EDIT: Here is the condensed version:
West Division
Washington
Oregon
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Midwest Division
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Central Division
Michigan
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana
Northwestern
East Division
Maryland
Rutgers
Penn State
Ohio State
Cincinnati (or Notre Dame, or some other "fit" for the B1G)
Each team plays the other teams in their division PLUS (4) other teams from the other three divisions (for a total of EIGHT conference games).
Each team plays THREE out-of-conference games for a total of ELEVEN total games. Rivalries in and out of conference can still be preserved.
Division winners have a four-team playoff to determine conference champ.
SEC, Big 12, and ACC all have a similar set-up, so the conference champs of the P4 have a four-team playoff to determine national champ.
(note: FCS and Div. III require four post-season wins to earn a national title, no reason FBS can't.)
END OF STORY. If you want more details, read below. If not, thanks for reading this far.
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Okay, maybe I'm not the first person to come up with this scenario, but I do think something like this might work.
The way I see it, there have to be "pods" (regional divisions) in the B1G in order to make any kind of superconference work. And the league can't get so big that it becomes completely unmanageable.
I think there should be 20 teams in the B1G, and there need to be four divisions of five teams each. This would require adding one more team to the West Division and one more team somewhere in the Midwest/East.
So, what I would do is add STANFORD to the B1G West Division. Makes total sense in terms of athletic competition and academic excellence, which the B1G pretends to care about. Kal is odd man out, but they probably don't give a shit. If they do care, they've done a pretty good job pretending they don't.
As for another team in the Midwest/East, it's going to require poaching another program from an existing conference. That seems to be the only way to do it since most teams are already locked in somewhere else. I'm open to suggestions, but one program that might be a "fit" is CINCINNATI. Good football, good basketball, and I don't know how they rate as an academic institution, but that's beginning to look less important as far as expansion goes. Right now, Cincinnati is in the Big 12, but who cares? They should quit and up their game and pay the fine, whatever. But for now I think the Bearcats might be a fit. If you can think of a better fit, chime in; I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts.
So, the B1G divisions would look something like this (with a little malleability):
West Division
Washington
Oregon
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Midwest Division
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Central Division
Michigan
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana
Northwestern
East Division
Maryland
Rutgers
Penn State
Ohio State
Cincinnati
So, each team plays the other teams in their division. They also play four other conference games outside their division, for a total of 8 conference games. Of those four games outside their division, two of the games are at home, and two are on the road. This would minimize travel, which nobody seems to think is a big deal for some unknown reason. It could also mean annual games against traditional rivals are still possible, like Michigan-Ohio State.
Now, I propose three out-of-conference games, for a total of ELEVEN games in a season. The reason is because each division winner will be involved in a final four/4-game conference playoff. Yeah, that means two extra games for the conference winner and the runner-up, but nobody said being conference champ was going to be easy.
I'm not exactly sure how the divsion winners would be determined, but it would have to be a combination of division record, overall record, SOS, etc. The Pac 12 last season had some serious voodoo math going on, so hopefully it wouldn't be that complicated.
The teams that don't make the conference playoffs would be relegated to the Shitass Bowl, of which there are many. So, unless they totally suck, they'll have a 12-game season like they normally do. I suppose the 3 losers in the conference playoffs could also go to a less-shitty bowl (as some sort of reward), making for a 13-game or 14-game season, like most bowl-bound teams have today.
Now, if you did something similar with the THREE other major conferences -- SEC, ACC, and Big 12 (remember, the Pac 12 is dead) -- then you have another final four for the national championship. That means the national champion would have to win four post-season games to win the natty. That's the way they do it in FCS and Divsion III, so there's no reason the big boys should have it any easier. No more of this bullshit system based on polls and computer numbers. If you want to win the title, you have to win games. Real games. And you're going to have to beat fewer Troy States, Southwest Arkansas's, and Missouri Technical Institutes. And fuck this stupid 12-team playoff they've invented. Makes no sense. Shitcan it. Now.
I don't know where the final four national playoff games would be played, but it could be a rotating system, where one year they're played at the Fiesta Bowl and the Sugar Bowl, and the next year they're played at the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl (Jerry World?). Maybe have conference runner-ups play in the more pretigious bowls that aren't being used for the national final four. BUT...here's the thing, and it's a thing of beauty -- the national championship is always played at the Rose Bowl. Why? Because it's the granddaddy of them all and because I fucking say so. And for fucksake, play it on New Year's Day for crying out loud.
