Last week was killing time between meetings and one got cancelled so just playing around. Of course, things are now moving a mile a minute (Big10,MAC,Pac12, general chaos) so here's a typical off-season thread.

Hypothetically, if things evolve/dissolve to superconferences, here's a proposal for G5...just an idea with plenty of holes (like non-football sports), but here goes.

G5 with independents not Notre Dame are included. UCONN gone. Gives 64 teams split into 16 geographic regions. Season consists of, assuming some governing body for the 64:

10-game reg season
-7 vs division
-1 vs non division
-2 vs members of other conferences
-W11 = conference champ games (or QF of 8team playoff)
-W12 = Nat Semis
-W13 = National/Group Championship
-W14 = Champ included in 8 team playoff (or not, IDK)

*Week 11 or 12 bonus game vs similarly matched OOC opponent
*Air Force plays extra week to always play Army/Navy (think math works)

Here are the 16 Quads:

Team, Current Conf, "strength" (*times ranked in final poll from 2015-19, + is if ranked at any point 15-19)

"West"

Boise State MWC ***
Fresno State MWC *
San Diego State MWC *
Utah State MWC *
Hawai'i MWC
Nevada MWC
San Jose State MWC
UNLV MWC

Air Force MWC *
BYU Ind +
Colorado State MWC
New Mexico MWC
New Mexico St. Ind
Tulsa AAC
UTEP CUSA
Wyoming MWC

Decent balance. Boise clear leader. Don't love splitting USU/BYU. Tulsa gets shaft and is odd team but numbers game.

"South"

Houston AAC *
SMU AAC +
ULL SB
North Texas CUSA
Rice CUSA
Texas State SB
Tulane AAC
UTSA CUSA

Memphis AAC **
Troy SB +
UAB CUSA +
Arkansas St SB
LA Tech CUSA
ULM SB
S. Alabama SB
USM CUSA

Blends 3 conferences. Decent geographic sense and balance. Don't love splitting LA teams in 2 divisions but just numbers.

"Central"

Cincinnati AAC **
W Kentucky CUSA *
Akron MAC
Kent State MAC
Marshall CUSA
Miami (Ohio) MAC
Mid Tennessee CUSA
Ohio MAC

W Michigan MAC *
Ball State MAC
Bowling Green MAC
Buffalo MAC
C.Michigan MAC
E. Michigan MAC
N. Illinois MAC
Toledo MAC

Weakest overall. "south" division very diverse, north not at all. Cincy poised to dominate. Tough to split up some of these MAC teams. WKU and MTSU are oddly situated, so fall in "Central" but don't love it.

"East"
UCF AAC ***
South Florida AAC **
Charlotte CUSA
Coastal Car. SB
FL Atlantic CUSA
FL Inter. CUSA
Georgia S. SB
Georgia State SB

Navy AAC **
App. State SB *
Army Ind *
Temple AAC +
East Carolina AAC
Liberty Ind
Massachusetts Ind
Old Dominion CUSA

Pretty diverse, probably best top to bottom but with some real dogs too. Don't like splitting up NC teams, but too many. App State like WKU and MTSU, tough to place. But App St and ECU become rivals.

Thoughts? What would you change? What rivalries or schools are broken up that shouldn't be?

...Potentially you have an pro-style 8 team playoff that could look like this:

Memphis vs. Western Michigan
BYU vs UCF

and

Boise vs. App St
Cincy vs. Houston

Winners play it out

This post was edited on 8/10/20 at 3:44 pm

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Posted by oliveandblue

Member since Nov 2014

1669 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 2:51 pm to ChunkyLover54

What does anyone in the MW or AAC gain from this? The problem with most of these changes is that it would destroy revenue for half of the current G5 crop.

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Posted by ChunkyLover54

Member since Apr 2015

6529 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 2:57 pm to oliveandblue

quote:
What does anyone in the MW or AAC gain from this? The problem with most of these changes is that it would destroy revenue for half of the current G5 crop.

