At this point, they'd face a lot fewer legal hurdles if they wnet to 4 x 18 = 72.

That's what I was pondering over in the Dream Conferneces thread.....

As far as "relegation", I'm sure it's all about CONTRACTS.... you could adopt it going forward, providing those involved agree to it up front.
If you were to try to exclude a school curently in one of the Power 5 conferences when you set up 4 x 16 = 64 (which you would have to do),
it'll be "lawsuit city !!!"

That's why I think 72 is the answer. It makes room for BYU, UConn, Cincinnati, Boise St. and a few others....


4 mega-conferneces just seems like where this train is headed. 4 fits into brackets nicely. The current 5 is awkward.

In other words, the only conference to be deceased should be the Big 12. There will be 4 "super-conferences" to represent each region geographically. The ACC in the East (with the AAC); the SEC in the South (with either C-USA or the Sun Belt); the Big TEN in the Midwest (with the MAC) and the Pac-12 in the West (with the MW).

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Florida State Seminoles fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)! 2011-12 ACC men's basketball conference tournament champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football Atlantic Division champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football regular season champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football conference bowl tournament champions; 2014 NCAA D-I FBS BCS national champions; 2015 ACC baseball conference tournament champions!

SHOULD is a matter of opinion.

However, if one of the 5 has to be digested, it seems like devouring the Big XII is the easiest route (in terms of geography and in terms of fewest moves requred).

Nobody in the ACC, SEC, B1G or PAC is clamoring to join the Big XII.
They only have 10 teams.
Their geography is such that any Big XII expansion will look very gerry-mandered, which makes travel time-consuming and expensive.
West Virginia would strongly prefer to be elsewhere (ACC).
If they go to 12 or beyond (and divisions) to OK teams and TX teams would want to be in separate divisions.
This is what makes Big XII expansion awkward. So lets designate the Big XII as the conference to disappear.

When you look at how the top 64-72 teams lay out geographically, it seems to make sense for the PAC to own the pacific and mountain time zones,
the B1G the upper midwest, the ACC the Atlantic seaboard, and the SEC the southeast, probably over into Texas and Oklahoma.

Missouri would be a better fit in an expanded Big Ten, if KU, KSU, ISU came with them.
This would reunite 5 of the old Big 8 (including Missouri and Nebraska), and give Missouri their "sort of rivalry" with Illinois.

Good points on this question, Notsellingjeans, tute 79, and ncaanop...

Notsellingjeans, regarding your rationale for the above, several scenarios came to my mind before. Some of it was similar.
ncaanop.., I think the Big12 has to be the one that gets shaken apart. The B12 is geographically central, has fewer overall schools, and it's the one most strategically could feed each of the other three in some fashion.
tute79, agree, if such happens, the '64' shall get altered with all the politics and maneuvering that would abound. A few outside the current power 5 could find a spot.

My last thought---though really, really suggestive:
1. The ACC adds Notre Dame (all sports) & takes Iowa State. Their 16. (alternative to Iowa State---WVU); Other backups: UCONN and Cincy).
2. The PAC12 adds UT, TTU, OU, and OSU. Their 16.
3. The SEC (a huge relenter---gulp!-- on this as to schools but not concept) does take Kansas State and West Virginia. Their 16. (close to your #5, NSJ). (alternative to WVU? ISU?)
4. The BIG takes Kansas and UCONN. (same as your #6 NSJ). (If not UCONN, then Iowa State).

Politics and compromise shall force Iowa State in there somewhere.
The system though, can't keep schools such as Wake Forest in there, and exclude schools such as Baylor and TCU; and then not make room for somebody such as BYU or perhaps Boise State.
Maybe the process would be incremental; but I can't see it being done without a huge amount of bickering, discord, lawsuits, and numerous conflicts within and without.
Maybe as tute79 indicated, they'll have to find '72' early-on to even try for it.

Perhaps at "72", a handful of MWC and AAC schools, plus BYU, could make it in there.

Why I think 72 is easier....

right now -

ACC = 14.5
SEC = 14
B1G = 14
BXII = 10
PAC = 12

Total = 64.5

If you add Notre Dame FB (and they will use the ACC to insist that happens), you are over your 64 limit.

Kicking anyone out will entail myriad lawsuits, politicking that will derail the big plan.

The 5 conferences and Notre Dame all need to get together behind the scenes and lay this out,
and then spring it on the NCAA as a fait accompli.

There are another 7 schools ot there (they may not qualify as mike Slive's "ace" programs, but competitive enough).
UConn (multiple recent national Championshps in men's and women's BB), a Big East football Championship.
BYU (they can fill a 60,000 seat FB stadium, and "sort of" won a National Championship in 1984 - OK that was questionable, but they are a big time program)
Boise St. (perennial top 10 in FB, won 2 BCS bowls in last decade)

Others: Cincy, SDSU, UNLV, New Mexico (the latter just to give those states some representation), the list can change, let's not argue that point....

Discretely invite other schools and lay out 4 conferences. Secede their FB from the NCAA, and set their own rules.
Tell the NCAA, that their FB can be re-absorbed into NCAA as their own exclusive division, if the NCAA agrees to follow thier lead as far as structure and rules.

It's a closed club. Nobody can invite themselvesin as an independent. The 4 conferences operate under a single umbrella that negotiates TV contracts, etc.
They can leave their other sports within the NCAA.

I like the idea of adding 5 schools in the West. However, I'd also add the Big East and maybe a couple non-football schools like Gonzaga, St. Mary's, and Saint Louis.

