I really dislike the term, "pod"
and the alignments termed pods and the rotations are not good in my opinion
As we are throwing out our dream alignments (and ignoring everyone else) we have to decide do we want to revert to some point in time that was close to what we think is perfect and modify that; or push forward into a brave new world and try and shape what the conference may look like in the future.
Moving forward where expanding to 16 seems to make more sense than stagnation or contraction, we have to argue do we want 2 8 team conferences that play a title game (and a couple more crossovers) or do we want "pods" where we try to play the whole conference as much as possible.
I'm firmly in the "pod" camp. In our Brave New World, history be d@mned!
We get 3 regional rivalries (
Home Pod.) We get 3 performance rivalries (Over a set period of time against teams have performed at your level, ie
Performance Pod.) And we get 3 temporary opponents. (2 years H-A with whatever is left of another pod.)
Example (I'm going to add Missouri and Virginia Tech to the B1G for this fantasy.)
East - Penn State, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Rutgers (Rutgers gets to play in the east, novel right?)
West - Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota
North - Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue
South - OSU, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana
Performance over the last 6 years I think would create performance pods of:
King - PSU, Wisconsin, OSU, MSU.
Barons - Virginia Tech, Nebraska, Michigan, Missouri.
Knights - Maryland, Iowa, Northwestern, Illinois.
Peasants - Rutgers, Minnesota, Purdue, Indiana
Temporary Pod -
Years 1&4 East also plays West, while North plays South.
Years 2&5 East also plays North, While West plays South.
Years 3&6 East also plays South, while North plays West
You get to play everyone in the conference every 3 years, and H-A every 6. After 6 years we would rebalance the performance pods. Every year this format keeps us 3 regional rivalries, 3 really good games against teams performing similar level to your team, and 3 games against a conference mate. I'd buy season tickets to see that slate. Nationally, the top performing teams in the conference get to compete in showcase games for the the conference. It just makes too much sense to me to actually do this.
EDIT: It was shown the MSU has performed better over the last 6 years than the fighting Hairballs. Updated Tier status.
