(07-21-2017 12:18 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  OK, in this utopian/dystopian near-future (depending on your perspective), the P4 conferences have effectively made the CFP into a showdown between the conference champs. A 13th game has been added to the regular season, and championships for conferences with 16 teams have been expanded to 2 rounds, with the 2 division champs and 2 wild cards facing off. Each P4 conference has 16 teams in two 8-team divisions, with 4-team pods rotating between the divisions every season (North+East/South+West, then North+West/South+East, and repeat). Since all P4 conferences have moved to a 9-game schedule here, each team is able to play every other team in their conference at least once within 2 years (with the exception of teams with protected divisional crossovers, which may take, and cause some other teams to take, 3 years to play everyone).

The means by which the teams arrived in their conferences here are the same as in the OP, except the ACC took Cincinnati as its 16th instead of UConn. The arrangement of the pods is a bit different though. In the ACC, Big Ten, and SEC, I tried to balance out the pods competitively (while still somewhat respecting geography), either (A) by making all 4 pods roughly equal in average strength or (B) by making the North/South pair roughly equal to each other but significantly stronger or weaker than the East/West pair, which are also roughly equal to each other (the pods in each pair never share a division). The greatly diminished Big 12 absorbed almost all the remaining AAC schools, with UConn going independent in football and moving its non-football sports to the Big East.

Here's a MAP for your viewing pleasure!

ACC
East: Florida State, Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech
North: Boston College, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
South: Duke, NC State, North Carolina, Wake Forest
West: Cincinnati, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Louisville

Protected crossovers: North Carolina/Virginia

Big Ten
East: Maryland, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers
North: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue
South: Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska
West: Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin

Protected crossovers: Illinois/Northwestern, Michigan/Ohio State

Pac-16
East: Houston, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech
North: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
South: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
West: California, Stanford, UCLA, USC

Protected crossovers: none

SEC
East: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia
North: Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State
South: Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
West: LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M

Protected crossovers: Auburn/Georgia, Kentucky/Tennessee

Big 12
North: East Carolina, Iowa State, Kansas State, Memphis, Temple, Tulsa
South: Baylor, Central Florida, Navy*, SMU, South Florida, Tulane

* football-only affiliate

FBS Independent
Army, BYU, Connecticut, etc.

Notable annual out-of-conference matchups: Army/Navy, Baylor/TCU, BYU/Utah, Clemson/South Carolina, Florida/Florida State, Georgia/Georgia Tech, Iowa/Iowa State, Kansas/Kansas State, Kentucky/Louisville, Navy/Notre Dame, Notre Dame/USC, Oklahoma/Texas

Not entirely unrealistic, IMO, although perhaps too logical to be very likely. One of many many possibilities.

What if Texas goes Independent like Notre Dame? They want eastern exposure, so they would be looking to be like Notre Dame for playing 5 games against them. That means the PAC 16 lineup could be different since Texas Tech may not be all that interesting to the western schools. They may look at adding Boise State and San Diego State instead. They have said they will keep an alert eye on those two if they improved their academics even more which they were impressed when they added Colorado and Utah. This would give the state of Idaho off the table for any anti-trust lawsuit against the P5 or P4.

Now, we have to reorder the PAC 12.

East:Houston, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah
North:Washington, Washington State, oregon, Oregon State
Southwest:California, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Central:Boise State, San Diego State, Arizona, Arizona State

That really hard to get unless they go to more than 16 to get things even out better. PAC 20 might be a little better.

Northwest:Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Boise State
Southwest:California, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Hawaii
Desert:San Diego State, Arizona, Arizona State, UNLV, Utah
East:Houston, TCU, Colorado, New Mexico, Colorado State

That would give PAC 12 more states and coverage that they are not getting right now.