Superconferences & Realignment

[T-Boone]

The short answer is yes. The longer answer- Saban will be a replaced by a guy that will likely win more than one NC in a 5-8 year span. The SEC holds 4-6 of the top ten recruiting rankings each year. Saban leaving will just open the door for Georgia, Florida, LSU, etc. to step up and compete with a new but similar Alabama. This is putting aside an SEC that could include Oklahoma and others very soon.
Or maybe you were being facetious, idk. Either way the SEC looks to only be growing in powers regardless of Saban, not just because of Saban (not to discount what he has contributed).

Even if Georgia,Florida and LSU get a bit stronger via recruiting they are still way more beatable than Bama now.

 

[NDIrish88]

This was interesting. If Michigan and OSU are SEC bound that crazy https://sports.yahoo.com/latest-conference-realignment-rumor-states-123925223.html

 

[Irish#1]

Sounds like the SEC is the one making the first moves if they have contacted OSU and scUM. Would be surprised if they left the B1G. The B1G is pretty tight.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

Is there any chance ND gets invited to join the first super conference? I mean if all this is for money do they not attempt to bring ND in?

 

[Pops Freshenmeyer]

This was interesting. If Michigan and OSU are SEC bound that crazy https://sports.yahoo.com/latest-conference-realignment-rumor-states-123925223.html

I don’t believe it. If schools like UM and OSU want in then why would they tie themselves to the bottom half of the SEC (but shut out the middle class of every other conference)?

 

[pumpdog20]

Sounds like the SEC is the one making the first moves if they have contacted OSU and scUM. Would be surprised if they left the B1G. The B1G is pretty tight.

Big Ten also wanted to torpedo their school's athletic economy last year. OSU (along with Nebraska & Iowa) were pretty vocal opponents to the Big Ten's stance last year. I can see teams at least be willing to hear options.

 

[Irish#1]

Big Ten also wanted to torpedo their school's athletic economy last year. OSU (along with Nebraska & Iowa) were pretty vocal opponents to the Big Ten's stance last year. I can see teams at least be willing to hear options.

Wasn’t that because of COVID? A little different scenario to me. Given today’s climate anything is possible.

 

[Irish#1]

Is there any chance ND gets invited to join the first super conference? I mean if all this is for money do they not attempt to bring ND in?

I would be surprised if they don’t get invited eventually.

 

[BobbyMac]

Michigan leave their kingdom of Research Billions to go hang out with a room full of 4 year JUCO's?

There's more to the B1G than simply a sports conference.

 

[BobbyMac]

Is there any chance ND gets invited to join the first super conference? I mean if all this is for money do they not attempt to bring ND in?

10x Consecutive SEC North Pod Champion.

-ND in 2031


Poor Vandy, UK, Tenn & Mizzou.

 

[Dale]

Michigan leave their kingdom of Research Billions to go hang out with a room full of 4 year JUCO's?

There's more to the B1G than simply a sports conference.

Big Ten and Pac-12 can form an accord of schools that care about academic accreditation and we will see who wants out. I’d guess OSUs athletic side would win out over their academic. Decent basketball conference especially if it causes some fissures in the ACC. Does ND join the North of the football Superconference or the East of the Academic/Basketball Superconference?

 

[Dale]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/adavidhalejoint/status/1419300885876838401?s=21[/TWEET]

Long thread worth the read.

 

[Dale]

Also the source on the Michigan, Clemson etc rumor is a podcast producer for Barstool who is like 24 not a reporter lol. Doesn’t make it wrong but it’s Twitter DM tip that everyone is running with.

 

[Dale]

Tiny chance of happening but I saw someone toss out Texas as independent and would work if they had a national TV deal not the failure that was Longhorn Network.

So who would offer it? ESPN? They’d be bidding against themselves so I don’t see them giving Texas some sort of ABC/ESPN2 exclusive. CBS? CBS every Saturday plus a Showtime subscription based could work. Fox? Fox plus FS1. Given they lost/are losing the SEC, the CBS option I think makes the most sense especially if the Showtime subscription based component is part of it in a similar fashion to Peacock with ND

 

[Sea Turtle]

Could the ACC, B1G, Big 12 and PAC form an alliance? Could they say, 'ok SEC, you can have your semi pro league and crown your own champion. Were going to form an alliance, stick together, play college football and crown our own champion'.

