Instead of the people deciding what their dream conference is, imagine instead that somehow all conferences were given the chance to essentially reboot. In this imaginary world, I would have to assume that the first coalitions that would start to re-form would be around the core of the Big Ten (focusing on large midwestern state schools), the SEC (I'm thinking Alabama/Auburn/Florida/Georgia immediately form an alliance), the west coast (USC/UCLA/Cal/Stanford/Oregon/Washington), the southwest (Oklahoma/Texas) and Tobacco Road (UNC/Duke). The question becomes, now freed free to form conferences of the size they wish and without legacy programs, what do you think would become of these conferences?

Personally, I would think the Big Ten lets Rutgers, Maryland, Nebraska and Northwestern and becomes a 10 team conference.

The Pac-12 lets Oregon State and Washington State go and also becomes a 10 team conference.

The SEC has a more substantial reorganization, letting the Mississippi schools, Arkansas and Vanderbilt become free agents and makes a play for Clemson and FSU (both of whom I think would jump at the chance), becoming a 12 team conference. The unknown is what becomes of Mizzou and Texas A&M, because...

I think the Big 12 would drastically change, with Nebraska and Arkansas joining up with Texas, Oklahoma, OK State and Kansas. That's 6 teams, and they'd be able to pick up who they actually want. Could they entice Mizzou and TAMU back for that? Not sure.

The question becomes what becomes of the Tobacco Road schools? I think FSU and Clemson would jump in a heartbeat. Who would they pick up? For sure they'd get back together with Maryland. But how else it would play out would be interesting...

USFFan