College Football Realignment

College football is a mess. A wave of defections rolls across the conferences every few years resulting in a litany of absurdities. The Big 12 has 14 teams. The Big 10 has 18. The Pac-12 has 2. UC Berkeley and Stanford are in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Missouri is in the Southeastern Conference.

There are financial and competitive reasons for how this has turned out. But what if we created a a broad framework and let the system evolve from there?

There were 131 teams in Division I across 10 conferences and a few independents when I looked at this a few years ago. What if we divided the teams up geographically and then subdivided into major and minor conferences?

In my new system, there are four geographic areas, North, South, West, and Southeast. The major division is 16 teams and the minor division is at least 16 teams. A promotion/relegation system allows teams to move between major and minor divisions. A minor team can refuse a promotion if they don’t want to increase their spending.

The universal 16 teams in the major divisions allow for a standard schedule and playoff system.

My breakdown of the conferences and divisions are here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/116FlJ8c32d21EBz571Wam5rca9y0TYPSDWp6ReqQ_GM/edit?usp=sharing