Case in point, BYU won that "sort of" national title on football in 1984 (same year where B.C. got a dramatic victory over Miami, which was best season the Eagles ever had in the history of the school's sport program) on a bowl game that's not major like the Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, Rose, Cotton, or Peach at that season. And the Cougars were on the WAC at that time too, so they were the ones who put the WAC on football on the map at that time before Boise State did in 2006 with their 2007 Fiesta Bowl win.

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Florida State Seminoles fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)! 2011-12 ACC men's basketball conference tournament champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football Atlantic Division champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football regular season champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football conference bowl tournament champions; 2014 NCAA D-I FBS BCS national champions; 2015 ACC baseball conference tournament champions!

In the event that the top 64 teams in college football really do break away to form their own organization for football I think that it would be wise of them to organize not a 4 conferences of 16 but as 8 conferences of 8. provided that they devise a revenue sharing plan and negotiate jointly for television contracts 8 conferences of 8 would allow for more regional rivalries as well as greater flexibility for OOC scheduling among the other power leagues.

Give me some to figure out how I would do it but I'm curious as to what you all think.

Well, that would be process. The major conferences would have met among themselves and have it all laid out before formally petitioning the NCAA for terms of separation for the new, unique division.
New schools to be among them would be a highly sensitive issue, and they would have to have the defined criteria that sets them apart from those left out. No clean way to do it. Best not to include new members at the onset. That's for later.

tute79, they could do a political play, initially, with the real 64 already there. It's straightforward. But no dang .5 ACC for Notre Dame. They don't play conference fb. They are out for the start. When such goes beyond 64 after established and re-organized within, then they can pick and choose who are to be invited in, and Notre Dame, as any other newbee, must play a full conference slate. If ND's hand is going to be forced, then do the division with the real 64 first. It's time to stop giving the ND AD a seat at the table equal to a conference commissioner of a top league. Let ND's interests be voiced through Swofford for a matter such as this. The ACC is not going to hamper their inclusion for 5 ND fb games a year. The ACC was real vulnerable a few months back. They don't want to re-visit that. The other big 4 could go without the ACC, and "4" is the magic number. Then the power division picks who they want out of the ACC. That particular GoR shall break-up real quickly.
Those other commissioners may be getting tired of excessive accommodation for ND, having seen little in return because of it.
Feed the carrots to horses and rabbits; for hardball football, draw a line.

Possibly. I just think there are too many "big" schools in the MWC to preclude from the power conference table. Even for the PAC...dipping into the Big XII for Texas, Oklahoma, and the two +1's, they're not getting the best academic options or biggest institutions available. And that's not a dig on Tech or State, but they just aren't the same size or of the same academic level or even the same sort of institutional type as the PAC enjoys. And the PAC is very close to the Big Ten sort of mentality: big statey, research-centered, AAU a plus, and a strong athletic department.

UNM, for example, would be the Big XII's second largest school if they were ever considered. Does size necessarily matter? Considering good basketball makes The Pit one of college basketball's best venues, if UNM ever "ran with the big boys" with the PAC or the Big XII, I imagine they could get more people to take notice there playing the likes of UCLA, USC, Arizona, and Colorado, or Texas, Tech, OU, etc., than, say, Wyoming, San Jose State, and UNLV. Even if a doormat...the school's of "the right cut."

I always look to where the money is being spent and the institutional profile is the most desirable. It's why I've been high on Tulane and Colorado State, and not so much Cincy and Houston, even if all four have been respectably spending regardless of output. The Big XII folks have said they wanted the Big XII to be the place where good schools wanted to be, and it goes without saying that the PAC feels the same (and can demand it, even if schools don't accept their invitations).

I don't know if the budgetary style of "fake it 'til you make it" (spend money on athletics like other top conference schools to look like a peer) applies to every college program out there. Programs like Memphis, who I don't even know where they ultimately want to be, but it never is where they are, probably have a ceiling. As do Houston, Cincinnati, East Carolina, and South and Central Florida. Louisville is the exception, not the rule (and they had help considering how petty the ACC is in holding grudges, ala WVU and UConn, as well as UL keeping down their own share of peer institutions from exposure). A school like Louisiana Tech, Rice, or even SMU...there's something to be said about academics, prestige, and institutional likeness that make them better candidates...even if they suck.

Looks like it's just you and us FSU Alum.

As in the only two schools worth a damn in the conference. looks that way in the West. SDSU blown out at home by FCS EIU.

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to continue my rant from the sjsu-fsu thread. Seeing NIU getting rocked makes that loss even harder to swallow but that's what I meant that we still had a good shot to get in a bcs had we won. USU may beat us tomorrow, it's gonna be Utah weather, high 44, cold rain tonight, might even snow in the smaller towns like mine, around Fresno. Hasn't snowed in Reedley since 1999. Fresno since 2005 but it was sooooooo light.

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2013 MWC Champs! Fresno St. 11-1

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Congrats to your school Fresno St. Alum, despite losing the last regular-season game, causing the Bulldogs out of the BCS Buster conversation, and also the cancelled no-contest with Colorado due to the Boulder Floods. But that's their best season in its MW tenure since the early 2000's back in the old WAC days.

And a bit topic-related, should the MW have thoughts about expansion or will keep it off for the moment?

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Florida State Seminoles fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)! 2011-12 ACC men's basketball conference tournament champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football Atlantic Division champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football regular season champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football conference bowl tournament champions; 2014 NCAA D-I FBS BCS national champions; 2015 ACC baseball conference tournament champions!