To discourage a rash of Division I newcomers, say the NCAA's membership passed a rule limiting a conference to 9 teams; the rule requiring an FBS conference having 8 members also remains in place, effectively limiting FBS conferences to either 8 or 9 teams. What changes take place?

Here's how I draw it up:

The Big 12 South splits off to form the Southwest Conference, and goes after the SEC:

SWC - Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas Tech, LSU, Arkansas, Mississippi
SEC - Mississippi State, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vanderbilt

The Big 12 North reverts to being the Big 8, but replaces the Oklahoma schools with a pair of Mountain West schools:

Big 8 - Utah, BYU, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State

The Mountain West reloads with Oregon State, who didn't make the cut for the Pac 9:

MWC - Oregon State, San Diego State, UNLV, New Mexico, TCU, Wyoming, Air Force, Colorado State
Pac 9 - Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Arizona, Arizona State

Conference USA splits, and drags four schools along for the ride:

Metro - Florida Atlantic, Central Florida, UAB, Southern Miss, Marshall, East Carolina, Memphis, WKU
Conference USA - Tulane, Louisiana Tech, Houston, SMU, Rice, UTEP, Tulsa, Arkansas State

The Big East, free of its basketball-centric members, looks west and forces the Big Ten (11) to revert to the Big 9:

Big East - Connecticut, Syracuse, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Purdue
Big 9 - Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa

The ACC decides to split so all schools can compete for an automatic bid in basketball, and one of the two conferences bags some high-profile football independents:

ACC - Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Temple, Buffalo, South Florida
Eastern 9 - North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Maryland, Boston College, Notre Dame, Navy, Army, Miami (FL)

The MAC and Sun Belt work out an agreement on football-only memberships::

MAC - Ohio, Akron, Bowling Green, Toledo, Ball State, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Kent, Northern Illinois
SBC - North Texas, Louisiana, Louisiana-Monroe, Troy, MTSU, Florida International, Eastern Michigan [football-only], Miami (OH) [football-only]

The WAC stays put after losing Louisiana Tech:

WAC - Hawaii, San Jose State, Fresno State, Nevada, Boise State, Idaho, Utah State, New Mexico State

BCS tie-ins (replaced by an at-large team if one of a bowl's conferences places a member in the BCS Championship game).

Rose - Pac 9 vs. Big 9
Sugar - SEC vs. Eastern 9
Fiesta - SWC vs. Big 8
Orange - ACC vs. Big East

I've been staring at this for a while. I'll give it a shot although it think the Big 10 would never let this occur.

The pecking order in terms of football (IMO) is more or less:

1) Big 10
2) SEC
3) Pac 10
4) Big 12
5) ACC
6) Big East
====
7) MWC
8) CUSA
9) WAC
10) Sunbelt
11) MAC


So starting at the top...who gets voted out of the Big 10? 2 teams have to go...Northwestern is the no brainer. They are the only private school and are usually not all that competitive. If faced with leaving the Big 10, they might just drop football to stay in as a basketball only school. That gets you down to 10. Who do you boot? My guess is if this scenario ever did come to pass through some inexcapable legal demand, the long term membership would circle the horses and boot Penn State. = the big 10 survives "intact"

Big 10 - Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa + Northwestern(non-football)


I'd agree that the Big 12 has the pieces to effectively have second pick.

SWC - Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, LSU


The SEC has 7 power schools and might raid 2 more. FSU and Clemson both pull 80K per game and keep a small footprint. UNC and virginia might be good adds too for added markets, but they are smaller scale programs.

SEC - Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Clemson, Florida, FSU.


The Pac 10 likes parallelling the big 10. Could they get Stanford to drop football? Ouch. A more likely scenario could be booting out OSU or WSU. I'll say WSU.

Pac 9 - Washington, Oregon St, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Arizona, Arizona State


The ACC would boot BC.

ACC - Miami, GT, NC, NC St, Duke, Wake Forest, VT, Virginia, Maryland


The Big East would snap up Penn State, but keep all of their other football members to satisfy their non-football members.

BE - Penn State, WV, Syracuse, USF, Rutgers, Pitt, Louisville, UConn, Cinci


The remnants of the Big 12 would cook a deal with the gang of 5.

Big 8 - Utah, BYU, CSU, Nebraska, Iowa St, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, Air Force, Wyoming


With the MWC effectively dead, CUSA would have next pick. They would split for better footprints.

