New Year. New College Football.
Everyone knows college football has a lot of corruption: coaches negotiating under the table deals with recruits , student athletes’ moms “randomly” getting fancy cars, players not being paid their just due. However, whenever I see the NCAA logo pop up on the screen before a big college football matchup, my OCD brain throws away the important issues and can’t help but think, ” why does the Big Ten have 14 teams?” and “Why is Texas A&M in the SEC and not the Big 12”.
However trivial these problems may be, they must be solved for the sake of common sense.
Each conference was evaluated on the following criteria(in order of importance):
1.) Location (Ex. If its called the Southeastern Conference, the teams that are in it must be from the southeast)
2.) Fitting the names of the conferences (Ex. the Big Ten will actually have ten teams in it)
3.) Cultural Fit (Ex. Why is Northwestern, an elite 8,000 undergrad private school, in the Big Ten?)
4.) Reputation (Ex. If you’re program hasn’t won a bowl game in over a decade, why are you in a Power 5 conference?)
Big Ten(Original):
EAST
Penn State
Ohio State
Michigan State
Michigan
Rutgers
Maryland
Indiana
WEST
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Iowa
Nebraska
Northwestern
Illinois
Purdue
Big Ten(New):
*New Additions
Notre Dame
Missouri
Ohio State
Michigan State
Michigan
Indiana
Minnesota
Purdue
Wisconsin
Illinois
In our new Big Ten, not only are there actually ten teams but Notre Dame’s stubborn AD finally decided to forego independence to join the Fighting Irish’s rightful conference. The Big Ten is notoriously a midwest conference therefore eliminating Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland(I know Penn State is a huge program but this is strictly regional). Northwestern, a program that isn’t quite a cultural fit, gets cut from the conference. Nebraska was a tough one but I feel like it would be best back in the Big 12 to help reach the even ten teams. In addition, because we now only have ten teams in the Big Ten and their schedule includes 9 conferences games and 3 non-conference games, no divisions are needed.
SEC(Original):
WEST
Alabama
LSU
Arkansas
Auburn
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Texas A&M
EAST
Georgia
Florida
Tennessee
Missouri
South Carolina
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
SEC(New):
WEST
Alabama
LSU
Arkansas
Auburn
Ole Miss
Tennessee
Mississippi State
EAST
New Additions*
Florida State
Miami
Clemson
Georgia
Florida
South Carolina
Kentucky
Yes, just when you thought the SEC couldn’t get any better, it just did. But remember, this is strictly regional so although we’re adding a two time national champion to an already overpowered conference, it’s not without reason. We’ve also added Florida State and Miami to the SEC East division to make the state of Florida SEC-dominated territory. Other notable moves include removing Vanderbilt for being kind of a cultural outcast and for lack of winning over the past century and taking out Texas A&M because why is Texas A&M the only Texas school not in the Big 12?
ACC(Original):
COASTAL
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Pittsburgh
UNC
Miami
Duke
Georgia Tech
ATLANTIC
Clemson
Louisville
Wake Forest
Florida State
Boston College
Syracuse
NC State
ACC(New):
NORTH
New Additions*
Penn State
Rutgers
Maryland
Navy
Syracuse
Boston College
Pittsburgh
SOUTH
New Additions*
West Virginia
Virginia
Virginia Tech
NC State
North Carolina
Duke
Wake Forest
WE ARE…. in the ACC. Penn State and West Virginia(transferring from the BIG 12) are the notable additions to this conference as well as the scraps of the Big Ten(Maryland and Rutgers). To top it all off and show some respect to the service schools, Navy, located in Annapolis, Maryland, gets the nod. We also changed the divisions to just north and south because, frankly, atlantic and coastal divisions don’t really make sense especially considering the teams are pretty split geographically.
Big 12 (Original):
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Baylor
Texas Tech
TCU
Texas
Kansas
Kansas State
Iowa State
West Virginia
Big 12(New):
New Additions*
Texas A&M
Iowa
Nebraska
Texas
Texas Tech
Kansas
Kansas State
Iowa State
Baylor
TCU
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
The Big 12 gets Nebraska, a key historical program, back and make the Cy-Hawk trophy an inter-conference affair as Iowa is added to the conference. Texas A&M’s addition makes Texas officially a completely Big 12 state. West Virginia, being significantly farther from any of their Big 12 contemporaries is moved to the ACC.
Pac-12(Original):
NORTH
Oregon
Oregon State
Cal
Washington
Washington State
Stanford
SOUTH
Utah
USC
UCLA
Arizona State
Arizona
Colorado
Pac-12(New):
NORTH
New Additions*
Boise State
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State
Cal
SOUTH
Stanford(Moved to South division)
USC
UCLA
Arizona
Arizona State
Boise State finally gets what they deserve by being added to a Power 5 conference and they are also the only notable addition to the, not notable, Pac-12. Colorado was removed purely because of the geographic distance and Stanford was moved to the south to even out the divisions.
Are you a Philly sports fan, sports fan in general, or just enjoy hearing differing opinions on a wide range of topics from pop culture to music? If so, please checkout our website.
Also please follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!
Thank you so much!
Just The Phacts 