I had worked on a college realignment with an emphasis on men's basketball instead of football (
https://csnbbs.com/thread-915335-post-17...17240497). The goal was to group top basketball schools together, renew old rivalries, and create somewhat geographically friendly conferences. I also wanted to keep the number of teams small, capping these conferences at 10 teams each so teams will play each other more often.
So I wondered what if I decided to apply the same principles but made football the #1 sport instead? Yes, football is the #1 sport considered in college realignment now but I also wanted to make the conferences smaller and more geographically friendly. I decided that the conferences would be conferences of 10 and conferences would play full round robin play. Hopefully if the conferences are chosen carefully the number of non conference rivalry games like Florida/Florida State would be minimized as well. If you try to get most of the better teams in better conferences, you can increase the value of the better conferences and get better games for TV purposes as well.
So here are the conferences:
In my men's basketball conference, the top conference was the ACC with Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Louisville. In college football, of course it's all about the SEC where I combine the two premier teams of college football, Alabama and Clemson. They also keep Georgia and Florida.
Oklahoma and Texas will not be joining the SEC in this scenario. They will lead their own conference which I will call the Southwest Conference (SWC). Because there were too many teams in the SEC, I moved LSU to the SWC.
Of course Ohio State will be part of the Big Ten along with Michigan and Penn State. Notre Dame probably won't want it in real life but in fantasy world I want them in the Big Ten so they are here.
These are the "big" conferences.
SEC: Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Miami, South Carolina, Tennessee
Big 10: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Wisconsin
SWC: Arkansas, Houston, LSU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, SMU, Texas, Texas A&M, TCU, Texas Tech
The next level would have to be the Clemson less (and Florida State less) ACC and the trimmed Pac "10".
The Pac 10 will cut their two irrelevant, little brother, and academically challenged schools, Oregon State and Washington State.
Pac "10": Arizona, Arizona State, California, Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington
The ACC lost their three southern most schools and Notre Dame and Pitt are Big Ten members. They still have the four North Carolina schools and two Virginia schools at its core. They can stay "Atlantic" by keeping Northeast schools Boston College and Syracuse and adding dumped Big Ten members Maryland (former ACC member) and Rutgers.
ACC: Boston College, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, Rutgers, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
We also have the old Big 8 schools minus the Oklahoma schools (SWC) and Colorado (Pac 10). I wanted to pair Iowa with Iowa State. Minnesota will also come along for the ride. Northwestern was also left out of the Big 10 so they can find a home here. That gives them eight schools so they need two more. This is a conference where they have to go to be stretched geographically so they add BYU and Boise State.
Big 8: Boise State, BYU, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern
This certainly won't be at the level of the SEC or Big Ten but it might be comparable to the ACC.
Finally, the new "AAC" winds up with the "leftovers" although they tend to be a closer geographic group than the current AAC.
AAC: Central Florida, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Louisville, Memphis, Mississippi, Mississippi State, South Florida, Vanderbilt, West Virginia
There are plenty of other scenarios. If Oregon and Washington really feel they want to keep Oregon State and Washington State, Colorado and Utah go to the Big 8 and Boise State and BYU remain on the outs. Maybe the ACC could dump Boston College and Syracuse and go with Kentucky and Louisville. If the southerners have their way, they'd probably want Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisville. Assuming Colorado and Utah stay in the Pac 10, could the Big 12 grab Kentucky and Louisville? If these conferences stay in place for men's basketball, while we would love to see Kentucky and Louisville play North Carolina and Duke, Kentucky and Louisville playing Kansas isn't bad either. Feel free to share your ideas!