Conference Texas - UNM, UTEP, TCU, SMU, Houston, Rice, Baylor, Tulsa, Tulane
Conference USA - Memphis, S. Miss, UAB, UCF, ECU, Marshall, Charlotte, Ole Miss, Miss St.


The WAC would pick up the MWC pieces replacing their lesser schools.

WAC - Hawaii, Washington State, Boise State, San Jose State, Fresno State, San Diego State, UNLV, Nevada,


The MAC and eastern pariah Boston College could cut a deal yeilding 2 conferences. The conferences could play together for Basketball for the next 5 years.

MAC - Akron, Bowling Green, Toledo, Ball State, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, EMU, Kent, Northern Illinois
Boston redemption conference- Ohio, Miami, Temple, Buffalo, Boston College, Navy, Army, UMASS, Youngstown state

The Sunbelt would likely split and grab some upgrades.

upper level big sky - Idaho, Utah State, New Mexico State + Sac St, PSU, Weber St, N. AZ, NDSU, SDSU

This was wearing me down at the end, but I finally got it done.

I'm going to assume the NCAA waives the 7/6/5 rule after passing this legislation, because otherwise conferences would have to kick people out because no one would voluntarily split.

There's two ways to go... #1 The BCS gets together and plans things out so the 73 of them form 10 conferences.

Pac 8: California, Oregon, Oregon St, Southern Cal, Stanford, UCLA, Washington, Washington St
Big 8: Kansas, Kansas St, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Iowa State, Iowa
Southwest (8): Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, Arizona, Arizona St, Colorado, Colorado St
SEC (9): Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi St, Tennessee
Big Ten (9): Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan St, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin
ACC (9): Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, N Carolina St, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Wake Forest
Big East (9): Penn State, Boston College, Syracuse, Connecticut, Rutgers, Miami (FL), Florida St, Notre Dame, Maryland
Metro (9): Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, South Florida, UCF, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
East Coast (9) No football: Villanova, Marquette, Providence, Georgetown, Seton Hall, St. John's, DePaul, Xavier, Dayton
Mountain West (9) BYU, Air Force, New Mexico, San Diego St, TCU, UNLV, Utah, UTEP, Wyoming
WAC (9) unchanged: Utah St, Nevada, Boise St, New Mexico St, Idaho, Louisiana Tech, San Jose St, Hawai'i, Fresno St
Conference USA (9): UAB, Houston, Rice, Tulsa, SMU, Southern Miss, Tulane, East Carolina, Charlotte
MAC EAST (9): Buffalo, Temple, Army, Navy, Marshall, Florida Intl, Florida Atlantic, W Kentucky, Middle Tenn
MAC WEST (9): Bowling Green, Toledo, Miami (OH), Akron, Kent St, Ohio, Ball State, Northern Illinois, Arkansas St
Sun Belt (9): UL Lafayette, UL Monroe, North Texas, S Alabama, Troy, UA Little Rock, C Michigan, E Michigan, W Michigan

And obviously, fall out from there for non-football leagues

NOW THE SECOND OPTION... No cooperation, every man for themselves.

That would be straight up ridiculous. Pretty much the conferences who decide to act first would be the best off, and you'd see some crazy shit. I could think about that for hours...

_________________
1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

In a cut-throat world, which is more likely to happen, it's virtually impossible to project a logical scenario.

We can come up with logical solutions that work best for people... mine would be:

The four Texas Big XII schols (Texas, TTU, A&M, Baylor) form a new conference with LSU, Arkansas, Arizona, Arizona State and Colorado. (Gives them Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Denver, Phoenix/Tucscon markets).
The Pac 9 (WASH, WSU, ORE, OSU, UCLA, USC, Cal, Stan) adds Utah.
The Big IX (NEB, KU, KSU, OU, OSU, MIZZ, ISU) adds Minnesota and Iowa
The Big Ten (OSU, PSU, MSU, UM, ILL, WISC, Indy, Pur) kicks out Northwestern and adds Notre Dame.
The SEC (FLA, GEO, AUB, ALA, MISS, MISS ST, UK, TENN, VANDY) kicks out South Carolina
The Big East splits along football lines (SYR, UConn, WVU, Rutgers, Pitt, Louisville, Cincy, USF) adds Boston College
The East Coast conference forms for basketball (Nova, GTown, Hall, St Johns, Prov, DePaul, Marq) adds Xavier and Dayton.
The ACC splits, with football-oriented schools (Miami, Va Tech, Ga Tech, Fla St, Clemson) getting a new name and adding South Carolina, Memphis and UCF
The ACC Basketball schools (UNC, Duke, Wake, Maryland, NC St, UVA) add East Carolina and Charlotte (which goes FBS)
The Mountain West adds Boise St to replace Utah.
Conference USA (having lost Memphis, UCF and ECU) are at nine.
The WAC either stays at eight, or takes North Texas or Texas State.

