Here's my list, and if you give me all of the power in college football, I will make this happen.

1. Big Ten Conference: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin.

The Skinny: This is the classic 1950 to 1990 alignment. This is the way it should be. Everyone knows this.

2. Pacific 10 Conference: Arizona, Arizona State, California, California Los Angeles, Oregon, Oregon State, Southern California, Stanford, Washington, Washington State.

The Skinny: This is also a classic alignment, the 1978 to 2011 alignment. This is also the way it should be. Everyone knows this.

3. Mid-American Conference: Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Kent State, Miami (Ohio), Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan and either Akron or Eastern Michigan.

The Skinny: This is essentially the 1973 to 1986 alignment, the only difference being that I'm hedging on whether leave out Akron (which joined the MAC in 1992, and thus is the newbie of this bunch) or push out Eastern Michigan (since Akron went and built a new football stadium so nice that it would be a shame to just give it to the Missouri Valley).

4. Eastern Conference: Boston College, Buffalo, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, West Virginia.

The Skinny: Now, this is where it gets fun. This would be a fun conference. The great Northeastern flagship football schools together in one circuit. West Virginia, Pitt, Penn State, and Temple, battling it out every year in backyard brawls and intrastate grudge matches. And isn't it time that Buffalo-Syracuse and UMass-Boston College become trophy games? (Yes, yes it is.) And while UConn would almost certainly romp in basketball, Temple might have something to say about that.

The football championship trophy would, of course, be the Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy.

5. Magnolia Conference: Army, Duke, Miami (Florida), Navy, Rice, Southern Methodist, Tulsa, Tulane, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt

The Skinny: This conference would be a beautiful thing. Vanderbilt and Tulane? Duke and Rice? Army and Navy? America wants this conference. America needs this conference. Membership in this club would be so exclusive that fans would need seersucker suits just to get into some of these football stadiums.

6. Big 8 Conference: Cincinnati, Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Nebraska

The Skinny: Should we bring back the Big 8? Of course we should! This is the classic 1957 to 1995 alignment, and I'd be happy to leave it there -- except that a higher power (or the guy who launched this thread, anyway) insists every conference needs exactly 10 members. So, congratulations, Big 8 members! I give you ... Notre Dame! And since Notre Dame is a bit of an outlier geographically, I also give you ... Cincinnati! (Those Notre Dame-Cincinnati games would honestly be a lot of fun. Cincinnati has so many Roman Catholics that this game would probably be an unofficial holiday in Southwest Ohio every year.)

7. Southwest Conference: Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, Louisiana State, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas Christian

The Skinny: Should we bring back the Southwest Conference? Without a doubt! Things get a little weird here given our Magnolia Conference and that fact that we can't raid the Big 8 state of Oklahoma, so -- congratulations Louisiana Tech and North Texas! Your wildest dreams have come true!

(Maybe Louisiana Tech can host their conference games against Louisiana State in Shreveport or something.)

8. Southeastern Conference: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee

The Skinny: Why shouldn't Georgia and Georgia Tech be in the same conference? Why shouldn't Florida and Florida State be in the same conference? I've made it so in a leaner, meaner SEC. Rivalry week will be ah-maz-ing!

9. Atlantic Coast Conference: Clemson, East Carolina, Louisville, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Memphis, South Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech

The Skinny: All of the other decisions pinch this conference a bit, so -- congratulations, East Carolina! Your dreams have come true! (No ACC games against Duke, though. You aren't nearly elite enough for the Magnolia.) Rivalry week in this circuit will also feature South Carolina-Clemson and Louisville-Memphis. (Isn't it time? Haven't we waited long enough for conference rivalries like these?)

10. Pacific Coast Athletic Association: Brigham Young, Boise State, Fresno State, Hawaii, Nevada, Nevada-Las Vegas, San Diego State, San Jose State, Utah, Utah State

The Skinny: Once the Pac-10 is out of the picture, there are about 16 schools left in the west, not enough for two conferences. How to divvy them up? Let's go with geography. These are the western-most schools -- and this is a straight up miracle for Utah State, which will now play conference games against both Utah and Brigham Young. (Somewhere, Eric Hipple is smiling.)

11. Mountain West: Air Force, Colorado State, Louisiana, Louisiana-Monroe, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Texas-El Paso, Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, Wyoming

The Skinny: This keeps the Front Range schools together, hence the name, even though this conference needs to dip into Texas and the Gulf Coast to get to 10, kind of like the old WAC used to in its declining years. Sorry, Air Force. Sorry, Colorado State. (On the bright side, these road trips will help with recruiting!)

