(02-13-2018 02:17 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(02-13-2018 02:00 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(02-04-2018 12:56 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(02-03-2018 07:46 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(02-03-2018 01:40 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  If the Big 12 loses three to fall to seven, adding eight only gets them to 15, so you'd need another school. Air Force football would be the most obvious choice, though maybe they add a fourth southeast school to form a pod with USF/UCF/ECU, unless you count Cincinnati or West Virginia with those schools.

Wait! BYU! They'd almost certainly get the first call in this scenario. I'd bump Tulsa, SMU or Tulane to include them and Air Force.

Southwest: Texas Tech/Baylor/Kansas/Oklahoma State
Northwest: BYU/Air Force/Kansas State/Iowa State
East Coast: West Virginia/USF/UCF/ECU
Mid-South: Cincinnati/Memphis/Tulane/SMU

Obviously Kansas-KState is a protected rivalry. I'd think Tulsa is the odd AAC program out because of size, relative lack of athletic success and that Okie State would do what it could to keep them out. Air Force is probably the only MWC school they'd consider (maaaaaybe Wyoming or Nevada but both have issues). I'm sure the CUSA/MAC/Sun Belt schools would be dry-cleaning their go-to-church clothes but none of them are obvious adds at this point.

Navy would also be an obvious add but who do you bump for them? They like playing Tulane/SMU/Tulsa, which is why they're in the AAC's western division. Maybe ECU?

Or you could get really wacky and give Navy, AF and Army their own pod. Not sure how a three-team pod works in a 16-team conference, but if they think it's worth it, then they'll find a way.

If you're going with those 16, here's a better alignment:

East: Cincinnati, ECU, Iowa State, WVU
South: Memphis, Tulane, UCF, USF
North: Air Force, BYU, Kansas, Kansas State
West: Baylor, SMU, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech

Or maybe go with your East pod and put Cincy and ISU with Memphis and Tulane.

That makes a pretty good G5 conference. Who is the survivor conferene here - the Big 12 or the AAC?

This 16-team setup is for the Big 12. In this scenario, the only remaining AAC schools are Temple and Tulsa. I doubt they stick together. Maybe they play rock-paper-scissors over who gets to keep the conference name.

More seriously, survival of the AAC even in some lesser form would depend on how this all would go down. If it happened over a few years rather than all at once, then the AAC might rebuild in the same way it did when evolving from the Big East.

Wouldn't you agree that the B12 becomes G5 at this point, and that there would be only 4 power conferences?

I suspect they'd hold some sort of middle-class status, a step below the power conferences but ahead of the G conferences by equal measures (unlike today's AAC, which is obviously the strongest G conference but much closer to MWC or even the MAC than it is the weakest of the P).