I Think I Fixed The College Football Conference Situation
It is often that my friends and I have endless debates on conference realignment, and whos going where, and why are they going there, etc. College football is kind of in a flux of teams constantly circling through conferences. Conferences were at one point a collection of the power programs in the region. Now conferences are just a jumble of teams that the commissioner added to make the conference “stronger” at the time.
I think a lot of this has to do with the NCAA just being an awful governing body for athletics. There is no face of the NCAA. No one has to answer any questions. They just do whatever they want, and I honestly dont even know who “they” even is. Its so silly that some ominous force can say “You lose 5 scholarships for giving recruits cream cheese for their bagels”. Jim Harbaugh and the University of Michigan are currently in hot waters for buying a recruit a cheeseburger, and I dont know who to be mad at for being so god damn dumb because theres no one there. Could you imagine if we didnt know who the president was and a newsletter was just given to CNN and FOX once a week to tell us what was happening? The country would crumble by the end of the week.
You mix the NCAAs ambiguity with the fact that conferences are just adding whoever they want, and I will admit I am just not having fun anymore with this. Ive heard that eventually its just going to be the Big Ten and SEC and theyre just going to absorb the other conferences. I have no clue how that work. One of my friends said that every Division winner should be an autobid to the 12 team playoff. That would have given us: Clemson, North Carolina, TCU, KState, Michigan, Purdue, USC, Utah, Georgia, and LSU. No thank you. USC lost to Tulane. KState, North Carolina, Clemson, and Utah all lost to teams that did not win their division, and Purdue was smoked by LSU. Thats not going to work.
Here is my proposal if I was to be elected the Supreme Leader of College Athletics after me and my band of rebels overthrow the NCAA in a violent coup. Also quick disclaimer here: I am aware that this would probably never happen. I know that there are contractual obligations and agreements and that not all these schools would agree to this. Its just something in my autistic brain that made the most sense and that would simplify things so much for casual college football fans and in my opinion would make the sport a whole lot of exciting. Enjoy
Step One: The New Power Structure
Now I am the Supreme Leader of College Athletics, but I am a leader of the people and to prevent favoritism we need a governing body that does not include me. Right now we have a “College Football Playoff Committee” that consists of 13 members. Too many cooks in the kitchen for me. This isnt a tech company. We dont need people making TikToks all day about how easy their job is and rolling in at noon.
What we are doing is we are declaring 4 and only 4 conferences. The Big Ten represents the Midwest. The SEC represents the South. The ACC represents the East. The Pac Ten represents the West, and yes we are changing it back to the Pac Ten because Supreme Leader says so. Each of the Athletic Directors from the schools in these conferences will vote to elect a Commissioner or Representative if you will for the Conference. Kohler theres 4 conferences though, what if theres a 2-2 tie in a tiebreaker vote? The 4 commissioners with myself being the tiebreaker will choose the Commissioner for the newly formed College Athletics Association. So we now have a 5 person board of trustees to make decisions for the league consisting of one unbiased commissioner and 4 representatives, one for each conference.
Step Two: Conference Realignment
Im gonna start to lose some people here, but its for the greater good. Before you get mad just hear me out. So the Big 12 clearly has been disbanded, and it was a necessary evil for where the conference was going. I know the Pac 12 also is not in a great spot, but we need them for geographical balance. Our new 4 conferences will be made up of 20 teams and split up based on geographical location, previous prestige or success in the sport of football, established rivalries, and potential market the school brings. Here are our new conferences.
The New ACC
Here are our new ACC teams:
Boston College, Central Florida, Clemson, Connecticut, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, South Carolina, South Florida, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, and West Virginia
The New SEC
Here are our new SEC Teams:
Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Baylor, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Houston, LSU, Memphis, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, SMU, TCU, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, and Vanderbilt
The New B1G Ten
Here are our new B1G Ten Teams:
Cincinnati, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Iowas State, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, and Wisconsin
The New Pac Ten
Here are our new Pac Ten Teams:
Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Boise State, Cal, Colorado, Fresno State, Nevada, Oregon, Oregon State, San Diego State, San Jose State, Stanford, Texas Tech, UCLA, UNLV, USC, Utah, Washington, and Washington State
I can already hear the Notre Dame fans losing their shit. Shut up. Youre joining a conference. Supreme Leader says so. What doing this does is it makes travel much more manageable. Max you will have to travel one time zone, but you always have. There isnt going to be lets say a hypothetical Rutgers traveling to Los Angeles to play USC or UCLA. This also is going to help equalize recruiting. Alabama and Georgia are still gonna Alabama and Georgia. The only way to equalize is to elevate other programs. Building up rivalries in lets say Florida or California with capable programs will keep a few of those players from leaving their region.
The other thing that could be exciting is seeing if some of these teams could elevate with more exposure. A team like UNLV is located in Las Vegas which is becoming more and more a talent rich area. They play in one of the best stadiums on the planet and with some money injected into the program and a coach that knows what hes doing, could they compete?
This also kind of brings back big rivalries. Pitt and West Virginia, Kansas and Mizzou, Texas and A&M, etc. I went through and there arent that many rivalries I broke up. More so there are rivalries that I put back together. Even further then that, the new geographical proximity of all the schools will naturally create new rivalries. All of this and I think that we also fixed competition levels in every conference by doing things like adding Florida to the ACC or Notre Dame to the Big Ten. Lets talk about scheduling
Scheduling and Playoff
This makes scheduling really easy. We are going to keep the same 9 conference games and 3 non conference games. For the non conference games we are going to schedule one team from each of the other conferences. Example: If you are in the SEC, you will play one Big Ten team, one ACC team, and one Pac Ten team. This will give those teams who have a rivalry that got messed up to keep those going if they choose. I have no problem with Notre Dame playing USC every year for their Pac Ten game or Florida playing Georgia for their SEC game.
For inter conference games we are going to adapt the 3-6 method. Each team keeps their three rivalries and then plays a 6 teams shuffled conference schedule for the rest. Example: Michigan keeps Ohio State, Michigan State, and Minnesota as their rivals and plays 6 other teams.
At the end of the year the top two teams in each conference play for a Conference Championship. In the case of a tie where for some reason the teams didnt play each other. The tiebreaker will come down to a vote between the 20 ADs with the commissioner being the theoretical tiebreaker.
The four conference champions will then get the four automatic bids and bye weeks to the 12 team College Football Playoff. The other 8 teams will be determined by the 5 member committee. Who would not be fucking hyped for this?
Division 2
This is a lay out for Division 1. Division 2 would be all the leftover MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, etc. teams combined with the FCS schools. Division 2 Im not sure, they could have a similar set up or just keep the conferences they have now. I havent thought about it much. Im also ok with maybe having some type of relegation here where every 10 years or so we say Nevada and Memphis are struggling so we should promote Colorado State and Marshall or whatever. Its another way to keep parity in both divisions and to get more people watching division 2.
Conclusion
I know that this will probably never happen. I know that theres probably some holes and people are going to say but what about the tv contracts or why did Memphis make in but Marshall didnt? This is the best way this can go down. Who would not be down for this? This is the best way to simplify everything. This is the best way to keep rivalries. This is the best way to give the most teams an opportunity to rise to prominence. Its the most cost effective in the long term. Its the best for the environment. Its going to give us the best and most exciting games. Its also the most fair way to do things. It cuts back the most on the bullshit and gives us the best chance we have to get the best team winning the national championship at the end of the year.