Default Division Decisions
If this is it. Pac 12
N S
UW ASU
WSU Arizona
Oregon Colorado
OrST Utah
Stanford UCLA
Cal USC
This works out pretty nice. No protected rivalries needed? Does not seem overly difficult.
Compare to...The League of 12
N S
Minnesota Nebraska
Wisconsin Iowa
MSU Penn State
Michigan Ohio State
NW Illinois
Purdue Indiana
Works out pretty nice. One protected rivalry needed. Better top to bottom than the Pac12 and at least on par with the SEC Conference. I'd be good with this.
Simple E-W split. No protected rivalries needed (unles you want to keep Illinois-Indiana and NW-Purdue). Reasonable competitive balance (last year you would have had the three best teams in the conference by a mile in the South, maybe the four best depending on what you think of Wisconsin v. Nebraska). Makes more sense geographically (your South division includes teams 1100 miles apart; an E-W split maxes out at 550 miles from State College to West Lafayette).
E-W comes out ahead on all three factors (rivalries, geography, balance; personally I think the last is the least important because it's guaranteed to shift over time).
Please stop changing the name of the Big Ten to something 12 related.
and other conferences need as well, is to stop using numbers in the names of our leagues.
Now, I'm not useful enough to come up with a solution to the problem I've identified, but I'm sure someone could devise a catchy name with no numerical digits.
Pretty soon, corporate sponsors will be knocking on the door to asign their names to the conferences. I could see some of the non-BCS conferences folding pretty easily if approached.
Something tells me the California schools will stay together in the Pac-12. I predict:
South:
ASU
Arizona
USC
UCLA
Cal
Stanford
North:
Utah
Colorado
Washington
Washington St.
Oregon
Oregon St.
I also think there is no way they split Michigan and Ohio St. and there is no way they put OSU, PSU, and Nebraska in the same division.
Do you know Arnold? If so, I belief you.
CBS 4 in Denver is reporting rumors of this split:
South:
USC
UCLA
ASU
Arizona
Colorado
Utah
North:
Washington
Washington St.
Oregon
Oregon St.
Stanford
Cal
I have a feeling that UM OSU PSU and we know Nebraska will bring the fans to away games. If 3 of those 4 are in the same division that is more revenue for that 1 side of the league. That is another thing they will look at. Also if you split up them every year a team will get to have 3 of the big 4 on there schedule and at least 1 of them at home 1 year with 2 the next year.
if you think USC v Stanford and Cal v UCLA are not protected rivalries. My father is a USC alumni, and the only team he hates more than Stanford is Notre Dame.