One of my favorite sorts-related things to think about is conference re-alignment, as some of you know. Let's pretend we live in a world where the Big 12 admits EVERY SCHOOL that applied (other than New Mexico) into the conference.
I think we'd need:
- Four pods of 7 teams, paired into divisions on a rotating basis. Pod A paired with Pod B one year, then Pod C the next year, etc.
- Completely eliminate regular season non-conference games
- Move to 13 conference games per year.
- Full round-robin inside division.
- Conference Championship Game between two division champions.
- No protected rivals. I suppose you could have 15 games if you wanted to have one protected rival per pod, but a national champion from the Big 12 would have to play 18+ (!) games.
| POD A | POD B | POD C | POD T |
| Iowa State Kansas K-State NIU WVU Cincinnati Temple |
BYU Boise State Colorado State San Diego State Oklahoma Oklahoma State Air Force |
Memphis UConn Tulane East Carolina UCF Arkansas State USF |
Texas Texas Tech Baylor TCU Houston SMU Rice |
The downside of this (for me) is that every player won't play on every field in 4 years, but I fail to see how that's possible in a 28-team conference without having an NFL-length season.
