Conference Realignment: Return Of The "Old School"

Things were so much simpler in the old days.

Haha... they were still pretty bad, though.

Once upon a time, colleges and universities with football programs met with other colleges and universities with football programs, and decided to form conferences.

Almost without exception, these groupings of schools made both geographical and competitive sense. Geographically, in that they were relatively close to each other, and in very few cases would a trip by plane be necessary to play a conference opponent. Competitively, in that each team played EVERY OTHER TEAM in the conference once, so that there was no doubt about who was the champion of the conference at the end of the season.

If two teams had the same conference record, then the tie-breaker of head-to-head competition usually settled it. After that, well--back then there WERE ties in college football, so it *did* happen--other factors came into play. Back then, sometimes a coin flip could be used. Nowadays, there *might* be a conference championship game... but really, such games should only be used to settle a head-to-head tie, not to give a team that goes 5-3 in a 12-team conference a chance at a BCS bowl.

As I write in a previous article, there is a way to keep the traditional bowl affiliations and still have an eight-team playoff. However, the main drawback of implementing such a system is the fact that four of the six BCS or "major" conferences do not play a complete conference schedule--and the only reason the Big East *does* is that it only has eight members.

Before I hit you over the head, dear reader, with my suggested conference realignment of the next decade (the 2010s), I give you a short summary of the regular realignments of top-tier college football over the past seventy-odd years.

1930s: The Granddaddy of All Conferences

That's the SEC (Southeastern Conference), if you didn't know. It formed when 13 schools (south and west of the Appalachians) left the 23-member (!!!) Southern Conference. Of those original 13, one (Sewanee) no longer plays top-level football and two (Georgia Tech, Tulane) are members of other conferences. The conference had 10 members for roughly a quarter-century (1966-1991), at which time it added Arkansas (from the SWC) and South Carolina (independent).

1950s: "Glory Days" and Conference Consolidation

Not only was the increasing popularity of television creating both regional and national audiences for many programs; but most of the "traditional" conferences had achieved the membership they would have until the early 1990s when the "tidal wave" of realignment began. The Southwestern Conference (SWC) added Texas Tech in 1958 to reach a total of nine; The "Big 7" added Oklahoma State the same year to become the "Big 8"; the "Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives" added Michigan State in 1953, bringing membership to ten (though the name "Big 10" did not become official until 1987); seven schools left the aforementioned Southern Conference to form the "Atlantic Coast Conference" (ACC) in 1953 (at this time Georgia Tech was still in the SEC); the nine-member "Pacific Coast Conference" (PCC) (including Idaho) was folded in 1959, and replaced by the "Athletic Association of Western Universities" (AAWU), the forerunner of the Pac 8/Pac 10.

The only "mid-major" conference that exists in the same form today, the Mid-American Conference (MAC), was going through significant turnover during the 1950s, and two other "mid-majors", the Mountain States Conference and the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association, would soon be defunct.

1970s: Exploding Postseason, and Rise of the (Football) Independents

This was the decade in which college football became stratified into three (and then four) layers: first the break into Divisions I, II, and III in 1973; then the separation of Division I-A and I-AA in 1978. Along with this came the inception of *GASP* playoffs at levels III, II, and I-AA, as soon as they became distinct entities. I-A, however, experienced the beginning of what can be called "Bowl Inflation". There were only 11 bowl games in existence in 1970 (you can probably name most of them), but by the next realignment cycle in 1990, there were 19 (and even *that* seems quaint now).

It was during this time, in which I-A football truly became big BUSINESS as well as SPORT, in which television exposure became all the more important, and jet travel more commonplace, that a slew of independents, many of them "football-only" independents, joined Notre Dame (the eternal independent) on the national stage. The most prominent of these in the 1970s was the University of Pittsburgh ("Pitt"), which won the mythical national title in 1976. The 1980s reflected perhaps the "glory years" for independent programs, as Penn State and Miami between them captured five of the decade's ten titles.