ND could join and play pods of three or four from each. Or they could join one outright.

Is this feasible and realistic?

 

[irishfan]

Not sure about our own league, but I could see ND being a founder of a new conference if the SEC does expand beyond 16.

Ohio state and Clemson are key in this. If both join the SEC then there will no true modern day power outside that conference, and I think ND will be forced to join or to essentially be self-delegated to a lower league. If the SEC does add Clemson and FSU, I could see ND, Ohio state, Michigan, PSU forming a pod-scheduled league with other top remaining schools (going with football strength and academics—some outliers below but SEC going past 16 teams would call for desperate times) from ACC and PAC-12. Just spitballing below:

Notre Dame
Penn State
Pitt
Boston College
West Virginia
Louisville

Ohio State
Michigan
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Michigan State
Northwestern

USC
UCLA
Oregon
Washington
Stanford
Cal

Miami
Georgia Tech
UNC
Duke
Virginia
Virginia Tech

 

[SouthSideChiDomer]

Could the ACC, B1G, Big 12 and PAC form an alliance? Could they say, 'ok SEC, you can have your semi pro league and crown your own champion. Were going to form an alliance, stick together, play college football and crown our own champion'.

ND could join and play pods of three or four from each. Or they could join one outright.

Is this feasible and realistic?

We're going to form our own league, with blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the league.

 

[Dale]

Could the ACC, B1G, Big 12 and PAC form an alliance? Could they say, 'ok SEC, you can have your semi pro league and crown your own champion. Were going to form an alliance, stick together, play college football and crown our own champion'.

ND could join and play pods of three or four from each. Or they could join one outright.

Is this feasible and realistic?

Can’t form an alliance when ESPN and ACC are married until 2035. ACC and SEC brought to you by ESPN and Pac-16 and Big 16 brought to you by Fox (or CBS).

 

[Sea Turtle]

Also, would the USC join ND to become members of the ACC? Seems like that would be a good counter move for the ACC.

I'm just throwing out ideas obviously.

 

[BobbyMac]

It would be great if the rest of the P4's and their hand selected G5's left the NCAA tomorrow and formed the USCA.

My #1 want would be to travel to Birmingham, AL to watch the undefeated Irish play undefeated UAB in front of 75,000 fans at historic Legion Field while Bama was on the road playing in front of 39,750 fans at Vandy.

 

[Irish#1]

Big Ten and Pac-12 can form an accord of schools that care about academic accreditation and we will see who wants out. I’d guess OSUs athletic side would win out over their academic. Decent basketball conference especially if it causes some fissures in the ACC. Does ND join the North of the football Superconference or the East of the Academic/Basketball Superconference?

I get FB generates a lot of money, but OSU athletics isn’t going to tell the university what to do.

 

[Ndaccountant]

I think the only logical next step is for the Big Ten and the ACC to merge, with both adding selectively from the remaining Big 12 and Pac 12. This would allow for the SEC and the Big ACCTM to collectively leave the NCAA. In each case, you could still align in "pods" but would in effect have 4 divisions.

SEC - West Division (SW Pod, West Pod), East Division (SE Pod, East Pod)
BIG ACC - Leaders and Legends Division ( Leaders Pod, Legends Pod) Tobacco Road Pod (Football Pod, Basketball Pod)

For the CFP, each Division winner gets automatic birth, with SEC and Big ACC winner getting 1st round bye. At large selected by committee.

The question is how big is each conference and by extension, each POD. Example for 6 team PODS (48 teams total), 11 game regular season (assuming 11 games, +1 game for division championship, +1 game for conference championship) - 5 POD games, 4 games within conference and 2 conference cross over games. If you do this, then you would play every team at least once every 12 years, which isn't bad when you consider how often ND plays the likes of UGA, Oklahoma, etc. You could also reserve 1 of the conference games outside of your own Pod to preserve traditional games if needed.

