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

Also, with only 8 conferences, unless they were pretty big, what would happen to the other teams? Relegation and promotion, like in international football. 
Boise State thinks it should get to play with the Big Boys? Cool. Win your regional second tier conference and get bumped into a first tier conference (while some other teams gets kicked out). Maybe that's not great for Purdue (sorry BRAD), but actually, maybe it's just what those lower tier programs need--a little fire to keep from getting relegated. And seriously, in this hypothetical world if San Jose State were to take Stanford's place because Stanford refuses to invest in its football program, then good. That makes rational sense.

But the bowl games were special, and now they aren't. Now, that started happening when they started breeding like rabbits, I think in the early 90s. I liked 3-4 teams from a major conference playing other top teams from major conferences, but I never really cared about the Pinstripe Bowl, or the Music City Bowl, or etc., etc., etc. Sure, I would (sometimes) watch if the Badgers were in them, but they didn't really matter to me.

I know a lot of people (such as OAM) make a big deal out of this... That somehow the sport, or at least the "premier" bowls, are made worse by the mere existence of lesser bowls. 

IMHO bowl proliferation does have some problems (such as the lesser bowls essentially forcing the schools into buying expensive ticket allotments they can't sell enough of to recoup it). And yes, they ARE meaningless to anyone except the fans of the schools invited and to degenerate gamblers. 

But I think they were still fun for the fans, and for the players, and IMHO their existence didn't harm the other bowls. Purdue had a middling year in 2018, but they got to go to the chicken bowl in Santa Clara. Given that I'm "local-ish", my wife and I flew up for it, got GREAT seats in the 6th row, and had a blast. It was Dec 27 or 28 or something, so it's not like it was conflicting with the major bowls. And for anyone who had nothing better to do and turned on ESPN that night, it was a back and forth game against Arizona and a wild exciting finish. 

IMHO--and I've said this extensively--it's a 12-team CFP sucking all the air out of the room that has made the bowls meaningless... Not bowl proliferation. 

I literally never followed the week-to-week BCS standings. I was certainly aware that they existed and that people argued over them, but I found the whole exercise of arguing over them on ESPN silly.

As for the bowl proliferation thing, I'm of two minds: 1) I don't really care about the trivial bowls. If people want to go to them or watch them on TV, I suppose they don't hurt anyone; but (2) setting up a structure of the more serious bowls that is fairly defined would make those games more interesting, whereas the trivial bowls has the potential to water it down. But probably not much. The Citrus Bowl was a better bowl because SEC 2-4 vs. B1G 2-4 is a really solid match-up, regardless of who is playing in the whatchamacallit bowl in someplace on December 26.

Having fewer bowls provides a meaningful checkpoint for having a strong season.  You're part of the in-crowd and had a season of note.

If I'm some random, middling program like Illinois, most years I'm not going to make a bowl if there's only 10-12 of them.  I'll occasionally make a bowl when I go 9-3 or better, and my fanbase loves it!  They get a trip, get to brag, and if I can string a few together, my program prestige increases.  That squad becomes famous in program lore.  Those players are more memorable.

On the other hand, with eleventy million bowls, I still get a trip, but it's for a ho-hum 6-6 season.  My fanbase isn't stoked, because over half of everyone makes a bowl.  It's a reward for a ho-hum season.  It's not as earned.  It's not as special.

I agree that tons of bowls is harmless in a vacuum.  But we're not in a vacuum. 
And in a sport, which is supposed to be about competition, rewarding mediocrity is never the right answer. 

Why was Arkansas allowed in an all-Texas conference in the first place? 

1915 Conferences:
SWC:  OU, Baylor, A&M, Texas, Arkansas, Rice, Southwestern (TX), Oklahoma St
Western:  Minn, ILL, Chicago, OSU, Purdue, Wiscy, Iowa, IU, N'Western
Rocky Mtn:  Colorado St, Utah, CO Mines, CO College, Denver, Wyoming, CU, Utah St
Mizz Valley:  Nebraska, KU, ISU, Washington (MO), Mizzou, Drake, KSU
Independents (everyone else) - Top ones:  Cornell, Pitt, GT, Vandy, Harvard, UVA, ND, Wash & Jeff, Colgate

I wonder why western schools were the first to conference up. 

A modern-day SWC would be weird.
It's the anti-Ohio.  Instead of one big boy program and a bunch of G5s, it would be 8 big boy programs (technically).


If it was restarted today, I think the programs would largely fit into somewhat consistent roles/levels:
Texas and A&M
Arkansas, TCU, SMU
Houston, Baylor, Texas Tech
Rice

.

Well Cincinnati has been in a Conference with Houston most years since the 90s, and have accumulated a 14-4 record against them over that timespan. So at the very least, we know that the Bearcats have a stronger program than Houston and, by extension, Rice. 

Additionally Toledo has more P5 wins than all the non-Longhorn teams combined, including one over the Hawgs. So they're no slouch.