pianoknight

The Big Ten announced that the new, 14-team divisional alignments (featuring MAryland and Rutgers) will be unveiled sometime in spring.

It's not exactly news, but they've at least committed to a time frame for announcing the layout. Here's hoping they go East-West, but it'll be a moot point once they go to 16 teams anyway.

Here's a radical thought I had the other day.

Many of the "smaller" schools in C-USA, SunBelt, Big East or MWC/WAC have rivalries that stretch outside conference borders. Those schools have been tossed around a fair bit more than the big guys have. They face a tremendous challenge - try to preserve their own classic rivalries (many out-of-conference) or adapt to this shoehorned mega-conference idea that will force them into giant, sprawling conferences where they have virtually no chance of getting to a playoff game and their travel budget spirals out of control.

When we get to the era of 4/5 Mega-Power Conferences (Pac-29, Big-42, etc), I propose the smaller conferences (almost) completely dissolve and all members go independent - lumped into Eastern Independents and Western Independents. Any playoff model would include berths for the best Western Independent school and the best Eastern Independent school, provided they finish in the Top 25.

This model provides that ever-elusive "access" for those teams and gives smaller schools more flexibility in their scheduling and travelling. As a by-product, it also gives larger schools the chance to pick up better non-conference opponents since each of those independent schools won't be confined to their own conference schedule. By providing conditional berths in a playoff system, you're also ensuring that only those true "BCS Busters" (see: Boise State) actually make it into the playoff.

The traditional independents fall into this category, too - Irish, BYU, Militaries - so for the 2012 season, the Eastern Independent berth is eaten up by a (quite deserving) Notre Dame. You could argue that #19 Boise State's inclusion is unfair, but you have to draw a line somewhere. And to be honest, if "better" schools wanted into the playoff, they should have played harder in the regular season. There are still 6 more (or 10 more) berths open, so nobody can complain that an independent robbed them of a shot.

Here's a hypothetical 8-Team Model using this year's rankings.

#1 Notre Dame (E. Indy) v. #19 Boise State (W.Indy)

#2 Alabama (SEC Champ) v. #5 Kansas State (Big 12 Champ)

#3 Florida (at-Large) v. #6 Stanford (at-Large)

#4 Oregon (PAC Champ) v. #7 Georgia (at-Large)

And a 12-team. Note that in a 12-team model, I've capped each conference at a maximum of 3 teams each. That's not so much to preclude this year's heavy-SEC rankings, but because an all-SEC playoff looks dull and stupid, and it doesn't really illustrate the point nearly as well.

#5 Kansas State (Big 12 Champ) v. #19 Boise State (W.Indy)

- - Winner @ #1 Notre Dame (E. Indy)

#6 Stanford (at-Large) v. #14 Clemson (at-Large)

- - Winner @ #2 Alabama (SEC Champ)

#7 Georgia (at-Large) v. #13 Oregon State (at-Large)

- - Winner @ #3 Florida (at-Large)

#11 Oklahoma (at-Large) v. #12 Florida State (ACC Champ)

- - Winner @ #4 Oregon (PAC Champ)

I agree with what other people said. Florida State has been massively underachieving in the ACC. Moving over to the Big XII would really hurt their football bravado. Sure they would have access to new recruiting grounds, but they aren't going to be able to gain anything away from the Red River 4 schools.

That being said, money talks. If they can make twice the amount in the Big XII as they do in the ACC, then they will deal with their even MORE underachieving football program just to make the buck.

Money does talk. Despite Nebraska being only average for the last several years, we decided to forsake a century of rivalries for money and long-term stability.

Week-in and week-out, the Big Ten is a tougher slate, regardless of what people say. You can't overlook Northwestern or Michigan State they way you could overlook Iowa State and Kansas.

If Florida State moves to the Big 12, they'll be in the same position. More money, more stability, more difficult schedules.

I'm very interested to see what happens with the ACC in regards to the coming 2014 playoffs.

The popular beliefs include NC State & Virginia Tech to the SEC, FSU & Clemson to the Big 12, and UNC & Georgia Tech/Virginia to the Big Ten.

If that happens, does the ACC still have a playoff berth? The Pac-12 and Big Ten have already entrenched themselves in the Rose Bowl, but the Big 12's move to send their champ to the Sugar and face the SEC essentially positions the Rose and Sugar as the de facto semi-final games.

