: FSU, Clemson, NC st, Va Tech or Ga. Tech, Miami & WVU.

The Big 12 basically gets back who they lost: Neb, Missouri, A&M, Colorado(?, if not maybe Louisville) plus Arkansas. Yes, they need to smooth over the past differences but if they do that is a great league again for content. That leaves the league at 14.

The PAC stays the same or if they have to replace Colorado with someone. There really isn't a way to make travel condensed on the west coast and any additions weaken that league not strengthen the league outside of possibly a BYU which we know the problems with.

Yes, the SEC is the only real tight geographic league but the advantage to the larger 18 team leagues is for travel concerns thats a bigger deal in non-revenue sports. For instance in the B1G, you have the traditional midewest and the more eastern schools. You don't have to have Minnesota playing North Carolina very often in non-revenue sports. In those situations make the schedules much more regional and close. Even the Big 12 you have northern and southern schools for non football sports. Again, there is no way to fix the PAC so the best you can hope for is cheap airfare and cities selected on that basis.

A 3 x 20 conference outcome is not impractical here either. The divisions could be used as geographical groupings within a larger conference.

Two leagues of three divisions.
One League has 30 (plus Notre Dame as a semi-member) the other 34.
Top two of three battle for the league championship which in turn plays for the national championship.

It's who's in X 2, which makes for great talking head television, and promotes regional identity.

(03-09-2018 12:49 PM)JRsec Wrote:  What it also means is that the last truly vested generation of this nation will be passing and the subsequent generations will actually own less real property, have less personal savings, and briefly a higher cost of living. I say briefly because by the mid 2040's the number of living Boomers will be well within the numbers that the subsequent generations can support. At that time there will be a new economic renaissance for those still working.

I'll be honest I had not considered this, but that sounds good to me. I'll turn 49 in 2040 so my prime earning years will hopefully be good ones.

(03-13-2018 05:55 PM)Win5002 Wrote:  

(03-13-2018 03:28 PM)XLance Wrote:  This is what I think you will see:

ACC Southeast Division

Miami, Georgia Tech, Carolina, Duke, UVa
Florida State, Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech

ACC Northeast Division

Michigan State, West Virginia Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland
Purdue, Pitt, Penn State, Louisville, Boston College

ACC mid-west

Nebraska, Iowa State, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin
Ohio State, Indiana, Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan

SEC East

Florida, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
Tennessee, Alabama, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State

SEC West

Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor
Texas A&M, LSU, Missouri, Kansas State, Texas Tech, TCU

PAC
The PAC remains the same at 12

I like those groupings but I think your overly optimistic that the ACC brand is higher than the B1G!

In the long run what difference does it make? Whether you call one league the National and the other the American, or the NFC and the AFC it really makes no difference at all.
Notre Dame is attached to the Northeast conference, where they have traditional B1G rivals Michigan State and Purdue.
Traditional rivalries are restored, conferences are small enough for fans to remember which schools are in their league and travel is minimized.
Best of all, this alignment is set up to make the most money possible for everybody.

I agree the best thing is 2 divisions:

B1G, PAC & ACC coastal/NE
SEC, Big 12 & ACC southern
***The only thing is Nebraska goes with the SEC side to restore the historic rivalries for B1G side or maybe they absorb more ACC schools.

****Then don't have divisions don't have divisions! Lock in 4 annual games always played and with the remaining 6 games set them up at different frequencies. Maybe 3 of the games are played 4 out of 6 years or 4 out of 8. Some other games might be 2 out of 6 years(Some teams don't need to play each other, its just not needed). Maybe you have 10 conference games and 2 non conference or even 11 conference and 1 non conference, no more G5 or FCS games.

Top 8 teams in each league make the conference playoffs, the 2 winners play for the CFB Championship(come up with a catchy name).

Why not drop conferences & divide everyone into 8 geographical regions of 8-9 teams?

Pacific
1 Washington
2 Washington State
3 Oregon
4 Oregon State
5 USC
6 UCLA
7 California
8 Stanford

West
1 Arizona
2 Arizona State
3 Utah
4 BYU
5 Utah State
6 Boise State
7 UNLV
8 New Mexico

Southwest
1 Texas
2 Texas Tech
3 Texas A&M
4 TCU
5 Houston
6 Arkansas
7 Oklahoma
8 Oklahoma State
9 Baylor

Midwest
1 Nebraska
2 Wisconsin
3 Minnesota
4 Missouri
5 Kansas
6 Iowa
7 Iowa State
8 Kansas State
9 Colorado

North
1 Michigan
2 Michigan State
3 Ohio State
4 Indiana
5 Purdue
6 Illinois
7 Kentucky
8 Louisville
9 Cincinnati

Northeast
1 Penn State
2 Pittsburgh
3 Norte Dame
4 Syracuse
5 Maryland
6 Rutgers
7 Boston College
8 UCONN
9 West Virginia

Southeast
1 Florida
2 Florida State
3 Alabama
4 Auburn
5 LSU
6 Ole Miss
7 Miss State
8 Miami
9 Tennessee

East
1 Georgia
2 Georgia Tech
3 Clemson
4 South Carolina
5 North Carolina
6 Duke
7 NC State
8 Virginia
9 Virginia Tech

WF, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, etc play as private & not part of a region. The 8 regional champions square off in an 8 team playoff. That's 70 plus the small band of privates. Neat, clean & maintains rivalries. 1st rd of CFP takes place of confidence championships so no additional games are added to the season & leaves bowls intact. Everyone has 4-5 non-regional games to add variety &/or play additional rivals:


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A&M isnt rejoining any SWC II

The original failed and the Big 12 is failing for the same reasons.

CHOOSING to go back to a conference with small population bases, redundant schools and too many mouths trying to eat of the same trough is a mistake we aren't making and I'm pretty sure Arkansas wouldn't either. Nostalgia is dead.

(03-23-2018 03:53 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  A&M isnt rejoining any SWC II

The original failed and the Big 12 is failing for the same reasons.

CHOOSING to go back to a conference with small population bases, redundant schools and too many mouths trying to eat of the same trough is a mistake we aren't making and I'm pretty sure Arkansas wouldn't either. Nostalgia is dead.

In my scenario I did say drop conferences, so everyone would be under one roof. One office/headquarters means more $ for the schools. The discussion was referencing more geographical divisions within a conference, why limit this approach that way? By dropping the restrictions of conferences you can have more regional divisions & maintain more rivalries. The cost of travel would significantly be reduced & there wouldn't be any major structural changes. The length of the season would remain the same, maintains the bowl structure but you would replace conference championships with an additional round of the CFP. Conference networks could be rolled into RSN's & sold as a nationwide package.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You can call them divisions but they're conferences. They are who you're forced to play every season and that's a problem

A&M has no desire to be forced back into a Tex-centric "middle of the country" conference. That's not who we are and not who we want to associate with and be forced to play every year

(03-25-2018 12:58 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  You can call them divisions but they're conferences. They are who you're forced to play every season and that's a problem

A&M has no desire to be forced back into a Tex-centric "middle of the country" conference. That's not who we are and not who we want to associate with and be forced to play every year

If conferences get larger, for scheduling purposes, divisions will have to go away to preserve rivalries and all playing all other members in a more timely fashion