by Joe Azar
Driving in Grand Junction is weird. The roads have awkward names like “24 ½ Road,” there are stops signs where there should be street lights and God forbid they put a green arrow on left turns. It’s like the people who created the town decided to just make up the roads as they went along, ending up with a sloppy and confusing system.
The way college football conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) is arranged have a striking similarity to how Grand Junction’s roads are constructed. Whether it be due to money or….no it’s just money. Universities are placed slapdash in conferences they don’t belong in, leaving people scratching their heads as to why the Southeastern Conference is home to a team from Texas.
Just for fun let’s imagine we live in a fantasy world where money isn’t involved in college athletics and a university isn’t so desperate to find players that they hire prostitutes as part of a recruit’s visit (no seriously, that’s a real thing).
Some of the fixes to the conferences are simple, like the Big 12 actually having 12 teams. Other issues will take a little bit of creativity and wishful thinking; but hey, that’s what this article is about. It’s time to channel the inner sports nerd and change the landscape of college football.
Big 10
Michigan
Ohio State
Penn State
Michigan State
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa
Indiana
Illinois
Northwestern
Not every conference is going to be completely turned on its head, and just because a team is technically geographically closer, doesn’t mean they are added to a conference they don’t belong in. The Big 10 having that exact number of elite college football programs would bring a sense of nostalgia to the old days where Michigan and Ohio State featured the best two teams in the country. Penn State is included due to their history in the conference despite being in Pennsylvania.
SEC
Alabama
Auburn
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Georgia
South Carolina
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
Clemson
Georgia Tech
For the most part the SEC is pretty rock-solid in geographical terms. Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas A&M are moved out in order to fill other slots needed in better conferences.
Big 12
Oklahoma
Kansas State
Kansas
Missouri
Oklahoma State
Nebraska
Boise State
Colorado
Colorado State
BYU
Utah
New Mexico
Teams from the Mountain West are joined by some of the conference’s classics to make the Big 12 a power conference once again. Don’t worry the Texas teams will be fine, big plans are ahead for them.
Pac 12
UCLA
USC
Oregon
Cal
Stanford
Washington
Washington State
Arizona
Arizona State
UNLV
Fresno State
Oregon State
California teams shuffle into the Pac 12 to make up for the loses and UNLV is added to a make the conference even at 12.
ACC
Florida
Miami
Florida State
Louisville
Wake Forest
Southern Florida
Syracuse
Boston College
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
Duke
Pittsburgh
Virginia
NC State
Nicknaming this “The Florida Conference,” only one major Florida team makes it out as a conference champion and the rivalries within the state get even more meaning.
Southwest Conference
Arkansas
Texas
Baylor
TCU
Texas Tech
Texas A&M
Houston
Rice
SMU
UTEP
What is the Southwest Conference? It’s a call back to the 1910s where the majority of Texas’ elite football universities battle it out to see who is superior. Now only one team can call themselves the pride of the state, and fans outside of Texas have the luxury of avoiding those crazy football fans, outside of Oklahoma, who keeps the Red River Showdown alive in a out of conference game. 