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Conference Re-Alignments

cthusker said:
I understand the reasoning for adding Maryland and Rutgers but it didn't enhance the football part of the conference imo. If the BIG must add teams I hope it adds teams that enhance the over all competition level with schools like Norte Dame not a Rutgers..........
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I agree but we don't know what the future holds for a Maryland or a Rutgers with added revenue from the B1G. They certainly have an abundance of talent in the Northeast and with the assets to improve facilities and pay for better coaching its not a certain that they wont bring something to the table regarding Tv's.
 

cthusker said:
If the BIG must add teams I hope it adds teams that enhance the over all competition level with schools like Norte Dame not a Rutgers..........
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I don't think that anyone would argue against you on that. The B1G has wanted N.D. for decades, but it's an unrequited love. It wasn't a choice between N.D. and Rutgers. It was a choice between expanding or not, and then it was probably a choice between Rutgers and a bunch of teams that had their own pluses and minuses.
 
The list I presented earlier were among the top 30 research universities and had large endowments. There aren't a lot of great choices that fit in because the average B1G university is over 45,000 students and have considerably higher research budgets and endowments than 85% of the schools that play D1A sports.
 



I'm working on a concept with four power conferences (Bye, Big 12!) that each having 18 teams. 3 divisions of 6 teams.

For the post-season, each conference's three divisional winners and the conference's top wild card team play in a two-round bracket (1v4, 2v3). Winners advance to determine the conference champ.

After CCGs, the 4 conference champs then play a two-round semi-finals bracket (basically the current CFP). Those semi-final games would be pre-set and rotate every 3 seasons:

Year 1: B1G vs ACC, SEC vs PAC
Year 2: B1G vs SEC, ACC vs PAC
Year 3: B1G vs PAC, SEC vs ACC

The post season gets one extra game added (Conference Semi-Finals), so the season wouldn't need to be extended much. With 9 conference games, each team plays their 5 divisonal foes, plus 4 games against the other two divisions (2 each).
 




MadRat said:
It's that time of year where conferences are wheeling and dealing about their futures. And it's fun to imagine where these backroom deals could lead. The B1G is still trying to get Notre Dame and three more schools to join to get to 20. The Big 12 would like to get to between fourteen and sixteen. The PAC-12 will expand to survive. It's a mad world we live in, this college football landscape.

The B1G at twenty could be interesting if they split to four divisions. Otherwise a nine-game schedule just within a single division would be pretty boring. Nebraska geographically in the WEST would align with Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. If they could get Kansas or Oklahoma into the mix that would be a very strong division. I believe Kansas would be the most natural addition, with Oklahoma tied down to where their legislature would require Oklahoma State to go to the same conference. Kansas fits the B1G academically very well. Not so sure either Oklahoma team would. Or maybe the B1G expands to the east and south, then Illinois would fit in to this mix and none of the aforementioned school get looks.

In a four division B1G we'd see a few natural grouping perhaps:

WEST) Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin (plus Kansas? Oklahoma?)
NORTH) Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern (plus Notre Dame?)
EAST) Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland (plus Syracuse? Virginia?)
CENTRAL) Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois (plus Louisville?)

Or maybe Notre Dame won't join so they shift a little more like.

WEST) Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois (plus Kansas? Oklahoma?)
NORTH) Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Minnesota
EAST) Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland (plus Virginia? North Carolina? Boston College? UConn?)
CENTRAL) Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana (plus Louisville? Pittsburgh?)

How would the schedule look like with 20 teams? I would think the four inter-division rivals would leave you playing one from each opposing division, giving you eight teams. You might need to set aside one date at the end of the season where the conference creates match-ups to set automatic bowl qualifiers AND of course the champions. The top four division teams would play for the conference title. The winner of the final would set their respective semi-final opponents as the 3rd and 4th places for automatic bowl tie-ins. In 2019 we have the following bowl tie ins:

1) College Football Playoff National Championship (dependent on national ranks)
2) The Rose Bowl will be the B1G vs. Pac-12
3) Outback Bowl B1G vs. SEC
4) San Diego Country Credit Union Holiday Bowl B1G vs. Pac-12 (Agreement is for five different teams in six years, so no Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern or Wisconsin, if possible.)
5) TaxSlayer Bowl B1G vs. SEC -OR- Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl B1G vs. SEC (ACC and Big Ten combine in the Music City and TaxSlayer, with each getting three appearances in six years. The Big Ten played in TaxSlayer in 2015 and the Music City in 2016, 2017 & 2018. It’s almost certainly going to be in the TaxSlayer, but no Iowa or Penn State, if possible.)
6) Capital One Orange Bowl ACC against the highest-ranked B1G or SEC team, or Notre Dame.
7) New Era Pinstripe Bowl B1G vs. ACC (unofficial tie-in)
8) Redbox Bowl B1G vs. Pac-12
9) Quick Lane Bowl B1G vs. ACC
10) Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl B1G vs. Mountain West
11) Agreement for three SERVPRO First Responders and three Armed Forces bowls in six years. The Big Ten hasn’t been in the Armed Force Bowl since 2014.

