Out With The Old

Now, before we get started, let's have a quick geography lesson.  Everyone appears to be going crazy about the idea of TCU going to the Big East because they are nowhere near the east.  Apparently, nobody realizes how big this country is and that there is land west of the Mississippi (spell checked by Alabama ticket office).  The furthest trip TCU will have now is to Stoors, Connecticut to play UCONN.  That comes in at about 1,725 miles.  Meanwhile, with Boise joining the Mountain West, TCU would have to travel 1,600 miles to get there...not a huge difference.  While we are at it, Fort Worth, Texas to Syracuse, NY is 1545 miles while getting from Fort Worth to Fresno, CA, another new team to the Mountain West, is 1,536 miles.  TCU also has to travel to San Diego, which is 1,332 miles but now traveling to South Florida it will go 1,135 miles.  The point of this little lesson???  TCU is nowhere closer to the schools it is currently playing than it is to the schools in the Big East.  It's time to throw out any preconceived ideas of conferences based on geography and accept that college is football is about one thing; MONEY.

That being said, let's eliminate another concept related to college football, conferences.  I thought about this last year after the season and we are starting to see it happen already.  Do away with conferences for football and create 4 super conferences divided into 2 divisions of 9 teams each.  The reason for 9 teams in each division is that you can truly have a division champion.  In these current conferences with divisions, not every team is playing the same conference schedule.  Hardly a fair way to truly determine your champion.  Under my format, each team plays 8 games against the other teams in their division.  The other 4 games on the schedule are filled by each team, but three of them have to be against a team from one of the other 3 super conferences.  But to keep teams from only scheduling the easiest teams, the division champions would be determined by division record only, so please, feel free to schedule some good games.  Another caveat would be that you don't play any team from the opposite division in your super conference, making the title game for your conference a bit more interesting.  That title game would also in effect be the first game of the playoffs.  After those title games, the four teams that are the conference champions are left to play for the title.  That leaves all those other teams for the irrelevant bowls that exist only for the sake of making money for those that run them and the athletic directors of said schools.  (Side note:  if you have not yet done so, check out the article in Sports Illustrated from a couple weeks ago about the current bowl structure).  So, now that the structure is in place, I know you are all wondering one thing, how would one divide up all the teams?  Well, I'm glad you asked because I have already done this.  So, without further ado, I give to you the new face of college football.

Mid-East                           
Ohio State                        
Michigan                          
Michigan State                 
Notre Dame                    
Boston College                
Cincinnati                        
Indiana                             
Purdue                              
Wisconsin                        

Penn State                        
Pittsburgh                       
West Virginia                   
Virginia Tech                    
Virginia                            
Syracuse                           
Connecticut                       
Rutgers                            
Navy                               

South                          
Florida State               
Miami(Florida)           
Florida                        
Tennessee                  
Georgia                        
Georgia Tech         
Wake Forest          
Louisville                  
Kentucky    

Alabama
Aubrun
LSU
South Carolina
Clemson
N.C. State
North Carolina
Maryland
South Florida

Mid-West
Nebraska                      
Arkansas
TCU
Missouri
Kansas State
Kansas
Illinois
Northwestern
Minnesota

Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Mississippi
Mississippi State
Vanderbilt
Baylor

West
Arizona
Arizona State
Utah
BYU
Air Force
Colorado
Iowa
Iowa State
Boise State

USC
UCLA
California
Stanford
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State
Fresno State

 

The only team currently in a BCS conference that didn't make the cut was Duke.  Navy had to find a way in so it came down to Vanderbilt and Duke, and Vandy has been to a bowl game more recently,so tough luck Duke.  All in all, this keeps most every big rivalry game in tact while keeping it all pretty well balanced.  And since you will have to schedule at least three games with teams from another conference, Wisconsin can still play Minnesota...not that anyone outside of those two schools will care.    

Well, what a rough Thanksgiving weekend with the picks as I went 1-3-1 to bring the overall record to 9-10-2.  Second half collapses by the Lions and Crimson Tide accounted for two losses and the Saints collapse and subsequent comeback got me the push.  Nevada not only won with the points, but won straight up to change the landscape of college football for this season.  Then there is Oregon, doing exactly what I thought, but winning by 19 while I was laying 19.5...damn that hook.  Now that college football is wrapping up its' season, finding picks to give you will be much tougher, since the lines for basketball games come out the day of the game, but we'll do the best we can.  The Thursday night NFL gimmick game is Houston at Philadelphia, with the Eagles laying 9.5 points.  As bad as the Texans have played lately, I think their defense keeps them in this game so I will take the points.  Also on Thursday, the University of Arizona hosts their rival, Arizona State.  Arizona held their own against Oregon...for one half.  I expect this to be a close game and Arizona's second half swoon to continue, so give me the 6 points...but I will hope to get 7 before game time hits.  Finally, in college basketball the ACC-Big Ten Challenge is this week, and the marquee game is Michigan State at Duke.  Both are top teams, but Duke is playing much better at the moment than Michigan State.  MSU is always better at the end of the year than they are early in the season, plus the game is at Cameron.  Duke will be a deserved favorite, but if you have to lay more than 6, don't do it.  Good luck and remember, don't bet more than you can afford to lose.