Headlines from this past Week:

1. Dennis Dodds says that UCLA and USC never signed the PAC GOR.

2. 12 Big 10 schools vote not to play football this year and Iowa and Nebraska vote to play.

3. Arkansas and Missouri are wholly pissed off about the two SEC games that were added to their schedules.

4. Trevor Lawrence wants to play ball and actually has some pretty compelling arguments to do so.

5. There is an interesting legal potential arising out of schools who want to fulfill their contracts and play versus those who do not. Could this void GOR's? Possibly.

So let's run with the real stuff and take it to what might be Never Never Land.

There's so much stuff going on it all has be interconnected in a great nexus of corporate control. So ESPN is following the old axiom of "Let no crisis go to waste!" The Big 10 is a FOX property so of course they should be busted up. Texas is an ESPN product of course they need to be enhanced. And the PAC is nobody's product as their rights are leased. So here goes:

Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Arkansas want to move back to the Big 12. U.S.C. and U.C.L.A. join them along with Utah. Colorado rejoins since two Cali schools are coming. Notre Dame finally joins USC and Texas.

Vanderbilt drops out. Texas A&M doubles down on staying.

Florida State, Georgia Tech, and Clemson sign on to play for the season with the SEC. It will be a move that proves to be permanent. N.C. State and Va Tech manages to get permission to play as well. They'll stay. West Virginia and Louisville join as well.

North Carolina, Duke, Pitt and Virginia decide not to play at all so they join the Big 10. Boston College and Syracuse will soon follow.

Now we have a 54 member upper tier 36 of whom will play this year, and 18 more that will join us at a later date.

Big 10:
Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Penn State, Pitt, Virginia
Boston College, Indiana, Ohio State, Purdue, Rutgers, Syracuse
Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin

Big 12:
Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska
Arkansas, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, T.C.U.
California Los Angeles, Colorado, Notre Dame, Southern Call, Texas Tech, Utah

SEC:
Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, South Carolina
Kentucky, Louisville, N.C. State, Tennessee, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
Alabama, Auburn, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Texas A&M


Voila Covid solves what the Networks couldn't accomplish.

ESPN owns the Big 12 and SEC outright. FOX holds 51% of the Big 10 and ESPN covers the rest.

If the remaining PAC teams want to play then perhaps Cal, Stanford, Washington and Oregon affiliate with another conference.

Vanderbilt and Wake Forest drop down.
Miami goes independent.
Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Washington State sit it out and wait. You snooze you lose.

Now you guys are supposed to have fun with this. I just wanted to get it started. So using this premise one, two, three, go!

Add on: ND went in full for a year

(08-10-2020 08:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  5. There is an interesting legal potential arising out of schools who want to fulfill their contracts and play versus those who do not. Could this void GOR's? Possibly.

This is an interesting one. I think the GOR would be voided if the conference doesn't play but a member does on their own since the conference would have no right to that content.
But what if it's the other way around, particularly with the ACC?
If their northern programs (BC, Cuse, Pitt) are unwilling to play, especially if the conference took a vote and decided to play the season, what action does the conference take? I would think going against a conference vote would forfeit membership and they wouldn't be willing to make an exception seeing as the ACC needs enough content to meet their contractual obligations and to fill their brand new ACC Network.

They would then need to add 3 teams to get back to 14 so they maintain the contracted amount of content and avoid taking a hit on their tv contract. They would want to add southern teams to keep similar politics, culture & geography with the rest of the conference and avoid the same situation. UCF, Cincinnati & Memphis are brought on board.

I'm going to take an idea posited by Fighting Muskie in the P5 Discussion area and take some liberties with it...

Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri return the Big 12. However, Iowa has too strong of ties with the other Big 10 programs, especially Minnesota and Wisconsin. They agree to the accession of Iowa State to the Big 10, to help preserve the in-state rivalry. That returns the Big 10 back to 14. West Virginia replaces Missouri.

Now for the rest:

The Arizona schools, Utah, BYU and Arkansas round up the Big 16.

The Pac returns to its Pac 8 roots. USC and UCLA stay put.

The ACC is parsed out this way: Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, Virginia Tech and NC State to the SEC; Pittsburgh, Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, Miami and Syracuse to the Big Ten

Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Notre Dame and Boston College head to the Big East

Big 16 West: Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU
Big 16 Central: Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State
Big 16 Texas: Texas Tech, Texas, TCU, Baylor
Big 16 Plains: Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Arkansas

SEC Gulf: Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Alabama, Tennessee
SEC Central: Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Kentucky
SEC East: Louisville, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Clemson, South Carolina, NC State

Big 10 West: Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern
Big 10 Central: Illinois, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Michigan
Big 10 Lakes: Ohio State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rutgers
Big 10 East: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, Miami

I did make one change to JR's 54 team alignment. I substituted Stanford for California in the Division with Notre Dame.

Then I added Boise State and San Diego State to the PAC remnants leaving them as a 10 team league with two divisions:

North: Oregon, Washington, Boise St., Washington St. and Oregon State
South: Arizona St., California, San Diego St., UCLA and Arizona

That left me with a fifth conference in the top tier of the FBS, the AAC, consisting of:

South: UCF, Appalachian St., Wake Forest, Miami, USF and Vanderbilt
Armed Forces: Navy, Cincinnati, Air Force, Temple, Army, East Carolina
West: Memphis, SMU, Tulane, BYU, Houston and Tulsa

All schools are listed in order of their 2019 Sagarin rating.

The Sagarin ratings by new conference alignment:

SEC...81
B12...78
B1G...76
PAC...76
AAC...71

MWC..61
SUN...59
USA...58
MAC...58

The Top 8 G4 schools by Sagarin rating were:

75 Florida Atlantic
74 Louisiana
69 Wyoming
68 Hawaii
67 Buffalo
66 Western Kentucky
66 Ohio
65 Louisiana Tech

So, based on performance alone, not all of the 82 teams in the P5 "deserve" their seat at the table. But none of the remaining 48 schools do.

The highest rated teams in each of the P5 conferences were:

SEC LSU (105)
B1G Ohio State (105)
B12 Oklahoma (93)
PAC Oregon (93)
AAC Memphis (83)

The three highest rated teams among the rest (presumably part of an 8 team playoff) were:

Clemson (102)
Alabama (99)
Georgia (94)

And the rest of the NY6:

Wisconsin (92)
Penn State (92)
Notre Dame (90)
Florida (90)

USC and UCLA never signed a GOR? That’s an interesting tidbit