For those of you who follow the NCAA, you have probably heard the recent news that USC and UCLA will be joining the Big Ten conference in 2024.  This means that the Big Ten will soon have 16 teams (thus making a mockery of its name) while its member schools stretch from New Jersey all the way to California (thus making a mockery of its geography).  This is only the latest development in a system that already didn’t make sense.  The Big Ten, a conference initially made up of ten schools in the Midwest, already had 14 teams from New Jersey to Nebraska before this announcement.  So, while the current NCAA conference alignments already didn’t make sense, this recent USC/UCLA news has now inspired me to fix things.

This is just the latest example of geographic quirks within the NCAA.  Other conferences have similar oddities, such as West Virginia belonging to the 10-team Big 12 (yes, the Big 12 has 10 teams), despite being nowhere near any of the other nine schools located between Iowa and Texas.  Or Louisville belonging to the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference), despite not being close to the Atlantic Ocean.  And don’t get me started on the Pioneer League, the football conference in which Butler plays San Diego, Stetson (FL), and Marist (NY).  I think whoever came up with that conference either did so out of spite or failed geography in school.

I’m sure the reason some of the big schools are switching to conferences outside their own region somehow comes down to money, although I don’t know all the particulars as to why. However, regardless of all the nuances of it, I want conferences to make geographic sense.  Fortunately, I have just been appointed the new Supreme Emperor of the NCAA and have been given full authority to make any changes I want.  As such, I decided to realign the conferences in a way that actually makes sense.  With that in mind, I would like to announce the following NCAA conference realignments, effective immediately.

*I may not have actually been appointed Supreme Emperor of the NCAA, and may not currently have the authority to implement these changes.  But, for the purposes of this blog, let’s just pretend for a few minutes that I can do this.

For this project, I decided to focus specifically on NCAA football conferences.  Conferences in the other sports might vary somewhat for smaller NCAA Division I schools (like Butler, who plays basketball in the Big East for some reason, but plays football in the Pioneer League because most Big East teams don’t have football).  However, to go through the conferences in basketball and other sports for all 300-plus NCAA Division I schools would take way too much time, so I narrowed my focus to conference realignment in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) – the highest level of NCAA Division I football.

Currently, there are 133 teams in the FBS.  Odd numbers don’t really work, so as my first order of business, I am promoting North Dakota State, winner of nine of the last eleven national championships in the lower-level FCS division.  This makes 134 teams to work with.  I will then group these teams into 11 conferences, most of which will have 12 teams each, except for one conference being stuck with 14 teams.  I think 12 teams is the right number for a conference to have, as it’s just enough to allow for a conference championship game at the end of the regular season.  I also thought about making mostly 10-team or 14-team conferences instead but ultimately decided 12 was better.  This also means that everybody will be in a conference – no more independents.  This means you, Notre Dame.

Of the 134 teams I have to choose from, 64 of these teams currently belong to what is known as a “Power Five” conference – the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, or PAC-12.  Four other schools – BYU, Houston, Cincinnati, and UCF – have already accepted an invitation to join one of these conferences, which bring the total number of Power Five schools to 68.  I’m adding Notre Dame to one of these conferences, which makes 69 teams.  I’m also going to add three more schools to this list to make it an even 72, and then split these schools up into six conferences of 12 teams each.  After that, this will leave me with 62 remaining teams that play in conferences that nobody really cares about on a national level.  I will then split those schools up into five more conferences of 12 or 14 teams.

I also used the super-helpful map below as a guide while doing this. The map lists all 131 current FBS schools, color-coded by conference. Two schools that I listed that are not on the map are Jacksonville State (AL) and Sam Houston State (TX), since they will become FBS schools in 2023. In addition, North Dakota State is also not listed on the map since I am only making them an FBS school for the purpose of this project. This makes 134 total schools. Feel free to refer back to this map as needed. Map courtesy of Wikipedia.

