If I Were the Dictator of College Football Realignment

You know, I am really getting sick of all this college football realignment talk. Things are getting really rediculous with this trickle of one team or another moving around in geographically remote and unrelated conferences. I think things were just fine a couple of years ago and I am starting to think things would have been better if all the megaconferences had all formed all at once last year and we ended up with five 16-team conferences and an 8-team playoff.

Boise State in the Big East in football…Really? Funny thing is that if they remove their sports from the Mountain West Conference, then all their other sports would have to go to the Big West Conference (which is strictly California right now). So,  Boise State would somehow be in the Big East and Big West at the same time?!?

Now the Big East is desperately trying to save itself by adding Air Force, SMU, and Rice? Whatever…

Of course, all of this conference realignment could be finalized in one weekend if the commissioners of every FBS conference just met at a hotel for two days and coordinated/swapped teams.  So, finally I decided I would do it for them. Below is my proposed list of a final conference realignment formation that could remain stable for decades. For simplicity, I have taken into account the moves that have already been made and kept those teams in their current/future conferences. So, any other moves you see below are ones I made to make each conference make some semblance of geographic and cultural sense.

My goal was to make as many 12-team conferences as possible, so each can hold a championship game. I also decided to put the poor Big East out of its misery, so we don’t have to hear about Florida Atlantic and Western Kentucky being their next targets. I also refused to allow teams from 2-3 time zones away to join a conference, unless they already did so.  I almost get rid of the WAC, but then said what-the-heck let ’em stay. The BCS conferences need someone to beat up on in the first week of the season. I also thought about putting Notre Dame in the Big Ten, but then I couldn’t find another team that was a good match for them to pair with since Missouri and West Virginia have already made their moves. Let’s the Fighting Irish stay on the outside looking in.

In the end, the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and Mountain West conferences would get an automatic BCS bid.I also think it would be cool if the champions of the MAC and Conference USA and the champions of the WAC and Sun Belt could meet in some sort of high profile bowl on New Years Day to reward them for winning their respective conferences, rather than the Detroit Fannie Mae Foreclosure Bowl or whatever they get sent to now…

But, better than automatic BCS bids, how about a 12-team playoff where every conference with at least 12-teams gets an automatic bid (8 teams), plus four others who qualify by some undisclosed process (I get to pick as dictator). So, hopefully this list provides a guide of sanity that maybe some college president can read and realize how rediculous this whole ordeal has been. Without further ado, here is Dictator Lenz’s FBS College Football Conferences: