Your own personal college conference

The Game Room
1

Based on this thread about super conferences, I decided to start this thread with less restrictions. I will be happy to discuss my logic in picking my 12 teams, but the general guidelines of school selection are as follows:

  1. League must have 12 schools
  2. Schools must have division 1 programs in Football and Basketball (i.e. they must be able to play for the national championship in each sport)
  3. Geography must be taken into consideration - you cannot have USC and Florida in the same conference.
  4. Current or traditional rivalries should be maintained if possible.

That’s it.

My league, which I’ll call The Dirty Dozen includes

  1. Duke
  2. Maryland
  3. Michigan
  4. Michigan State
  5. North Carolina
  6. Notre Dame
  7. Ohio State
  8. Penn State
  9. Pittsburgh
  10. Tennessee
  11. Virginia
  12. West Virginia

From a geography point of view, all teams (I believe) are east of the Mississippi River. The northernmost team is Michigan State, the southermost team is North Carolina. It’s a nice, relatively compact conference that covers a great portion of the northern and southern midwest, the east and the eastern heartland.

I pulled a number of teams in and out as I went, and it’s by no means a perfect conference. I’d be curious as to how anyone might improve it.

But for each team, I identified 3 schools that are, would be, or should be natural rivalries based on things like geography, overlapping recruiting areas, etc.

This also assumes that Notre Dame would be willing to join this conference.

Here are the teams and the initial rivalries I see for each team.

Duke - UNC, Maryland, Tennessee
Maryland - Duke, UNC, Tennessee
Michigan - OSU, MSU, ND
Michigan State - Michigan, OSU, PSU
North Carolina - Duke, Tennessee, Maryland
Notre Dame - OSU, Michigan, Pitt
OSU - Mich, Pitt, Notre Dame
Pitt - PSU, WVU, OSU
Tenn - UVa, Duke, UNC
UVa - UNC, Duke, Maryland
WVU - Pitt, PSU, Virginia

Thoughts? Good, bad or ugly, I’d be curious as to what you all think of the choice of these twelve teams. I’ve ignored major issues, like the Big ten Network, and other financial ties. This was just an exercise to get a dream conference that a fan tied to any of these schools would love to watch on TV or in person.

And if you want to make a conference of your own, I’d love to see those as well.

The big difference between this thread and the one I linked to are, of course, the restrictions placed on the schools. This is more by gut feel.

2

In the other thread, I was trying to find the best all-around schools (athletics, academics, media pull), so this is definitely a different thread and appreciated.

Since I’m a Michigan homer, I’d start there.

Schools I need because of personal rooting interest:

  1. Michigan
  2. Ohio State
  3. Michigan State
  4. Notre Dame
  5. Penn State

Think it would be interesting:

  1. North Carolina
  2. West Virginia
  3. Duke
  4. Missouri
  5. Nebraska
  6. Kentucky
  7. Illinois

Alternates depending on my mood:

  1. Pitt
  2. Maryland
  3. Virginia

That gives me several strong football and basketball teams. I feel like I’m under appreciating Virginia and Maryland, but those ACC teams don’t move my fan interest at all.

3

I based this thread on yours, so I was hoping you’d reply. I tried to remove the restrictions as much as possible from your thread (although I think your idea is closer to reality than mine is. Those references you gave would probably all be looked at.)

I do like your first five. As a Pitt homer, I’d love to see Pitt added into that list. But being from Michigan, I can appreciate your lack of understanding or passion for the Pitt-Penn State rivalry.

4

As for your conference, Tennessee doesn’t fit the group but Kentucky works much better. UT have too many ties to the SEC while UK’s biggest rival might be Louisville. Kentucky is also closer to Ohio State and Michigan than Georgia or Florida.

Your group is good but is more east coast/ACC influenced than my tastes. I start pulling from the heartland with a couple of Big XII schools.

5

I agree with you about Tennessee. It was the one school I kept putting in and pulling back out. Kentucky would be nice, but only if I could squeeze Louisville in there. That’s a rivalry (especially in basketball) I’d hate to miss out on.

Tennessee has the benefit of being a good program in both sports, not to mention women’s basketball, and fits geographically.

I tried not to go east coast… the three ACC schools are as close to the coast as I get, and each of them are closer to mid-state than coastal colleges. Still could use some work though.

I also thought of Cincinnati, but I don’t get the sense that OSU would be a rivalry with Cincinnati, and that, along with Louisville and Kentucky, would be the natural rivalry. The Big East schools don’t have any rivalry with Cincinnati yet, and I doubt they ever will.

I don’t know much about Missouri and Nebraska as they relate to Big 10 schools. How do they fit? I think pulling Nebraska out of the Big XII would be like pulling Michigan out of the Big 10. Missouri, on the other hand, might not be a bad fit. I just don’t know enough about the school to make a judgement one way or the other.

It’s a fun exercise. I know this is going to happen in a month or so. The only wild card seems to be Notre Dame. I’ve read the university wants to move to a conference, but the alumni are dead set against it. I’ve also read that if the Big XII gets picked apart, Texas may go independent as well, creating a school that would rival Notre Dame with their own network and money drawing capability.

6

As far as the Big 10 expansion, there’s some good discussion over in that thread about the different candidates. Short version, the Nebraska AD has expressed frustration over the revenue sharing in the Big XII (Texas gets the largest share) and a willingness to listen to overtures from the Big 10. It doesn’t mean they will leave, but it’s not a surprise. Notre Dame is different. The faculty would love to join the Big Ten because it means membership in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (Big Ten + University of Chicago), a joint effort to share research and other academic resources with all members. The athletic department and the alumni are against conference affiliation and value their tradition of independence.

However, I understood this thread to be about a conference that we want to see and make logical sense. I’m taking the free will away from Notre Dame in my decision.

7

Your take on this thread is correct. I was just making a comment, but you should take free will away from Notre Dame. I did!

8

As an Irish alum, I grant full arm-twisting powers to get Notre Dame into a conference. I like the *idea *of independence, but the practicality of that is really dwindling these days.

9

Being an SEC fan, I can’t get too excited about plans to expand it to keep up with the Big Televen. It won’t surprise me if it does happen, but ever since Arkansas and South Carolina were added back in 1992, I’ve been more or less happy with the schools involved. I can even remember when Georgia Tech and Tulane were involved.

The “balance of power” shared by the top six or eight teams has been a perennial issue and in football it’s hard to imagine that dropping the “cellar dwellers” of Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Ole Miss in favor of some new blood from adjoining states might make for an even tougher conference.

All I can really say in opposition to the plan to expand the SEC is that going too far away from the Old South for members defeats the purpose of the conference, and if such expansion takes place the name Southeastern ought to be dropped for something more generic and less geographical.

In any case, the main teams must stay: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, LSU and Tennessee. The other six (or more) need to be at least as strong as those six.

10

Just curious, but what six teams would you see willing to join the conference with your initial six?

11

How about adding these six:

Florida State
Texas
Texas A/M
Oklahoma
Okie State

And my alma mater: Ga Tech
Call it Tornado Alley Conference

12

I could buy the ideas expressed by notfrommensa in the next post after yours, including the idea of dumping “SE” from the name of the group.

I have a personal distaste for the “Big Whatever” names when there aren’t that many “big” names in the group. It also gets to be weird when the Pac-10 starts adding teams as far inland as Colorado, Nebraska and such.

In fact, is there an accurate name for a conference even now?

13

Atlantic Coast Conference is pretty close. All members are in states that are on the Atlantic Coast. And without the arrogance of being “Big”

14
  1. Connecticut
  2. Syracuse
  3. Pittsburgh
  4. West Virginia
  5. Louisville
  6. Kentucky
  7. Tennessee
  8. North Carolina
  9. Duke
  10. Maryland
  11. Michigan St.
  12. Ohio St.

