(09-11-2017 11:30 PM)Transic_nyc Wrote:  

(09-11-2017 11:52 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(09-11-2017 01:34 AM)Transic_nyc Wrote:  

(09-10-2017 11:23 PM)JRsec Wrote:  It won't happen that way. They will use divisions to geographically group schools and rivals where possible. The remaining very large conferences will represent regions of the country. Overhead will be reduced by eliminating duplicated conference governmental layers.

It could happen if the PAC was absorbed along with the Big 12, or if the ACC was absorbed along with the Big 12. Either way a regional P3 of between 20-24 schools would work quite nicely.

The 72 would be the 65 we currently have plus: Connecticut, Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Houston, San Diego State, and South Florida. That's the three most deserving: Connecticut, Cincinnati, and Brigham Young plus the best earners from Texas, California, and Florida.

PAC:
North: Brigham Young, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, Washington, Washington State
West: Arizona, Arizona State, California, Cal Los Angeles, Southern Cal, Stanford
South: Baylor, Colorado, Houston, San Diego State, Texas, Texas Tech
East: Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Christian

B1G:
East: Boston College, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Notre Dame, Penn State, Rutgers
South: Duke, Maryland, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest
North: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, Syracuse
West: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Wisconsin

SEC:
North: Kentucky, Louisville, N.C. State, Tennessee, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
East: Central Florida, Clemson, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, South Carolina
South: Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, Mississippi State, South Florida, Vanderbilt
West: Arkansas, Louisiana State, Miami, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas A&M

Just for the heck of it, I've made maps out of the groupings you made. I didn't differentiate based on division but just a general layout of markings:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid...000002&z=5

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid...000003&z=6

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid...999997&z=6


I get that you intended to have concentrations in the states of Florida, California and Texas. What I like about the "B1G" group is that you add up the teams East of the Pennsylvania-Ohio border plus Cincinnati you come up with 12 programs. A lot of games in relative close distance compared with the current Big Ten. Having Wake Forest is a small price to pay for having this set up and I'd like playing Wake Forest in other sports as well. Winston-Salem would be a nice trip during the late fall months. Some of the Carolina folks would be very uncomfortable with being in a Yankee association but their focus on basketball forces them to make a presence in the New York City area since at least the 1940s and the ACC already is playing games in Brooklyn and Yankee Stadium in the two main sports, anyway.

I think grouping for distance of travel for minor sports is a undervalued means of cutting overhead. Besides, most of our rivals are within relative close proximity. Allowances can certainly be made if you are playing 5 divisional games your could easily have 3 permanent rivals and rotate 2 more cross divisional games and still play 1 OOC against each of the other conferences.

There's oodles of flexibility there for keeping familiar schedules, maintaining rivalries, and still giving the networks cross conference content.

And since each conference generally keeps what amounts to 1 full share for conference expenses then these 72 schools essentially save 2 full members shares to split by just paying 3 conference sets of overhead as opposed to 5. And the sales of the old conference properties can add to the bottom line as well.

In a weird kind of way it is a return to the halcyon past when you didn't need to travel 10,000 miles to play a full schedule in football except the use of modern video and internet would make it possible for fans of all programs to follow their teams without the use of a transistor radio. And the competition would be "purer" in that there wouldn't be this elitist garbage about whether a program has to belong to a state flagship or a private school in order to play games against.

Which is why this has little chance of happening but I've been wrong before.

In the days of race baiting, icon tumbling, daily challenges to constitutionality, and the shadow of the cold war that is North Korea clouding our thoughts, I for one would find great comfort basking in the afterglow of those halcyon days of yore. If we played most of our games within a reasonable driving distance then maybe we might also discover a form of community which once did tie us together in much more fundamental ways than the screaming harpies of the left and the right could rent asunder.

When the local evening news actually focuses on what is going on locally, and a day can pass without the attention whores in Washington stirring the average citizen's emotional pot, then we might just discover again what once made us great, the concept that I don't have to agree with you, but that I am willing to put my life on the line for your right to speak your mind even if I don't agree with what you say.
That was the essence of tolerance, and the glue that held our multicultural society together.

That sense of cooperation and dedication to our diverse neighbors begins locally and is reinforced with those in our neighboring counties, and then the state and then among the collection of our neighboring states, and then we will remember who it is that we are supposed to be. And a pass time like college football is a good diversion around which to learn neighborliness. If we can tolerate the zeal of our rivals, then maybe we can remember how to cooperate for the common good. It can't hurt to try!