College Football Conference Re-alignment

By Scott Carasik

Over the past few weeks, Ian from The Steelers N'at and I had the idea to see what the NCAA might look like if the conferences were re-aligned with more teams. We bounced around a bunch of ideas, ranging from expanding all 6 major conferences to 12 teams to cutting down to 4 major conferences of 16 teams. In the end we decided to re-draw the lines based on the current conference alignment with the assumption that each conference would expand to 14 teams. Does this mean this is exactly what's going to happen? Absolutely not. In our redrafting of the NCAA we tried to keep current conferences together and add teams based on geography, school size, and alumni base.

Big East

We start today with the Big East. The Big East lies at the center of the current "Big Ten Expansion" hurricane. Rumors have swirled from the Big Ten taking anywhere from one team to a handful of teams. Pitt, Rutgers, West Virginia, and Syracuse have all been mentioned in connection with the Big Ten.

For the purposes of our project, we kept the current eight teams in the Big East together. To expand the conference from 8 to 14 teams, the following six teams were added:

Notre Dame
From a geographical and logistical standpoint, this makes the most sense. Notre Dame already plays with the Big East in other sports, including Basketball. Adding the Fighting Irish to the ranks of the Big East expands the prestige and recruiting base of the conference while bringing continuity with other sports.

Navy
Adding the Midshipmen to the Big East also makes a lot of sense geographically. Navy has played at a high level of competition over the last several years, and have shown in Bowl Games and throughout the regular season that they are capable of playing with the big boys.

Army
The Black Knights haven't had a very good run of late, but their geographic location and football tradition make them a perfect fit here in the Big East. With Notre Dame and Navy jumping on board, Army would be the last independent team. Army follows Navy to continue the rivalry and setting up a "rivalry week" in the Big East with the Backyard Brawl and Army-Navy game.

Temple
Another team that makes perfect sense geographically and academically for the Big East to add is the Owls. They made their first bowl in what seemed like forever this year, and are definitely a program on the rise. With their recruiting base in Philadelphia, Temple would add yet another market to the Big East.

Florida Atlantic
Some might see this as a bit of a stretch, but this is a program on the rise. Howard Schnellenberger has done a great job at FAU creating a competitive team. They have had success in minor bowl games over the past few years and are just about ready to make the jump to the big time. The Big East expansion is a perfect time for this to happen, adding another team in Florida to challenge USF's recruiting base.

Florida International
This one might be the biggest stretch of all, but it makes the most sense geographically of any team. With South Florida and Florida Atlantic in the ranks, Florida International comes along too. In all likelihood, they would spend most of their days challenging Syracuse for the basement dwellings of the Big East. Adding a team like this to the conference would solidify the Big East's foothold in Florida.

With the 14 teams in place, the conference would logically organize itself into two divisions. Our best guess at this would be a North and South division that look something like this:

Big East North:
Army, Connecticut, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple

Big East South:
Cincinnati, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Louisville, Navy, South Florida, West Virginia

From a scheduling standpoint, each team would play the other 6 from their division and two teams from the other division. This would enable rivalries like Pitt-West Virginia and Army-Navy to continue even though they are not in the same division.

Obviously these are not the only options. We considered other teams such as Bowling Green, Ohio, Akron, Kent St, Buffalo, and Miami (OH). Ultimately, we settled on adding these six schools.

Another interesting option exists for the Big East: promoting some FCS (D1-AA) schools to the FBS to align the conference more closely with its basketball alignment. The potential schools in this category would be Villanova and Georgetown since Marquette, St. John's, Seton Hall, Providence and DePaul all lack football programs.

Big-XIV (formerly Big-XII)

We continue with the Big XII, now the Big XIV. They already had a conference championship game, and just needed to add some solid teams. Texas has been rumored as a possible Big Ten defector, but for this we are keeping the current Big XII and just adding 2 more teams.

Colorado State
From a geographical and logistical standpoint, this makes the most sense. Colorado is already in the Big-XII and adding its cross state rival will only help the conference maintain its legitimacy. Colorado State will slot into the North with its cross-state rival and will give the Big-XIV North another team to try and help it compete with the Big XIV South’s Texas/Oklahoma powerhouses.

Texas Christian
Another team that just makes too much sense logistically and geographically; Texas Christian is an excellent fit talent wise as well as academically. They have been a top 10 program the past few years and will be an excellent addition to the South division which already has four programs regularly in the top 15 of Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.

With the 14 teams in place, the conference would logically keep its original two divisions. Keeping the same groupings, they currently have, but adding Texas Christian to the South and Colorado State to the North. Our best guess at this would be a North and South division that look something like this:

Big-XIV North:
Colorado, Colorado State, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska

Big-XIV South:
Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Christian, Texas Tech

From a scheduling standpoint, each team would play the other 6 from their division and two teams from the other division.

Obviously these are not the only options. We considered other teams such as Rice, Houston, Utah, and Brigham Young. Ultimately, we settled on adding these two schools.

