P5 Alignment - post NCAA Membership

[847badgerfan]

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.

[medinabuckeye1]

I think it is reasonably plausible that the P5 may break away and do their own thing.  However, I find it incredibly unlikely that there will be a major conference realignment that involves booting members such as PSU.  I could see the B12 booting some of their dead wood but I can't imagine a scenario in which PSU chose to leave the financial security of the B1G or in which the B1G decided to kick them out.  

This may be interesting in theory, but as discussion items I'm more interested in plausible items like which two teams will the B1G add to get to 16.  I know that you don't like that idea and I'm not completely thrilled with it either but I think it is a LOT more likely than booting PSU.  

[847badgerfan]

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.

[SFBadger96]

My post is strict fantasy, but I kind of like the idea.

What if we went to eight-team conferences, kicked out the service academies, but kept BYU and Notre Dame, and went close to strictly geographic while still trying to maintain regional characteristics (I swapped ND and MSU, and Florida and Florida State in my example below). Every team plays its conference mates every season, no conference championship games, between three and five out-of-conference games, and you have a nice, neat, eight-team playoff for conference champs only.

Alternatively, take these and make them into conferences of 16, with a conference championship game and only a four-team playoff. Seven "division" games, two cross-overs in conference, and two out-of-conference match-ups.

You have to make some tough decisions about who goes where, but this is a rough cut:

Pacific
Cal
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Washington
Washington State
Oregon
Oregon State
 
West
Arizona
Arizona State
Utah
BYU
Colorado
Nebraska
 Kansas
Kansas State
 
Texas/Plains
Texas
Texas aTm
Baylor
TCU
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Arkansas
Missouri
 
Midwest
Iowa
Iowa State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Illinois
Northwestern
Michigan State
Purdue
 
East
Syracuse
Boston College
Rutgers
Penn State
Pitt
Ohio State
Michigan
Notre Dame
 
Appalachia
Kentucky
Louisville
Indiana
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Maryland
 
Atlantic South
Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Clemson
Duke
Wake Forest
Miami
Florida State
 
South
Alabama
Auburn
Mississippi State
Ole Miss
LSU
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Florida

[FearlessF]

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

[847badgerfan]

EDIT: I somehow managed to forget Pitt in this thing. Count them in.

Eastern Conference Proposal:

Penn State
Rutgers
Maryland
Syracuse
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Virginia
Notre Dame
Boston College
Louisville
Pittsburgh

2 helmets make this a pretty good looking conference, and it's pretty solid top-to-bottom. 

[847badgerfan]

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.

[FearlessF]

content is $$$

Penn St. is good content

[847badgerfan]

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

[847badgerfan]

EDIT: I somehow managed to forget Pitt in this thing. Count them in.

Eastern Conference Proposal:

Penn State
Rutgers
Maryland
Syracuse
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Virginia
Notre Dame
Boston College
Louisville
Pittsburgh

2 helmets make this a pretty good looking conference, and it's pretty solid top-to-bottom.

Another possible swap here could be taking on Cincy or UCon as opposed to Virginia. UVA would probably be a tough pull out of the ACC in this thing.

[MichiFan87]

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.

[ELA]

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).

I don't think being the top WCC program alone would be enough reason to stay.  I think you'd wind up seeing some sort of basketball merger of the WCC and Big West.  The only appeal to the WCC right now is the "better than they deserve" tv contract, solely due to the appeal of Gonzaga.  Without them, I doubt the WCC would get nearly the same type of tv deal next go round.
I also don't think staying put to be the top dog (as much sense as it makes) is how any school is thinking.  Every school when givne the option, is choosing to move up.  See Wichita to the AAC, Valpo to the MWC, Davidson to the A10, Hampton to the Big South, etc...  If they think overall it makes sense due to football, they'll do it, but I don't think staying would have anything to do with being the top dog in the WCC.

[Brutus Buckeye]

[rolltidefan]

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

agreed, unless the p5 come to a revenue distribution agreement for all of the conferences combined, i don't think anyone is downsizing voluntarily.