Realistically, conferences aren't shrinking, just being plundered or growing. I'd do a 16x4 setup, with pods, so each incoming FR class will play everyone else in their conference twice - once home, once away (every other year).
SEC + 2 (KU, OKST)
B10 + 2 (UVA, UNC)
PAC12 +4 (BYU, TCU, OU, Tex)
ACC -2, +4 (ND, WV, KSU, UCF)
I don't actually favor this. In fact, if it were simply up to me with no restrictions I'd probably be pretty close to Badge. That said, I think this is roughly where we are headed and I'll be ok with that.
I think that 14 is a silly number of schools for a conference. I actually think the old ACC (nine members from 1991-2003) was great. You had a full round-robin on an eight game schedule. I also think that 12 works reasonably well particularly if you can avoid locked cross-overs. If you can, then you can play every team in two (nine game season) or three (eight game season) seasons. With 14 and at least some locked cross-overs you go too long (IMHO) between playing some of the teams in the other division. That is why I think 16 would be, at least in some ways, an improvement. Like you, I'd go to pods and with nine games I would set it up as follows:
In a given season each team plays:
- Their three pod-mates once each (three games)
- The four members of one of the other pods once each (four games)
- One or two probably fixed or semi-fixed members of one or both of the other pods (one or two games)
That is a total of either eight or nine games.
Here is how I would set it up with OAM's members (UVA, UNC added):
Pod/Group | Grp1 | Grp2 | Grp3 | Grp4 |
North Pod | M | MSU | PU | NU |
East Pod | PSU | UMD | UVA | UNC |
West Pod | UNL | Iowa | UW | MN |
South Pod | tOSU | RU | IU | IL |
With a nine game schedule, each team would play:
- The three other teams in their pod
- The three other teams in their group
- The three remaining teams from one of the other three pods
Example, Michigan:
Every year they would play:
Then their other three games would rotate annually between:
- Year 1 (North and East Pods as one division, South and West Pods as the other): UMD, UVA, UNC
- Year 2 (North and West Pods as one division, South and East Pods as the other): Iowa, UW, MN
- Year 3 (North and South Pods as one division, East and West Pods as the other): RU, IU, IL
Thus, in three years Michigan (and every other B1G school) would play every B1G team and in six years they would both both host and travel to every other B1G school.