Posted on 08/19/2016 1:23:16 PM PDT by dangus
I'm not delusional enough to think that the Big East realigned because I suggested it. I didn't even suggest adding Creighton and Butler. But in case somewhere out there IS reading: Here's a proposal for the next great realignment. First an explanation:
The NCAA has rescinded the corrupt and stupid rule that a conference needs to have 12 teams in order to have a highly profitable football conference championship game. Also, the AAC is the big loser in the new playoff system; whereas most football conferences will make a LOT more money, the ACC will lose almost half of their FBS revenue. The AAC never made any sense, other than as a disastrous attempt to meet the championship requirement. It's an ungainly attempt to wed teams which have good basketball programs and want to develop good football programs to teams which have decent football programs and need to form alliances.
So here's the plan:
The American sheds Connecticut, Tulsa, Tulane, East Carolina and Southern Methodist who are largely out of their league in football. Tulsa's not bad, but they're a small school with little chance at getting batter. Connecticut's a great basketball team, but a lousy football team. This allows U-Conn to re-join the Big East in basketball, and stay in a football conference. U-Mass joins U-Conn for football, along with aspiring FBS teams from the FCS, Villanova and Richmond. There's an eight-team football conference.
In basketball, Wichita St., S.F. Austin, South Dakota St and Northern Iowa can join the new conference for non-football sports, creating a far more geographically rational conference of mostly Great-Plains teams. And also one that's as competitive in basketball as the American was.
Meanwhile, VCU aspires one day to be in a FBS conference, so they can join the American for the day that happens, and enjoy a strong basketball conference in the meanwhile. The new American conference should also attract BYU, which has been looking for a conference since anti-religion bigots seem to have blocked their bid to join the Pac 10. It will be a far stronger football conference, but as a basketball conference it will even have more tournament-quality teams and fewer weak teams, meaning those quality teams will see more of each other. So, here is the new, smaller American Athletic Conference (listed by their pre-season football rankings):
14. Houston
30. South Florida
36. Navy (football only)
42. Brigham Young (football only)
46. Temple
60. Memphis
73. Cincinnati
112. Central Florida
VCU (future football member?)
Richmond (future football member?)
The new spun-off conference will be more basketball-centered for now, with seven of of nine teams likely to be competitive in their pursuit of an NCAA bid next year. At the same time, many of its football teams will be poised for growth. Here they are, listed by their 2015-2016 basketball RPI rankings:
13. Southern Methodist (Dallas)
28. South Dakota State (non-football)
47. Wichita St. (non-football)
61. S. F. Austin (non-football)
65. Rice (Houston)
66. Tulsa
71. Northern Iowa (non-football)
217. Eastern Carolina
231. Tulane (New Orleans)
Connecticut (football only)
Massachusetts (new, football only)
Villanova (future football only)
There are a lot of winners: the entire American conference, the entire new conference, Brigham Young, Connecticut, Massachusetts. But despite being raided, the Atlantic 10 doesn't really lose. It loses VCU and Richmond, but it hands on to U-Mass and one of the teams that the Big East would have eventually raided them for. And 11 or 12 teams is a more manageable size, anyway.
If there is a big loser, it's the Midwest Valley Conference (MVC) . But with Creighton already gone to the Big East, the MVC was no longer a mid-major with realistic aspirations to becoming a major; It was a minor conference with two or three decent teams who ate up all the attention. Maybe Southern Illinois can even join Northern Iowa and Wichita State in the new conference. (There's no guarantee S F Austin will fit in.)
The MVC will always be a proving ground for teams with aspirations to go elsewhere. Like Iowa and Nebraska (now in the Big 10); Iowa State, Kansas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma St. (now in the Big 12); Missouri (SEC); Creighton and Butler (Big East), Saint Louis (Atlantic 10), Tulsa, Saint Louis, Houston, Cincinnati, and Memphis (American); and Louisville (ACC).
Alternatively, Connecticut or Cincinnati could just join the ACC, and the ACC could split into: the traditional ACC (UNC, NC St, Duke, Wake Forest, VA, FSU, Clemson and Georgia Tech) and the former Big East (Connecticut, Notre Dame, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami, Va Tech, Louisville)!
