Somewhat delayed reaction to this, because I don’t obsessively listen to Pate. I think he says a lot to say a little, but that’s podcasts for you. I do at the very least appreciate his traditionalist approach to the sport. And this is one of those instances where I really do agree with what he’s saying.
tl;dr 7 conferences (plus indies) of no more than 10 teams
- SEC
- Big 10
- Big East
- SWC
- Big 8
- Pac 10
- ACC
SEC:
- alabama
- Auburn
- florida
- Georgia
- kentucky
- LSU
- Mississippi State
- Ole Miss
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
Big 10:
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Michigan
- Michigan State
- Minnesota
- Ohio State
- Penn State
- Purdue
- Wisconsin
Big East:
- Boston College
- Cincinnati
- Louisville
- Maryland
- Pittsburgh
- Rutgers
- Syracuse
- UCF
- USF
- West Virginia
SWC:
- Arkansas
- Baylor
- Houston
- Oklahoma
- Rice
- SMU
- Texas
- Texas A&M
- Texas Tech
- TCU
Big 8:
- Colorado
- Iowa State
- Kansas
- Kansas State
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Oklahoma State
- Utah
Pac 10:
- Arizona
- Arizona State
- California
- Oregon
- Oregon State
- Stanford
- UCLA
- USC
- Washington
- Washington State
ACC:
- Clemson
- Duke
- Florida State
- Georgia Tech
- Miami
- NC State
- UNC
- Virginia
- Virginia Tech
- Wake Forest
Independent:
- BYU
- Northwestern
- Notre Dame
- UConn
- vanderbilt
Like I said I honestly like this. I would maybe keep vandy in the SEC as they were a founding member and push SCar to ACC or something. And if we’re changing some names then I refuse to allow the big 10 and 8 to exist. Somebody has to change that name. But like Josh says, with this system I would almost be okay with an 8-12 team playoff. Thoughts?
I just listened to most of the video. He raises most of the right questions, but answers several of them incorrectly IMHO (beyond the notion of doing what he wants, of course). Bumping the B8 to 10 teams up front and creating one more conference would help with flexibility. I also think if you’re doing this with the schools as they stand, not having any blueblood or newblood anchor the BE is a huge mistake, hence throwing PSU in with them. Might actually switch VaTech and Miami in for UCF and Maryland too. Again, USF is surplus to requirements. They wanted a hospital and more research grants, and they got them while ignoring football. If we have an NFL style set of national broadcast deals, a reborn SWC is amazing; if not, it’ll implode again; that is a LOT of egos crammed into basically 5 significant TV markets.
You could also go all the way and be brutal with bottom feeders, instead of evicting Vandy (understandable in its way) and Northwestern (why? Lots of recent competence) but no one else, and even bringing in USF and Rice. I would prefer to wait until TCU has a good year to do this though, LOL.
Now all that said, is it better? Hell yes it’s better.