[dangus]

Alternatively, Connecticut or Cincinnati could just join the ACC, and the ACC could split into: the traditional ACC (UNC, NC St, Duke, Wake Forest, VA, FSU, Clemson and Georgia Tech) and the former Big East (Connecticut, Notre Dame, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami, Va Tech, Louisville)!

Yes, that’s an entire conference of 8 teams that used to be in the Big East. That’s as many teams as the Big East or ACC originally had!

[yarddog]

I have seen so many potential conference changes that I have no idea what is really going on.

I could see OU and Oklahoma State going to the SEC.

[Gamecock]

***Also, the AAC is the big loser in the new playoff system; whereas most football conferences will make a LOT more money, the ACC will lose almost half of their FBS revenue.***

Well, the reason for that is they suck.

Take Clempson (aka Pickens Tec) and Florida State out of the equation and they are simply a basketball conference, nothing else.

[buckalfa]

How about the top 64 football teams form their own NCAA division for an 8 team playoff. Everybody else in FBS realign for the remaining bowls. Even put the service academies and say Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Rice, and Tulane into an academic football group.

[sphinx]

Major conference sports have jumped the shark. A "conference" should be an association of similar schools, sharing a common (usually geographical) identity, that choose a football and basketball champion the old fashioned way: a full round robin for football, and a home and home double round robin in basketball. Anything larger than that, and especially anything requiring a postseason tournament or playoff to select a champion, is not longer a conference. It is a television marketing consortium.

I can't guess the endgame. Right now, the traditional major conferences still coast on the vestiges of ancient rivalries, honed over four or five generations of play stretching back to the early years of the last century. As older alumni die off, however, these traditional associations will die with them. Why young people going off to college today should buy into the now erzatz "traditions" is beyond me.

Penn State, for example, is probably an ok addition to the Big Ten, as it is a big, academically respectable state university next door to Ohio and far enough west to be midwestern in flavor. But Rutgers and Maryland? No disrespect to those schools, but why not UCLA or Texas or Florida while we're at it. The notion of a conference has become a joke.

[Redmen4ever]

Let’s get real: time for the NFL to raid Alabama, LSU and maybe Florida. That’ll open up some spots in the SEA.

[scrabblehack]

Hmm....I suppose the Big 12, with 10 schools, could have a conference playoff but they would do better to add more schools. They’re stronger than AAC. I would suggest BYU and Memphis.

Playoff game could be at Kansas City, or maybe St. Louis now and then.