In light of Texas A&M informing the Big XII that they are looking at joining another unnamed conference (cough,cough) SEC (cough,cough), the NCAA should call a meeting of Conference commissioners and set out a few new rules for any conference under the NCAA banner.
1. All conferences will have membership of no less than 8 schools and no more than 16 schools. I do not want to see an 18 or 20 school league and that is where we are heading for. Hell, the Big East has at least 20 members in different sports. That is nuts. And that brings me to rule #2.
2. All conferences will have schools that participate in the same sports. No more Big 12 hockey league that has 6 schools. Either convince the other member schools to pick up hockey, or the schools that have hockey need to drop the sport. No Notre Dame independence in football and a member in the Big East in other sports.
3. Have the conferences and member schools sign contracts for 10 year blocks. Once every decade, the conferences and schools have a chance to boot members or sign onto other conferences. Start this process in 2015. That way, we have stability for 9 years and then possible movement all in one year. That gets rid of uncertainty for most of the time. Independents sign a contract with the NCAA itself saying that they will be independent for the next decade. It will make schools like Notre Dame able to stop answering questions about conference affiliation each year.
4. Each 5 years, if a school wants to jump from D-II or from the FCS subdivision into the Big leagues, they will have a chance to join the conferences in football that are not members of the BCS. Make 4 feeder conferences. The Sun Belt, The WAC, The MAC, and the Great Midwest. The Great Midwest can be formed from the schools that won't be able to join the Big 10, SEC, Pac-12, and/or the Big XII (if it is still around).
5. In conjunction with #4, limit the number of schools in the FBS subdivision. this year there are 120. Next year, there are going to be 123. Put the original limit at 160 schools. You can have 10 conferences with 16 schools each, or more conferences with less schools per conference. Doesn't matter.
4 comments:
You know the NCAA would never adopt this. It makes too much sense. I really like your ideas on this. I'm tired of the likes of BYU, Notre Dame and Texas A&M flirting with joining a difference conference every year.
Thanks. I am getting tired of all the possible moves by conferences. Pittsburgh in the Big 12? Really?
I really don't want the SEC to go to 18 teams like has been floated out there. And I also want conferences to stay in a somewhat geographical location. I had problems with the ACC being up and down the Atlantic Coast, but the Big East puts their long trips to shame. I love the natural geographic rivalry that Syracuse and TCU have going in the Big East.
I generally don't care about college football but how would your rules affect, say, UMaine, Boston College, et al? Or a different way of saying it is: Under your rules there's no Hockey East or am I misunderstanding?
Under these rules there is no hockey east. no WCHA, no conferences that stay intact. However, hockey would still be a sport in the NCAA because most of the teams that have hockey ar in that D-I FCS subdivision or D-II. The rules that I have outlined are for D-I BCS schools.
The other thing that these rules would really mess with is Major College Basketball. You could pare back the tournament from 68 teams to 32 easily. And instead of over 300 schools that are considered D-I in the sport, it would go back to 120 teams this year. After all, if the University of Seattle is considered D-I in any sport, then we have problems.
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