12. Mid-South Conference: Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, James Madison, Liberty, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, North Carolina-Charlotte, Western Kentucky

The Skinny: Arkansas State is just a bit of an outlier here. (And you came so close to squeezing out Louisiana Tech in the Southwest Conference, ASU!) To make RedWolves fans feel just a bit better, we are calling this the Mid-South rather than the Appalachian.

13. Sun Belt: Alabama-Birmingham, Central Florida, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama, South Florida, Southern Mississippi, Troy

The Skinny: Central Florida fans will resent me putting them here, but does Orlando just feel like a Big 8 city to anybody? (Of course not!) The geography here is pretty tight and rivalry week here will be fun: We've got the I-4 rivalry, FAU-FIU, Georgia State-Georgia Southern, and three Alabama schools. (Maybe Southern Miss and South Alabama becomes a trophy game. If that makes Brett Farve groan, I can live with that.)

Relegation: Akron or Eastern Michigan, Jacksonville State, Sam Houston State.

The Skinny: Does FBS really need more Gamecocks or Bearkats?

(07-28-2023 07:29 PM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  Here's my list, and if you give me all of the power in college football, I will make this happen.

1. Big Ten Conference: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin.

The Skinny: This is the classic 1950 to 1990 alignment. This is the way it should be. Everyone knows this.

2. Pacific 10 Conference: Arizona, Arizona State, California, California Los Angeles, Oregon, Oregon State, Southern California, Stanford, Washington, Washington State.

The Skinny: This is also a classic alignment, the 1978 to 2011 alignment. This is also the way it should be. Everyone knows this.

3. Mid-American Conference: Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Kent State, Miami (Ohio), Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan and either Akron or Eastern Michigan.

The Skinny: This is essentially the 1973 to 1986 alignment, the only difference being that I'm hedging on whether leave out Akron (which joined the MAC in 1992, and thus is the newbie of this bunch) or push out Eastern Michigan (since Akron went and built a new football stadium so nice that it would be a shame to just give it to the Missouri Valley).

4. Eastern Conference: Boston College, Buffalo, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, West Virginia.

The Skinny: Now, this is where it gets fun. This would be a fun conference. The great Northeastern flagship football schools together in one circuit. West Virginia, Pitt, Penn State, and Temple, battling it out every year in backyard brawls and intrastate grudge matches. And isn't it time that Buffalo-Syracuse and UMass-Boston College become trophy games? (Yes, yes it is.) And while UConn would almost certainly romp in basketball, Temple might have something to say about that.

The football championship trophy would, of course, be the Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy.

5. Magnolia Conference: Army, Duke, Miami (Florida), Navy, Rice, Southern Methodist, Tulsa, Tulane, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt

The Skinny: This conference would be a beautiful thing. Vanderbilt and Tulane? Duke and Rice? Army and Navy? America wants this conference. America needs this conference. Membership in this club would be so exclusive that fans would need seersucker suits just to get into some of these football stadiums.

6. Big 8 Conference: Cincinnati, Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Nebraska

The Skinny: Should we bring back the Big 8? Of course we should! This is the classic 1957 to 1995 alignment, and I'd be happy to leave it there -- except that a higher power (or the guy who launched this thread, anyway) insists every conference needs exactly 10 members. So, congratulations, Big 8 members! I give you ... Notre Dame! And since Notre Dame is a bit of an outlier geographically, I also give you ... Cincinnati! (Those Notre Dame-Cincinnati games would honestly be a lot of fun. Cincinnati has so many Roman Catholics that this game would probably be an unofficial holiday in Southwest Ohio every year.)

7. Southwest Conference: Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, Louisiana State, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas Christian

The Skinny: Should we bring back the Southwest Conference? Without a doubt! Things get a little weird here given our Magnolia Conference and that fact that we can't raid the Big 8 state of Oklahoma, so -- congratulations Louisiana Tech and North Texas! Your wildest dreams have come true!

(Maybe Louisiana Tech can host their conference games against Louisiana State in Shreveport or something.)

8. Southeastern Conference: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee

The Skinny: Why shouldn't Georgia and Georgia Tech be in the same conference? Why shouldn't Florida and Florida State be in the same conference? I've made it so in a leaner, meaner SEC. Rivalry week will be ah-maz-ing!

9. Atlantic Coast Conference: Clemson, East Carolina, Louisville, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Memphis, South Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech

The Skinny: All of the other decisions pinch this conference a bit, so -- congratulations, East Carolina! Your dreams have come true! (No ACC games against Duke, though. You aren't nearly elite enough for the Magnolia.) Rivalry week in this circuit will also feature South Carolina-Clemson and Louisville-Memphis. (Isn't it time? Haven't we waited long enough for conference rivalries like these?)

