u/B1GSkyNorth

What if the 90s went crazy?

I think this is my favorite alt-history alignment. Here are the significant points of divergence. 

• Big Eight/SWC merger starts earlier, and grabs Arkansas and TCU, instead of letting Arkansas go to the SEC in 1992.. 
• Penn State, after being snubbed by the Big East, begins discussions with the ACC instead of the Big Ten. They join with Florida State in 1992. 
• The SEC invites two prominent Southern independents, South Carolina and Tulane after missing on Arkansas, to bring its membership up to the required 12 teams for a conference championship game.
• Seeing the large TV contracts the Big XII and SEC were getting, the Big Ten and Pac-10 discuss a merger, like in the 1950s when the PCC collapsed. However, negotiations fall apart around number of conference games, divisions, and travel to remote college towns. Fearing the worst in a new BCS system dominated by the SEC and Big XII, 6 West Coast teams simply agreed to join the Big Ten in 1997 rather than create a new merged conference. 
• In the wake of the collapse of the SWC, several Texas teams joined the WAC, which was ballooning in size all the way to 16 teams. In 1998, 8 teams left the WAC (Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah, and Wyoming) to join the abandoned PAC-10. It would rename to the PAC-12. The WAC would take the best programs from the Big West, and rename to the Mountain West. Over the course of the 2000s and 2010s, the MWC invited Houston and UTEP from C-USA, New Mexico State from the Sun Belt, and would be the home of several FCS move-ups like North Texas, Texas State, UTSA, and Sam Houston State. 
• The American was formed in 2013 after the Big East floundered in the wake of losing Virginia Tech and Miami in 2004 and Boston College and Rutgers in 2005. Eventually, independence fell out of favor when the new CFP system did not give Notre Dame a seat at the bargaining table or any particular special access. Memphis and UCF were the first call-ups and brought the league to 9 teams in 2012. Temple and UMass got nods in 2013 to reestablish the league's footprint in the Northeast. Navy joined in 2015. In 2016, after getting excluded from the NY6, Notre Dame, already being a member in every other sport left over from the Big East, decided to move its football team to the AAC alongside Army, closing out independence as a viable option in the sport.

 

For the Sun Belt, C-USA, and MAC I just geographically realigned the remainder of the teams. 

This is a tweaked version of another conference setup I didn't quite get around to trying earlier this year. We've got 6 power conferences, or probably more like 4 powers and 2 mid-majors, but I'll have to test in the playoffs. What do you think? Who has the best schedule? Is the SEC too weak compared to the B16 or Big XII? What stands out that needs fixing before it could be fun? 

Divisions were a useful scheduling model from 1992-2022 that created familiarity between teams within the division by having them play each other every year, and they made conference championship races significantly easier to follow because of the round robin format the division needed to follow. Divisions are also important for the game's scheduler, because without the guardrails the divisions provide it will spit out schedules with things like 4 conference away games in a row. Conferences with divisions must have either 12, 14, or 16 members because of 9-game conference scheduling math.

General factors I considered:

1. Making as few changes to power conference (ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, and SEC) lineups as possible
2. Protecting as many rivalries within those conference lineups as possible
3. Geographic matchups

Basic moves before assigning divisions:

1. Moved Maryland and Rutgers to the ACC to get the Big Ten to 16.
2. Moved Pitt, Louisville, and Syracuse from the ACC to the American and SMU out of the ACC
3. Moved UCF, West Virginia, and Cincinnati from the Big XII to the American and Houston out of the Big XII
4. Moved UMass and UConn to the American
5. Moved East Carolina, North Texas, Tulsa, UTSA, and Charlotte out of the American
6. All teams outside the American, ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, and SEC were pooled together and then split into groups of 12 based on geography, historical membership, and rivalries with the goal of creating four more regional MAC-style conferences

American: Super Big East combined with 1990s Metro Conference. North is more Big East, South is more C-USA. Memphis and Southern Miss have four rivalries in division, Cincinnati has four rivalries in conference, Pitt, West Virginia, and UCF have three as well. Protected cross-divisional rivalries used to bring back Cincinnati-Pittsburgh and West Virginia-Louisville. I took three teams from the ACC and three teams from the Big XII to build this into a mid-major power conference. This one took a broad sweep, but I did not consider the American to be a power conference until I added these teams, so it was fair game to make broad changes to this league.

ACC: Followed the old "Atlantic-Coastal" structure. I know, I know it's dumb to put Cal in the Atlantic division, but (1) it's just better to follow tradition rather than make up something else and (2) honestly I've had a lot of fun watching Cal terrorize the ACC with its mediocrity and generally just screw around, and I could not think of a similar name to coastal that didn't have a geographic signifier like this.

I kicked out Pitt, Louisville, and Syracuse to strengthen the American and put them with their historic rivals like West Virginia and UConn. SMU is fun but they are an island of themselves without a rival in-conference, so off you go. The Big Ten needed to trim down, so Maryland comes home to the ACC, and brings along Rutgers (whose only rival in the game is Maryland). I think the proliferation of west coast teams into all the other conferences is really fun, so Cal and Stanford stay. We need one more team to get to 15, and who better than the team that is already a voting member for all other sports and is contractually obligated to join if they were to join a league, Notre Dame.

