Football Conference Realignment Fun

[Busguy2010]

I had a little bit of fun on this boring, rainy Sunday... Here's the map of my reimagined college football landscape:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... sp=sharing

So I found out there's currently 69 "Power 5" teams when you include Notre Dame. I wanted to get down to at least 64, so I eliminated the most recently added teams in Houston, UCF, Cincinnati, and BYU to start. Then I looked at other recently added teams that were formerly part of the Big East that really just don't fit in their current conferences, looking at you, Maryland, Rutgers, Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, and West Virginia. Down to 59.

I started by moving Oklahoma and Texas back out of the SEC, and adding Miami and Florida State instead, based on region. Then removed Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas A&M based on region and recently being added in real life. I gave them all back to the "Big 12" which I renamed the Central Conference. Then I had to give the SEC Georgia Tech.

The Western Conference was the easiest, totally based on region. However, I ran into a bit of an issue. I kept some teams that I otherwise might have removed (Oregon State, Washington State, Cal or Utah), for the sole purpose of keeping Nebraska out of the Western Conference. So it ended up that one team that didn't quite fit regionally was going to have to be in the Western Conference. It was between Nebraska, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State. Nebraska won based on brand, and I gave the Western Conference Oklahoma State with no basis to decide between them and Kansas State other than better travel for Husker fans. I suppose it could go either way. Another interesting addition is Texas Tech, the westernmost (pretty much New Mexico) Texas school.

The Central Conference was relatively easy. I basically brought the Big 12 back together as it was, and added Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Unfortunately for Husker fans, this means playing all the Texas schools again, but it only made the most sense to me.

The Midwest Conference was the most difficult as I had to consolidate the ACC and the Big Ten, while removing a lot of schools. The obvious starting point for me was to add Notre Dame, and luckily they grabbed Clemson as well. Aside from removing the former Big East and current ACC schools, I didn't really know what to do. It came down more to other sports than Football. Duke and Indiana are great at basketball, Virginia at baseball. So I decided to remove Wake Forest and NC State on a "what have you done for me lately" basis.

So there it is, 56 teams in contention. Huskers play Iowa State, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, and TCU every year. 13 regular season conference games and that's it. Every team plays every team. The two teams with the best records (plus tie breakers) square off in the conference title games. Winners of the title games advance to the four team playoff, Teams that make it to the national title game play a total of 16 games.

How do you think this would fare for the Huskers? Any other teams you'd include that I excluded and vice versa? Any glaring strengths or weaknesses in any of my hypothetical conferences? Who do you think would come out of each conference if this were to happen in 2023?

[thenewguy]

I'll preface this with the fact that I've been a diehard husker fan for as long as I can remember (I'm coming up on 42 years), but that's a pretty solid conference Nebraska is in. I'd say they would end up with 4 or 5 wins based on last year's team. In a month or so, if we start out 2-0, maybe we see something more out of the huskers than we have for a while, and they turn it up to 9 wins. I just can't see them getting past a few of the 'thorn in the side' teams we have faced...unfortunately, Iowa being one of them.