I've been having some thoughts about expansion and more importantly about some of the factors that might one day drive some conferences to reach beyond their regions for reasons other than culture and fit, like markets and recruits.

I believe it is in all of our interests to find away to address these issues without having unnatural alignments and outliers for our conferences.

My proposal is as follows. First of all let's look at a limit to the size of conferences. If we all agree on 16 fine. I'm beginning to see some benefits to a limit of 15 per conference and a limit of 4 conferences total. How do we do this? We establish hard requirements for the full tuition lifetime scholarship, cost of living stipends, ancillary benefits a student might expect with regards to class preparation, provide tutors, and then establish requirements for the size and accessibility of venues, media, and all other facilities for sports offered. Then we find out if all members of our present conferences have the desire to agree to and implement the requirements. Once some schools opt out, and some will, we set the limit of either 15 or 16 schools per conference. Then we secure those positions. Everyone must be a full member and only play a P4 schedule.

For instance here is a sample idea:

ACC North: Boston College, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
ACC Central: Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
ACC South: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, N.C. State

SEC East: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vanderbilt
SEC Central: Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee
SEC West: Arkansas, Louisiana State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas A&M

PAC North: Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Washington State
PAC South: Arizona, Arizona State, California, Cal Los Angeles, Southern Cal
PAC East: Colorado, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, Utah

Big 10 East: Maryland, Penn State, Purdue, Ohio State, Rutgers
Big 10 Central: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Wisconsin
Big 10 West: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Northwestern

If any drop out you have West Virginia, Connecticut, Baylor, Iowa State and Kansas State to choose from, or another. Internal Conference playoffs are set up with 3 divisional champs and the team with the best remaining record in conference play. The four champions advance to the playoff.

All games are set for the P4. Each conference will have one of the first three weekends designated for playing the entirety of each other conference. The games are determined by the previous year's finish. 1 plays 1 right on through position 15 (or 16).

The regular scheduling to all regions of the country helps with recruiting all regions. Schools in areas with diminishing populations will be permitted to sign an extra 5 scholarships per year. This allows them to build depth without stealing recruits from other regions, but rather take the best of what is left with which to build their programs. Therefore there is no need for a conference to grow beyond its region and into an unnatural formation. If the additional scholarships help to level the playing field then it will be worth it for the good of the game.

Thoughts?

Why do you have Baylor out, but Vanderbilt and Wake Forest in? Baylor is a larger school than both and has a better athletic program than both. Do you honestly think those schools would step up to fulfill the new requirements and Baylor wouldn't? Baylor's football stadium already holds almost 5,000 more than Vanderbilt and almost 14,000 more than Wake Forest. The only reason I could see Vandy in over Baylor is due to their endowment, but Wake Forest and Baylor are even on that. Those 3 Texas schools will not move on without Baylor. There are too many Baylor Alums with deep pockets to allow that to happen, especially now.

(09-14-2014 07:52 AM)BaylorFerg Wrote:  Why do you have Baylor out, but Vanderbilt and Wake Forest in? Baylor is a larger school than both and has a better athletic program than both. Do you honestly think those schools would step up to fulfill the new requirements and Baylor wouldn't? Baylor's football stadium already holds almost 5,000 more than Vanderbilt and almost 14,000 more than Wake Forest. The only reason I could see Vandy in over Baylor is due to their endowment, but Wake Forest and Baylor are even on that. Those 3 Texas schools will not move on without Baylor. There are too many Baylor Alums with deep pockets to allow that to happen, especially now.

The starting point for the (hypothetical) was the increase of the remaining 4 conferences to a 4 x 15 model. I noted that there would be schools would could not meet the requirements and that their spots would be taken by Iowa State, Baylor, Kansas State, Connecticut, West Virginia, etc. I really just didn't want the thread to devolve into a defense of the schools I projected to drop out. So look at the ACC, SEC, Big 10, and PAC and think about the few privates that would likely opt out and the couple of public schools that might as well, and then you can see where you would plug in.

Like I said if such a move were made we should have strict enforcement of the requirements to belong. And frankly I think we still wind up with 60 schools that would include Iowa State, Baylor, Kansas State, and West Virginia.

I'm not sure about your criteria, but I really like the 4 X 15.

(09-14-2014 01:32 PM)XLance Wrote:  I'm not sure about your criteria, but I really like the 4 X 15.

The biggest motivation for the now wounded Big 10 to expand into the South is going to be recruiting. The extra 5 scholarships won't take players from the SEC and ACC all of whom would rather play closer to home, but would give the Big 10 access to a broader number of 3 and lower 4 star players that might otherwise go to schools who are in the top of the G5. Broadening their pool a bit to compensate for their natural deficits should blunt their desire to expand out of their culture base. And it should help to stabilize the second highest percentage of viewers for the game in general.