This is a fun off-season thought exercise that can never be recreated in the real world because no athletic department would ever let itself be drafted like a strong safety from Colorado State. There's no chance that all FBS conferences would ever self-destruct, and even if you found a way to make it happen, the schools that share strong ties would find their way back to each other. You might lose a couple of athletic/academic/institutional/geographic anomalies in the process, but other than perhaps the ACC (since it has evolved into such a patchwork coalition of schools and regions compared to the tight South Atlantic footprint it had into the 90s), the other conferences are going to be largely recognizable, albeit possibly under a new name.

In other words, "this realignment could never happen" is a moot point because nobody expects it to. It's just a way to kill time during down time. Though I do think that the contiguous-state rule for the first four picks at least forced GMs to think regionally instead of just trying to grab the best 12 schools they could regardless of where they are, which is how a lot of these college realignment drafts end up. And at least for my part, once I realized that I was going to get most of the core Big 10 schools, I tried to make it as much like the Big 10 as possible while not just picking off whatever B10 schools were still available and calling it a day.

(06-07-2019 02:48 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Big Southwest Conference:

Big 6 Div: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, Missouri, Kansas St
SWC Div: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Memphis

(06-07-2019 02:50 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Cyniconference:

North: Iowa St, Mich, Mich St, Minn, Ohio St, Wisconsin
South: Cincy, M'land, Notre Dame, Penn St, Purdue, WVU

These are my two favorites and I voted for Cyniconference. They both have a great top tier but the depth of Cyni is deeper to me. I like renewed and preserved rivalries but wish the Big Southwest made Nebraska-Oklahoma a locked cross-division game.

Great job everyone who stuck around and put the effort in!

(06-11-2019 08:33 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  The PAC 12 is the only one that makes any sense at all.

All the others are terrible, IMO.

Well that's because they were built using a snake draft. Nobody wanted the PAC schools. I'm not sure it was intended to make sense.

(06-11-2019 10:25 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-11-2019 08:33 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  The PAC 12 is the only one that makes any sense at all.

All the others are terrible, IMO.

Well that's because they were built using a snake draft. Nobody wanted the PAC schools. I'm not sure it was intended to make sense.

Theoretically someone could have taken a stab at Colorado, especially the league that grabbed a bunch of Big 12 schools. But once the contiguous-states requirement expired, there weren't any schools desirable enough to completely screw up your footprint.

(06-07-2019 03:25 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  South West East Conference:

West: Kansas, OK St, TCU, Houston, LSU, Ole Miss
East: Kentucky, Louisville, Tenn, Alabama, Miami, USF

I didn't mean to forget to provide commentary on this league but life with a toddler is always an adventure.

This league has it all--Great Plains schools? We got 'em! Texas schools? We got 'em! Deep South Schools? We got 'em! Upper South schools? We got 'em! We've even got Florida schools too! While the footprint is large I think it suffers some what in terms of cultural cohesiveness.

Academically, it's not that great but boy the basketball is intense.

(06-10-2019 09:31 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(06-10-2019 08:01 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-07-2019 02:50 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Cyniconference:

North: Iowa St, Mich, Mich St, Minn, Ohio St, Wisconsin
South: Cincy, M'land, Notre Dame, Penn St, Purdue, WVU

Alas! In this fantasy draft ND stands side by side with Ohio St, Mich, Penn St, and several of the other supporting cast we know as the Big Ten. 9 AAU members makes this the most academic of the drafted leagues. In football the divisions are a little uneven, with the East being stronger than the West. This might have been a conference where a zipper could have made sense. There's quite a few programs and match ups in this conference that the networks are going to be eager to have in their line ups. Penn St-ND will be nice as will be every other year meetings with Ohio St, Michigan, and Michigan St (I would have preferred Mich, Mich St, and ND together opposite Penn St and Ohio St)

I tried to anticipate how the member institutions would react and made my decisions accordingly. In this case, I imagined that the old-line Big 10 schools would want to stick together and be guaranteed yearly football games and basketball home-and-homes. I actually tried an old school/newcomers division split and it was almost identical to the final version, except it put Iowa State way out on an island, so I swapped them with Purdue.

That's also why I didn't do a zipper or any division setup that split Ohio State and Michigan, because I figure both schools would have exploded at being separated. Also that's why Ohio State and Cincinnati are in separate divisions, to placate OSU, since I'd guess they wouldn't be happy elevating Cincy to their level (I also figured Cincy would be happy enough trading Tulane and Tulsa for Notre Dame and Penn State every year). And I put Michigan and Michigan State in separate rotations so they everyone would play at least one Michigan school every year, a nod to Notre Dame.

I thought you put together a nice league. I see WVU as a bit of a cultural outlier but at the time you picked them they were one of the strongest programs left. If Michigan and Co were really behind determining the invites I think Indiana or someone like that would have been more authentic.

You could have gotten around splitting OSU and TSUN by doing a protected crossover. While I generally don't favor end of season match ups that could end up being the same matchups in the CCG this is one that I think a rematch would only make the rivalry more fierce.

