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| What if: Conference Expansion | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Monday Jun 7 2010, 08:05 PM (768 Views) | |
| PSUSyr5 | Monday Jun 7 2010, 08:05 PM Post #1 |
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The Board Idiot
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With all the reports and rumors on conference expansion out there, I figured it might be a good time to play the "what if" game. Since this does impact more than football (though I'm sure it is more about football than the other sports), I decided to post this in the regular NCAA Sports thread. I might move the two conference expansion related topics, but we'll see. What if we have another round of massive expansion? What if this makes 2003 look like a child in comparison? If the Pac-10 decides to become the Pac-16, or perhaps the Western-16, I see expansion being with Baylor/Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech. That would leave six of the remnants of the Big 12. Five of them, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Nebraska would join the new Big 16. Whichever one of Baylor or Colorado would end up joining the Mountain West as its 10th member. The SEC, meanwhile, will want to add teams as well and target four ACC members: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Miami. This would knock down the ACC to 8 members (Boston College, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest) so the ACC and Big East football schools (Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, South Florida, Syracuse and West Virginia) merge. I could also see the SEC take 2 ACC members and Cincinnati and Louisville, but I believe the SEC taking the 4 ACC members is more likely. While Big East football would be gone, the basketball conference would remain in tact. It would likely add four schools such as Massachusetts, Richmond, St. Joseph's, Temple or Xavier from the Atlantic-10, which has 14 members. This would get the Big East basketball conference to 12 members, and likely keep the conference around for most other sports. Notre Dame still remains independent in football. The other conferences (Conference USA, MAC, Sun Belt and WAC) would remain basically as they are until schools move up from FCS. How would these 16 team conferences look? There are two ways they could make divisions: two of 8 teams each or four of 4 teams each. For basketball, conferences might use the Big East's current structure and have all 16 teams together, playing all teams at least 1 time, end up with four divisions or stay with 2 divisions. For football, I tend to believe they'd try to stay at 2 divisions. Have 9 conference football games, playing all division members and 2 non-division members. So for sake of simplicity, I'll use 2 divisions for football and basketball, though some conferences (Big 16 for sure) could fairly easily do a split to four divisions. ACC: North: Boston College, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, West Virginia South: Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Florida, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest Big 16: East: Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue West: Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin Pac-16: East: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor/Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech West: California, Oregon, Oregon State, Southern California, Stanford, UCLA, Washington, Washington State SEC: East: Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Florida, Florida State, Kentucky, Miami, South Carolina West: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt Oh, these conferences could be fun. One thing I can see derailing this whole thing...Kansas State is not an AAU member, so maybe the Big Ten wouldn't bring them in to the conference.So...what if the next great thing is having 16 teams in a conference, how do you see it possibly happening? |
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| WeatherManNX01 | Friday Jun 11 2010, 02:23 PM Post #2 |
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The Yanks are coming!
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Elsewhere, Boise State today announced that they would be leaving the WAC for the Mountain West, which includes Utah, BYU, and TCU. Sounds like a good move for the Broncos, who have dominated the WAC for well over a decade now. The WAC had a feeling this was coming, and they're already into expansion talks to replace Boise. They have several Championship schools on their radar (not Bowl schools, which is interesting), though I think they could possibly nab one or two of the leftovers when the Big 12 implodes. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5276064 |
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| WeatherManNX01 | Saturday Jun 12 2010, 01:01 PM Post #3 |
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The Yanks are coming!
