Redesigning College Conferences

 At a time in our country when we can agree on very little anymore - even the definition of what is true and what isn't is somehow up for debate these days - college sports fans all over the USA can agree on one thing: college athletic conferences have gone off the rails.  We have an Atlantic Coast Conference that features schools from Texas and the San Francisco Bay Area. The Big Ten, formerly the bastion of the Midwest, now has 18 teams and spans from Southern California and the Pacific Northwest all the way to New Jersey.  While this is bad enough for football teams who potentially have to travel across multiple time zones for conference games, it is much, much worse for those non-revenue, so called "Olympic" sports because they have games during the week as opposed to just on weekends.

This unnecessary expansion - all due to greed and the almighty dollar - has ruined long-standing rivalries, which are one of the things that make college sports so compelling.

So, with that in mind, I propose a radical overhaul of college conferences.  Get rid of the old names and create eight truly regional, geographically logical conferences. 

A few guidelines or guiding principles in this conference redesign:

• The conferences will all have 10 teams.  This allows for a full round-robin schedule in football (9 conference games) and a full double round-robin schedule in basketball (18 conference games).  This will foster rivalries because everyone will play everyone every year and it has the side benefit of really determining who is the best team in each conference.
• Major college teams in each state will be grouped together wherever possible.
• The service academies are considered "major college teams" in this scenario.
• The focus is on grouping current "Power 4" teams in these conferences, with a few exceptions.  So, most of the "Group of 5" teams are out of luck.  Sorry!

NOTE: When I list the number of national championships that the teams in each conference have won since 2000, I am basing this on eight main sports, four men's sports (football, basketball, baseball and soccer) and four women's sports (basketball, softball, soccer and volleyball.)  Feel free to argue with my methodology if you want, but this is my list so I make the rules.

OK, with that out of the way, here we go...starting out West and working our way back East.

Conference 1

States represented:  California, Oregon, Washington

Potential names: Pacific Coast Conference, Left Coast Conference

Members: Cal, Fresno State, Oregon, Oregon State, San Diego State, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Washington, Washington State

Championships won since 2000: 33 (tied for 2nd place)

Comments:  A conference that is truly a West Coast Conference and that only has teams in the Pacific Time Zone.  This is similar to the old Pac-8 conference, with two new California schools added.  The California schools included cover a broad swath of the state (Northern California/Bay Area, Central Valley, LA and San Diego). It restores the Apple Cup in Washington and the Civil War in Oregon.  We could potentially substitute San Jose State for Fresno State, but given that the Bay Area already has two teams included, including Fresno makes more sense to cover a broader section of California. From a media standpoint, you have 6 of the top 30 media markets in the country (LA, San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle) and exclusivity in the late Saturday night "after dark" time slots.

Conference 2

States represented:  Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah

Potential names: Rocky Mountain Conference, Cactus Conference, Western Mountain Conference

Members: Air Force, Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, BYU, Colorado, Colorado State, UNLV, Utah, Utah State

Championships won since 2000: 6 (8th place)

Comments: A mix of the old Pac-12 and the Mountain West, it features 2 schools from Arizona, 3 schools from Colorado and 3 schools from Utah.  This will significantly help with travel. We add a school from Nevada and a school from Idaho to make it a conference that truly spans the Rocky Mountain region of the country. 9 of the 10 schools are in the Mountain Time Zone. It keeps both the Holy War (BYU-Utah) and Territorial Cup (Arizona-Arizona State) as conference games and finally puts the Rocky Mountain Showdown (Colorado-Colorado State) as a conference game. From a media standpoint, you have Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Denver.

Conference 3

States represented:  Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas

Potential names: Red Dirt Conference, New Southwest Conference

Members: Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, SMU, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech

Championships won since 2000: 21 (6th place)

Comments: Part old Southwest Conference and part Big 8/12, this is a conference that is concentrated in three states that either maintains or restores a plethora of great rivalries. Texas-Texas A&M. The Red River Showdown. Bedlam. The Revivalry. While Arkansas has generally been in a different conference from the rest of the schools for the past 30+ years, they also have long, historical rivalries with Texas and Texas A&M. Nearly every game is easily driveable for fans of either team, which should only help enhance the atmosphere at games. From a media standpoint, you have all of Texas (which includes 4 of the Top 35 media markets), as well as Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas.

