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>> 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: <<

I absolutely agree. That’s why I was elated when the “Big East Seven” ditched the football teams. And why I’d love to see the ACC split back into the traditional ACC and the clubs they raided from the Big East. And why I’d enjoy seeing the AAC pare itself back down.

>> Penn State, for example, is probably an ok addition.... But Rutgers and Maryland? <<

Fun fact: Rutgers used to be Ivy League, but they bailed because they didn’t like the Ivy League’s focus on football over academics. Seriously.

Maryland is a better school than Penn State these days. And Penn State is way closer to Rutgers and Maryland than to any other Big 10 school.

If I totally had my druthers, I’d like to see Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, West Virginia, Temple, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Virginia form a conference. Natural rivalries, lots in common, parity. I like 8 or 9 team conferences more than 15-team conferences.

Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Cincinnati?

Iowa, Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas St, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Nebraska?

Do Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Houston go with Baylor, SMU, TCU, and Tulsa? Or with Arkansas, LSU, Tulane, Memphis, and UTEP?

Can we separate the real southern colleges from the frat houses and football schools? I propose that Duke, NC State, Georgia Tech, Auburn, Clemson, Louisville, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt wouldn’t be nearly as inferior to UNC, Miami, Alabama, Miss, Ole Miss, Kentucky, Arkansas, Florida State, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee as people think.

Another thing I like is local pre-season basketball tournaments.

Louisville, Cincinatti, Xavier, Dayton, Ohio State, Kentucky, Bowling Green and Miami of Ohio.

Boston College, U-Mass, U-Conn, U-RI, Providence, Holy Cross, Harvard and Brown. (Not too worried about Harvard and Brown meeting in the finals)

Don’t have eight teams? Make a round-robin of it, like Philly does: Villanova, La Salle, St Joseph’s, Penn, Temple, (But it wouldn’t kill to add Penn St., Princeton, Lehigh).

Why not George Washington, Georgetown, George Mason, Navy, Maryland, Virginia Tech?

I liked the traditional Big Ten. Northwestern was an outlier, but the rest were the flagship universities of their respective state systems, all big, all midwestern, and all (except Iowa) from Great Lakes states. Drop Northwestern and add Notre Dame, and the old Big Ten would again be a natural. Now -- well, it's as incoherent as everyone else.

How to reform the system? I'd begin by insisting on a full round robin, with no divisions and no conference playoff. And cut college football back to the traditional ten game schedule. Then institute the national championship playoff that should have been adopted decades ago: an eight team playoff with five or six automatic bids to the major conference champions; conference champions only, with no second or third place teams; two or three spots left for the top independents or minor conference champions.

The conferences would slim down to something approximately their traditional sizes, and I'd bet that the old regional commonalities would reassert themselves pretty quickly.

Since the colleges show no signs of kicking their addiction to tv dollars, none of this is likely to happen. TV has corrupted almost everything it touches. I'd be happy to abolish college scholarships, return all sports to a club level, and tell the NFL to run its own farm system.