College Football: Richie's Realignment
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - SMU traveling to Connecticut? Boise heading East? West Virginia going waaay West? And the latest college realignment rumor: Florida State to the Big 12.
What's next: Alaska to the Sun Belt and Hawaii to the Atlantic Coast Conference?
Since the good ol' Southwest Conference disbanded in 1996 our college football map has looked like my eyes after a long night drinking at Duke's. Blood-shot. Strained. Confused. Glazed. These days the Big 12 doesn't have 12, the Big 10 has way more than 10 and the Pac 8 is now the Pac 10 is now the Pac 12.
And you know what, it's as discombobulated as ever trying to figure out our nation's best team each season.
Let's inject two words into the discussion: Common. Sense. Sprinkle in some geography and, voila, a blueprint that we can all follow. I'll call it Richie's Realignment, and it works like this …
As commissioner of Richie's Realignment, I took the liberty of dividing our great land into four (sorta) equal quadrants. The top 80 programs (determined by a vote of one) survived to live in their new homes: 20-team conferences simply called the NorthEast, SouthEast, SouthWest and NorthWest. We've already cut down on travel costs and kept alive the regional rivalries that drive the sport.
Follow so far?
Each conference is then divided into two, 10-team divisions. And, get this, every team plays every team in its division. Teams can keep alive traditional rivalries – USC vs. Notre Dame, for example – but the regular-season schedule is now limited to 10 games. One non-conference game. Enjoy. And look, with a shorter regular season, I've got the college administrators on my side.
The top team in each division (or top two in each conference) will meet at designated bowls at which they will determine their conference's champ and representative at the new season-ending College Cup, held each Jan. 1 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
Quarterfinals/Conference Championships
NorthEast: Yankee Bowl played in New Jersey
SouthEast: Orange Bowl played in Miami
SouthWest: Cotton Bowl in Arlington
NorthWest: Pacific Bowl played in Seattle
From there the remaining four teams will play in two national semifinal games pitting conference champs.
Semifinals
NorthEast vs. SouthEast: Sugar Bowl in New Orleans
SouthWest vs. NorthWest: Fiesta Bowl in Tempe
College Cup
Winners in Rose Bowl in Pasadena
My conference realignment. Sometimes the best things are so simple.
NORTHEAST
*NORTH
Michigan State
Michigan
Ohio State
Cincinnati
Boston College
Pittsburgh
Connecticut
Syracuse
Northwestern
*SOUTH
Notre Dame
Purdue
Penn State
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Louisville
Kentucky
West Virginia
Maryland
Illinois
Indiana
SOUTHEAST
* NORTH
Florida
Florida State
Clemson
North Carolina
North Carolina State
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
Memphis
Wake Forest
*SOUTH
Miami
LSU
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
South Florida
Georgia Tech
Georgia
Mississippi State
Ole Miss
SOUTHWEST
*NORTH
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
USC
UCLA
Texas Tech
New Mexico
Kansas State
Kansas
Missouri
Tulsa
*SOUTH
Texas
Arizona
Arizona State
Baylor
Texas A&M
Houston
SMU
Rice
TCU
UTEP
NORTHWEST
*NORTH
Boise State
Oregon State
Oregon
Washington State
Washington
Wyoming
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Stanford
Cal
*SOUTH
Nebraska
Utah
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
BYU
Air Force
Colorado State
UNLV
Nevada
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