Conference Roulette

With word that West Virginia is now joining the Big 12, it seems as if four, 16 team super-conferences is inevitable. This is an excellent opportunity for me to waste a lot of time coming up with hypothetical scenarios that will probably never happen. It's amazing how productive I can be when I'm doing unproductive things. Last week I left you with a Jay-Z song before getting to the column and I like the idea of pairing a song with a post. This column's song comes from my favorite band, Dispatch. It goes well with the mad scramble for TV money that is currently occurring within the NCAA. 

Let's start with the Pac 12 since they started this episode of musical chairs. They currently have 12 teams; assuming that the Big 12 is salvaged (which looks very possible following West Virginia's inclusion this week), let's assume that the Pac 12 raids the WAC and Mountain West and adds Nevada, San Jose State,  San Diego State, and Fresno State. Here is what the divisions in the Pac 12 will look like:

North                                      
Cal                                            
Nevada                                  
Oregon                              
Oregon State                      
San Jose State                    
Stanford                            
Washington                          
Washington State                
South
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Fresno State
San Diego State
UCLA
USC
Utah

Moving westward, let's see what the revamped Big 12 looks like. Texas A&M is already on its way to the SEC and it seems like it is only a matter of time until Missouri follows them out the door. This leaves the Big 12 with eight teams; needing to double in size in order to not get left out of this mad dash for realignment. We will assume that both West Virginia and TCU will make it in to the Big 12 and joining them will be Boise State, Houston, Air Force, UNLV, Army, and Navy. Earlier this year we saw that the service academies are interested in taking advantage of this realignment when they threw their hat into the ring for Big East consideration. Now that the Big East is effectively dead, the Big 12 seems to be the conference where the best rejects will find a home. The divisions will look like this:

North                 
Air Force        
Army                
Boise State      
Iowa State        
Kansas              
Kansas State    
Navy                
West Virginia    
South
Baylor
Houston
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
TCU
Texas
Texas Tech
UNLV

The Big 10 helped to kickstart this chaos last year by adding Nebraska. They will add four more as Memphis, Cincinnati, Rutgers, and Notre Dame will end it's half-century long flirtation with the Big 10. These additions will provide more opportunities for the Big 10 to beat up on "little sisters of the poor" while making their basketball conference much stronger. Hopefully the Big 10 will use this next round of additions to rename the lame "Legends" and "Leaders" divisions but that would require the Big 10 to be creative and think outside the box. That will happen as soon as Michael Moore gets his own show on Fox. Here's what the Big 10 will look like:

Legends              
Cincinnati          
Iowa                
Memphis          
Michigan          
Michigan State  
Minnesota          
Nebraska        
Northwestern  
Leaders
Illinois
Indiana
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Wisconsin

Let's move on to the suddenly surging ACC. They already added Syracuse and Pittsburgh and UConn is already clamoring for an entrance. The ACC is already bloated enough that they only need to add two teams to get to 16. Temple follows UConn to the ACC and the result is a still fairly mediocre football conference but a hellacious basketball conference. Here's what the divisions will look like:

North                    
Boston College    
Maryland              
Pittsburgh            
Syracuse              
Temple                
UConn                
Virginia                
Virginia Tech      
South
Clemson
Duke
Florida State
Georgia Tech
Miami
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Wake Forest

We have saved the best for last with the SEC. After adding Texas A&M they've moved up to 13 teams. Let's assume that Missouri gets their wish and winds up in the SEC. They're followed by Big East refugees South Florida and Louisville who are elated to just be in the conversation for the SEC. The way the regional divisions work out ends up making the SEC West even stronger than it already is.

East                         
Florida                  
Georgia                
Kentucky            
Louisville              
South Carolina      
South Florida      
Tennessee              
Vanderbilt              
West
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
LSU
Mississippi State
Missouri
Ole Miss
Texas A&M