I got this thought from another post earlier and then saw this article in SI.com this morning. I know it will never happen, BUT IT'S JULY! Mandel broke it into 8 divisions, mostly 10 teams in each division and playing 3 non-conference games (using 76 of the 119 D-I schools). Divisions with nine teams would play four. Just thought it was interesting to think about. Here's Mandel's list:


Northeast (9): Boston College, Connecticut, Maryland, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, South Florida, Syracuse, West Virginia

Atlantic (9): Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia, Wake Forest

Midwest (9): Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin

Central (10): Arkansas, Baylor, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas Tech

The Old Metro Conference (9): Cincinnati, Louisville, Marshall, Memphis, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Virginia Tech, TCU, UCF

Southeast (10): Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Southwest (10): Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, UCLA, USC, Utah

West (10): Boise State, BYU, Cal, Fresno State, Hawaii, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Washington State

What would be the purpose of doing this again??
How South Florida is aligned in the Northest is kind of stupid!!
One thing's for sure....SEC fans would not want to see this happen as written as they would be playing second fiddle to the Southwest!!

I'm down, but if you're gonna make the old metro(which I'm a huge fan of doing) you gotta put Florida State back there, maybe putting Marshall in the atlantic or something

I hope that never happens in a million years.

We'd have a helluva lot better shot to win our division every year.

I think all BCS conferences need 12 teams and a championship game. You don't win your conference, you don't play in the BCS Championship game. If you are not in a conference that means by default you cannot be in the BCS Title Game.

So,
SEC, ACC, Big 12 stay the same

Pac-10- maybe Utah and BYU

Big 10- I know most say ND, but ND is already in the Big East for all sports except football and I think they would prefer the easier Big East if they were to join. No clue who you could really add though.

Big East- Major help. 16 Basketball schools but only 8 football schools. Yikes.

For the Big 11, you add Mizzou, and the for the Big 12 you replace Mizzou with Colorado State. For the Pac 10, they get Utah OR BYU and Boise State.

I'm thinking that you rework Mountain West, WAC, and Sunbelt to where it still remains where MTN is strongest, then WAC, then Sunbelt.

For the Big East situation, you're gonna see that conference breakup within 10 years anyway so you can use that to your advantage and see what's available in the MAC and C-USA to use, as well as look for some targeted, really good 1-AA programs that would be willing to upgrade to D-1. I've heard that the Big East would really like to add Charlotte (UNC-C) with a football program since it'd be a large market and they feel has the ability to succeed.

Of all the Sunbelt teams, I think Troy is most deserving of moving into a better conference.

As long as ND has their own tv package they won't join a conference.