Yes, that’s an entire conference of 8 teams that used to be in the Big East. That’s as many teams as the Big East or ACC originally had!
I have seen so many potential conference changes that I have no idea what is really going on.
I could see OU and Oklahoma State going to the SEC.
***Also, the AAC is the big loser in the new playoff system; whereas most football conferences will make a LOT more money, the ACC will lose almost half of their FBS revenue.***
Well, the reason for that is they suck.
Take Clempson (aka Pickens Tec) and Florida State out of the equation and they are simply a basketball conference, nothing else.
How about the top 64 football teams form their own NCAA division for an 8 team playoff. Everybody else in FBS realign for the remaining bowls. Even put the service academies and say Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Rice, and Tulane into an academic football group.
They certainly don’t have the depth of the SEC. But I was actually talking about the American, not the Atlantic Coast. All this “such-and-such conference sucks!” is really quite lame IMHO. One could say that the SEC East is a basketball conference, except they don’t have any good basketball programs.
Now, the American can’t hold a candle to the SEC or the ACC. But I was discussing how to make it even half-way decent.
I can't guess the endgame. Right now, the traditional major conferences still coast on the vestiges of ancient rivalries, honed over four or five generations of play stretching back to the early years of the last century. As older alumni die off, however, these traditional associations will die with them. Why young people going off to college today should buy into the now erzatz "traditions" is beyond me.
Penn State, for example, is probably an ok addition to the Big Ten, as it is a big, academically respectable state university next door to Ohio and far enough west to be midwestern in flavor. But Rutgers and Maryland? No disrespect to those schools, but why not UCLA or Texas or Florida while we're at it. The notion of a conference has become a joke.
Actually, the way things are going, I’d just about suggest that the rest of the NCAA clean itself up by telling the ACC, SEC, Big 10 and Pac 12 to take a hike. New rule: if your athletic recruits don’t meet your admission standards, they’re out. The SJWs would scream exclusion, but is it better to send the athletes to non-existent courses, just so you can claim to have black scholars?
Bye-bye North Carolina. Hit the road Ohio State. On your way, UCLA. Excuse yourself, Syracuse. To the prison cells with you, Penn State. Kansas, Kentucky, quit calling yourselves universities and admit you’re an NBA rookie league.
It’d be interesting to see if schools like Notre Dame, Duke, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Northwestern, USC, Stanford, etc., choose the Big 5 whores or the new real-student-athlete NCAA, but I’m not betting on them making the principled call.
If they did bust up the NCAA, it’d be fun guessing where the decent schools go if they join the student-athlete schools over the training-league schools
Stanford, BYU, USC, TCU, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, Notre Dame? For basketball only, add Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount? That would be a fun conference!
Would the ACC split? Duke, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Virginia, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, BC go scholars while FSU, NC, NC state, Louisville, Miami, Pittsburgh, Syracuse go for cash? If the ACC split, would they take in new teams to join the whores? Temple? Connecticut? Memphis? Cincinnati? If Miami didn’t join the whores, would South Florida and Central Florida have their shot at the big time with the whores? Or would even the whores say, “nah, you’re just not built for porn.” Or would they actually figure that staying in the scholarly side of things actually make them look good academically?
>> A “conference” should be an association of similar schools, sharing a common (usually geographical) identity, that choose a football and basketball champion the old fashioned way: <<
I absolutely agree. That’s why I was elated when the “Big East Seven” ditched the football teams. And why I’d love to see the ACC split back into the traditional ACC and the clubs they raided from the Big East. And why I’d enjoy seeing the AAC pare itself back down.
>> Penn State, for example, is probably an ok addition.... But Rutgers and Maryland? <<
Fun fact: Rutgers used to be Ivy League, but they bailed because they didn’t like the Ivy League’s focus on football over academics. Seriously.
Maryland is a better school than Penn State these days. And Penn State is way closer to Rutgers and Maryland than to any other Big 10 school.
If I totally had my druthers, I’d like to see Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, West Virginia, Temple, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Virginia form a conference. Natural rivalries, lots in common, parity. I like 8 or 9 team conferences more than 15-team conferences.
Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Cincinnati?