Atlantic Coast Conference

The Atlantic Coast Conference, or ACC, is up next. They have been one of the leaders in expanding their conference and have always been a bit unorthodox in their style. They went out a few years ago and brought in Virginia Tech, Boston College and University of Miami (FL). In this realignment we have them bringing in the following teams:

East Carolina
With every team from the Carolinas outside of University of South Carolina in the ACC already, this just made too much sense. East Carolina has been a good team with a lot of NFL caliber prospects on it the past few years and will be a good fit for their division. With Duke in the same division, at least they won’t be last place.

Central Florida
With the two other Florida teams in this division, it made a lot of sense to bring in Central Florida. Central Florida has gotten a lot better with George O’Leary at the helm and while they may not be able to cut the mustard initially in the ACC, we think they will be at least a solid competitor within their division.

With the 14 teams in place, the ACC would likely completely shake everything up. They are known for randomness in their alignments, so we have them going with this Carolinas vs. the Others alignment as listed here:

Carolinas Division
Clemson, Duke, East Carolina, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Wake Forest

Others Division
Boston College, Central Florida, Florida State, Maryland, Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech

From a scheduling standpoint, each team would play the other 6 from their division and two teams from the other division.

Obviously these are not the only options. We considered other teams such as Florida Atlantic, Florida International, and Navy. Ultimately, we settled on adding these two schools.

Southeastern Conference

We can’t talk about anything college football without including the SEC. They have one of the best conferences in college football and we have just made them slightly better with the inclusion of the following teams:

University of Alabama-Birmingham
The University of Alabama, Auburn University, the only one missing from the SEC from Alabama now is Troy. They have a while to go before they could even get a shot though. UAB has the academic reputation, especially in their pre-med and pre-dental schools, to be a very heavy recruiter in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. With their location in Birmingham, they also give a fun small-city vibe to the campus as well.

Southern Mississippi
Adding the third Mississippi team to the SEC will really help them out in terms of logistics. Southern Miss is known for its speed as a team and just makes sense for the rest of the conference. They also won’t be a bottom basement team initially like UAB will be.

With the 14 teams in place, the SEC would likely continue with their current alignments and just add UAB to the East and Southern Miss to the West.

East Division
Alabama-Birmingham, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

West Division
Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Southern Miss

From a scheduling standpoint, each team would play the other 6 from their division and two teams from the other division.

Obviously these are not the only options. We considered other teams such as Tulane, Louisiana Tech, Memphis, and Central Florida. Ultimately, we settled on adding these two schools.

Big Midwest (formerly Big Ten)

The Big Ten is currently the conference at the crux of the whole NCAA expansion discussion while the Big Ten is looking to add another big-name school (Notre Dame, Pitt, WVU, Rutgers, Missouri). For purposes of our reorganization, we tried to keep BCS schools in their conference, which forced us to look elsewhere to expand the Big Ten.

Logically, the only conference that geographically makes sense for the Big Ten to draw from is the MAC. There are essentially two options when carving out the MAC. The first option would be for the Big Ten to take the three Michigan schools (Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan and Western Michigan). However that is not the option we chose for our expansion. Rather, we decided to add these three teams:

Northern Illinois
Geographically, Northern Illinois makes a lot of sense. Northern Illinois is located within the existing Big Ten boundaries and with a student body around 25,000 students, fits well with the size of other Big Ten schools.

Ohio
While Ohio hasn't exactly been a football program of note lately, they are the University of Ohio and would likely have a better chance of attracting big-time recruits than some of the other MAC schools that were considered. The University has over 20,000 students and it makes a lot of sense to add them to the Big Ten. Ohio would give the Big Ten another school on the eastern frontier to compete with Ohio St and Penn St.

Toledo
With 23,000 students Toledo has the size, alumni base, and geographic location to fit well within the Big Ten. The Rockets have had quality teams over the last decade and would fit well in the Big Ten. They have a relatively new stadium in a great location in Ohio, making them a good addition to the conference.

With the addition of these three teams to the conference, the Big Ten would have 14 teams. Since the Big XII would also be expanding to 14, one conference would have to give up its name. We chose to rename the Big Ten the "Big Midwest" since it geographically covers more area than the expanded Big XII.

With the 14 teams, the Big Ten could re-organize itself into two divisions:

Big Midwest East:
Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio, Ohio State, Penn State, Toledo

Big Midwest West:
Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Northern Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin

Like the Big East, teams would play eight conference games, consisting of six games against teams in their division and two games against teams in the other division, enabling rivalries to continue. The Big Ten has some of the best rivalries in the nation, many of which come with great trophies like the Keg of Nails , Little Brown Jug, and Paul Bunyan's Axe. On top of that, Ohio State-Michigan speaks for itself and is probably the best rivalry in College Football.