Let’s get started:

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)

1. Boston College
2. Syracuse
3. Rutgers
4. Penn State
5. Pittsburgh
6. West Virginia
7. Maryland
8. Virginia
9. Virginia Tech
10. North Carolina
11. North Carolina State
12. Duke

Notes:  Removed Louisville, Wake Forest, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State, and Miami.  Added Rutgers, Penn State, West Virginia, and Maryland to where they belong.  Starting from the northeast, the ACC now only stretches down to North Carolina instead of down to Miami.

Southeastern Conference (SEC)

1. Vanderbilt
2. Tennessee
3. Appalachian State
4. Wake Forest
5. Clemson
6. South Carolina
7. Georgia
8. Georgia Tech
9. Florida
10. Florida State
11. Central Florida (UCF)
12. Miami

Notes:  Overhauled the current SEC by removing nine teams.  Kept only Vanderbilt, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.  Moved five ACC teams to the SEC.  Added Power Five newcomer UCF and promoted Appalachian State from the Sun Belt.

Big South

1. Texas
2. Texas Tech
3. Texas A&M
4. TCU
5. Baylor
6. Houston
7. LSU
8. Memphis
9. Ole Miss
10. Mississippi State
11. Alabama
12. Auburn

Notes:  Created a new conference called the Big South, featuring mostly a mix of current Big 12 and SEC schools, stretching from Texas to Alabama.  I believe there is already a smaller-school conference called the Big South, but we will just pay them off to take that name for this new conference I just created.  Also promoted Memphis from the American Athletic Conference.

PAC-12

1. Washington
2. Washington State
3. Oregon
4. Oregon State
5. California
6. Stanford
7. UCLA
8. USC
9. Arizona
10. Arizona State
11. Utah
12. BYU

Notes:  I kept this conference mostly the same.  The only change I made was to remove Colorado and replace them with BYU.  Considered changing the PAC-12 name because PAC stands for Pacific, and four of these schools are located in states that do not border the Pacific Ocean.  However, I’ll let the name stand for now.

Central Athletic Conference

1. North Dakota State
2. Minnesota
3. Iowa
4. Iowa State
5. Nebraska
6. Colorado
7. Kansas
8. Kansas State
9. Missouri
10. Oklahoma
11. Oklahoma State
12. Arkansas

Notes:  This conference is essentially what we know as the Big 12.  But all conferences have 12 teams now, and to avoid a dispute between the Big Ten and the Big 12, I’m retiring the name “Big 12.”  Instead, I am re-naming this the Central Athletic Conference, although I didn’t put much thought into that name.

This conference now features a mix of five current Big 12 teams, plus three from the Big Ten, two from the SEC, and Colorado from the PAC-12.  This is also where I promoted perennial FCS powerhouse North Dakota State.  Probably the only reason they haven’t actually moved up to FBS is because of geography, as there is not a current conference that makes sense for them to join.  This now allows them to do that.

Midwest Conference

1. Wisconsin
2. Northwestern
3. Illinois
4. Notre Dame
5. Purdue
6. Indiana
7. Michigan
8. Michigan State
9. Ohio State
10. Cincinnati
11. Louisville
12. Kentucky

Notes:  Changed the name from the Big Ten to the Midwest Conference.  Maybe Kentucky isn’t actually the Midwest, but…close enough.  Removed intruders Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland, plus original members Minnesota and Iowa.  Added Cincinnati, Louisville, Kentucky, and Notre Dame.  Yes, Notre Dame will play in a conference, and it will be the Midwest Conference.

Also, for Indiana fans such as myself, this will hopefully rekindle the Indiana-Kentucky rivalry by finally forcing them to play each other again in both football and basketball.  The short distances to new conference foes Louisville and Cincinnati should be attractive as well.

