Conference Realignment: One Solution To Rule Them All

I think sbnation did something like this about a year back which was similar. Cool idea, never ever going to happen

More Big Tehhhn talent!

With that configuration, Delany wouldn't be able to @#$% over the ACC. What fun would that be? :)

on short notice if you are a team that is relegated or promoted?

Notre Dame will be in their own stack. ND Stack (5) Notre Dame, Purdue, Navy, Boston College, Pitt ... winner of that stack gets an automatic Championship Game bid. Otherwise, ND won't play anymore. Hhhmppppfff. /Swarbrick'd

I want PSU.

Just the idea that any school can realistically make the commitment to get the the top tier to be a football power. Of course they would have to make the financial commitment first and then grow the program.

Does the Big Ten or Big XII up with Missouri? MO is missing from your lists...

This is going to be a bit long, but bear with me...

I think it would help this proposal if there were some explicit criteria for sorting the teams into tiers beyond a general impression of importance based, largely, on prior conference affiliation.

An example: here's Sagarin Predictor for the top 20 B1G-area teams in 2012 (national rank in parentheses):

1. Notre Dame (3)
2. Wisconsin (20)
3. Ohio State (24)
4. Michigan (25)
5. Northwestern (36)
6. Iowa State (37)
7. Michigan State (41)
8. North Dakota State (42)
9. Northern Illinois (43)
10. Cincinnati (47)
11. Kent State (65)
12. Purdue (66)
13. Iowa (71)
14. Northern Iowa (73)
15. Minnesota (74)
16. Indiana (76)
17. Bowling Green (78)
18. Toledo (79)
19. South Dakota State (84)
20. Ball State (86)

And in 2011:

1. Wisconsin (6)
2. Michigan (10)
3. Michigan State (15)
4. Notre Dame (21)
5. Cincinnati (28)
6. Toledo (41)
7. Ohio State (43)
8. North Dakota State (44)
9. Iowa (46)
10. Northern Illinois (54)
11. Illinois (55)
12. Northwestern (56)
13. Iowa State (59)
14. Purdue (72)
15. OHIO (74)
16. Western Michigan (76)
17. Northern Iowa (79)
18. Miami U. (85)
19. Minnesota (91)
20. Illinois State (99)

2010:

1. Ohio State (7)
2. Wisconsin (17)
3. Notre Dame (18)
4. Iowa (21)
5. Illinois (31)
6. Northern Illinois (44)
7. Michigan State (46)
8. Cincinnati (64)
9. Michigan (75)
10. Western Michigan (76)
11. Iowa State (79)
12. Northwestern (80)
13. Toledo (91)
14. Minnesota (96)
15. Miami U. (97)
16. North Dakota State (99)
17. Central Michigan (102)
18. Purdue (103)
19. Indiana (106)
20. Western Illinois (107)

2009:

1. Ohio State (7)
2. Cincinnati (15)
3. Iowa (17)
4. Wisconsin (25)
5. Notre Dame (31)
6. Michigan State (46)
7. Central Michigan (50)
8. Northern Iowa (61)
9. Purdue (65)
10. Michigan (66)
11. Minnesota (67)
12. Northwestern (72)
13. Iowa State (76)
14. Southern Illinois (81)
15. South Dakota State (84)
16. Northern Illinois (86)
17. OHIO (87)
18. Illinois (89)
19. Bowling Green (92)
20. Indiana (94)

I'm stopping there for now because I can't bear to look at the 2008 page. But I think that's enough.

I can appreciate that it's difficult to use these computer methods to compare top 1AA teams to low-level B1G teams; there really isn't that much data available to verify those comparisons. I'm not ready to promote N.D. State to the B1G. But what possible justification can there be for putting Cincinnati, which has been in the top 10 in the region at least six years in a row, in the MAC-level second tier behind Indiana, which can't make the top 15 in their best year? Purdue, Minnesota and Indiana have all been significantly worse than Cincinnati every year since at least 2007. Illinois's only been better one of those years.

