FanPost

Expansion and Beyond

The following is a late night revelation brought on by prescribed Hydrocodiene and sleep deprivation. None the less, it all seemed so perfect at the time.

This is only my opinion and should not be taken as fact (I'm looking at you, ESPN). I'm also sorry for the length; I tried being as concise as possible.

Last night I had a revelation about Big XI expansion and what that would mean to college football. The way it stands now, the college football landscape looks like this:

Cfdia_medium

via upload.wikimedia.org


Pretty standard.

BIG XI EXPANSION

Now, what I am about to say goes against what Jim Delany, but the following is what I want for Big XI expansion; Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas all join the Big XI, and here's why. All three are in the correct geographic area for the BigXI, all three participate in the correct sports in the Big XI and most importantly, all belong to the AAU which seems like the actual real requirement to getting into the Big XI, considering that neither ADs or coaches sign those contracts, the university presidents sign them. The Big XI is much more about academia than most would assume. 2 of the 3 inhabit the same football climate as Iowa does: lots of pigskin love, but no pro team. Most importantly, these are the schools that make this little theory of mine work.

The Big Fourteen (or Big FourTen, Big 4Ten, Big Four10, Big 410, etc.)

So, if you didn't notice, this leaves the Big XI with 14 teams, which means two divisions of 7 schools. If it were up to me, and it's not, I would put Iowa, Minn, Mizz, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin and jNW in a Western Division and Michigan, Sparty, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, tOSU and Penn State in an Eastern Division. I drew the line like this so most in-conference rivalries are kept. This means each team plays (at max):

6 in-division games + 1 inter-conference game + 1 conference championship + 4 extra-conference games + 1 bowl = 13 games for each team

As a quick example, this would be a standard Hawkeye schedule (which I simply modified from last season):

Northern Iowa, Iowa State, Arizona, Penn State, Arkansas State, Kansas, Wisconsin, Mizzu, Nebraska, jNW, Minn and if Iowa is the Western Champs, they play tOSU in a Big Fourteen Champ Game and then possibly play a Bowl Game.

Simple and easy to remember.

The Big Twelve

In case you didn't notice, I took 3 of the 6 teams from the Big 12 North. Now I'm sure Texa$ would love to run a Big Twelve Nine like that, but it ain't gonna happen. The Big Twelve North dissolves as such: Colorado joins the WAC/C-USA/MAC, Kansas State joins the MWC (much more on them later) and Iowa State joins the MAC or C-USA (HA!).

With no Big 12 North, the Big 12 as a whole dissolves. Texas and Oklahoma are welcomed to the SEC with open arms (more on them later). OK State and Texas Tech join their fallen Big 12 North brother in the MWC, while TA&M and Baylor are catapulted into the PAC-10 (I realize I'm stretching possibilities with that one). Now it gets interesting.

The SEC

If this little Big XI expansion is put forth, our prideful and egotistic Southern brothers will need to stay in the game by expanding as well. Luckily, two historic and highly profitable teams just became available: Texas and Oklahoma. They grab those two gems, redraw the east-west divisional line, sip a little homemade ice tea and rename themselves...

The New Confederate States of America The Southern Conference

The new SEC, picks up two more teams,  drops the eastern from it's name and becomes all South. By doing this, they effectively become a super-conference with fourteen teams (much like the other newly minted super-conference, The Big Fourteen) and have even more fodder to throw in the faces of the new Big Fourteen fans about "optimal weather" and "Southern Speed". Then again, when we beat them in bowl games, it provides Big Fourteen fans to simply say "Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it doesn't win football games"

The Mountain West Conference (AKA, Newly made BCS buddy. Congrats, Chris Petersen, you did it. You finally ruined college football for us all.)

The little known or cared about MWC has just gotten a TON bigger with the collapse of the Big 12. And they just became a little bigger than that since I just gave them Boise State. The Big Blue sees that the shift of power in the un-cared about mountainous college football conferences  just swung to from the WAC to the MWC, and wants in on it. So, the Broncos move from the WAC to the MWC.

So, to recap, Kansas State, OK State and Texas Tech join from the Big Twelve and Boise State defects from the WAC to the MWC. Every got it?

With that addition, the MWC has advanced to 13 teams. Not only is this a large jump from the nine sub par teams they did have, but it's also an uneven number, which doesn't bode well for my idea. So the MWC drops Air Force, who like the other service academies becomes an independent.

So the new MWC is left with many good teams (Utah, BYU, TCU and now newcomers Boise State, OK State, Texas Tech and Kansas State) and to the new NCAA, is the replacement for the Big 12 in their anti-tournament anti-trust devil-spawn known as the BCS. Yep, the MWC replaces the Big 12 in the BCS. Please keep reading.

The Los Angeles Division of the NFL The Pac-10

The pacific coast makes a dramatic turn to the desert with the additions of TA&M and Baylor. As such, they wake up from their pot-induced slumber and when they answer the door, they realize that while they were passed out, the Big Ten and SEC changed a few things around and those bastards in the mountains took what was going to be their new Blue Buddy. So, they welcome the new arrivals and quickly add from the WAC either Fresno State/New Mexico State/Idaho (I can't decide which) and Hawai'i. Thus, they are left with fourteen teams and relabel themselves as...

The Hippie, Native American and Cowboy Alliance The Western Fourteen

This leaves the West Coast with a substantial increase in competition and a competitive looking number in the "Number of Members" column when comparing conferences. Seeing that they will be sufficient in their college football endeavors, they ask their new friends if they want some weed and go back to surfing.

The Big East and ACC (aka: Basketball Land)

The two conferences left relatively unaffected by this trade a few schools and call it a day, since the Big East is fucked up in football anyway and ACC is can't get much moving with 12 anyway. Both might take a few schools from smaller conferences, but nothing drastic.

So, there you have it

The new face of collge football is left looking a little like this (It's late here, so this is a very poor photoshop of the above. I do hope someone might take the time to do an actual good photoshop of the above pic):

Cfdia_medium

via i7.photobucket.com


 

I realize that I probably made one of the worst cases for the future of college football, but it seemed to right last night at 3 AM, so I decided to get it here and see what everyone thought. Please don't be too hard.

Unless otherwise expressly indicated by BHGP editors, this FanPost is strictly the viewpoint of the author and is not endorsed by BHGP in any way.