Those are the Power Five conferences.  Almost all the good teams are in those conferences, so those are the ones that get all the attention.  But I decided to go ahead and realign the other 62 teams into five conferences.  Here are my remaining conference alignments, this time provided with no commentary:

American Athletic Conference (AAC)

1. UMass
2. UConn
3. Buffalo
4. Army
5. Navy
6. Temple
7. James Madison
8. Old Dominion
9. Liberty
10. Charlotte
11. East Carolina
12. Coastal Carolina

Sun Belt

1. Western Kentucky
2. Middle Tennessee State
3. Southern Miss
4. UAB
5. Jacksonville State (AL)
6. Troy
7. South Alabama
8. Georgia State
9. Georgia Southern
10. South Florida
11. Florida Atlantic
12. Florida International

Conference USA (C-USA)

1. North Texas
2. SMU
3. Texas State
4. UTSA
5. Sam Houston State (TX)
6. Rice
7. Tulsa
8. Arkansas State
9. Louisiana
10. Louisiana Tech
11. UL-Monroe
12. Tulane

Mid-American Conference (MAC)

1. Northern Illinois
2. Ball State
3. Western Michigan
4. Central Michigan
5. Eastern Michigan
6. Toledo
7. Bowling Green
8. Miami (OH)
9. Kent State
10. Akron
11. Ohio
12. Marshall

Mountain West

1. Hawaii
2. San Jose State
3. Fresno State
4. San Diego State
5. Nevada
6. UNLV
7. Boise State
8. Utah State
9. Wyoming
10. Colorado State
11. Air Force
12. New Mexico
13. New Mexico State
14. UTEP

That’s my complete list of updated FBS teams and conferences.  Going forward, all schools will play in the conference I just assigned to them.  I’m sure if I actually made these changes, we would get some complaints from some of the schools.  But I feel like this alignment makes much more sense geographically, so this is what I’m going with.

College Football Playoffs and Bowls

And while we’re at it, here’s how I would change the college football playoff.  Currently, the top four teams, as selected by a committee, make the playoffs, while a bunch of other teams play in games like the Cheez-It Bowl or perhaps now the Toilet Bowl or something like that.  The four-team playoff selection always causes controversy, so I will hereby expand the playoff field to eight teams.  Six of the eight playoff teams will consist of the conference champions from the ACC, SEC, Big South, PAC-12, Central Athletic, and Midwest.  The other two playoff teams will consist of the highest-ranked conference champion from any other conference, plus one wild card.  This way, unlike now, winning a power conference will automatically get you in the playoff.  And, unlike now, it will at least give a team from a non-power conference a chance.  (In real life, under the current structure with five power conferences, I would still like to see eight playoff teams – the Power Five champions, the highest-ranked remaining conference champion, and two wild cards.)

What about the bowls?  Do we still get to keep those?  Sure…some of them.  We can keep the legitimate bowls like the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Orange Bowl…plus a few others.  But I would get rid of a lot of them – the ones that nobody cares about between two 6-6 teams.  You should have to actually be good and win 8 or 9 games to qualify for a bowl game.  But we can still have a few bowl games as a reward for teams who actually did have a good season but just happened to miss the 8-team playoff.

Of course, having a ridiculous number of bowl games makes money, so I’m sure that my getting rid of a lot of them would not go over well with the people who are actually in college football.  I would probably get overthrown as Supreme Emperor of the NCAA.  But between my new conference realignment and my new playoff format, this would be my ideal setup.

Conclusion

I know it’s currently July and college football season is still two months away, but in light of the recent news regarding NCAA conference realignment, this was a fun little geography project I thought I would take on.  Maybe someone from the NCAA will read this and realize, “These new conferences make sense, let’s make this happen.”  Although that’s probably not likely.

But what are your thoughts?  Would you make any changes to the current conference system?  Would you make any changes to my updated conference alignment?  Feel free to leave a comment and let me know.  In the meantime, I hope everyone is doing well, staying away from covid, and enjoying their summer.  Thanks for reading.

“Are you ready for some football?”  –Hank Williams Jr.