This would also work as the ACC institutions and the Big 10 institutions share a lot more in common outside of athletics than they do with the likes of some of the SEC schools.

Edit - What this does, as I am sure it's by design for the greedy bastards running each school, is eliminate the leech like schools that add very little value to the bottom line. For example, why does a school like Kansas State bring to the table? It has no historical context to BBall or Football, offers little viewership enhancement, etc. KSU would likely end up elsewhere. Same would be true for all G5 programs, which would effectively be shut out for good from playing (and getting paid by) P5 games. No more body bag games or trying to pad your wins by having 3 MAC teams (Iowa, we are looking at you).

 

[NorthDakota]

I think the only logical next step is for the Big Ten and the ACC to merge, with both adding selectively from the remaining Big 12 and Pac 12. This would allow for the SEC and the Big ACCTM to collectively leave the NCAA. In each case, you could still align in "pods" but would in effect have 4 divisions.

SEC - West Division (SW Pod, West Pod), East Division (SE Pod, East Pod)
BIG ACC - Leaders and Legends Division ( Leaders Pod, Legends Pod) Tobacco Road Pod (Football Pod, Basketball Pod)

For the CFP, each Division winner gets automatic birth, with SEC and Big ACC winner getting 1st round bye. At large selected by committee.

The question is how big is each conference and by extension, each POD. Example for 6 team PODS (48 teams total), 11 game regular season (assuming 11 games, +1 game for division championship, +1 game for conference championship) - 5 POD games, 4 games within conference and 2 conference cross over games. If you do this, then you would play every team at least once every 12 years, which isn't bad when you consider how often ND plays the likes of UGA, Oklahoma, etc. You could also reserve 1 of the conference games outside of your own Pod to preserve traditional games if needed.

This would also work as the ACC institutions and the Big 10 institutions share a lot more in common outside of athletics than they do with the likes of some of the SEC schools.

Edit - What this does, as I am sure it's by design for the greedy bastards running each school, is eliminate the leech like schools that add very little value to the bottom line. For example, why does a school like Kansas State bring to the table? It has no historical context to BBall or Football, offers little viewership enhancement, etc. KSU would likely end up elsewhere. Same would be true for all G5 programs, which would effectively be shut out for good from playing (and getting paid by) P5 games. No more body bag games or trying to pad your wins by having 3 MAC teams (Iowa, we are looking at you).

Iowa has actually done alright with scheduling. They have UNI on the schedule every couple years i think (might be by legislative fiat). Iowa also scheduled North Dakota State.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Iowa has actually done alright with scheduling. They have UNI on the schedule every couple years i think (might be by legislative fiat). Iowa also scheduled North Dakota State.

Yea, I was just using them as an example. There are probably worse teams. But even so, not that pretty when you look at history and what Iowa state traditionally is....

2019 - MTSU, Miami University, Iowa State
2018 - Northern Illinois, Iowa State, Northern Iowa
2017 - Wyoming, North Texas, Iowa State
2016 - Miami Ohio, North Dakota State, Iowa State
2015 - Illinois State, Pitt, Iowa State, North Texas
2014 - Northern Iowa, Ball State, Iowa State, Pitt
2013 - Northern Illinois, Iowa State, Missouri State, Western Michiagn
2012 - Northern Illinois, Iowa State, Northern Iowa, Central Michigan
2011 - Tenn Tech, Iowa State, Pitt, ULM
2010 - Eastern Illinois, Ball State, Iowa State, Arizona

So 2010 - 2019, they had 36 non-conference games. In that span, they played 14 P-5 games, of which only 4 were against teams other than Iowa State. So in a forward looking view aligned with the "mega merge" idea, those 22 games against non-P5 teams would be replaced with teams like North Carolina, Virginia, Syracuse, etc. Essentially, teams that seemingly average between 7-9 wins a year over time are going to lose 1-2 of those wins as their schedule toughens. Again, not a knock on Iowa per se, just that there are many teams like them that have inflated records. Take Missouri as example:

