New Conferences of the Future

Brian Sokolowski, fan blogger By Brian Sokolowski, fan blogger
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on June 11, 2010 at 12:01 AM, updated June 11, 2010 at 9:18 AM appears that conferences in the future will be holding 16 teams in their sights.  After thinking about it, that could be good for a playoff to even out the playing field and could be great for scheduling.  Let me quickly explain, then I'll go over the conference re-alignments.

16 teams in each conference means 8 teams per division.  8 teams in each division play 7 other teams in their division.  If you include a conference interplay where like interdivision opponents play a final game to decide a bowl "pecking order" from the conference, that would give each team a 8th in conference game.  Then, the school and conference would have to find 4 other games to play out of conference.  Assuming one of those games is a FCS foe, there would be 3 other games to schedule.  That is about where each conference strives to be right about now so that works. 

It also works that 12 regular season games, prior to bowl berths and playoffs, would work well with a 12 team playoff where the top 4 conference champions by rank of BCS rank get first round byes.  If you had 16 team conferences, that would mean 7 full conferences are formed and the remainder are called independents.  The independents, which would total 7 outstanding colleges since there are 120 total, would then schedule games against themselves and find other schools to contribute to their 6 other games. the playoff the 7 conference champions would be selected, the highest ranked independent, and 4 other at large teams decided by whoever has the highest BCS ranking. 

Here's how the conference alignments would pan out:

Big 16 Conference (the old Big Ten)

Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Nebraska, Missouri, Northwestern, Minnesota, Illinois, Perdue, Penn State, Iowa, Iowa State, Wisconsen, Syracuse, Arkansas

Atlantic Coast Conference

Boston College, UConn, Rutgers, Maryland, West Virginia, Miami, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Central Florida, Florida State, East Carolina, Navy, Army 

Southeast Conference

South Florida, Kansas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Vandy, Alabama, Baylor, LSU, Tulane, Kansas State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Tennessee, Auburn

Big East Conference

Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Temple, Florida International, Louisville, Memphis, Buffalo, Southern Miss, Marshall, Toledo, East Michigan, Central Michigan, Ohio, Alabama Birmingham, Akron, Florida Atlantic

Big West Conference (old PAC 10)

Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, USC, UCLA, Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, California, Stanford, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State

Mountain West Conference

Boise State, Nevada, New Mexico State, BYU, TCU, UNLV, San Diego State, San Jose State, Idaho, Utah State, Utah, Wyoming, Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico, Fresno State

Conference USA

Rice, UTEP, Houston, SMU, Louisiana Tech, Hawaii, Troy, Tulsa, Ball State, Bowling Green, Western Michigan, Kent State, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois, North Texas, Arkansas State

Notre Dame and any other college not on this list would then become Independents until a new conference can be formed.

I'd say this line-up isn't that bad and is pretty geographically ideal.  With Rutgers to the ACC, you could have a north and south ACC or a coastal and inland ACC.  If it were north and south, you'd have RU, UC, BC, VT, Army, Navy, West Virginia, and UM in the north conference.  That would make for some pretty good competition with very contrasting styles of play. 

With having so few conferences, it could become ideal to let the conference champ play in the playoff because there is a showcase team (Hawaii for the CUSA and Utah, etc for the MTW)  that has made the BCS over the past ten years in each conference.  Then the other 4 teams would basically be by popular vote.

On top of that, each conference would own a market share of TV in their specific areas.  It would really give each conference some solid areas to recruit and would give them many more opportunities while still letting the "showcase" conferences be the big money makers due to their brand.

One thing is for's going to be an interesting summer.