It's not to say that some ACC, Big East or Mid-Major schools won't have decent seasons now and again, but if the ACC gets raided they may find themselves out of the discussion. Which creates a chicken-or-the-egg scenario where "leftover" football schools like Pitt, Syracuse or BC might ultimately leave anyway.

A pod system could work, but you would need to make sure it's balanced. Obviously, you would probably start by splitting up Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. And some of the pods almost create themselves.

I'm sure most upper-midwest fans would be fine with a Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin pod.

But what about the Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue pod? Those four teams all have natural rivalries among each other, but they would also be the annual doormat division. If you're not going to put one of the Big Four into a given pod, you'd at least want to balance it with like a Wisconsin-Michigan State combo or something.

Thoughts?

One more...

The REAL reason Maryland is joining the Big Ten:

Props to Dark Journey for the Big Willie Style assist.

Temple, in Philadelphia, will be placed into the Big East's West Division for next season.

"In West Philadelphia..."

Here's my futuristic NFL realignment, which includes relocating Jacksonville to Los Angeles and expansion teams added to Portland, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City and Virginia (Va.Beach/Norfolk Metro).

The alignment is switches from an AFC/NFC layout to an East/West format.

Each conference has 3 divisions of 6 teams; the three divisional winners plus three wild cards will make the playoffs. Brackets are structured to avoid a divisional winner playing a wild card from their division in the 1st round (unless unavoidable; ie, all 3 wild cards from the same division, etc)

I'm not fully satisfied with the divisional names.

Western Conference

Great Lakes Division: Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears, St. Louis Rams, Kansas City Chiefs

Central Division: Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos, Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, Salt Lake Expansion, Oklahoma City Expansion

Pacific Division: Portland Expansion, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Jaguars, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers

Eastern Conference

New England Division: Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, New York Giants, New York Jets, New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills

Atlantic Division: Baltimore Ravens, Cincinatti Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, Virginia Expansion

Southern Division: Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccanneers, Tennessee Titans

Time to bump this thread.

I've been hearing rumors of the Big East eyeing BYU, Army and Air Force. Nothing substantial yet, but I wonder if they're trying to stay relevant by being the first of the "Power 6" to hit 16 teams.

Pac-12 men's water polo...

Technically speaking, the Pac-12 doesn't exist as an intercollegiate water polo conference for either men or women. The water polo programs from Pac-12 institutions - California, Stanford, UCLA and USC for men; Arizona State, California, Stanford, UCLA and USC for women - compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

The NCAA-affiliated Men's Water Polo conferences and their Division 1 members are...

Collegiate Water Polo Association

Brown University

Bucknell University

Fordham University

George Washington University

Harvard University

Iona College

Princeton University

Saint Francis College

United States Naval Academy

Mountain Pacific Sports Federation

Long Beach State University

Pepperdine University

Stanford University

University of California, Berkley

University of California, Irvine

University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Santa Barbara

University of Southern California

University of the Pacific

Western Water Polo Association

Loyola Marymount University

Santa Clara University

United States Air Force Academy

University of California, Davis

University of California, San Diego

Yeah, yeah.

But if you mention UCLA, USC, Cal and Stanford in the same breath, everyone will think you mean Pac-12. Hell, their chess teams probably play in the Western States Intercollegiate Conference of Strategy Games-Pacific Coast Division, but nobody cares.

ACC Lacrosse is going to be the most ungodly strong conference in any college sport I've ever seen

Pac-12 men's water polo - and specifically the State of California - is absolute in their dominance of the sport. it makes Big East Basketball, ACC Lacrosse or Big Ten Hockey look tame.

No team outside the state of California has EVER finished higher than 3rd overall, so by default, no Non-California school has ever played for a National Title in men's water polo.

Combined, the Big 4 California schools (UCLA, USC, Stanford and Cal) have won the Men's Water Polo Championship 38 times out of 43 years, or 88% of the time. The 5 championships won by non-PAC12 schools belong to UC-Irvine (3), UC-Santa Barbara (1), and Pepperdine (1).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Men%27s_Water_Polo_Championship

For years I had no opinion about ND (minus the ridiculous NBC deal,) yet now I find myself openly rooting against them.

Something I can agree with a Texas fan about!

Truth. Buffalo gets a Big Ten invite after UNLV amd before Texas-San Marcos.

Thank you, Nostradamus.