Here's what you get for a Sagarin-objective top tier, summing the ranks for the last four years:

1. Wisconsin 68
2. Notre Dame 73
3. Ohio State 81
4. Iowa 145
5. Michigan State 148
6. Cincinnati 154
7. Michigan 176
8. Northern Illinois 227
9. Northwestern 244
10. Iowa State 251
11. Purdue 306
12. Illinois 310

That seems a reasonable group to me. Whatever criteria are used, though, I think it would be important to get them agreed to far enough in advance that teams would have a chance to play themselves on or off the list. Pick something in year x, and use that criteria to sort the teams three years later, maybe.

(MIchigan was 83 in 2008, by the way; the cut off for this list is an average of 77.5. If your average year is worse than Michigan's 2008 season--that's you, Indiana and Minnesota--you have no business being placed in a top tier.)

The only positive to this system is decreased travel expenses.  Unfortunately, it looks like it was created by a panel of profs and college administrators who were chosen for knowing absolutely nothing about sports, as to promote objectivity.

Consequently, it looks about like something your loopiest, most sports-hating prof would scribble on a bar napkin during happy hour.

And endless threads with new relegation ideas.



There's a hive mind here that everyone seems to hate adding Maryland and Rutgers because we will play traditional/original Big Ten less often, yet everyone is always up for a new game of 'make college football like European professional leagues where leagues aren't static".



I am baffled at the cognitive dissonance required to pull off these mental gymnastics.

I have a feeling this is one of those plans everyone thinks has some cool aspects until it is their team which gets demoted a level. What would your response be if it was Michigan who got demoted.

Is the author living in a fantasy land or just an idiot? How can someone spend so much time on this and not consider the obvious problems with his proposal?

Oh, he did address the scholarship differential between the divisions and suggested giving two years to let relegated teams go from 85 to 60 scholarships. LOL at the pure stupidity of that.

What would happen to every existing TV contract? What would be the financial implications of being relegated to a school like Tennessee? Wouldn't being relegated and no longer scheduling perhaps every rivalry game be a big deal for fans? At least he got well balanced divisions in our region.

Any relegation proposal is pure fantasy unless there's a HUGE shift in the focus of NCAA from profit to competitive fairness. That acknowledged, I made up one of these fantasy things myself once, but didn't bother to include FCS teams because those are schools that specifically decided they do not want to be part of the FBS arms race.

It actually wasn't that hard to create five conferences of 24 teams: http://mgoblog.com/content/michigan-museday-expansion-universalis, and each conference would have two tiers of 12.

The greater point is "WHY?" The idea that you can find one champion out of >100 teams with vastly disparate resources is insane. Note that pro leagues start feeling bloated and spread thin at about 28 teams. And then you figure we only have a dozen games against disparate schedules each year to decide. We shouldn't keep changing our system, potentially destroying rivalries and conferences built on shared culture just because Boise State or TCU will be left out--if those schools are truly on the level and can continue to be, they can find a home with a higher tier conference.

What they should have done with the BCS is make it MORE exclusive, reforming the upper tier of college football to give out their own championship to the exclusion of the mid-majors, essentially forming a different division. But then they would have had to carry the Big East.

I would say this latest realignment is exactly when the NCAA shoudl step in and create a sensical tier system, and it wouldn't be that hard to do so--just create a tier that can pay players (up to, say, $2500 a year). The big money schools can afford $300,000 a season but the Indiana States will finally be forced to drop the pretense.

I like the idea, but just saying the bottom 2 teams move down every year, and the top two move up is just crazy.  I think it would make more sense to use a 3 year sample size to determine promotion/relegation.  It allows teams that have a down year (2008) to not be penelized the next year, and also a team that has an out of the ordinary good year to be rewarded.

But that proposed East-West split has some serious competitive imbalance

I think it'd be a fun change. It'd never happen. Would make NCAA sanctions easier - relegate them a tier or two depending on the severity. 

Maybe make 10 teams per regional tier and play everyone within your tier so there's no complaints about schedules. Finish in the top 2 and you move onto a playoff. Third place finishers get to go to a playoff, top 2 get byes into next round or something. 

Fun to imagine. Never going to happen.