Nothing really, it's just hypothetical. Not saying it's a good idea, especially for them, to intentionally move to something like this. I found this mapand was just messing around.

However, both are looking like they'll be screwed this year anyway through the trickle down, just like the Cincy, UCF, USF were in realignment. So under the assumption they all band together or die, so a desperation move to stay alive.

This post was edited on 8/10/20 at 3:01 pm

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Posted by AlonsoWDC

Memphis, where it ain't Ten-a-Key

Member since Aug 2014

8764 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:04 pm to ChunkyLover54

Memphis would absolutely rape and pillage that division.

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Posted by msutiger

Shreveport

Member since Jul 2008

69620 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:04 pm to oliveandblue

(no message)

This post was edited on 3/31/23 at 4:13 pm

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Posted by ProjectP2294

South St. Louis city

Member since May 2007

70286 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:05 pm to ChunkyLover54

I think that outside of the P5 conferences, conference affiliation should be on a sport by sport basis.

There are some far flung football conferences that completely frick things up for the other sports at the institutions.

Athletic depts would be better served by not tying every sport's alignment to their football alignment. Especially when it comes to saving money on travel and building up of local rivalries that could generate better crowds at non-revenue sports.

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Posted by msutiger

Shreveport

Member since Jul 2008

69620 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:06 pm to ProjectP2294

Just post what you really want ... a 14-team college baseball conference with the top mid majors in the south

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Posted by Tiger Prawn

Member since Dec 2016

21898 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:10 pm to ChunkyLover54

G5 realignment like that would only happen if a large number of those schools fold their football programs due to the financial clusterfrick their athletic departments are going to be in from the loss of this year's football season and March Madness revenue.

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Posted by ChunkyLover54

Member since Apr 2015

6529 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:12 pm to AlonsoWDC

quote:
Memphis would absolutely rape and pillage that division.

Yes they would. But who would be added that doesn't mess it all up? Memphis is set to dominate

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Posted by ProjectP2294

South St. Louis city

Member since May 2007

70286 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:17 pm to msutiger

quote:
Just post what you really want ... a 14-team college baseball conference with the top mid majors in the south

I mean, yeah, that would be cool.

But in general I don't think it makes a ton of sense to have a mid major conference that spans from Virginia to Houston (outside of football) when the budgets could be allocated much better with (for instance) Tech playing Tulane in conference basketball or baseball.

I think ULL vs McNeese on a weekend would be much more entertaining than ULL vs Georgia State.

Scrambling and realigning the non-football teams in CUSA, the AAC, the Sunbelt, and the Southland could make things a lot easier on some athletic departments.

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Posted by ChunkyLover54

Member since Apr 2015

6529 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:18 pm to msutiger

quote:
For starters significant realignment in the G5 will only occur in the event of a P5/G5 split.

Right. This is a doomsday situation

quote:
AAC schools would see significantly reduced travel costs, but this type of format would never happen. You would see Tulane, Houston, Tulsa, SMU and Memphis picking who they would want to be in a conference with.

Politically and feasibly I don't think it would either, but it would be kind of fun to see if it came to this.

Realistically, many teams would drop football and maybe more tiers would form. Maybe a national superconference of the "halves" (Tulane, Houston, Tulsa, SMU, Memphis, Rice, Boise, BYU, UCF, Cincy, Air Force, Army, Navy) but that has serious drawbacks

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Posted by ChunkyLover54

Member since Apr 2015

6529 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 3:22 pm to Tiger Prawn

quote:
G5 realignment like that would only happen if a large number of those schools fold their football programs due to the financial clusterfrick their athletic departments are going to be in from the loss of this year's football season and March Madness revenue.

I agree. Not saying this is a good idea, even but a desperation move for them to keep their football programs by banding together.

Many MAC teams, UMass, NMSUs of the world would likely fold

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Posted by ChunkyLover54

Member since Apr 2015

6529 posts

Posted on 8/10/20 at 5:14 pm to ChunkyLover54

screw it, i'm bumping with MWC news.

Make it one big subdivision and get your shite in order

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