College Football Realignment

It's about time!
I know, I've been talking about my plan to fix college football for over a year, and now, with the near-Armageddon in the Big 12, my argument may fall on deaf, or over-loaded, ears.

First, let's go over the problems with the current system..
- The BCS is a flawed system that takes the decision-making, and eventual blame, out of the hands of humans.
- The bowl system is imperfect and discriminatory.
- Pre- and early-season polling relies on judgment calls and assumptions, and weighs on the final standings too much.
- There is hardly ever a TRUE National Champion. No matter how easy your schedule was or how far out of nowhere you came, if you haven't lost you can't be counted out of the National Championship.

Obviously, the most prominent solution/alternative to the current situation is a playoff system. Unfortunately, the powers-that-be have some decent arguments against a playoff.
- The season is long enough. The break between the regular season and the bowls gives the student-athletes time to take finals and finish the semester/quarter strong.
- A playoff gives the "little guy" too much of a chance. One officiating mistake and Ball State could beat USC for the title.
- The bowl games provide thousands of dollars in sponsorship money and ratings.
- Who is more deserving of a playoff spot? A 9-3 third-place team in the SEC, a 10-2 second-place team in the Big East, or an 11-1 MAC Champion???

I have an answer for everything except the money. The money is always a problem. It's like trying to justify dating a girl with a history of cheating... no matter how much she's reformed, no matter how many positive reasons there may be, the fact will always remain... she's done it before, she'll do it again.

First, this requires some conference re-figuring... because the best way to alleviate scheduling issues and conference strength is to make them more comparable. So, if there are 120 teams, the simple solution would be ten 12-team conferences. That way the ones that are already 12, don't have to break-up. Here's how it would look...

ACC (stays the same): BC, Clemson, Duke, Florida St., Ga Tech, Maryland, Miami, UNC, NC State, Virginia, Va Tech, Wake.
Big12 (stays the same): Baylor, Colorado, Iowa St., Kansas, K-State, Mizzou, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas, A&M, Tech.
SEC (stays the same): Bama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Miss St., South Carolina, Tennessee, Vandy.
MAC (stays the same -Temple): Akron, Ball St., Bowling Green, Buffalo, Cent. Mich., East. Mich., Kent St., Miami OH, No. Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, West. Mich.
Big Ten (+1): Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan St., Northwestern, Ohio St., Penn St., Purdue, Wisconsin, Notre Dame.
Pac-10 (+2): Arizona, Arizona St., Cal, Oregon, Oregon St., Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington St., San Diego St., San Jose St.
Big East (+4): Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Pitt, Rutgers, South Florida, Syracuse, West Virginia, Temple, Army, Navy, Marshall.
New West: Boise St., Fresno St., Hawaii, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Air Force, Utah, Utah St., BYU, UNLV, Colorado St.
New South: Houston, Rice, TCU, UTEP, North Texas, SMU, New Mexico, NM St., Tulsa, La-Lafayette, La-Monroe, La Tech.
New Southeast: East Carolina, FAU, FIU, Middle Tennessee St., Arkansas St., Memphis, So. Miss., Troy, Tulane, UAB, UCF, West. Kentucky.

Pretty cool, huh? Sure, you break up the WAC, MWC, C-USA, and Sun Belt, while leaving the MAC intact, but you have to crack a few eggs... yada, yada, yada. Let's look at the benefits...
- Smaller schools can cut back on travel costs (putting the savings towards recruiting and facility upgrades, thereby making them more competitive).
- All the small schools from the same state are together. It's regionally sound.
- No major rivalries were destroyed. In fact, I've brought some back (TCU v. SMU) and opened the door for some new ones (anyone for a yearly Boise St. v. Utah game?).
(My only problem was with which California "State" schools to bring into the Pac-10. Not sure why Frenso (or for that matter Hawaii) got the short end. It's the one regional loop hole... except with South Florida being in the Big East and BC in the ACC already. Can we just switch them? Would anyone else notice?)

Okay, so just moving teams around doesn't solve the problem of determining the true champs. Here are my scheduling changes...
- All teams play all 11 conference games. Each team may, by choice, schedule a "preseason" non-conference game which will count if it's against a FBS school.
- The conference season will start the weekend after and go for 12 weeks (ending on Thanksgiving weekend ideally), with a bye week to be used at any point other than the first or last weekend at the discretion of the conference.
- Teams may play on Thursdays or Fridays at the discretion of the conference.
- There will be no divisions or conference championship games.
- The post-season will consist of a five-round, 16-team tournament, with a round each weekend for the remainder of the season (ideally finishing the first weekend of January... the same time the season finishes now).

Sounds interesting, but how do you get the 16 teams?
- The BCS rankings will still be used, but there will be no official polls/rankings prior to the eighth week of the season to prevent bias from hype, recruiting success, expectations, and previous seasons' results. (For example, most preseason polls would probably have Texas in the Top 10 this year. Let's say they lose 3 games. If they start at #10, they might finish at #18 or something. But if they start unranked (like everyone else) then we know their end of the season ranking will more accurately reflect how they played in the current season.)
- The only change to the BCS will be that no team may be ranked higher than any other team that has fewer losses. So, a 9-3 Texas must be ranked lower than a 10-2 North Texas.
- The 10 conference champions will have an automatic spot in the tournament (if more than two teams are tied for the lead, a la the Big 12 South in 2008, the team with the highest BCS ranking will be awarded the automatic spot).
- The remaining 6 at-large spots will be determined by the 6 highest ranked teams in the BCS that did not win their conference.
- Each team will be seeded by its BCS rank no matter how they finished in their conference.
- The first round will consist of teams seeded 9th - 16th playing each other at neutral sites (#9 v. #16, #10 v. #15, #11 v. #14, #12 v. #13).
- The winner of each first round game will be reseeded to play the #5 - #8 teams at neutral sites in the second round. Then those winners will be reseeded for the quarterfinals against the #1 #4 teams. The tournament continues with reseeding after each round, giving the higher seeds a technical advantage.
- Each game can be referred to as a current bowl with a sponsor. Like the semi-finals could be the Nokia Sugar Bowl and the FedEx Orange Bowl with the championship in the Rose Bowl presented by AT&T.
- Of course, the winner of the final is the National Champion... no questions asked.
- Finally, all teams that win 7 games or more and aren't in the tournament will be invited to the non-tournament bowl games.

Sure, there are problems. What happens if Alabama goes 12-0 is #1 and loses to 9-3 #10 South Florida? Well, too bad, so sad.
First of all, the lack of a non-conference schedule could be viewed as a problem because teams don't have warm-up games to get the kinks out. But, there is no reason why you couldn't schedule the one preseason game against a cupcake. This prevents teams from padding their records with 4 or 5 cupcakes. If you can't beat a majority of your conference opponents, you don't deserve to be in the post-season. Enough of these bowl teams with a 3-5 conference record.
Toss some criticisms at me. I welcome them. Let's work out a more perfect situation.