For the divisional lineup I started with the 2012 divisions, with the Atlantic having BC, Clemson, Florida State, Maryland, NC State, and Wake Forest, while the Coastal has Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia, and Virginia Tech. From there I decided that Rutgers would need to go with Maryland (and it fits the extremely red/orange/yellow motif the ACC Atlantic had). I wanted Notre Dame to play Stanford, Miami, and BC every year, so it made sense to me to put Notre Dame in the ACC Coastal, and just protect the Notre Dame-BC game. It also balances out the league, with Clemson and FSU on one side and Miami and Notre Dame on the other. Since BC took Notre Dame's protected cross-divisional rival slot, Stanford needs to go in the same division as Notre Dame, the ACC Coastal. And to make sure the travel burden to the bay area is spread evenly across the whole conference rather than just one division, Cal would go in the ACC Atlantic, and Cal-Stanford would be the protected cross-divisional rivalry game.

B1G: After moving out Maryland and Rutgers, it made sense to go back to the East-West setup. One might think it does not make sense to put all of the West Coast teams in the same division if, in the ACC, we split them to ease the burden of travel. The difference here is in protecting rivalries. There are 20 in-conference rivalry games with this group of teams. this divisional alignment, and only this divisional alignment, protects 19 of them (Minnesota-Penn State, the least important one, is the lost game). The traditional 11-team Big Ten has this weird rivalry split where 8 teams (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, and Purdue) all have a ton of history with each other, while out west Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin all do their own thing, with Minnesota being the only team with historic rivalries that bridge this split. So it follows that, when you add in Nebraska, who has fit in seamlessly with that western triangle into a quadrangle of hate, you should just pair it with the other four-team pod a bit farther west, and not think too hard. Protected rivalries will be on, solely for Minnesota-Michigan.

Big XII: Once we've shed our Big East/American teams out east, we are left with thirteen teams. Houston, the newest member to the P5 of this grouping and no primary rival in this league either, is the natural cut to bring this down to 12. I opted to go down to 12, rather than add SMU at 14 teams, because this way I can make sure every conference is either 16 teams or 12 teams, and this standardization makes it much easier on the scheduler so it doesn't give you bad games. So Houston joins its fellow Texan P5 newcomer SMU in the Mountain West.

With the 12-team divisional split, a North-South split turned out to be super obvious. There's two three-team pods (BYU-Utah-Colorado and Iowa State-Kansas-Kansas State), a four team rivalry grouping in Texas & Oklahoma, and Arizona-Arizona State. So it made sense to me to put the group of four with the Arizonas, and put the groups of three together, and it makes geographic sense. It splits up the travel costs more evenly as well.

SEC: I made no changes to the lineup of the SEC because this group of 16 has really nice symmetry and balance. However, for divisions, I decided to go back to the East-West model the SEC used until 2024. The quirk here is that Missouri was in the SEC East from 2011-2023, which was done to make sure Alabama and Auburn stayed in the SEC West and played their historic rivals in that division, and maintained competitive balance across the league. So when we need to add Texas and Oklahoma to the league, it makes sense to try to follow that logic. We put Texas with its former SWC rivals Arkansas and Texas A&M in the SEC West, and we put Oklahoma with its former Big 8 rival Missouri in the SEC East. It's a little weird but there is a coherent logic to this, because it makes sure both divisions have four of the Blueblood/Big 6 teams (Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee in the East, and Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Texas in the West).

C-USA: Central South region+ FAU/FIU. I put FAU and FIU in this league because after setting up the Sun Belt and MAC, there were only 10 teams. FAU and FIU are a natural pair rather than splitting up any two of Georgia State, Georgia Southern, and Kennesaw State. FAU also historically had a rivalry Troy back when they were together in the Sun Belt. FIU went to the opposite division, however, to split the travel burden across the whole league, rather than just the East division, like in the ACC.

MAC: Midwest region. No explanation necessary

MWC: Southwest region. Combined all remaining Texas teams (many of whom have historic ties to the WAC, the predecessor of the Mountain West) with Tulsa (rivalries with Rice, SMU, and Houston), New Mexico and New Mexico State (rivalry with UTEP, border state, solidifies connection to Mountain region) and Air Force (mountain connection, military connection to Texas, regional, left out because of numbers from Pac-12). East-West Geographic Split just made sense, even though it is terrible from a competitive balance standpoint to put SMU and Houston together like that. If you have an option that allows me to put Houston and SMU in either the Big XII or American while making sure every G5 league stays at 12 or 14 teams, I am all ears.

Pac-12: West Region. Basically the old Mountain West but swapping out Air Force and New Mexico for a much stronger Oregon State and Washington state. South Division is just the Mountain West West division, which protects Fresno State's million rivalries with everyone in that division. Protected Rivalries on for Boise State-Fresno State and Wyoming-Hawaii.

Sun Belt: East Region. Based around the old FCS SoCon and Big South leagues. Divisional split keeps App State and Georgia Southern in the South together, while East Carolina and Marshall stay together in the North. Protected Rivalries on for App State-Marshall, Coastal Carolina-Liberty, and Charlotte-Old Dominion.

Note: If you're just going to complain about the usual things like "No Pac-12" (there is) or "you did [INSERT TEAM] dirty" (I was more than fair in considering historical success, previous conference membership, and rivalries, so I didn't "do your team dirty"), you should just move along.

What do you think? If you read this and understand what I am going for, I would love some feedback or just discussion about who has the most fun schedule or maybe suggestions that would make the divisions better.