RE: Who SHOULD Be 15 & 16?
While I don't see expansion again that soon (I think people look for big plans more than they are really there), if we do go to 16, for once in this conference realignment saga, they need to consider the alignment before inviting teams. Regardless of how they invite, they need to fit one of a couple of models.
1. Two 8 team divisions: The conference shouldn't choose this approach and I don't think will. Even with 9 conference games, we'd essentially have 2 separate conferences for football united by a CCG.
2. 4 divisions with semi-finals. This would allow the conference more flexibility in a lot of ways, but I don't see NCAA rules changing soon so don't see this being adopted.
3. 4 pods rotating to form 2 divisions. This is probably what they'll do in order to keep games somewhat regular. There are a few approaches they can take. The big questions with it though are a) 8 or 9 conference games? b) locked crossovers outside of pods or no c) if there are locked crossover outside of the pods, then does everyone have one or is it going to be for just a few and let the rest rotate.
I'm going to assume they go with #3, but their answers to the 3 questions in it, greatly impact how they'd design the pods. I'm guessing they'll go 9 conference games. If they do, the big remaining choice is do they want more balanced pods and to use crossover to keep rivalries (playing non locked teams about 42% of the time) or do they want less balanced pods so they can avoid locked games and play everyone (outside their pod) 50% of the time. If you choose the latter, I think 2 east coast schools are almost required and would give you something like this (just randomly taking Georgia Tech and Virginia since they were the most recent with major rumors):
Pod A: Penn State, Maryland, Georgia Tech, Virginia
Pod B: Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Rutgers
Pod C: Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue
Pod D: Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota
In the above set-up, you could get away with no crossovers and you could also leave 2 pods always in opposite divisions if you wanted to (they'd still play everyone those teams 50% of the time, just never in division). The problem would be a very weak pod c.
Alternatively, they could decide they want a lot of competive balance and split up the 4 kings. That would require locked crossovers though.
Pod A: Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Virginia
Pod B: Ohio State, Illinois, Northwestern, Missouri
Pod C: Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue
Pod D: Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa
You could switch this up a lot (including the expansion teams) and would assign everyone a crossover they play every year regardless of if they happen to be in division or not that year.
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