Iowa, Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas St, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Nebraska?
Do Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Houston go with Baylor, SMU, TCU, and Tulsa? Or with Arkansas, LSU, Tulane, Memphis, and UTEP?
Can we separate the real southern colleges from the frat houses and football schools? I propose that Duke, NC State, Georgia Tech, Auburn, Clemson, Louisville, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt wouldn’t be nearly as inferior to UNC, Miami, Alabama, Miss, Ole Miss, Kentucky, Arkansas, Florida State, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee as people think.
Let’s get real: time for the NFL to raid Alabama, LSU and maybe Florida. That’ll open up some spots in the SEA.
The major conferences will not break up for at least another generation. Too much money from TV contracts. BIG10 schools make over $20 million each just from the BIG10 network.
Another thing I like is local pre-season basketball tournaments.
Louisville, Cincinatti, Xavier, Dayton, Ohio State, Kentucky, Bowling Green and Miami of Ohio.
Boston College, U-Mass, U-Conn, U-RI, Providence, Holy Cross, Harvard and Brown. (Not too worried about Harvard and Brown meeting in the finals)
Don’t have eight teams? Make a round-robin of it, like Philly does: Villanova, La Salle, St Joseph’s, Penn, Temple, (But it wouldn’t kill to add Penn St., Princeton, Lehigh).
Why not George Washington, Georgetown, George Mason, Navy, Maryland, Virginia Tech?
Of course not. #9 was “OK, let’s do fantasy.”
yarddog wrote: “I could see OU and Oklahoma State going to the SEC.”
Highly unlikely. The state of Oklahoma doesn’t have the population to support two teams in the SEC. Most polls indicate that 75% of the state are OU fans. It’s not financially viable for the SEC to take both teams.
OU has made it very clear that SEC would be their last choice. If OU leaves the Big XII, they will go to the PAC or the B1G. BTW, B1G has ‘vetted’ OU for membership.
I could see OU in the B1G with Kansas while Texas reconstitutes the South West Conference augmenting the remnants of the Big XII with AAC teams.
Never happen. OU is not going anywhere without OSU. The politicians would not allow it.
OU has nothing in common with the B1G or PAC. I don’t think those conferences want OU either. Again nothing in common.
Also I think the SEC cares more about the quality of athletics, specifically football. If the quality is there, the money will follow eventually.
But, since you brought up basketball, the SEC has 11 national basketball championships. They are not exactly slackers.
Now back to your topic. The AAC is certainly a conference that has a lot going for it. I think that should be fostered and they be taken seriously as the conference grows in competitiveness.
How to reform the system? I'd begin by insisting on a full round robin, with no divisions and no conference playoff. And cut college football back to the traditional ten game schedule. Then institute the national championship playoff that should have been adopted decades ago: an eight team playoff with five or six automatic bids to the major conference champions; conference champions only, with no second or third place teams; two or three spots left for the top independents or minor conference champions.
The conferences would slim down to something approximately their traditional sizes, and I'd bet that the old regional commonalities would reassert themselves pretty quickly.
Since the colleges show no signs of kicking their addiction to tv dollars, none of this is likely to happen. TV has corrupted almost everything it touches. I'd be happy to abolish college scholarships, return all sports to a club level, and tell the NFL to run its own farm system.
Hmm....I suppose the Big 12, with 10 schools, could have a conference playoff but they would do better to add more schools. They’re stronger than AAC. I would suggest BYU and Memphis.
Playoff game could be at Kansas City, or maybe St. Louis now and then.
yarddog wrote: “Never happen. OU is not going anywhere without OSU. The politicians would not allow it.” The only ones who say that are OSU fans who know that they’re toast unless OU takes them along. It’s mostly wishful thinking on the part of OSU fans.
Exactly right. Why not put BYU in the Big East or ACC? Seriously however, I will never get used to the new alignments. Missouri in SEC? Nebraska in Big 10? Why isn’t Notre Dame in the Big 10? It makes sense since most of their rivals are in that conference (Michigan, Mich St., Purdue). Also, it makes more geographical sense. It will never be the same without the yearly Nebraska-Oklahoma or Texas vs Texas A&M games.
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