(Update: This was created during the summer, at the early stages of A&M-to-SEC talk. It hasn't been tweaked since then, including the absurd additions by the ACC of Pitt and Syracuse. Didn't get around to fuller summaries and analyses per conference - I put 'Inc.' for those - but it's something to play with. Until my tweaked common sense version in a day or two. And it was originally seven - as noted - but it now six.
(We're getting to the point of where really 10-team conferences are best, and why can't they have a conference championship game with five-team divisions? Who said? And next: we need a college football mediator/czar to get all these greedy ----- together and keep the networks out. TV will get enough control eventually, but let's keep the control within the university system.)
I remember years and years ago coming up with new conference alignments on my own, may still have that sheet somewhere. But it was probably 15-20 years ago, which counts as forever in college sports. Shoot, look at the last 15 months.
Sat down and did it again, flipping and flopping and trying to keep all sorts of things in mind. One question: what about realigning by sport, football and otherwise? There are some options there.
Nevertheless, three days after trying to cram in seven 12-team conferences, the new plan is a mix of 12- and 14-team groups.
Updates: Originally had Navy and Army in Northeast, but that won't work.
Originally had a Southeast 1 conference with Duke, ECU, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, UNC, NC State, Tennessee, Vandy and Wake Forest. This was an ACC-heavy mix with schools that probably fit well together overall. Note that East Carolina has been a darkhorse candidate to join the Big East, and already outdraws three of these teams on a regular basis and is close in others.
It's clearly not a strong football conference, but would be mighty good in most everything else. And it needed at least one more team.
So the solution is to eliminate Army and Navy from the conversation and form 14-team conferences rather than 12.
Originally had Southern Miss in Southeast 2. It replaces Tulane in mid-south.
Moves Vandy to the Midwest. Drops Central Florida from SE. ECU has to move north if it wants to play
So, peruse the chart.
There you go, seven BCS conferences with some options for a few of them.
The West is basically the Pac-10, the Northeast is a mix of Big East, Big Ten and ACC, the two southeast conferences are mostly SEC and ACC with two more Florida schools.
And we add a fair chunk of previously non-BCS schools, like Boise State, Utah and TCU, among others.
In the mix are some non-BCS schools that aren't on the upper non-BCS level with BSU, Utah and TCU.
The geography isn't perfect, and some state schools are split up - like they are now - and others aren't. In some cases, certain schools fit in better with the majority of schools in that conference.
Note that there are oodles of non-BCS teams that currently outdraw BCS schools, in some cases by a chunk. Consider that East Carolina outdraws a chunk of ACC schools and some SEC, and has been competitive with those schools as much as the ACC and SEC conference teams.
(But we need some common bleepin sense. And I've learned now to convert Word to jpg to put on here. Next version will look better).
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