r/olddominionfootball

I’m writing a complete preview of every FBS team every day until the college football season starts and Old Dominion was my Friday entry! Curious what y’all think!

I am building a college football conference realignment map and I want fan input before I lock in one part of it.

I made a list of schools that might fit with Old Dominion. This list is only a starting point. I used my own limited knowledge and some guesswork to build it, so I do not expect it to be fully accurate. I want to hear from actual fans before I rely on it.

I am also comparing a few different clustering approaches and building a new one from scratch, so this kind of fan feedback would directly help my understanding and any algorithm weights I may end up using.

I am more interested in long-term fit based on rivalry history, fan culture, school identity, athletics, academics, and overall feel. Don't worry if the school you think is a good fit has no historic ties. If it feels like a school your fanbase admires and you could see them being a long-term fit, please include them.

How you can help

1. The best help: give your own weights and ignore mine
2. Remove a team that does not belong
3. Add a team I missed (please include the weight you would add them at)
4. Move a team up or down (please include how far up or down you would move them)

Weight scale

• 5 = must-have conference fit
• 4 = high-priority fit
• 3 = strong fit
• 2 = reasonable but not necessary fit
• 1 = acceptable last resort fit if hard choices had to be made

My current list for Old Dominion

Weight 5

• James Madison, Marshall

Weight 4

• East Carolina, App State
• Coastal Carolina, Charlotte
• Temple, Delaware

Weight 3

• Georgia Southern, Memphis
• Liberty, Western Kentucky
• Western Kentucky, Navy

Weight 2

• Georgia State, South Florida
• FAU, UAB
• Tulane, Middle Tennessee
• Southern Miss, Troy
• Louisiana, Jacksonville State
• Army

Weight 1

• Louisiana Tech, South Alabama
• UConn, UMass
• Rice

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Small note: I am mainly looking for your fan perspective on which schools you would want around your program, not whether the final setup is practical or likely to happen in real life. Go with your gut on fit more than logistics.

IMPORTANT: This is not a list of a new conference. The amount of schools weighted should be much higher than the actual end result conference. The core of your ideal conference should be weight 5. Weights 4 and 3 should be the remainder of your dream conference. Weight 2 should be good options if flexibility is required. Weight 1 is last resort better than nothing.

The amount of weighted schools has no impact on the final conference size.

This is really about full athletic conference fit, but I limited the school pool to FBS programs.

I really appreciate any feedback on this, thanks so much for any help.