It’s the “I Don’t Give A Damn About College Football, But We All Play It In D1 To Satisfy the OP” conference. It actually wouldn’t be too terrible at football, with most of the programs at least having some history, but we don’t really care anyways. Football is where the JV cheerleaders go while the Varsity team is cheering for out of conference basketball games - one of the bylaws of the conference will be strict regulations on the minimum strength of your OOC schedule. Then, once the conference slate starts… ooh. Makes me all happy just thinking about it.

(If left to my own devices, I’d probably go with ten teams, since we don’t care about the conference championship game in football and it lets us do a full home and home slate for basketball. Dropping the two Big 10 teams makes the most sense there.)

15

That’s not a *terrible *football conference. Much better than the current Big East mess. Actually, there isn’t much you could do to Big East conference football
to make it worse than it is now.

16

Big XII South - Baylor + Memphis
SEC West
Call it the “Places that aren’t too cold for DS to live” Conference

17

This is wrong. Just because they’re good in basketball doesn’t mean they care about it as much as football. All the fans I talk to live, eat, talk, breathe Ohio State University football. Basketball is just a nice addition. The team has mostly been good only the past 12 years.

18

There’s a bit of appeal here to splitting the SEC’s divisions if the proximity issue gets stressed enough. Having SEC-East work with the lower end of the ACC and perhaps the Big East’s southern group might make for a better balance.

SEC-West and Big XII south makes some sense, too.

A while back I started a thread about the breakdown by state of the Division I teams, FBS and FCS combined, and the biggest states, in order are:




State        Div I FBS FCS 

 Texas          15 10 5

 North Carolina 14  5 9

 New York       12  3 9

 California     11  7 4
 Louisiana      11  5 6
 Pennsylvania   11  3 8

 Ohio           10  8 2
 Florida        10  7 3
 Virginia       10  2 8

 Tennessee       9  4 5
 South Carolina  9  2 7

 Alabama         8  4 4

 Indiana         7  4 3
 Illinois        7  3 4

 Kentucky        6  3 3 
 Mississippi     6  3 3

 Michigan        5  5 0
 Utah            5  3 2
 Massachusetts   5  1 4

 Colorado        4  3 1
 Arkansas        4  2 2 
 Georgia         4  2 2  
 Iowa            4  2 2
 Maryland        4  2 2
 Connecticut     4  1 3

 Oklahoma        3  3 0
 Arizona         3  2 1
 Idaho           3  2 1
 Oregon          3  2 1
 Washington      3  2 1
 New Jersey      3  1 2
 Missouri        3  1 2 
 Rhode Island    3  0 3

 Kansas          2  2 0 
 Nevada          2  2 0
 New Mexico      2  2 0 
 West Virginia   2  2 0
 Delaware        2  0 2
 D.C.            2  0 2
 Montana         2  0 2
 New Hampshire   2  0 2
 North Dakota    2  0 2
 South Dakota    2  0 2

 Hawaii          1  1 0
 Minnesota       1  1 0 
 Nebraska        1  1 0
 Wisconsin       1  1 0
 Wyoming         1  1 0
 Maine           1  0 1

A case could be made for Texas, New York, and North Carolina being conferences of their own! Other neighbor states could be combined so all their teams would be in the same conference.

Just something to toss into the mix.

19

Oh, no, I meant ME, not the universities. Many of those are pretty big football schools, either now or in the past (and they’d like to get back there). I just greedily want to grab them all for my dream basketball conference - in Ohio St.'s case, because I had already mined out the top tier of the ACC and SEC, because the rest of the top tier of the Big East doesn’t have D1 football, and because even with that relatively limited history they’re a better fit than the rest of the Big 10 teams. The dream school for that spot rivalry-wise probably would have been Penn St., but that’s just such an abysmal basketball school (even if they’ve at least started moving in the right direction).