I was replying to an earlier post and didn't realize which page I was on in the thread.

Someone was making a strong case for Buffalo, of all schools, to join the B1G next.

Truth. Buffalo gets a Big Ten invite after UNLV amd before Texas-San Marcos.

Possible shakeout based on current rumors

Pac 12

Washington

Wash. St.

Oregon

Oregon St.

Stanford

California

Arizona

Arizona St.

Utah

Colorado

USC

UCLA

Big 16

Texas

Texas Tech

TCU

Baylor

Kansas

Kansas St.

Oklahoma

Ok. State

West Virginia

Iowa State

Florida St.

Clemson

Notre Dame

Georgia Tech

Louisville

PIT or CINCY? (heard little talk on these two, but if they take others they'll likely need one to have an even number)

Big 10

Nebraska

Iowa

Indiana

Purdue

Illinois

Northwestern

Wisconsin

Minnesota

Maryland

Duke

UNC

VA

Ohio St.

Michigan St.

Michigan St.

Penn St.

SEC

Tennessee

Georgia

South Carolina

Florida

Kentucky

Vanderbilt

Va Tech

NC State

Ole Miss

Miss St.

LSU

Auburn

Alabama

TX A&M

Arkansas

Mizzou

Then perhaps the Big East basketball schools break away and add some A10 schools and the football schools merge with the ACC.

ACC

Boston College

Uconn

Temple

Syracuse

Rutgers

Wake Forest

Memphis

Miami

South Fla

Cent Fla

SMU

Houston

PIT or CINCY?

NAVY (FB only)

I gotta think if this happens Boise St. and San Diego St. go back to the Mtn. West.

That ACC conference is still a lot of decent schools to leave out of the national championship picture permanently if this four superconference thing is going to happen. And of course as we've discussed here, the Pac-12's lack of viable expansion teams is an issue.

It amazes me how the Big 12 went from its death bed to major player in a year.

And geography, academics, tradition, etc., are completely out the window at this point. I bet when it's done these new alignments will make the old NFC West of CAR, NO, ATL, STL, SF almost seem logical!

This was almost my exact breakdown that I did on paper the other day.

I think the Pac-12 will be severely limited in their expansion options. Part of the problem is a lack of quality teams, but the other side of the coin is their insistence on academic standards. For example, the "Little Californias" (Fresno, SDSU, San Jose) would all get stumped by the Big Four (Cal, USC, UCLA, Stanford). They've made no bones about being "THE ONLY" California universities.

Same would go for rivalry add-ons like Colorado State or Utah State.

The only "real" options for them might be Boise State, BYU, Hawaii and/or Nevada. And those are all REAL big stretches.

And yes, Nebraska was booted out of the AAU last year. Almost lost their status in 2000, even.

Correct. Although NU was not "booted" as much as they decided to not pursue renewing their status. Interestingly enough, Notre Dame has not been or is not currently an AAU member although we know that if the Irish wanted to join the Big Ten it would probably happen.

Note this quote from NU Chancellor Harvey Perlman:

"We have known we were at risk of this for ten years, and successfully fought off a similar threat in 2000... the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL) has ranked at the bottom of the AAU's members for more than a decade... based on those criteria (AAU), a number of non-AAU institutions ranked higher than 15 AAU institutions, including UNL."

In other words, there are several non-AAU schools that have more "prestige," if you will, than some AAU members. Also, it's worth noting that all 12 Big Ten members (plus the Univ. of Chicago) are members of the league's academic brotherhood, the CIC.

If everyone else moves to 16, the Pac 12 needs to to keep up. Then BYU might get in by default. You can work around the Sunday thing if needed. Even if BYU is football only. Hard but possible if desperate. I think Boise State could get lucky this way, too....if they keep winning. Just pointing out how I think it isn't impossible. Extremely hard but not impossible due to slim pickins out west. It may not happen this year but CFB is moving to 4 huge conferences of 16 with a pod system.

Part of the Pac-12 (and the Big Ten, for that matter) is that they require their members to also be major research institutes in some field. It can come off as a little snobby, but they wish to preserve the academic integrity of the league. For that reason, I'm almost 100% positive that Boise State will never get the Pac-12 call. BYU might, if the league can agree to accommodate their religious scheduling objections.

I have no problem with BYU's stance on Sunday games, but it will severely hamstring them in just about every sport not called football.

