Let's Realign the Conferences, Part One: The Geographical Strategy

People love complaining about the conference structure in college football. Sure, there are some strange combinations, and long roadtrips, but it could be worse. And I'm here to show you how worse(or awesome) it could be. Here is part one of many to come.

Northeast Conference: This was an easy one to put together. Some nice rivalries would be renewed, and it would be loaded with tradition.

Army
Boston College
Buffalo
Connecticut
Maryland
Massachusetts (2012)
Navy
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Syracuse
Temple
West Virginia

ACC Conference: Might as well keep the name. The majority of these teams are already in the same conference now, so it would be a pretty smooth transition.

Clemson
Duke
East Carolina
Georgia
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
North Carolina State
South Carolina
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest

Floribama Conference: This would be one hell of an exciting conference. Athletes Galore! The recruiting would be cut-throat, and I mean that literally. There could be coaches shanking other coaches.

Alabama
Alabama-Birmingham
Auburn
Central Florida
Florida
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Florida State
Miami
South Alabama (2012)
South Florida
Troy

Delta Conference: Another fun recruiting battle would come from this southern conference. Not sure if there would be better action on the field or in the parking lot.

Louisiana-Lafayette
Louisiana-Monroe
LSU
Louisiana Tech
Memphis
Middle Tennessee State
Miss State
Ole Miss
Southern Miss
Tennessee
Vanderbilt

Texarkanas Conference: This might actually be my favorite. Who doesn't want to see all of the Texas teams together? And, starting in 2012 you could fill out an entire Texas conference with the addition of UTSA and Texas State.

Arkansas
Arkansas State
Baylor
Houston
North Texas
SMU
Rice
TCU
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
UTEP

SouthWestish Conference: A purely geographic find here. This might be the lamest conference. Not much to digest. So...let's just move on.

Air Force
Arizona
Arizona State
BYU
Colorado
Colorado State
New Mexico
New Mexico State
Nevada
UNLV
Utah
Utah State


Left Coast Conference: This one is straight-up Liberal. We take every school on the coast, and mash them together. Should be fun recruiting grounds, with much less hate than the southeast.

California
Fresno
Hawaii
Oregon
Oregon State
San Diego State
San Jose State
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Washington
Washington State

Tornado Ally Conference: I actually think this is a very competitive conference. Lots of chalk, and of course, Boise State could finally prove themselves.

Boise State
Idaho
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Wyoming
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Tulsa

Lake Michigan Conference: Well, these schools will save some coin on travel, but not too strong at all. Michigan, Michigan State or Notre Dame will win every year until the end of time.

Ball State
Central Michigan
Eastern Kentucky
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Northern Illinois
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Purdue
Western Michigan
Wisconsin

YougotstuckwithMarshall Conference: Well someone had to be stuck with the armpit of college athletics. Cheating would be out of control in this conference.

Akron
Bowling Green
Cincinnati
Kent State
Kentucky
Louisville
Marshall
Miami (OH)
Ohio
Ohio State
Toledo
Western Kentucky

The Hell with Four!

So, a question I get quite often is "Chris, what would be your playoff format in college football?" "Is it a plus-one?" "How about eight teams?" "Should it be 16?" Actually, I disagree with all of these. My ideal format would send 20 teams to the postseason, with every conference being represented.

20 teams? Am I nuts? Not really...at least not on this topic. It's not overkill to have that many teams make the playoffs...actually it represents about 17-percent of the entire division (the 68-team basketball tournament represents about 19-percent, with no true complaints other than a handful of teams complaining they didn't get in), and would have at least one representative from every conference(like in college basketball as well).

Here's how it would work...example being the 2010 season's standings/rankings

11 Automatic Bids-Conference Champs

ACC: Virginia Tech
Big East: Connecticut
Big 10: Wisconsin
Big Twelve: Oklahoma
Pac-10: Oregon
SEC: Auburn
Conference USA: Central Florida
MAC: Miami (OH)
Sun Belt: FIU (They beat Troy)
Mountain West: TCU
WAC: Nevada

9 At-Large Bids: Stanford, Ohio State, Arkansas, Michigan State, Boise State, LSU, Missouri, Oklahoma State, Alabama

There would be four brackets with three teams ranked 1, 2, and 3. There would also be one play-in game in each bracket, with the winner taking on the 1-seed. For example, the play-in game would be FIU v Missouri for a chance to play Oregon.

The play-in games would give us 16 teams, leaving four weeks of exciting entertainment. So, you are looking at a total of five weeks of playoff action. If it were this season Dec. 11th would have been the opening weekend, with Jan 11th being the championship. The NCAA could also cut the season down to eleven games, and even eliminate one of the bye weeks to make the schedule even shorter. The bottom line is that kids will be done before the spring semester begins. Though time shouldn't matter. Hell, college hockey players roll from October to April.

Like in college basketball, the games would be played on neutral fields, and could have names like the Rose or Fiesta. Plus, the teams that don't make the playoffs can still play in the Mickey Mouse Bowls.

Simple in theory, but would college presidents ever get on board? Doubtful. The money continues to roll in from the BCS structure, with no end in sight...especially with ESPN's connection.

The BCS does give college football an extremely competive regular season, but a playoff system wouldn't change that...in fact, it would only heighten it. And, who the hell doesn't want to fill out more brackets?