College Football Realignment Proposal

Written by James Brown, Gatorsfirst.com Co-Founder

I like conference championship games.  The idea that conferences could grow to ten or eleven teams and crown a 'conference champion' without each team getting a shot to play every other is terrible. 

What happens when Iowa doesn't play either Michigan or Ohio State, and they go undefeated while one of these teams do as well?  Isn's this a far worse situation than the fact that the NCAA can't decide it's overall champion?  Shouldn't a conference at least be able to decide their own championship first?

With that in mind, I've often come up with proposals to get the six BCS Conferences to 12 teams each.  I also took a shot at making divisions for conferences that don't already have them.

I also assumed Notre Dame will never join a conference, and completely ignored other sports (for example, the Big East has 16 teams in basketball, eight in football, currently).  Some of the changes I made while trying to think about what sort of reputation the schools have, while other changes are strictly geographic.  But without a dramatic re-working, the geography is never going to make sense.

SEC:

Trades Arkansas for Louisville, and Vanderbilt for Clemson

PAC-12 (my only regret is Cal/Stanford go to opposite geographical divisions, but they could lock as each other's annual rival, so no big deal):

North: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, California, Boise State

South: USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford, Hawaii

Big XII:

Trades Iowa State for Arkansas

Little Twelve:

East: Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Miami (OH)

West: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Iowa State

ACC: (No one knows what division each team is in from week-to-week anyways, just sub them out):

Trades Clemson for Vanderbilt

Big Non-West:

North: Connecticut, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, West Virginia, Penn State

South: South Florida, Marshall, Cincinnati, TCU, Central Florida, Florida Atlantic

Comments, anyone?  It's not perfect, but it's what I've got right now.  At any rate, you'd at least have more confidence in a conference champion from one of these conferences, as they'd be forced to play a ninth conference game. 

Plus, you give some more of the little guys a shot.  I would have liked to find a home for BYU, Utah, SMU, and Fresno State, but by the time you add a seventh conference, you get in big trouble. 

The other guys would still have a shot under the Wetzel Plan, which is probably the most "fair" and reasonable proposal I've heard as far as a playoff scenario.

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