Theoretical FBS football conferences

[bigdaddyg]

I’m just drinking some coffee and tired of the same crappy App negative stuff. I’m curious to see what some of you guys might come with on this question. If the FBS programs were completely restructured to create new (football only) conferences consisting of 10 teams in each with the criteria being the perceived best to worst based on the past 5 years how might it shake out? The top conference would obviously include Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Notre Dame,...

I’m mostly curious to see where we would place App and who would make up the worst conference. The top probably is SEC heavy and the bottom Sunbelt heavy.

My thought is that many P5’s would be relegated to conferences down the listing and a good number of G5’s would be placed in the top 5 (top 50 teams overall). I haven’t really come up with my top conference but eye test and records are huge.

[Bootsy]

It's an interesting thought, especially given the Knight Commission's recent recommendations for FBS to bolt from the NCAA.

I do believe COVID has helped accelerate the discussion around how to resolve long standing financial and competitive challenges in FBS. And it isn't like the NCAA has ever shown true leadership and consistency where the FBS is concerned (blatant example: NCAA's handling of players wishing to enter the transfer portal...I rest my case).

Now that air travel is on its last legs and no one has the cash to fly anywhere anyway, do we finally see right-sizing of conferences from a geographical and competitive standpoint? Travel budgets are pretty large, so closer conference foes would mean savings that go right to the bottom line.

It would be a huge boon for fans who want to see their team play more often but

• Don't have the cash to fly but would gladly drive to a game

• Have the cash but wanna spend it on good whiskey, bitcoin, a new dishwasher (or whatever)

• Don't want to risk their health on a plane

I'd imagine schools in the P5's with consistently crappy football teams would wail, cry and wring their hands if shuffled in a future conference realignment. But with the financial squeeze worsening for everyone, who's going to listen? Their stronger conference mates? The TV folks? Answer is no, on both counts.

And call me crazy, but would any team in the Sun Belt, Conf-USA, MAC or AAC be all that upset if the conferences were realigned. Maybe a few in the AAC, but not too many.

I think it would be great for FBS football, especially teams at the G5 level. There are some really good teams in the mid-atlantic and southeastern US that are at/near parity with App. We could see some really fun and interesting matchups like a regular meeting with ECU, Marshall, ODU, Charlotte, etc.

[ah59396]

I’ve always thought the perfect solution was tying a P5 to a G5 conference and doing promotion/relegation. Football only.

PAC-12 ties to Mountain West.
SEC to SunBelt.
BIG10 to MAC.
BIG12 to CUSA.
ACC to AAC.

Win the SunBelt? Congratulations you play in the SEC next season. Come in last in the SEC? Sorry Vandy, welcome to the SunBelt.

It makes complete sense until you start throwing in money interests which tends to ruin most things.

[bigdaddyg]

I should have added one caveat. In this discussion money would be irrelevant. The restructuring and relegation is based solely on how good or bad a team is. In my mind App would be in conference #3 or #4 as we have hovered in the top 40ish for the past 5 years on average. Coastal would not yet sniff the top 5 conferences as prior to this year they sucked. Several teams vying for the top conference would include Michigan and Oklahoma. They would probably get in. For the sake of this discussion geography is also irrelevant. Would we end up with Boise, Cincinnati? Who would the top G5’s be in terms of conference rankings?

[BeauFoster]

Again?