If you could realign conferences in NCAA football...

[GaYellowDawg]

...to have several superconferences, how would you go about it?

I'd try this.

Big Ten: Add Iowa State and Notre Dame, and drop Penn State. Divide into divisions as follows:

East Division
Iowa
Iowa State
Michigan
Minnesota
Northwestern
Wisconsin

West Division
Indiana
Illinois
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Purdue

Big 12: Drop Iowa State and Baylor. Pick up TCU and Arkansas. Divide into divisions as follows:

Great Plains Division
Colorado
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Nebraska
Oklahoma

Southwest Division
Arkansas
Oklahoma State
Texas
TCU
Texas A&M
Texas Tech

Big East: Drop South Florida. Pick up Penn State, Boston College, Marshall, Navy, and Kentucky. Divide into divisions as follows:

Northeast Division
Boston College
Connecticut
Navy
Penn State
Rutgers
Syracuse

Midwest Division
Cincinnati
Kentucky
Louisville
Marshall
Pitt
West Virginia

SEC: Drop Arkansas, Kentucky, and South Carolina. Pick up Florida State, Clemson, and Memphis. Realign as follows:

East Division
Clemson
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Tennessee
Vanderbilt

West Division
Alabama
Auburn
LSU
Memphis
Ole Miss
Mississippi State

ACC: Drop Boston College, Florida State, and Clemson. Pick up South Carolina, USF, and Central Florida. Divide into divisions as follows:

North Division
Duke
Maryland
North Carolina
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest

South Division
Central Florida
Georgia Tech
Miami
NC State
South Carolina
South Florida

PAC 12: Add Boise State and Utah. Divide into divisions as follows:

North Division
Boise State
Cal
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State

South Division
Arizona
Arizona State
UCLA
USC
Stanford
Utah

Would anyone divide these differently? Add or subtract different teams? I'm not trying to insult any fan bases or conferences; I just like playing around with this once in a while. Let's see your proposals.

A few points:

- I really like having Arkansas in the SEC, but I'm sure older Arkansas fans would rather play Texas and Oklahoma than LSU and Ole Miss.

- Memphis to the SEC... ugh. I debated over that or Southern Miss. Gotta have a patsy in each division, I suppose. And Memphis is a pretty big school.

- I traded out South Carolina and Clemson because I think Clemson's a better fit for the SEC. Same rationale for swiping FSU.

- I couldn't decide whether to add Utah or BYU to the "PAC-12" but settled on Utah because, well, I don't like BYU.

- I put Kentucky up in the Big East because I decided to group them with Louisville. No slight to Kentucky intended. They're a very valuable member of the SEC.

- Notre Dame really needs to just join the Big 10. And I thought that it would be cool to bring Iowa State in and give Iowa an in-state rival in the conference. Penn State, on the other hand, I wanted to put in the Big East along with Pitt.

- UCF and USF have 40K students each and a ton of potential. I think if you put them into the ACC with Miami... it could get interesting.

[madinmaryland]

1. The MAC...

West Division
* Central Michigan
* Northern Illinois
* Western Michigan
* Toledo
* Ball State
* Eastern Michigan
* Notre Dame

East Division
* Ohio
* Temple
* Bowling Green
* Kent State
* Buffalo
* Akron
* Miami OH

[Auggie]

2. LOL

:rofl:

[madinmaryland]

3. I think it would give a lot of balance to the MAC and then the

MAC would get covered by NBC, who could change the name to MBC!!

:D

[Capt. America]

7. HA!

[Condem]

4. Switch Indiana and Illinois from the west....

..with Iowa and ISU. Looks a little better.

[BOSSHOG]

5. As an "older" Arkansas fan I agree with you My Friend

I often think fondly of the old SWC games where all the criminals were located in Texas and all the class was bottled up in the Ozarks.

[Upton]

6. Hey..Stanford is located in Palo Alto

you know, NorCal,...why have you got them in the South Division with all the southern schools? I mean, Cal is only about 30 miles away and you've got them in the North Division.

[Capt. America]

8. Agreed about Clemson in SEC, its time. However, you would have to move Michigan to the East because

Michigan and Ohio State always have to play against each other on the last game of the season. If you have a conference championship, and they are in different conferences you could run into a scenario where Michigan and OSU would play a "meaningless" rivalry game before they would play for a conference championship game against each other the next week.

Agreed with UCF and USF to ACC.
Agreed with Utah and Boise to Pac-12.

[caraher]

9. I think you've misnamed the Big Ten divisions

I'd do it like this (this is geographically more accurate and puts all the biggest rivalry games within the same divisions)

West Division
Illinois
Iowa
Iowa State
Minnesota
Northwestern
Wisconsin

East Division
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Purdue

Most years, based on history, the East would be the stronger division, but I don't think tossing a single school to the other division helps.