10. Pacific Coast Athletic Association: Brigham Young, Boise State, Fresno State, Hawaii, Nevada, Nevada-Las Vegas, San Diego State, San Jose State, Utah, Utah State

The Skinny: Once the Pac-10 is out of the picture, there are about 16 schools left in the west, not enough for two conferences. How to divvy them up? Let's go with geography. These are the western-most schools -- and this is a straight up miracle for Utah State, which will now play conference games against both Utah and Brigham Young. (Somewhere, Eric Hipple is smiling.)

11. Mountain West: Air Force, Colorado State, Louisiana, Louisiana-Monroe, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Texas-El Paso, Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, Wyoming

The Skinny: This keeps the Front Range schools together, hence the name, even though this conference needs to dip into Texas and the Gulf Coast to get to 10, kind of like the old WAC used to in its declining years. Sorry, Air Force. Sorry, Colorado State. (On the bright side, these road trips will help with recruiting!)

12. Mid-South Conference: Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, James Madison, Liberty, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, North Carolina-Charlotte, Western Kentucky

The Skinny: Arkansas State is just a bit of an outlier here. (And you came so close to squeezing out Louisiana Tech in the Southwest Conference, ASU!) To make RedWolves fans feel just a bit better, we are calling this the Mid-South rather than the Appalachian.

13. Sun Belt: Alabama-Birmingham, Central Florida, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama, South Florida, Southern Mississippi, Troy

The Skinny: Central Florida fans will resent me putting them here, but does Orlando just feel like a Big 8 city to anybody? (Of course not!) The geography here is pretty tight and rivalry week here will be fun: We've got the I-4 rivalry, FAU-FIU, Georgia State-Georgia Southern, and three Alabama schools. (Maybe Southern Miss and South Alabama becomes a trophy game. If that makes Brett Farve groan, I can live with that.)

Relegation: Akron or Eastern Michigan, Jacksonville State, Sam Houston State.

The Skinny: Does FBS really need more Gamecocks or Bearkats?

Bump.

(America needs these tight regional college football conferences now more than ever.)

(07-24-2023 07:57 AM)schmolik Wrote:  I've run several of these "ideal conference" challenges. During them I've come to the conclusion that obviously what's ideal for one team isn't ideal for another. One of the proposals was Boise State and I'm not sure if any FBS team that Boise State would want to be in a conference with would want to be in a conference with them. I also got various size proposals. So to make a one size fits all, I decided to create a brand new challenge and cap all FBS conferences to 10 teams and require round robin play with no conference championship games, conference ties are determined by head-to-head tiebreakers, multiple team at the discretion of the conference.

Last time I checked there were 133 FBS teams so you have 13 conferences of 10 teams. The 3 teams not in a conference have to go back to FCS. This means Notre Dame has to join one (for the purposes of this challenge of course because it's more fun:)

We can use the same proposed CFP format of 6 conference champions and 6 wild cards so on one hand you don't want your conferences too packed but on the other hand if there are no existing media contracts you want some attractive names in your conference or you get no money. Teams are still going to want to be with the Ohio States and Alabamas than the bottom feeders and if Ohio State gets the pick of the litter as to which teams they want in their conference Ohio U and Miami U aren't making the cut. Also everyone is playing nine conference games so if you have a must play they're either a conference game or you're playing an additional home and home game every year. So if you're even thinking about splitting Ohio State and Michigan they're going to play nine conference games and each other every year.

So what would be your 10 team conferences?

Or bring up the 7 most deserving FCS schools to make a 14 conferences with 10 teams.

Pick the best out of these FCS schools to FBS to create the 14th one without anybody being demoted.

You know the 2 Dakota schools, both Montanas, Missouri State, Delaware, etc.

(07-26-2023 08:39 AM)schmolik Wrote:  

(07-26-2023 07:54 AM)ken d Wrote:  Could not agree more about 9 being better than 10. The challenge there would be what to do about the SEC and Big Ten who hadn't been below ten members in 70 years or more. Who gets the boot, and why?

Getting the SEC and Big Ten to go to 12 right now would be a challenge, let alone 10 or 9.

I prefer 12 over 10.

(08-08-2023 02:12 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-26-2023 08:39 AM)schmolik Wrote:  

(07-26-2023 07:54 AM)ken d Wrote:  Could not agree more about 9 being better than 10. The challenge there would be what to do about the SEC and Big Ten who hadn't been below ten members in 70 years or more. Who gets the boot, and why?

Getting the SEC and Big Ten to go to 12 right now would be a challenge, let alone 10 or 9.

I prefer 12 over 10.

12 is better than 10, only gives you two extras (to either leave Indy or demote).

But you'd have to start another thread for 12s (I mean, you don't have to, but. . .)