Megaconference College Football by Hawkeye15 (Washington & Wazzu ... the end)

[Hawkeye15]

My proposal is for college football to move to megaconferences. Each Power 5 conference would absorb the Group of 5 teams to yield these conferences:

 

SEC: 28 teams

ACC: 28 teams

Big Ten: 26 teams

Big 12: 24 teams

Pac-12: 24 teams

 

Now there’s no glass ceiling on team in FBS. Every team, from Akron to Alabama, has a similar road map to the college football playoff. The only question left is scheduling. How do you schedule a 28-team conference? Algorithmic matching!

 

Here’s a template for what each individual teams’ schedule would look like:

Weeks 1 and 13 are prescheduled non-conference games. Weeks 2 and 3 are prescheduled conference games against randomly selected opponents, subject to playing one team from the top half of the previous year’s conference standings and one team from the bottom half.

 

Weeks 4 through 12 algorithmically match opponents every week, subject to prescheduled home/away designations throughout the year. Each team has one bye during this period and one prescheduled game against a rival.

 

The algorithm is quite simple. Line up each of the teams according to home and away designations and order them by conference standings. Match the top team set to play at home to the top team set to play on the road (if they have not already been scheduled to play each other), then go to the next team in the standings and proceed until all opponents have been matched. A poor team gets a fortunate schedule early on and wins some games? They will soon be scheduled with the giants. A great team loses a pair of close games right away? They will soon be scheduled with the minnows and elevated back up.

 

To avoid shenanigans, you would only sort the conference standings by conference record and then randomly order the teams with the same record. This also means there could be weekly scheduling shows to reveal the (quasi-) random matchups that were created.

 

Week 14 algorithmically matches opponents as well, but with no home/away designations set beforehand. This ensures that if a conference has 2 giants that have somehow avoided each other to the end, they will meet in the last week. Home and away would be decided post-matching by scheduling in the location opposite those teams’ last meeting. And if a matchup is a conference decider, the conference could turn it into a neutral site conference championship game.

 

I simulated the 2022-23 college football season and at the very end will reveal the resulting conference standings, the eight-team (!) playoff, and the national champion.

 

But first, onto the conferences where I have designed new uniform sets for every team under the constraint that a casual fan be able to notice that the uniform is different than it was before. Onto the SEC!

[Hawkeye15]

 

Rivalry matchups:

• Alabama and Auburn
• Florida and Georgia
• Florida Atlantic and Florida International
• Georgia Southern and Troy
• Georgia State and Georgia Tech
• Kentucky and Louisville
• Louisiana and Louisiana-Monroe
• LSU and Tulane
• Memphis and Western Kentucky
• Mississippi State and Ole Miss
• Middle Tennessee and UAB
• South Alabama and Southern Miss
• Tennessee and Vanderbilt
• UCF and USF

 

[Hawkeye15]

I will post the uniform concepts in pairs by rivalry matchups. First, the Iron Bowl:

 

• The pants stripe is now a double houndstooth stripe.
• The houndstooth pattern is also sublimated on the uniform collars.

 

• Incorporates the Auburn A into the sleeve design.
• Makes the striping consistent across helmet, shirt, and pants.

 

[Hawkeye15]

• Consistent orange/blue/white/blue/orange striping across helmet, uniforms, and pants
• Stripes fade to gator scales

[Hawkeye15]

• Each jersey has a read/white/black stripe that matches the pants stripe and incorporates into the jersey cuffs

[Hawkeye15]

The concepts so far have only used small deviations on classic designs, but the ones to come will be larger overhauls. The schedules will also start providing a few nuggets about future designs.

 

 

• More reliance on blue than FAU's current identity.
• New striping pattern on the pants, shoulders, and helmet.
• I don't believe FAU has ever put this owl logo on their helmet, but that's a shame. I think it's a perfect helmet logo for them.

[Hawkeye15]

• The gold features on the uniforms have a reflective shine.
• The bottom of the helmet features darkened blades of grass all the way around. The panther appears as if it's emerging from the tall grass. This use of the grass is a nod to FIU's previous primary logo.
• The bottom of the pants also features the grass in a subtle way.
• The sleeve caps are also darkened to match the darkened shade of blue/white.

[mcrosby]

Other than geography, is there a reason to not have 5 conferences of 26 teams each instead of what you have at the moment? 

Uniforms look great so far. 

[PERRIN]

This looks like it's gonna be a great series, this is a massive undertaking and I'm excited to see how you've completely reshuffled the NCAA and the first couple of uniform concepts are amazing. Looking forward to seeing this series continue, I'll be sure to follow along!

[Hawkeye15]

45 minutes ago, mcrosby said:

Other than geography, is there a reason to not have 5 conferences of 26 teams each instead of what you have at the moment? 

Uniforms look great so far. 

 

I tried to incorporate historical conference affiliations with geographic considerations as best as possible. I could do 26 in each, but it ends in a weird mash where states get oddly split into different conferences and LSU or Iowa (or both) end up in the Big 12, which is just odd.

[JerseyJimmy]

dude these concepts are nuts; Auburn's a big favorite of mine so far. also glad to see that South Carolina are implied to be back in the ACC, it feels like a much better fit.

[Hawkeye15]

Thank you for the kind words. We press on.

 

• Kept the simplicity and timeless look, with small tweaks.
• Brought back the Eagle head logo from the 80's and 90's, but with a circle around it. Replaced the helmet numbers with the eagle.
• Single design element is the stripe on the back of the jersey. Have any football jerseys ever had something like this? I'm not sure.

[Hawkeye15]

• Use four colors throughout: two shades of maroon, gray, and white
• Shoulder loops come to a point and give the appearance of a sword
• Consistent striping on helmet, shoulders, and pants.

[Hawkeye15]

• All in on the the red lines ... they always appear on white and for that reason, only the blue jerseys have sleeve caps.

[Hawkeye15]

• Georgia Tech is a classic program and deserve a more classic design than they've gotten.
• Biggest change: white helmet a the primary. Georgia Tech has mostly used a gold helmet as a primary, but did use a white helmet in 1965-1966 and 1969-1971.
• Double stripes that alternate colors, increasing the usage of navy somewhat.

[GriffinM6]

The most recent three look fantastic. I especially love how you included more red in GSU's look than what they currently use. 

[Hawkeye15]

• The checkers are fine! But the whole sleeve cap is unnecessary. Use the checkers in a double stripe instead.
• The Kentucky throwback is probably my favorite throwback in the series. Part of me just wants to make that the primary uniform.

[Hawkeye15]

• Louisville has a bit of an identify crisis with Adidas changing their designs so many times in the last 10/15 years.
• Go back to the Brian Brohm / Michael Bush era design with the loops on the shoulder.
• Both the shoulder loops and the helmet stripe taper and then switch from red to black with a cardinal feather effect.

[the_grateful_ted]

I haven't had much to say because these have all be absolutely flawless. The details like the schedule at the bottom are stellar... wow! I will say, I was a much bigger fan of the traditional Teddy Bridgewater striping for Louisville. 

[Hawkeye15]

• Removed black from the identity and brought in orange as a secondary color only used in thin lines and only within red.
• Also lightened the red to more of a cherry color.
• Greater usage of the fleur-de-lis logo.