G’s Exploration or Have You Heard About Conference Realignment?

Hi there, oh great and wonderful college football fans. Unless you’ve turned your phones off to all sports news (or more than usually focused on the Olympics), you’ve heard that Oklahoma and Texas have requested invitations to the SEC, which would create the first super conference. It’s not a lock because it takes 11 existing schools to vote yes. The word is Texas A&M is not thrilled with sharing the small non-football state of Texas (yes, that is extreme sarcasm) with another team and will vote no. Missouri might because they were part of the Big 12 when it, you know, had 12 teams. There is speculation that South Carolina may vote no in an effort to set a “no schools added to an existing state” precedent, but I don’t think Clemson wants to leave the ACC. I expect the vote to be 13-1 or 12-2 and pass easily. The really confusing thing is that the switch doesn’t take place until 2025 unless a) the Big 12 dissolves, b) the Big 12 takes lots of money from the two schools as part of the divorce, and/or c) the SEC shares some of their media money with the Big 12. My guess is the two schools will begin SEC play in 2023. It’s right in the middle and the rest of the (soon to be 8-team) Big 12 will be running for the hills – which will lead to a) above.

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It’s also pretty clear that 2 8-team divisions won’t work. Primarily it’s because even in a 9-game conference schedule, there would only be 2 games cross-division. It would be impossible for a 4-year player to play every school at all if the cross-rivalry concept continues. Certainly there is no way a student will play in all the stadia of the conference. It’s hard now – impossible in the future. So, the conference that created the Power 5 divisions will pioneer the 4-division model. There are about 100 of these out on the web, but here is my version of the SEC future:

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In this model, each division will play each other once and have a rotating 2-team group from the other divisions, home and away for a 9-game schedule. For example, in XX year, Kentucky would play Missouri, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt (in some home/away structure), host Alabama, Auburn, and Arkansas while traveling to Mississippi, Florida, and Oklahoma. The next year they would switch locations for the other divisional games. The following two years they would play the other 2 schools in the other divisions. Make sense? That way a 4-year player will see every other team at least twice and travel to every school at least once. The SEC playoff would take the divisional leaders, seed them with 4 at 1, and 3 at 2, then the championship would be in Atlanta like today. The winner (and maybe the loser) goes to the final playoffs – more on this in a moment.

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Ok, so we’ve established (or assumed, your choice) that the Big 12 will fall apart and the other 8 teams will need homes. Not only that, the Big 10 and ACC will need to keep up while the Pac12 is struggling as a conference and could build up. There’s a lot of talk about a 4-super-conference group that will separate from the NCAA. Maybe they separate, maybe they don’t (if the NCAA continues to adjust to modern times), I don’t know, but my question is why 4? I think there will be 5 16-team conferences that will be there own thing. That means that what’s left of the Group of 5 (boosted by some current FCS quality programs) will have to create their own playoffs, but more on that in another post once I figure out who would land where.

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I’ve read a bunch of articles, but this list is my own. Here’s what I think is a viable option for the 4 other super conferences in the future. First, the ACC. Notre Dame is an ACC member for all conference sports except football (of course, they were in the ACC during the pandemic year). Being an independent is not going to work and as much as the Fighting Irish want to keep this “purity”, it’s time to join the late 20th century and join a conference. So, let’s assume that’s a given. The most logical choice for them from the Big 12 remnants is West Virginia. That would bring the conference to 16 teams. I’m assuming that all conferences will follow the format described above so here is how that might fall out.

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One thing to note is I made an assumption that, other than the Big 12, other teams don’t switch conferences. Of course that is possible, and it would make the permutations immense. The ACC sort of fell together geographically although they really aren’t that at all now, so who knows how they would split up.

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Next, let’s look at the Big 10. First, they are still the Big 10 with 14 teams so I don’t know whether they would change their brand or not. I think they will either be the Big Sixteen (spelled out) or remain the Big 10, but use hexadecimal to describe themselves. The Big 10 has options from the Big 12 sell off. The most logical teams are Kansas, Kansas St, Iowa St, and Oklahoma St. I think they select Oklahoma St (to get close to Texas) and Kansas (old rivalry with Nebraska). I think they would like to avoid more state duplication so Iowa St and Kansas St are out. Here’s how they might end up. I think Kansas beats out Kansas St because of basketball.

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The Pac12 has hit a wall. While the Big 10 also plays a 9-game schedule, the west coasters just don’t have the oomph to be taken seriously (most of the time) come playoff time. With the talk of playoff expansion not automatically including conference champions, it was the Pac12 that argued the point – essentially it sounded like “but, I want to play too”, and demonstrates just how far the once powerful conference has fallen. They need 4 schools to join to bring them to super conference level and all will come from the Big 12. Note: the conferences listed (other than the SEC) are in alphabetical order (so far) and all of these choices will be made in some other order – I’m just showing where I think they end up. The choices (really there are more, but go with me here) are Baylor, Iowa St, Kansas, TCU, and Texas Tech. This may come as a surprise, but I think Baylor is the odd team out. 5 years ago it would have been a different team, but Baylor has some baggage right now that will keep them out. So the new Pac16 shakes out this way.

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So what do we do with Baylor. They are a major football (and other sports) school. I toyed with leaving Kansas out, but what about basketball? What about BYU and Boise St? I think these questions make it hard to pick one to be “demoted”. Especially so if the next tier down (now called Group of 5) has their own championship. To solve this problem, I think the American conference will step up and join the new Power 5. Currently, however, they only have 11 teams. Add Baylor which will be interesting vs Cincinnati, UCF, and Memphis right away. To further boost their credibility, I think they add Army and Air Force (natural fits vs Navy and keeps their rivalries alive). BYU, currently an independent will add another solid team. Boise St will round out the conference. This would make them a viable 5th Power 5 group. Here’s how they might look.

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So there you go. 80 teams in 5 conferences with a semi-final and final in each conference, leaving 5 conference champions. So how do the playoffs work? First a few rules. Each of the 80 teams plays a 9-game conference schedule. Their other 3 games must have at least 2 from one of the other Power 5 with one against the new Group of 5 (no FCS games allowed). I propose an 8-team playoff structure with the conference champions being automatic qualifiers (they had to win 2 “post-season” games already) and the 3 highest ranked teams (I guess AP although a computer would be better, of course) non-conference champions, seeded by rank. A qualifier could be a higher seed than a conference champion. All other teams can play in Power 5 bowls (some current bowls would become Group of 5 bowls). There wouldn’t be a 6-win requirement because all Power 5 bowls would be filled with Power 5 teams. After I figure out the Group of 5, I’ll assign bowls just for fun.

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A long post today, but a possible future in the college football multiverse. I’d love to hear your comments and questions. Thanks for reading and look for the next post. Please share with others if you like what you read and let me know in the comments if you don’t. G