This idea was floating through my head today.

What if these conferences existed for the purpose of pairing basketball and non-revenue sports together?

What if the football associations were a bit less structured and more geared towards allowing teams to play farther and wider should they choose...or allowing them to play more regional rivals should they choose?

Theoretically, the size of the conference becomes less important because we don't have a structure that demands everyone play everyone else with relative frequency.

1) Let's say any member had an obligation of 6 games against other members. They are certainly free to play more should they choose.

2) Let's also say there wasn't a genuine conference champion in the traditional sense. Instead, there was a points system that was based on how many conference games you decided to play in. Your record at that point was weighted. So if you have a good record with 10 conference games then that counts for more than a team with a good record and only 6 conference games.

The two teams with the most points square off for the official title.

Basically, if you're a team that wants to compete for the conference title then you schedule for that purpose. You don't have to do that, of course, but you cede ahead of time any chance of getting to the CCG.

Some schools will be more worried about scheduling for a national title run. Others will be more likely to schedule for a reasonable shot at a bowl game. It's extraordinarily flexible.

3) The money is also shared on a per-game basis. Everyone gets a baseline for the 6 they must play. You get bonuses for more games and bonuses for competing for the conference title.

Ok, now it's your turn to tell me how crazy I am.

I don't think it is crazy at all, ATU. I have played around with some independent scenarios, and I found that eight permanent football games per school gave the best balance of ensuring entrenched rivalries and playing against regional peers that fans really care about. In this way, every school will have four guaranteed, marquee home games and vice versa. Then, they can use the other four games as they wish. Let me give a brief example using the king of the revenue mountain and also the most difficult to please, the University of Texas.

As a football independent, I believe Texas would always want a home and home with another school that is guaranteed to sell out and keep fans engaged for generations. They need to be peer institutions in terms of culture, school type, or historic rivals. The key is that the feeling must be reciprocated. After playing this scenario among all of the P5 and a few major G5 players (BYU, South Florida, Cincy, etc.), Texas ended up with the following eight schools as annual football rivals:

1. Oklahoma
2. Texas A&M
3. LSU
4. Arkansas
5. Alabama
6. Florida
7. Arizona State
8. USC

I have rationales for these schools that I will not bore you with, and the concept matters more than the teams. Their remaining four games would be completely up to them and would likely be short term contracts like we see now. Without conference chains, they can still play Texas Tech, Baylor, and TCU, but they can rotate them instead of taking up three slots every year and work sweeter deals than just home/home. They would surely have some Notre Dame, Ohio State, Georgia, and Michigan battles, but it could be occasionally with flexibility for home/home or neutral site.

I think the concept of independent scheduling for the football regular season is easy; the bowls and playoff are where it gets sticky. Of course, conference championships are eliminated, but the regular season would theoretically be 12 high caliber games. I think it would be easier for a CFP to select eight teams in this scenario because there would be so many more crossover comparable match-ups. If the bowls endure, then they can just have a pecking order where preferences are tiered and rotated. Events like the Rose Bowl can decide if they want to stick with the schools historically tied to the PAC and BIG, but it would be up to them.

In all, I think it can make a lot of sense for the upper crust. Most schools will still pick a majority of their current conference foes because conferences are just a convenience for similar interests. Conference border schools, like Colorado, Kentucky, and Virginia, will have fewer old conference annual rivals than hubs like Stanford, Alabama, or Wisconsin, but that is the beauty of it. Everyone basically has their own concentric circles, and they have the liberty to do what is best for their institution and football program.

"A conference of Independents"

Well, there's an oxymoron. I understand your concept, ATU.
At some point, elements of what you communicated could happen for schools in some quite unique situations.

Actually, I've thought before that fb independents such as Army, BYU, UConn, and UMass, could create a methodology to help each other with late season scheduling as needed. But they really do this anyway because there are so few of them

When a group of schools organize together, with structure, rules, financial and media contracting, etc; that is a conference, even if the criteria and standards are more loose or radically different than existing, traditional conferences.
The NCAA, P5, G-5, and such may declare such is too non-conformist, but that would be another story. The ACC several years back wasn't permitted to implement more than two divisions and be autonomous in how they would determine their conference champion.

I like the idea but think the networks require more stability. Your idea can give stability if it simply requires a certain number of games. Say 9 total conference games, but only 4 of them are scheduled by the conference.

So take my team, TN. They are scheduled to play TN, Georgia, Vandy and KY each year.

They can schedule 5 other games. They schedule Alabama, and then they schedule Ole Miss and Auburn (their 4th and 5th most played rivals, and hey who doesn't want to see Kiffin vs. TN).

They take Miss St. (8th most played rival) and South Carolina (10th). They want to avoid playing LSU since they already have Bama on the schedule, so for their last pick they jump down and play Arkansas (15th).

My 12-school "basketball only" league (in a fantasy realm), listed in no particular order:

Louisville
Kentucky
Indiana
Memphis
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
UAB
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Duke
VCU

As cool as the idea is, TV and ADs would hate it since your year to year revenue is completely unpredictable

One year Bama might make huge money but what happens in a year where none of the teams they can get on the schedule are Top 25 teams that season? It’s bound to happen eventually

So cool concept but not super practical