The Sun Belt splits with new FBS teams out of the Southland filling the gap, and the northern schools combining with the MAC, Temple, Navy, and Army for two.

Furtherdown the line, Saint Louis joins the top four of the MVC (Creighton, Southern Illinois, No Iowa, Ill State) and Horizon (Butler, Detroit, Green Bay, Milwaukee) for a new league which forces the MVC and Horizon to realign, raid the OVC, etc. The A-10 (UD/Xavier/Temple/SLU/Charlotte) kicks out Fordham (Patriot, replacing Army/Navy) and replaces them with the best available school from the CAA/MAAC. The Colonial splits, ransacks the SoCon, Am East, Big South, and MAAC... an you get the idea, everyone realigns from there.


However, that absolutely WILL NOT HAPPEN. College sports is too money driven and too competitive for that. There's no way for conferences to simply trade around members peacefully in a way that makes sense.

If they tried, there would be a lot big time programs who would not like what was happening around their conference and decide to do something about it. All it takes is for six ADs to get together and agree and everything is thrown into chaos.

Let's say Notre Dame calls up NBC, ESPN and a few ADs and next thing you know:
Notre Dame, USC, UCLA, Texas, Ohio State, Florida, Syracuse, UConn, and North Carolina make a conference!

Those schools could decide to do it, knowing that their TV package (LA, Chicago, all of Texas, all of Florida, half North Carolina, and the NYC area via Syracuse and UConn) will blow everyone else out of the water.

Texas, Ohio State, Florida, USC are four top 10 teams in football; and Notre Dame is still Notre Dame. You put those five teams' games on NBC every week and the other five on ESPN every week.

ESPN gets the hoops package (UConn and Syracuse graduates make up half of ESPN's production teams) in which seven of the nine made the NCAAs last year and ND and Florida were in the NIT. You put the basketball tournament in MSG, and 90% of their games are on ESPN. Including non-conference matchups like: UNC/Duke, UConn and Syracuse vs Pitt, Georgetown, etc.

You'll make so much money that travel isn't an issue (and you have travel partners: UCLA/USC; SU/UConn; FLA/UNC; ND/OSU plus Florida)

Now all the ADs in the BCS are pissed, and EVERYONE is looking to follow suit. The ADs at LSU, Alabama, Florida State, Miami, Maryland, Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan State and Pitt will not sit back and go regional. They'll go for the top TV dollars possible.



Also, I think a more likely response to the NCAA making a rule like that... you'd see the 64 top programs leave the NCAA, form their own governing body, set up their conferences like pro divisions (eight of eight?), split the revenue evenly and relegate everyone else to JV.

_________________
1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

OK lets start in the west

PAC-10 loses AZ and AZ State

PAC-8 UW, WSU, OU, OSU, Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA

The AZ schools join with Texas and Oklahoma schools

BIG VIII - AZ, ASU, UT, TAMU, TTU, BU, OU, OSU

The other Big XII schools grab Iowa and Arkansas

BIG 8 - AR, KU, KSU, Mizzou, NE, IA, IA State, Colorado

The Big Ten loses Ohio State and Penn State (as well as Iowa) but grabs Notre Dame

BIG Ten (9) - Illi, Indy, UM, MSU, MN, N'western, UND, Purdue, UW

The Big East loses WV, Louisville and USF but gains the two big states from Big XII plus BC

BIG EAST - BC, Cincy, UConn, Ohio State, Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse

The ACC contracts into the Carolinas and Georgia gaining SC and GA

ACC - Clem, Duke, GA, GT, UNC, NCSU, SC, WF

The SEC regroups and takes over Florida

SEC - Bama, Auburn, UF, FSU, LSU, UMiami, MSU, Ole Miss, USF

A new conference is formed

BIG CENTRAL? - WV, VA, VT, MD, KY, Louisville, TN, Vandy

For Non-BCS we'll include South Alabama and Charlotte so we can have 7 conferences of 8 teams

Again starting in the west, the WAC loses NMSU, USU and LTU, but gains SDSU and UNLV

WAC - Boise St, Fresno St, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, SDSU, SJSU, UNLV