I respect their moral stance, but I also think it's hard to justify especially when so many other religious schools (Notre Dame, BC, TCU, SMU, among others) have zero problem playing a game on Sunday.

This will definitely impact their ability to join a conference.

Man, this is confusing.

Likewise, I had not heard about KSU's grant project.

Looking purely at football rivalries ONLY, and not academia, cultures, traditions or other sports, I would love to see Nebraska have a chance to renew rivalries (in this order) with Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas. Those old Big 8 schools have a century of history and have produced some amazing games.

Missouri's locked into the SEC, but Jim Delaney could make a huge splash if the Big Ten somehow poached off the four Kansas/Oklahoma schools. Realistically, it will never happen, but imagine what a giant that conference would be. Plus, they could actually have a geographical East-West alignment that wouldn't be too lopsided towards one division or the other.

East: Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State

West: Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State

It's been mentioned on a few occasions that the Big Ten has an interest in luring Georgia Tech away from the ACC. And Georgia Tech hasn't exactly tried to shoot down those rumors.

Yes, Georgia Tech and Maryland have been tossed about as rumors. Delaney and the B1G have made no effort to hide the fact that they want more access to fertile recruiting ground in the south. And schools like GT can see the appeal of a prestigious academic conference with its own television network. And to throw in the basketball angle - Big Ten schools typically spend towards the bottom of the pile when in comes to hoops (WAAAY less than the ACC or Big East, especially), yet they still offer up very competitive teams. The B1G is also a very stable and well-rounded conference across many sports, again opposed to the ACC and Big East which are clearly basketball-heavy.

My problem with Georgia Tech is that it's an expansion for the sake of expansion. The conference wants them for their perks and regional advantages, but the actual Yellowjacket athletic program is immaterial. Plus, GT is way off in the boonies compared to the rest of the conference. Currently, all Big Ten schools are in contiguous, bordering states. You can drive from Nebraska to Penn State and never leave "Big Ten Country."

Texas is an interesting option, but in my opinion they value their own independence and control too much. The Big 12 is happy to give Texas a long leash, something the Big Ten may not offer.

Critics cite that schools like Oklahoma & Oklahoma State are not members of the AAU, which is thought to be a requirement for B1G entry. However, Nebraska recently left the AAU, which dispels this theory. Schools need only to have some academic clout and be committed to research and joint projects. Currently the B1G has a sort of "professor exchange" program - one school loaning faculty to another.

So, we're left with really two criteria. Southern access and academic clout. Delaney will no doubt also push for schools which "move the needle" in terms of their overall prestige. With Nebraska and Penn State as the most recent additions, the B1G isn't looking to snatch up Toledo - they want a big gun.

This leaves a few candidates in my mind. Kansas and Kentucky both provide "semi-southern" access, and would boost the conference's basketball profile significantly. KU would be glad to have a stable, non-Big 12 home but they might be a package deal with KState, which the B1G doesn't want. Kentucky probably wouldn't leave the SEC, but a rivalry with Indiana plus stable income from the BTN might be luring.

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State aren't out of the question, either. They would indeed bring the southern markets and move the needle. They fit geographically as well. Of course, Notre Dame remains the golden egg. Because the Sooners & Cowboys are a package deal, the league would have to pick either the Oklahomas or the Domers - not both... unless they wanted to go supernova and hit 16 teams.

Also, don't overlook a Big East raid - Rutgers, while clearly not southern, provides access to the NYC television market and adds another blue blood to the academic stable. Pitt and Syracuse seem happy with their ACC deal, but might a possible Pitt-WVU combo be too irresistible for the Panthers to pass up?

The Big 12 managed to stay afloat, which to be honest, is a surprise. After the Pac-16 flirtations, I figured that the league would have folded.

I'm still not sold on the long-term feasibility of this conference though. If the SEC ever wanted Texas, they could probably get them, and maybe the two Oklahoma schools. The Big Ten and Pac-12 would be hard pressed to match the SEC's might if they grabbed the Sooners and Horns.

Because Nebraska (the first domino) HAD to join the BigTen, college football has now become THIS.

If you're trying to assign blame to Nebraska, consider this: Colorado, Missouri and Texas A&M have all jumped ship as well. One or two schools looking for greener pastures is not new, but 1/3rd of a conference leaving would seem to indicate a larger, systemic problem with the conference.