(06-10-2019 08:34 AM)Kruciff Wrote:  

(06-07-2019 02:46 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Atlantic League:

North: BC, UConn, Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers, UCF
South: UVA, Duke, Clemson, South Carolina, GT, Indiana

Why is UCF in the north here? Why not Indiana or UVA? Makes absolutely no sense.

Orlando is culturally Northern.

(06-12-2019 08:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-10-2019 09:31 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(06-10-2019 08:01 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-07-2019 02:50 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Cyniconference:

North: Iowa St, Mich, Mich St, Minn, Ohio St, Wisconsin
South: Cincy, M'land, Notre Dame, Penn St, Purdue, WVU

Alas! In this fantasy draft ND stands side by side with Ohio St, Mich, Penn St, and several of the other supporting cast we know as the Big Ten. 9 AAU members makes this the most academic of the drafted leagues. In football the divisions are a little uneven, with the East being stronger than the West. This might have been a conference where a zipper could have made sense. There's quite a few programs and match ups in this conference that the networks are going to be eager to have in their line ups. Penn St-ND will be nice as will be every other year meetings with Ohio St, Michigan, and Michigan St (I would have preferred Mich, Mich St, and ND together opposite Penn St and Ohio St)

I tried to anticipate how the member institutions would react and made my decisions accordingly. In this case, I imagined that the old-line Big 10 schools would want to stick together and be guaranteed yearly football games and basketball home-and-homes. I actually tried an old school/newcomers division split and it was almost identical to the final version, except it put Iowa State way out on an island, so I swapped them with Purdue.

That's also why I didn't do a zipper or any division setup that split Ohio State and Michigan, because I figure both schools would have exploded at being separated. Also that's why Ohio State and Cincinnati are in separate divisions, to placate OSU, since I'd guess they wouldn't be happy elevating Cincy to their level (I also figured Cincy would be happy enough trading Tulane and Tulsa for Notre Dame and Penn State every year). And I put Michigan and Michigan State in separate rotations so they everyone would play at least one Michigan school every year, a nod to Notre Dame.

I thought you put together a nice league. I see WVU as a bit of a cultural outlier but at the time you picked them they were one of the strongest programs left. If Michigan and Co were really behind determining the invites I think Indiana or someone like that would have been more authentic.

You could have gotten around splitting OSU and TSUN by doing a protected crossover. While I generally don't favor end of season match ups that could end up being the same matchups in the CCG this is one that I think a rematch would only make the rivalry more fierce.

West Virginia and Cincinnati were outliers and yes, the original Big 10 schools might have blanched at the thought of adding them, but while I wanted to largely consider their theoretical concerns, they aren’t going to have the power that they do IRL. If I sacrificed anyone for Indiana, it might have been Maryland, but football is a large component of this competition, so in a race between West Virginia (athletic success), Maryland (D.C. market and reasonable success) and Indiana (... well, they’re an AAU school and they used to have great hoops), then Indiana finishes third. Ultimately, nobody is going to leave for another conference.

Thought about protected crossovers but there’s issues:
* With geographic divisions, you quickly run out of viable crossover games. Do we really need to guarantee Iowa State-Cincinnati or Minnesota-Maryland?
* If there’s only one or two protected crossovers, doesn’t that make inter division scheduling a mess?
* I thought about recreating the Leaders/Legends setup, but there’s a reason the Big 10 dropped it and nobody has tried to replicate it. A possible realignment might look like this, with teams in order of protected crossovers:
A Division: Ohio State, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Notre Dame, West Virginia
B Division: Michigan, Penn State, Michigan State, Iowa State, Purdue, Cincinnati
At least there everyone gets a logical crossover game, even if not the perfect one for everyone (Penn State, Notre Dame, Minnesota). But again, non-georgraphic divisions aren’t very popular or workable.

I actually was considering moving more toward the south and east into Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. But all the good schools there were gone once I got to the seventh round (my top six picks were a fait accompli). Minnesota and Iowa State were more appealing than Syracuse/Pitt/BC/Rutgers.

You know Cyn, for 30 yrs B-10 been trying to get NYC
I thought you would go after Buffalo & Conn with coppensaray picks
You missed Chicago (NW)
Start working on them Domed stadiums, that conf is gonna need them

(06-13-2019 02:25 PM)templefootballfan Wrote:  You know Cyn, for 30 yrs B-10 been trying to get NYC
I thought you would go after Buffalo & Conn with coppensaray picks
You missed Chicago (NW)
Start working on them Domed stadiums, that conf is gonna need them

I would have likely taken Illinois in the seventh round, but they were gone, and I wasn't going to pass on Michigan State in the sixth for them.

None of the schools that claim NYC probably have much of a presence in them; I'd be willing to wager there's more engaged fans of Notre Dame and Penn State than Syracuse/Rutgers/Buffalo/UConn, and possibly Ohio State and the Michigan schools as well.

Tought Mich St was mistake, already in Mich
I thought Mich St pick put B6SW a step ahead you

(06-14-2019 04:29 PM)templefootballfan Wrote:  Tought Mich St was mistake, already in Mich
I thought Mich St pick put B6SW a step ahead you

Maybe from a market-only standpoint but Michigan State has a far better athletic program and basketball is a national brand. I have no regrets.