The general consensus through the last several years is that the writing is on the wall for the Big 12 or the ACC. One of these conferences is going to get absorbed and the remaining members turned into the next Sun Belt. The B1G is poised to win big in any expansion plans. I invite other HuskerMax members to come up with their own B1G expansion plans and how it would work. Especially what needs to be answered is how the division would work if they get to between 16 and twenty teams.
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We are not shackled to little brother
 
MadRat said:
Bland
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DuckTownHusker said:
I'm working on a concept with four power conferences (Bye, Big 12!) that each having 18 teams. 3 divisions of 6 teams.

For the post-season, each conference's three divisional winners and the conference's top wild card team play in a two-round bracket (1v4, 2v3). Winners advance to determine the conference champ.

After CCGs, the 4 conference champs then play a two-round semi-finals bracket (basically the current CFP). Those semi-final games would be pre-set and rotate every 3 seasons:

Year 1: B1G vs ACC, SEC vs PAC
Year 2: B1G vs SEC, ACC vs PAC
Year 3: B1G vs PAC, SEC vs ACC

The post season gets one extra game added (Conference Semi-Finals), so the season wouldn't need to be extended much. With 9 conference games, each team plays their 5 divisonal foes, plus 4 games against the other two divisions (2 each).
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I like the mobility of your concept, but it needs one factor. It needs an ability for a conference to get their shoulda-won team in when you have an upset. The tournament at the end needs that ability to heal from an upset at the division or conference level.
 
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MadRat said:
I like the mobility of your concept, but it needs one factor. It needs an ability for a conference to get their shoulda-won team in when you have an upset. The tournament at the end needs that ability to heal from an upset at the division or conference level.
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No just no. Upsets are a part of sports. You lose you out.
 
That is nontraditional and un-American to create a broken, rigid system. I don't see Duck's proposal saying every team has to be affiliated, yet it is implied. So I'm not even calling for inclusion of an independent Notre Dame, BYU, Navy, etc. But those are college football traditions, too.

Thom you seem to be implying that we shouldn't allow any wiggle room for human factors. So if #1-nationally ranked Clemson enters their conference championship semifinal and the flu takes out the first two rows on the depth chart, that's no excuse to lose to a 5-7 wildcard that loses by 70 points in the conference championship the next week. That is absurd. That means the national championship goes on without any possible way for the best team in the country to recover from a fluke. That just makes a mockery out of the system no different than today.
 
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The problem with further expansion is that there just aren't many more potential new members that are truly a possibility. I see a few of the B12 schools as options and that's it. Maybe Kansas, the Oklahoma schools, and Texas. And they are just as likely to pick another conference or stay where they are when it comes down to it.

No one in the ACC that would be worth adding is a possibility. You can forget about the Virginia schools, the North Carolina schools, Clemson, or the Florida schools. They aren't going anywhere.
 
MadRat said:
That is nontraditional and un-American to create a broken, rigid system. I don't see Duck's proposal saying every team has to be affiliated, yet it is implied. So I'm not even calling for inclusion of an independent Notre Dame, BYU, Navy, etc. But those are college football traditions, too.

Thom you seem to be implying that we shouldn't allow any wiggle room for human factors. So if #1-nationally ranked Clemson enters their conference championship semifinal and the flu takes out the first two rows on the depth chart, that's no excuse to lose to a 5-7 wildcard that loses by 70 points in the conference championship the next week. That is absurd. That means the national championship goes on without any possible way for the best team in the country to recover from a fluke. That just makes a mockery out of the system no different than today.
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So what. The same flu could strike at the National semifinals. Should they get a do over then too? What about March Madness? If a number 16 seed beats a number 1 seed. Do they get a do over?
 

Cisco said:
No one in the ACC that would be worth adding is a possibility. You can forget about the Virginia schools, the North Carolina schools, Clemson, or the Florida schools. They aren't going anywhere.
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How do you know that? Before Rutgers and Maryland were added, the B1G was quite a ways down the road with both Virginia and North Carolina, and (as I understand it) both walked away still on good terms with the B1G. Seeing how much MORE money is now coming into the B1G than what it was back then, on what basis can you say that those two (or other) ACC teams wouldn't consider it? The money matters.

There's this romantic tendency among fans to believe that the rivalries and traditions that we care about are somehow going to be a driving force in decision-making at the upper levels of the conference commissioners' offices; it's not. It might be a nice afterthought. Remember how Oklahoma-Nebraska was the ultimate college football rivalry from '71 through the 80s? How much did that matter when they set up the divisions and scheduling for the Big 12? Remember how Nebraska and Kansas was the longest continuously played rivalry in college football? See ya, and hello Big 10. Remember how Missouri and Nebraska were foundational members of the Big 6 even before it was the Big 6. Bye. Good luck! Remember how Texas and Texas A&M was one of the fiercest rivalries in sports? They haven't played since 2010. The Texas legislature is trying to mandate that they have to play each other, but they haven't been able to even do that.

If the B1G offices seriously want to go after UNC and/or Virginia and/or Georgia Tech (also was in conversations before), they can throw some serious cash at them that the ACC simply can't match. Again, on what do you base your opinion that "(t)hey aren't going anywhere?"
 
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