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Here's a new one: Kansas and Missouri to Mountain West? Suddenly the Mountain West would have a conference championship game. And if they expand to 12 while the Big 12 disappears, could they be the replacement BCS conference? Suddenly, Boise State, Utah, and TCU would be fighting for the coveted automatic bid rather than fighting to be an at-large. |
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| PSUSyr5 | Tuesday Jun 15 2010, 07:07 PM Post #4 |
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The Board Idiot
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The prevailing thought is that the Big 12 will stay at 10 teams. Whether they keep the name or change it is up for debate (same with the Big Ten), but I'm sure that's their least concern at the moment. The Big Ten may very well want to expand further, so the idea of super conferences may not be done just yet. Meanwhile, there are 2 conferences that I believe should be considering expansion: the Big East and Pac-10. Big East because it has 8 members, which makes scheduling out of conference games a little more difficult. Pac-10 because it is currently one away from a championship game. The most common name out there for the Pac-10 is Utah. But since this is a hypothetical thread, let's hypothetically say that for whatever reason, Utah is not going to the Pac-10. In that case, I could see the Pac-10 taking one of two routes: giving Colorado an in-state rival like Colorado State, or going for another big market team like UNLV. The Big East is a little more complicated for expansion. There are 8 football teams, but 16 full members. Army, Navy (Patriot in other sports) and Notre Dame (Big East in others) prefer football independence, and I don't believe getting either to budge is going to happen soon. There are two other Big East full members that have football, Georgetown and Villanova, both currently in the FCS. Of the 2, Villanova is the more attractive, having won the FCS championship this past season. I don't believe the Wildcats want to move up to FBS however. The only other FBS team that could make a move, without having all sports follow, is Temple. They play football in the MAC, and Atlantic-10 for other sports. However, the Owls were kicked out of the Big East when the whole realignment situation started, so a move back seems unlikely. This basically leaves three options: get one full member and go up to 17 total, add one full member and drop a non-football member such as DePaul or Marquette, or add multiple members and drop several non-football members. The Big East appears to mostly focus on basketball, so I don't see them dropping members like those mentioned or Providence, Seton Hall or St. John's. As it stands right now, the Big East has 7 conference football games (playing each other once) and 18 conference basketball games (playing 12 once and 3 twice). Adding one more all sports member would even up the football schedule, 4 home and 4 road games, with 4 non conference games to schedule, a bit easier than the current 5 needed. On the basketball side of things, 17 would most likely mean a move back to a 16 game schedule: play everyone once, 8 home and 8 road. Then the Big East tournament would either go back to top 12 teams or just not include the bottom team. The other issue is which team to add? Central Florida and East Carolina have decent football teams, but their basketball teams are a bit lacking. Memphis has decent basketball, but lacks in football. At this point, I'd say the basketball conference is very strong and adding either ECU or UCF wouldn't hurt too much. I'd lean toward adding UCF as it would give South Florida an in-state rival. This would make a trip to Florida more worthwhile for the non-revenue sports by playing at UCF and USF on the same week/weekend. Is any of this going to happen? Probably not. But with it looking like the super conferences aren't going to happen for some time, I'm running out of conference expansion ideas.
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| PSUSyr5 | Saturday Jun 26 2010, 09:25 PM Post #5 |
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The Board Idiot
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More what ifs to ponder: What if the Big Ten isn't done expanding via the Big 12 conference? Suppose Iowa State and/or Missouri are taken in the making of a 14 or 16 team league. Would the Big 12 remain an 8 or 9 team league? 9: perhaps, 8 highly doubt. Would this cause the great shift in conference alignment many thought was inevitable just weeks ago? What if the Pac decides 12 isn't enough? The logical choice would be the Nevada schools (Nevada and UNLV) since Nevada is a bit of a donut hole for the conference and there is a sizable market in Las Vegas. Going up to 14 would mean a split among a regional rival, so 16 would seem more likely. Would they then add teams from Utah (say BYU or Utah State) and Colorado (say Air Force or Colorado State), or would Boise State be in the mix? What then would become of the Mountain West and WAC? |
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| PSUSyr5 | Thursday Jul 15 2010, 09:03 PM Post #6 |
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The Board Idiot
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Here's another thought... Suppose the Big Ten takes at least one Big East team, whether it be Pittsburgh, Rutgers or Syracuse, 2 of the above or all of the above. What would happen to the conference? I could see Connecticut, West Virginia and whichever of those mentioned that don't go to the Big Ten make a pitch to the ACC. South Florida would be an interesting case depending on how the numbers work out, and if the ACC would really want a 3rd Florida school in conference. I would imagine the "leftovers" from the Big Ten expansion (provided any Big East school leaves) would rather be in the ACC than have more replacements such as Central Florida, East Carolina, Memphis or a possible move up to FBS by Villanova. At this point, I would say the Big East football conference is in more danger of folding than the Big 12 is. |
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| WeatherManNX01 | Wednesday Aug 18 2010, 06:53 PM Post #7 |
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The Yanks are coming!