Now, I know FOX and ESPN and a lot of other people would shit their collective pants at the notion of one fewer game in the regular season, but an 11-game season was the norm for a long time. And they'd make more money on increased viewership because there'd be a lot fewer shitass games, and there'd be more interest in a real playoff with a national champion that would have to earn their way to the top by beating more quality teams. And the winner of the national title would still only play a total of 15 games, like the winner does today.
Again, I know one fewer regular-season game would be a deal-breaker for some of these assholes, but how much money do these motherfuckers need? Yeah, I know the answer is as much as they can get, but at some point the conferences need to realize that this isn't the fucking NFL, and unless they want to just suspend ALL studies for football players from August through December, then there don't appear to be too many choices. Besides, three out-of-conference games would be more than enough for teams to schedule traditional rivals outside their conference, like Oregon-Oregon State, UCLA-Kal, Washington-Wazzu, etc. USC could continue to play ND, if they want to.
Speaking of Notre Dame -- no more independents!!!!!! If you want to win a national title, join a conference. There are no at-large bids. No wild cards. Fuck all of that.
Look, I know this isn't perfect. If you look at the divisions I formed above, well, it's not really all that equitable. I mean, the West looks like a dogfight and the Central looks like Michigan's for the taking every year. And I also know that determining which four games are played outside of a program's division would create another shitstorm. After all, you can't schedule Maryland, Indiana, Northwestern, and Rutgers every year. Also, if you built a similar model for the Big 12, SEC, and ACC, there'll undoubtedly be some weakass divisions in there too, with frequent paths of least resistance for some programs. So, there's some serious work to be done in this kind of model.
But I don't see much else that can be done. I suppose you could increase the number of teams in the conference to 24 and have 3 eight-team divisions or 4 six-team divisions. But then you're really running into a problem with travel, which the conference and university suits don't seem to give a shit about, especially WRT basketball and the Olympic sports. Plus, try coming up with four other teams (other than Stanford and Cincinnati) that would be a good fit for the B1G, and you see the problem.
It's a clusterfuck, but the dumbshits who created it are going to have to put some serious thought into making these superconferences work.
Mr. Big's current system of no divisions with three protected rivals
and a rotating home and home schedule with remaining members still works
no need to put WA and UO on the schedule every year.
after all, how many times have the Ducks and Trojans face off over the last 20 years?
No reason to diminish the excitement of all the new scheduling opportunities with the relaunching of past scheduling habits
the extra travel expense of flying east is not the real obstacle (only estimated to be around $10mm v the new media contracts covering that and more, even for UO and WA)
its switching timezones east of the Mississippi proven to diminish outcomes (wins)
but then a team can travel three to five days ahead and perform their last few practices locally at a high school or JC or similar, Pete did this before playing the Hokies
Former PAC members could pool their funds and get long term contracts at a couple or three strategically placed eastern practice facilites, but would they?
West and Midwest are very imbalanced. theother divisions have 1 mqjor team. the bwest divisiion has 3 --SC, Oregon and Washington. The midwest has Nebraska which has been puny lately. If UCLA un-sucks itself it creates further imbalance. East has one blue-blood and one very strong power team. Divisions ar eprobbaly the end result but your mix is too geographic.
Not excited about playing the other 4 PAC teams that we have always been playing, and then only 4 Big 10 teams each year. It' almost feels like not leaving the PAC. I say no more than 2 PAC teams on the schedule each year, rotate the other two each year, and play 6 Big 10 teams. I think SC wants national exposure, not west coast exposure.
I've always thought 14 teams was too big. Then the B1G went to 16 and came up with a pretty good scheduling template. But I still think it's too big, even though I know we're headed for larger and larger conferences, maybe as big as 32.
20, although workable, defeats the allure of moving to the B1G and having regular games against the bluebloods and other new rivals. If it's a 20-team leage with pods, SC and UCLA end up with 4 games every year against same old, same old rivals. And if you only play 4 of the other 15 every year and it's on a rotating basis, that means each team visits your place every 8 years. For the Marylands, that's too much; for the bluebloods, not enough for me.
Domers need to just join or blackball them ooc. Add why did the ACC let them park their Olympic sports there without joining for football. Idiots.
and then sign a 20 year deal
Their management is worse than the PAC was. Only difference is they have the East time zone.
The Midwest Division is pretty uninteresting. The Pac 4 should have a 4 team playoff to determine their conference championship.