The MWC loses the two above plus TCU, but gains two from WAC

MWC - AF, BYU, Col State, NM, NMSU, Utah, USU, WY

CUSA splits, the Texas schools and Tulsa keep the name and join with other TX schools and Arkansas State

CUSA - Houston, UNT, Rice, SMU, TCU, UTEP, Tulsa, ASU

Sunbelt splits into north and south, the FL and LA schools join other interstate schools plus Southern Miss

Sunbelt South - FAU, FIU, LA Tech, ULL, ULM, SMU, Tulane, UCF

The rest of the Sunbelt adds interstate schools plus ECU and Charlotte

Sunbelt North - Charlotte, ECU, Memphis, MTSU, South Alabama, Troy, UAB, WKU

The MAC splits east / west, the west is OH, IL and IN

MAC West - Akron, Ball St, Bowling Green, Kent St, Miami (OH), NIU, OH, Toledo

The rest of the MAC adds Army, Navy and Marshall

MAC East - CMU, EMU, WMU, Buffalo, Army, Navy, Temple, Marshall

Pretty similar to what I ended up with.

I don't think you'd see such blatant swapping of leagues... like the ACC and SEC realigning together; Ohio State leaving the Big Ten, etc.

For moves like that to happen, people would need to work together. And that rarely happens.

Provided the NCAA said "as you realign, all your NCAA tournament revenue will go to the school which earned it," you'd be more likely to see nine teams leave a conference, form a new one and leave three people behind than split.

Immediately, teams like Texas are going to call up Oklahoma and say "Look, we like the Big XII, we can't vote people out, but what about us four Texas schools, Okla and Ok state, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas?" and then try to get those nine to leave Iowa State, K-State and Missouri behind.

The Big XII North wouldn't want to split. They go from Texas and Oklahoma to Iowa and Wyoming? That's horrible for them. The first thing that would happen if the Big XII split north and south is that the entire north would call the south and ask for one of their three open spots.

Ditto the SEC and ACC.

Self preservation is always going to come before common sense and a Kantian theory of "Greater good for the greater number of people"

And that's why I think you'd see some really "odd" alignments. Whomever made the best group of nine teams from different conferences that made some sense for all of them would win.

Maybe not Texas, Florida, UConn, Syracuse, Ohio State, USC, UCLA, North Carolina and Notre Dame... but I guarantee you Texas and Florida would talk.

_________________
1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

9 team conference would allow football teams to play 3 non-conference games every year.

Maybe conferences should be 12, with 9 football playing schools and 3 non-football schools.

Just some excellent posts. I couldn't see the Big 10 leadership which crafted the BCS allowing the NCAA to screw up their system of money generation and distribution. I think that unless there was a governmental impetus, they would simply move their power conferences from the NCAA to become a "tier 1" division in the NAIA.

I did my best to come up with how something like this would work if the Obama administration passed something designed to level the college athletic playing field that had these restrictions.

Playa, I think your 9/12 conference setup is a very good model for a lot of lower end conferences. I wish more would look at it as a good setup and not something to try to get out of as soon as possible. Logically it would shrink footprints and travel costs and allow 9 member football conferences to dramatically increase their BB standing without much added outlay.

The fascinating thing would be to see if the BCS just left, how and why they'd align. If they left, they'd have to go together, as one large group of 65 (or potentially, 48-to-96, I suppose), so they had people to play.

Would they go as Pac 10, Big XII, Big (11) Ten, Big East (8 football plus Notre Dame), ACC or SEC (12 each) and stay in their current alignment?

In formulating their plans, they'd need to consult TV networks to ensure it's profitable. And if they're going to go as a group of 65 to TV, why negotiate seperate deals as conferences?

And when they ask TV, wouldn't TV say "we want a playoff" ?

_________________
1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

Perhaps if the BCS leaves and drags 6 more schools along to satisfy some of the schools raising cain, the BCS could go to regions:

Pacific - Hawaii, UCLA, USC, Washington, Stanford, California, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State

Mountain - Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU, Colorado, Boise State, UNLV, Colorado State, Kansas State

Southwest - Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas A&M, LSU, Arkansas, Missouri

North - Nebraska, Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Kansas, Notre Dame

Central - Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, Pittsburgh, Kentucky, Louisville, Cincinnati

South - Mississippi, Mississippi State, Alabama, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina State

Southeast - Florida, Florida State, Miami-FL, South Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Clemson, North Carolina

Atlantic - Virginia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Maryland, Rutgers, Connecticut, Syracuse, Boston College, Penn State