Pacific Athletic Conference (formerly Pac-10)

The Pac-10 might have some of the easiest choices for conference expansion. All of the mid-majors that have crashed the BCS party have come from the west. Boise St, Utah, and Hawaii have all played in BCS Bowls over the last five years. Boise St and Utah have built elite programs in the Mountain West and WAC and are central to any discussion of opening up the BCS to mid-major schools.
Boise St
Is there really any doubt that the Broncos have built an elite program up on the blue turf? They would be a perfect fit in the Pac-10 and have showed they can play with the big boys from their victories over the likes of Oklahoma and Oregon. Boise might be the most obvious choice for a team that the Pac-10 could add. Given their past success, they might instantly become the favorite to win the PAC North.
Utah
If Boise St is the easiest choice, Utah is the second easiest. The Utes have won two BCS games and have regularly put out solid pro players. Utah has built a solid program and deserves a shot in a major conference. They can definitely do damage in the PAC and would likely be even more competitive, joining the ranks of the nation's elite programs.
Hawai'i
Not only did they reach the Sugar Bowl recently, Hawai'i has been a solid program and their location in the Pacific makes them an obvious choice to add to the PAC. Travel costs have been a huge hindrance for the Warriors, making it incredibly difficult to attract high-caliber opponents. Adding them to the Pac-10 makes geographic sense and fills out the South division of the conference.
Utah St
The biggest debate we had in redrafting all of these lines was whether to include Utah St or BYU as the last team into the PAC. Arguably, BYU has had more historical success, but Utah St will likely lobby hard to follow Utah into the conference and in the end, we gave Utah State the edge based on BYU's historic reputation for turning down bids from larger conferences.
With 14 teams, we decided to re-name the Pac-10 the Pacific Athletic Conference. Not only does it enable the conference to keep the "PAC" abbreviation, it also has a better ring to it than "Pac-14." With these 14 teams, they would logically be divided into these two divisions:
North Division:
Boise State, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, Utah State, Washington, Washington State

South Division:
Arizona, Arizona State, California, Hawai'i, Southern California, Stanford, UCLA

Like the Big East, teams would play eight conference games, consisting of six games against teams in their division and two games against teams in the other division, enabling rivalries to continue. Since multiple PAC schools have historic rivalries with Notre Dame, scheduling would likely take these into account. Since teams will still play 3-4 out-of-conference games, Notre Dame will be able to keep some of its historic rivals on the schedule. Personally, we would give preference to schools that have a rivalry trophy to fight over, like USC.

Western Athletic Conference

The re-organization of the conferences has left the Mountain West and The Western Athletic both at six teams. It just makes too much sense to combine the remaining teams into the one big conference of 12 teams. We have them under the WAC banner because the MWC was founded out of former WAC or teams that just fit it geographically before the MWC was founded. We also made a switch of Louisiana Tech for UTEP as it just fits better geographically. For those who haven’t been following these are the teams:

Air Force
Brigham Young
Fresno State
Idaho
Nevada
Nevada - Las Vegas
New Mexico
New Mexico State
San Diego State
San Jose State
Texas - El Paso
Wyoming

With the 12 teams in place, the WAC would split into the following alignments:

North Division
Air Force, Brigham Young, Idaho, Nevada, San Jose State, Wyoming

South Division
Fresno State, New Mexico, New Mexico State, San Diego State, UNLV, UTEP

From a scheduling standpoint, each team would play the other five from their division and three teams from the other division.

Mid-American Conference

The MAC is an interesting conference. We took out some teams for the Big Midwest in Toledo, Ohio and Northern Illinois, while also moving Temple to the Big East. In replacing the 4 teams lost, we only brought in the following 3 teams:

Marshall
Marshall used to be in the MAC and with the Conference-USA turning into the leftovers conference after the big conferences raid it, we just can’t see them sticking around. They make too much sense to head back to the MAC and get their domination on.

Middle Tennessee State
Middle Tennessee is an up and coming program with a lot of talent located in the middle of the country. That just sounds like a perfect MAC team. They will be a good fit as part of the mid-major conference.
Western Kentucky
WKU just moved up to D1-A and is now looking at the possibility of being in a better conference than the Sun Belt. They take it and will be a solid competitor within the MAC and should create a challenge to the rest of the conference.

With the 12 teams in place, the MAC would switch to these alignments:

East Division
Akron, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Marshall

West Division
Ball State, Central Michigan, Miami (OH), Middle Tennessee State, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan

From a scheduling standpoint, each team would play the other five from their division and three teams from the other division.

Conference USA

The only C-USA originals left are Memphis, Houston, Rice, SMU, Tulane and Tulsa. As this is basically the throw-away conference, we have them taking in the following teams after their conferences either disbanded them or kicked them out for being completely geographically illogical (see: Louisiana Tech in the WAC, and Sun Belt disbanding):

Arkansas State
Louisiana Tech
Louisiana - Lafayette
Louisiana - Monroe
North Texas
Troy

With the 12 teams in place, the C-USA would likely use the following alignments:

East Division
Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Memphis, Troy, Tulane

West Division
Arkansas State, Houston, North Texas, Rice, Southern Methodist, Tulsa

From a scheduling standpoint, each team would play the other five from their division and three teams from the other division.

As a footnote, I would like to thank Ian from The Steelers N’at again for doing this conference realignment article with me.