Conference 4

States represented:  Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin

Potential names: Great Plains Conference, Midwestern Conference

Members: Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern, Wisconsin

Championships won since 2000: 7 (7th place)

Comments: A mix of the old Big 8/Big 12 and the Big Ten, we are essentially taking the old North Division of the Big 12 and joining it with the Big Ten teams that are in the Central Time Zone.  You keep the Sunflower Showdown as a conference game and CyHawk becomes a conference game. The Missouri-Illinois Braggin' Rights game becomes a conference game as well. Nebraska has plenty of history with most of these teams, either from their Big 8/Big 12 days or from their time in the Big Ten.  All of the teams are in the same time zone and are in contiguous states. I realize that the long-time Big Ten schools may be loathe to give up their Big Ten identity, but there is (ironically) no way to keep the Big Ten together if we can only have 10 teams per conference and keep things geographically sensible. Media-wise, you have Chicago, Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha and Des Moines.

Conference 5
States represented:  Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia
Potential names: Rust Belt Conference, Great Lakes Conference
Members: Cincinnati, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, West Virginia

Championships won since 2000: 22 (5th place)

Comments: It's a combination of the traditional Big Ten teams from the Eastern Time Zone, with a couple of Big 12 teams and, of course, Notre Dame.  That gives you 3 teams from Indiana, 2 teams from

Ohio, 2 teams from Michigan, 2 teams from Pennsylvania and a team from West Virginia.  We keep several rivalries (Indiana-Purdue, Michigan-Michigan State, Michigan-Ohio State and Ohio State-Penn State) in tact as intraconference matchups.  We restore the annual Michigan-Notre Dame game and return the Backyard Brawl (Pitt-West Virginia) to being a conference game.  From a media standpoint, you have Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. Condensing this conference makes most conference games easily driveable for most visiting fans.

Conference 6
States represented:  Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi

Potential names: Gulf Coast Conference, Deep South Conference
Members: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, LSU, Miami, Mississippi State, Ole Miss

Championships won since 2000: 36 (1st place)

Comments: 70% SEC and 30% ACC, this conference covers the Deep South and the extreme

southeastern part of the country.  It gets all of the big 3 programs in Florida in the same conference for the first time and puts the main two Georgia programs in the same conference as well.  It maintains existing rivalries, some of which have been non-conference rivalries, and it ensures that Alabama-Georgia, Georgia-Florida and other big games will occur every year in football and twice a year in basketball. From a media standpoint, you have all of Florida plus Atlanta, Birmingham and New Orleans. The conference would be a powerhouse in football and baseball, with some very strong teams in men's and women's basketball as well.

Conference 7
States represented:  Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee

Potential names: Upper South Conference, Appalachian Conference
Members: Clemson, Duke, Kentucky, Louisville, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest

Championships won since 2000: 33 (tied for 2nd place)

Comments: 40% SEC and 60% ACC, this conference covers the upper and mid South regions. It consists all both major universities in South Carolina, keeps the four North Carolina Power 4 schools

together, it keeps Tennessee and Vanderbilt together and, for the first time, puts Kentucky and Louisville in the same conference.  Rivalries galore with all kinds of intrastate match-ups. It should be a premier basketball conference with the storied programs from Kentucky and Louisville joining the Research Triangle schools and Tennessee.  I suspect Tennessee fans would not like being separated from Alabama and Georgia, but if they wanted to, they could always schedule games against those school in non-conference.  As with the Big Ten division, there was no way to stay at 10 teams and keep the entire current SEC together.  Instead, we focus on the geographic proximity and in-state rivalries while still keeping a chunk of the old SEC together.  This conference would be particularly dominant in sports like soccer, basketball and baseball (30 combined championships in those sports since 2000). Major media markets included in this conference are Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Nashville, Memphis and Louisville.

Conference 8
States represented:  Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia

Potential names: Mid-Atlantic Conference, East Coast Conference
Members: Army, Boston College, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Navy, Rutgers, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech 

Championships won since 2000: 28 (4th place)

Comments: This was the most difficult conference to assemble and it is arguably the least cohesive geographically.  However, that is largely a function of the lack of big time college sports programs in the Northeast.  Having said that, this conference keeps the two main college programs in Virginia in the same conference and adds programs in a contiguous state with Maryland and Navy.  Army-Navy remains a conference match-up and by grouping Boston College and UMass together, we have another in-state matchup. While this conference may be weak on the football side of things, its teams have combined for 20 men's and women's basketball national titles since 2000 (16 for UConn of course, but some for Maryland (2), Virginia and Syracuse as well) and 7 national championships in men's soccer, spread amongst 4 different teams.  Needless to say, this conference covers most of the major media markets in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern part of the country, including New York, Boston, Baltimore and D.C.

There you go!  What do you think?  While I realize this is a pipe dream because of the insane amount of money that the current college conferences generate, I think this is an alternative that balances the media considerations with geographic proximity.  It helps to foster in-state and regional rivalries and eases the travel burdens, especially for those sports besides football where many of the games are during the school week.