(01-18-2022 07:31 PM)bullet Wrote: (01-17-2022 03:23 PM)XLance Wrote: I was wrong. 69 is not the end, but 70.
I'm convinced that Notre Dame won't budge, and they will just have to live in limbo until 2035-36.
We need to start looking at 15, 15, 15, 12, 12 and Notre Dame.
Interesting that you choose those numbers. 1969 season, January 1, 1970 was Notre Dame's first bowl in 45 years. Played Texas in the Cotton Bowl. They finally broke their tradition of no bowl games.
They will be in a conference eventually, but it will be when independence no longer works for them. Had Kelly not come along, we might be there. But he's brought back some success.
Bullet, we now have a problem and it's the SEC. No the conference, but future SEC scheduling. 16 looks good on paper, but it's a scheduling nightmare. Four pods of 4? Eight teams in a division? No matter how you look at it 16 just doesn't quite fit the bill. The solution being floated is now 18 team conferences?
Realignment has a hard time working, because the right schools are in the wrong place (of vice versa). Maybe the real solution is to allow the Big 12 to survive as a 12 team conference along with the PAC and have the B1G, SEC, and ACC come in at 15 each where the scheduling matrix actually works.
The B1G gets to 15 by adding Kansas
Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa
Michigan, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern
Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers
The ACC gets to 15 by adding either Kentucky or South Carolina (I actually prefer Kentucky, but I don't think the Cats are in the "right" location to make the divisions work).
Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, Miami
Florida State, Clemson, South Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest
Virginia Tech, UVa, Carolina, Duke, Georgia Tech
The SEC gets to 15 by losing a team
Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Missouri
Florida, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky
Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Alabama, LSU
Big 12
BYU, Texas Tech, TCU, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Iowa State
Baylor, Houston, Cincinnati, West Virginia, UCF,
USF
PAC
Washington, WSU, Oregon, OSU, Stanford, Cal
USC, UCLA, Arizona, ASU, Utah, Colorado
Scheduling becomes easier for everyone, and football becomes a little more regionally oriented and because conferences/divisions aren't so big that nobody can remember which teams are in which division.
Notre Dame? They can do what ever they do, until........