Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

A couple of posts in ELA's ranking thread got me thinking a little bit about this. It's time for the P5 to break away from the NCAA and form its own rules and enforcement wing. Right now there are 5 conferences and 1 (or 2) prominent independents.

My proposal has long been for 11 school conferences and that won't change here. My proposal has also been for the conferences to play a full round-robin schedule and also play 3 OOC games, leading into the conference season schedule.

For the Big Ten, I propose Penn State to leave and anchor an Eastern Conference, which should have happened in the 1980's, when JoePa wanted it to happen. PSU can take Maryland and Rutgers with them, along with the NYC "market" that is "controlled" by Rutgers. Nebraska stays in the fold as a truly Midwestern school. Notre Dame will not get an invitation this time around.

For the record, I love having PSU in the conference and have since they joined. But this is for the greater good of college football, so that's my focus here.

Now, how to divide the other leagues is the question. I'll focus on that over the coming days.

I'll listen to all contributions too. This is a democracy, CFB51 is.

It's not a matter of booting PSU, but rather a matter of all of the schools doing what's best for the game moving forward.

It's not a matter of booting PSU, but rather a matter of all of the schools doing what's best for the game moving forward.

noble, but unlikely since someone (Penn St. or the B1G) would be afraid of losing revenue - the unknown
but, I like the way you're thinking

noble, but unlikely since someone (Penn St. or the B1G) would be afraid of losing revenue - the unknown
but, I like the way you're thinking

I think the revenue bubble is going to burst in the next 10 years or so.

Good content would be 10 conference games and 3 OOC games against real teams.

I've suggested this before, but once the TV bubble bursts, I'd argue that there's going to be a better incentive for power conference schools to go independent, at least for football. BYU's independence is kind of precursor to that. They've been able to schedule big non-con series with the likes of Wisconsin, USC, Washington, Texas, Florida State, and along with a slew of mid-level programs (UCLA, Mississippi State, Arizona, Washington State, Virginia).... They've had a few guarantee games but only with top programs (eg. with Nebraska and Michigan in 2015). Despite threats to do so, most of the MWC schools haven't blackballed them (they've played Hawaii, Utah State, UNLV, Boise State, and a few others), and they've only had a few series against MAC / CUSA / SunBelt programs.

With the recent news of the MWC likely adding Gonzaga, there's strong speculation that they would bring back BYU without football. If the MWC insisted they rejoin as a full-member, BYU would probably reject that, because they would become the top program in the WCC (Saint Mary's has been better in basketball of late, but that's not sustainable).

To some extent, New Mexico State (especially with rivals UTEP and UNM) and Massachusetts remain in FBS despite no prospects of joining a conference (and Liberty has moved up despite the same circumstances) because there are more than enough bowls to accommodate them, and they're able to fill their schedules with MAC / CUSA / SunBelt programs that they can beat if they're at all decent. Idaho moved back to FCS because the Big Sky is where they had more natural rivalries.

Back to my original point, if all the power conference schools were independents for football, most of the rivalries would remain (and some of the dead ones would surely return), and Michigan would schedule traditional Big Ten teams or more interesting opponents instead of Maryland and Rutgers. As for basketball and other sports, conferences still make sense, especially since the NCAA controls those post-seasons, though.