2019 - Wyoming, West Virginia, SE Missouri, Troy
2018 - UT Martin, Purdon't, Wyoming, Memphis
2017 - Missouri State, Purdon't, Idaho, UCONN
2016 - WVU, EMU, Del State. MTSU
2015 - SE Missouri, Ark State, UCONN, BYU
2014 - SD State, Toledo, UCF, Indiana
2013 - Mur State, Toledo, Indiana, Ark State
2012 - SE Louis, ASU, UCF, Syracuse
2011 - Miami U, ASU, Western Ill,
2010 - Illinois, McNeese, SDSU, Miami U

 

[Irish#1]

Credit to CondumsSUC Joe. He found this nugget and shared in our chat thread.

 

[TNUtoNotreDame]

 

[Bishop2b5]

I'd really like to just see 5 big boy conferences with 16 teams each, based largely on regional and historical factors: PAC-16, BIG-16, SEC, ACC, Midwest-16. The 2nd tier Group of 5 could have a separate championship thing, and the Power 5 teams could still play the occasional Group of 5 teams. No Power 5 vs FCS programs.

 

[RDU Irish]

Something with relegation would never happen but makes so much sense. Give mid-level teams something to play for and stop giving such a big free lunch to all those conference bottom dwellers. So much rather see UCF and Memphis beat out Pitt and BC to get to top tier of a 24 team ACC. Or Bama not wasting time playing UT, Arkansas, Ole Miss or Miss St because SMU beat them in to the lower tier. Tough nuggets to the 30 teams that can't make the cut in the scramble for 4 major conferences with 24 teams each.

Big 12 looks DOA - Kansas should have options since they won't ever threaten in football and elevate basketball. I would think B1G or ACC would want them more than anyone else in the B12.

ACC might be smart to make some Texas inroads with Baylor/T Tech - low D, high scoring - probably better than over half the league. Not sure where ACC goes to get some top tier football outside of Notre Dame but you can at least step up the mid level talent and bring in some fun style of play.

 

[Dale]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/danwetzel/status/1419799748098236416?s=21[/TWEET]

The non chaos possible results to me are:

1. SEC stops at Texas and OU, Big Ten and ACC hold steady, and Pac 12 adds a Midwest pod. Big 12 leftovers join AAC.

2. SEC stops at Texas and OU, Big Ten, ACC and P-12 hold steady and Big 12 adds from AAC pretending to keep it at “P5”

In either case Fox pushes for a Pac-12 with Big Ten agreement in next TV deal.

 

[Sea Turtle]

Something with relegation would never happen but makes so much sense. Give mid-level teams something to play for and stop giving such a big free lunch to all those conference bottom dwellers. So much rather see UCF and Memphis beat out Pitt and BC to get to top tier of a 24 team ACC. Or Bama not wasting time playing UT, Arkansas, Ole Miss or Miss St because SMU beat them in to the lower tier. Tough nuggets to the 30 teams that can't make the cut in the scramble for 4 major conferences with 24 teams each.

Big 12 looks DOA - Kansas should have options since they won't ever threaten in football and elevate basketball. I would think B1G or ACC would want them more than anyone else in the B12.

ACC might be smart to make some Texas inroads with Baylor/T Tech - low D, high scoring - probably better than over half the league. Not sure where ACC goes to get some top tier football outside of Notre Dame but you can at least step up the mid level talent and bring in some fun style of play.

These seem to be the most prevalent rumors and scuttlebutt out there:

Oklahoma St. and Kansas want to join the B1G. The B1G is kind of meh and those schools don't even qualify academically.

The B1G(and more importantly Fox) want USC and UCLA.

USC and UCLA are interested but only if the B1G takes two other PAC teams. Does the west coast even care anymore? Does the B1G want to deal with California state legislature BS?

The B1G also wants UNC and Virginia. They tried to join in 2012 apparently.

The SEC wants FSU and possibly Clemson. FSU is said to be interested.

West Virginia wants to join the ACC. The ACC seems receptive.

People are worried the B1G commissioner is in over his head. Hence the Barry Alverez news. I'm worried about the ACC.