Bring on the Power 4
Realignment talk is heating up again.
Mike Farrell • Rivals.com
Recruiting Director
@rivalsmike
BRING ON THE 'POWER FOUR'
And finally today, are you tired of crappy out-of-conference games? Are you sick and tired of the Big 12 always falling short overall compared to the other Power Five conferences when it comes to quantity of teams. I have a solution. It’s called the Power Four, and here’s how it works.
The Big 12 is gone. See ya. There will be three 16-team conferences and one 17-team conference (thanks Notre Dame) and the winner of each conference goes to the playoff. All games are in conference every year with the only one per year game exception that allows for games against other Power Five schools. After all, we still want to see Notre Dame-USC and others, right? But what about the Group of Five? Sorry, you will have to pull a UCF and go undefeated to miss the playoff. Let’s be real, a Group of Five team isn’t going to make the playoff anyhow.
Here are the four conferences:
THE BIG 16
East: Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana. Add Kansas State from the Big 12.
West: Wisconsin, Northwestern, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue. Add Iowa State from the Big 12.
My take: This doesn’t change much in the Big Ten, but Iowa State and Iowa can continue their rivalry and Kansas State would make some waves here and there.
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SEC
East: Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Missouri. Add Kansas from the Big 12.
West: Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Arkansas. Add Texas Tech from the Big 12.
My take: Poor Kansas and poor Texas Tech, but no need to add more power to the conference right?
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ACC
Coastal: Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Duke, North Carolina. Add West Virginia from the Big 12.
Atlantic: Clemson, Florida State, Syracuse, NC State, Boston College, Louisville, Wake Forest. Add TCU from the Big 12 and Notre Dame.
My take: West Virginia would be great in the Coastal and would get that Pitt rivalry going on the field and in recruiting. TCU would cause some problems, and Notre Dame in the same division as Clemson would be awesome.
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PAC-16
North: Oregon, Oregon State, Cal, Stanford, Washington State, Washington. Colorado moves to North. Baylor moves from Big 12.
South: USC, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA. Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State added from Big 12.
My take: Moving Colorado north makes sense with so many south-central teams coming in. The South would be amazing with USC, Texas and Oklahoma all battling at the top, along with other quality teams like Utah and Arizona State.
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Smart? Stupid? Otherwise? I know it’s impossible and won’t happen, but it sure is fun to imagine it. The ACC and the Pac-16 would certainly be much more interesting than they are now. This isn’t life-altering by any means, but every game would be at least interesting, and we’d have no more padded scores and stats from wins over San Jose State, Wofford and others.
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