With the inevitable playoff discussions arising this season, I thought it'd be a good exercise to look at what major college football would look like if realigned specifically for a playoff system. So, here ya go.
8 conferences with 12 teams, geographically separated. All Power 5 teams with some GO5 and some FCS move ups that deserve a shot.
Each team plays 13 regular season games, round robin play in conference, with no conference championship game. This means you get 2 non-conference games to play non-conference rivals (i.e. Stanford vs Notre Dame).
The conferences are pretty even, except New England cause they play lacrosse or something up there.
The playoff would be all 8 conference champs, with the seeding being selected by a "committee" because we all love that.
As for Tech, I think games against Tennessee and WVU would be great to see every year.
Appalachian:
Virginia Tech
West Virginia
UNC
Duke
Wake
NC State
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Kentucky
Louisville
Appalachian State
Virginia
New England:
Maryland
Penn State
Pitt
Rutgers
Boston College
Syracuse
Temple
UConn
Navy
Army
UMass
Maine
Low Country:
Georgia
Georgia Tech
South Carolina
Clemson
Florida
Florida State
Miami
UCF
South Florida
Florida Atlantic
Georgia Southern
Coastal Carolina
Gulf Coast:
Alabama
Auburn
LSU
UL Lafayette
Arkansas
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Southern Miss
Arkansas State
Alabama Birmingham
UL Monroe
Tulane
Southwest:
Texas
Texas Tech
Texas A&M
TCU
Houston
Arizona
Arizona State
Southern Cal
UCLA
San Diego State
North Texas
New Mexico
Great Plains:
Iowa
Iowa State
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Colorado
Colorado State
Missouri
Kansas
Kansas State
North Dakota State
Tulsa
Pacific Northwest:
Washington
Washington State
Boise State
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
Cal
Eastern Washington
Nevada
UNLV
Utah
BYU
Great Lakes:
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Illinois
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Indiana
Purdue
Ohio
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Toledo
Comments
The thought of having to play WVU and Tennessee every year would give me anxiety.
We have a very easy path to the playoff every year.
But not nearly as easy as Penn State's guaranteed playoff spot each year.
The Low Country and Great Lakes are pretty brutal. Southwest is really tough too and probably has the toughest travel distances. Great Plains is pretty weak too, would expect Oklahoma to walk that schedule most seasons.
Geographically these are sound, but man they might be even more lopsided and unequal than the current P5 haha.
Penn State would have to play 2 major non-conference games every year to not be the 8 seed every playoff, but yeah....not great conference.
This would be beautiful but never will happen since the SEC and other P5 conferences have all the contracts etc but man that would be fun to see
I don't think I understand this statement:
In conjunction with this...
Interesting concept.
I'm not sure some of the lower power FBS teams would really go for this. Bowl Season is fun for everyone and a team like Ohio may make a bowl that we would scoff at but they would feel pretty good about. Unless bowls become like the NIT or some consolation prize. IDK.
Idk why i put the VT UVA thing in there haha whoops
Understandable, it's easy to forget Virginia is in the conference since they've never won an outright ACC title.
If the total revenue that has historically been much higher for the P5 was divided evenly among all teams those G5 Teams would get a huge revenue boost.
But I feel bad for Maine...
this could possibly help some small school gain revenue for their programs via TV revenue and brand awareness
They already are.
Virginia Tech & Tennessee needs to be a thing like FSU and UF and GT and UGA. UVa is a shit rival, we need another school whose rivalry will help elevate the program.
One of Auburn's selling points is telling recruits they get to play in the Iron Bowl every year. We need that type of rivalry.
Tennessee is too chicken shit to ever agree. They think too highly of themselves to allow the Vols to play an away game at lowly Lane Stadium.
Yeah, they would never agree to it. And that fan base is downright delusional and awful. My personal wish would be to play more regular games against Clemson, FSU, and NC St. A shame we can't have more of these big games against teams in our own conference. I fully support giving Syracuse and Pitt the boot to do it too.
^this. It's ridiculous that we are about to play FSU for the first time in 6 years. Waiting that long shouldn't be a thing
Tennessee hasn't been a good program for 20 years, and they've become an annual disappointment.
Not sure a rivalry with the most underachieving program in the country is helpful to VT.
Still better than UVa and ECU.
Can't argue with that!
And truthfully, a game against Tennessee each year would actually be pretty cool. I was just trying to get a dig in on the Vols.
I like this realignment.
Fun idea, but yeah, I don't foresee the major conferences giving anything up.
Where is Air Force? How you gonna have Army and Navy, but no Air Force?
Didn't you know? Nothing can stop the US Air Force!
And Space Force gets no nod either?
These conferences just don't seem very balanced. Always a fun to think about though
Our basketball conference would be a juggernaut...UK, Duke, UNC, Louisville WVU and VT.
8 conferences, 16 teams each, 2 'tiers' each, with three teams being relegated/promoted each season.
8 conferences of 16 teams in a 4 x 4 pod system with each team having 1 crossover game in each other pod and having two pods combining each year to form the two divisions whose champions would play for the conference championship game with the winner going into an 8 team playoff.
Yes!!!! Some where at my house I have every division/pod configured to preserve historic rivalries. It really took me a while to create, but it was 3 teams from your pod, another pod and your cross over for 8 games a year ... you have an a and b crossover. A is played every year B is 4 out of 6 years, you play every team twice in 6 years.
Division would change every year based on which pods played each other.
P.S. I started this in 2005 so I might not have ALL the teams.
I also came up with a fun idea...eliminate conferences for football programs (essentially everyone is Notre Dame). Teams can choose to bundle TV rights with conferences or whatever, but no conference schedules or conference championships. just schedule 2-3 rivals, 6-7 regional games, and 2-4 national games. TV contracts will dictate that the schedules be challenging and entertaining. then just use the same committee system for the playoff, but make it 8 teams since there are no more conf championships.