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Two more to the Mountain West?
Full article. |
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| PSUSyr5 | Wednesday Aug 18 2010, 07:35 PM Post #8 |
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The Board Idiot
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You know, the WAC was at one time a 16 team league, but split up into what's now the MWC and WAC. Maybe with Utah leaving for the Pac-12 and BYU apparently becoming independent in football, that the 2 conferences should consider merging again. It would be a 16 team football conference and 17 teams for "everything else" which at first looks odd. However, if you play 8 home and 8 road games in basketball, for example, you have a pretty good balance having played each team once. This would also keep the merged conference set in case the Pac-12 or Big 12 try to pick off a few teams in the next great expansion wave. Of course, the down side is that the 16 team thing is one of the reasons why the WAC split in the 90s. What are the chances that in the 2010s they'd want to try that again? Probably somewhere between slim and none, and I'm pretty sure I just saw slim leave. Here's what the "New WAC" could look like with a merge: Air Force Boise State Colorado State Fresno State Hawaii Idaho Louisiana Tech Nevada New Mexico New Mexico State San Diego State San Jose State Texas Christian UNLV Utah State Wyoming Maybe TCU would join the Big 12 with say, Houston or Rice from C-USA. Louisiana Tech could join C-USA as a replacement for whichever goes to the Big 12. 14 teams wouldn't necessarily be too bad. I still believe that's what the Big Ten is going to end up going for when the current expansion dust settles. Can't help but wonder what would happen to the WAC if there are only 6 teams for football and 7 for all other sports without some sort of merge. Seems like they'd have to try to get some teams from the FCS to join. |
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| PSUSyr5 | Thursday Aug 19 2010, 05:55 AM Post #9 |
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The Board Idiot
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Nevada and Fresno State have accepted invitations to join the Mountain West Conference. Assuming BYU does go independent in football, the MWC would have 10 teams whenever the two join: Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State, Texas Christian, UNLV and Wyoming. I've heard that it's possible the conference could add teams from Conference-USA: Houston and UTEP. That would make C-USA a 10 team league. My guess is that the MWC is looking into which of the 2 would better suit the conference should BYU end up staying. If BYU leaves, then the MWC would probably take both or neither. As we learned from the Big Ten, having 11 teams makes for tricky scheduling, resulting in the worst of both worlds (no round robin, no championship game) so I believe the Mountain West would avoid that situation. |
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| PSUSyr5 | Saturday Aug 21 2010, 07:07 PM Post #10 |
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The Board Idiot
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Rumors are circulating that Houston is expected to join the MWC. I've also heard that Utah State was offered a MWC invite when Fresno State and Nevada were, but declined. I'd be curious to see if they are invited again, or if the MWC looks elsewhere, if BYU goes independent. If BYU stays with the Mountain West, this is what the conference would look like, provided Houston does join: Air Force Boise State Brigham Young Colorado State Fresno State Houston Nevada New Mexico San Diego State Texas Christian UNLV Wyoming A quick look at a map, and it would appear that a simple East/West divisional split would work. East division would have Air Force, Colorado State, Houston, New Mexico, Texas Christian and Wyoming while the West would have Boise State, Brigham Young, Fresno State, Nevada, San Diego State and UNLV. Not only does the geography work, but it would seem like most of the rivalries would remain in tact and there is a pretty good balance. If Houston goes, Conference USA would need a member to back to 12. WAC's Louisiana Tech makes sense for them, but with the $5 million buy out, I'm not sure if C-USA makes sense for La Tech, assuming the WAC somehow remains in tact for the buyout to be required. |
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One thing I can see derailing this whole thing...Kansas State is not an AAU member, so maybe the Big Ten wouldn't bring them in to the conference.





9:40 AM Jul 11