It was during this time that conferences such as the Big East (which included Syracuse, Boston College, and added Pittsburgh in 1982, but refused Penn State... WTF?) and the Metro Conference (which included Florida State, Virginia Tech, and South Carolina, among others) first came into being--but not for football. At this time, it made more sense to keep the football programs of these schools independent and free to schedule anyone. Note that many of these teams nevertheless played each other every year in football as well--it just wasn't a good idea at the time to force them to do so. AT THE TIME.

1990s: All Hell Breaks Loose, and Fall of the (Football) Independents

Well, not everywhere.

The Pac-10, notably, hasn't changed since adding the two Arizona schools in 1978. What a dinosaur. ;-)

The SEC really got the party started by adding Arkansas and South Carolina to reach the "Magic 12" number... magic as in $$$ coming out of their booties. The ACC made sure to snap up Florida State before someone else did, and then the Big, uh, "Ten" added Penn State (yet didn't change its name) to steal the prize right from under the Big East's nose.

The Big East belatedly (as in ten years too late) realized its mistake, and attempted to make up for it by bringing in Virginia Tech, Miami (where are those two now, again?), West Virginia, Rutgers. and (since booted out) Temple.

And in a real ballsy move, the Big 8 came in and dealt the death blow to the SWC, nabbing Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor (the latter two essentially hand-picked by Texas politicians, meaning the Big 8 didn't necessarily want them).

2010s: Back to the Future

In which I humbly offer a more sane return to conference alignment, with the possibility of full conference schedules, and geographic proximity--after all, it's easier to make a last-minute decision to catch one of your favorite team's road games if it involves a 200-mile drive and not a 2000-mile flight. What might bring about another realignment? Most likely a combination of two things: (1) Television (and the $$$ associated with it) insisting upon it, and (2) Increasing controversies with the conference championship games, the non-playoff BCS system, or a combination thereof.

The key would be interference; by the aforementioned television officials, combined with a newly empowered NCAA (anti-trust legislation might help) to regulate the parameters of competition: a cap of conference size at ten, along with a requirement to play a complete conference schedule to be eligible for a bowl. Also, wins against non-FBS opponents should not count toward bowl elegibility; teams are still free to schedule them, but would think twice about doing so if this rule were reinstated.

The 12-game season could remain, but conference championship games would come to an end, and the funds lost would replaced by the income (to be shared among all the conferences, with larger portions for the "major" conferences) from a "Football Final Four" which would change site: for example, Houston, then St. Louis, then Jacksonville, then San Antonio, then Indianapolis, then Phoenix, then New Orleans, then Detroit, etc.

Teams in italic are "new" members of the conferences they are listed with, while conferences in Bold italic are "new" conferences (if only in name). The seven conferences which are Underlined are considered BCS or "major" conferences, while the other five are considered "mid-major" conferences.

In terms of playoff scenarios, an eight-team scenario would be tight indeed (but mitigated by the fact that there is a clear champion for each "major" conference without need for a championship game. The downside would be that only *one* at-large spot remains for a mid-major or independent (whichever is better). A sixteen-team scenario would allow all 12 conference champions to participate along with four at-large places. The downside of this would be that the traditional bowl affiliations would be less workable with the expanded field, and travel costs would become more problematic (unless the four BCS bowls held three games each: two first-round games and a quarterfinal).

ACC (10): Clemson, Duke, East Carolina, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest

Big East (10): Boston College, Buffalo, Connecticut, Marshall, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, West Virginia

Big Central Conference (10): Arkansas, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M

Big South Conference/C-USA (9): Baylor, Houston, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech, Tulsa

Big Ten (10): Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin

Metro Conference (10): Central Florida, Cincinnati, Florida State, Louisville, Miami (FL), Memphis, South Florida, Southern Miss., Tulane, Virginia Tech

Pac-Ten (10): Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Southern California, Stanford, UCLA, Washington, Washington State

Mid-American (10): Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Miami (OH), Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan

Mountain West (9): Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado, Colorado State, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Utah, UTEP, Wyoming

SEC (10): Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt.

Sun Belt (8/10): Alabama-Birmingham, Arkansas State, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Middle Tennessee St., Troy, Western Kentucky (2009), South Alabama (2013)

WAC (9): Boise State, Hawaii, Idaho, Fresno State, Nevada, San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State

Independents (4): Army, Navy, Northern Illinois, Notre Dame

Total: 119/121