Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Western 12 Conference


Going along with the idea of creating a new conference to replace the Big East as a BCS conference got complicated seeing as there would need to be some way of keeping certain Big East teams in the BCS. The solution would be to change conferences for certain teams, but only for football. I would take Duke and North Carolina from the ACC and put them into the Big East. In return I would add West Virginia and South Florida to the ACC. I would take Indiana and Northwestern and also move them to the Big East and add Rutgers and Louisville to the Big Ten. Now some old school traditionalists may have a huge problem with this, but until they give us a playoff system it may be the only solution. Now then, onto the Western 12 Conference.

Here are the 12 teams I would use to form the Western 12...
BYU Cougars
Utah Utes
TCU Horned Frogs
Fresno State Bulldogs
Boise State Broncos
Nevada Wolfpack
Hawaii Warriors
San Diego State Aztecs
Houston Cougars
UTEP Miners
Tulsa Golden Hurricane
UNLV Rebels

Now I'm sure there are those of you out there that think this is blasphemy, but the all the BCS Conferences are East of the Rockies and that is an unbalanced equation any way you cut it, especially since I'd put the WAC and Mountain leaders against any Big East leaders. Now I know Jimmie will support this as this gives his Aztecs a shot at the BCS...eventually, when they finally recover from losing Marshall Faulk.

8 comments:

SayHey Kid said...

My God man- West Virginia, Virginia, and Virginia Tech in the same conference.

I like the idea of creating another powerhouse conference in the West, but your strategy would dismantle the current structures. Indiana is a fixture in Big 10. Maybe not in football, but basketball. The Big 10 would lose way to much money if they let Indiana leave. Swap Indiana for lets say, Wisconsin or even Illinois.

I would also suggest moving NC State and Clemson to the Big East. Not even a madman would suggest moving their basketball cash cows (Duke and UNC) to another conference. Lastly, I would add San Jose State to the Western. I think they are good enough to keep conference games interesting.

I know what your rebuttal will be; but if your going to be a true powerhouse conference, you cannot allow team sports to fluctuate conferences. UNC cannot play Big East Football and ACC Basketball. They need to be permanent fixtures to keep rivalries in tact. Rivalries equates to big dollars.

Jack Gonzo, MD said...

Did we miss the portion that said this would be for Football only? It is not unheard of, Notre Dame is a Big Ten school in basketball.

SayHey Kid said...

True, but Notre Dame chooses to be Independent in Football.

Im just not a fan of having major schools play outside of their conferences.

ThursdayNext said...

I'd be help-I'm-having-a-heart-attack shocked if you ever got any of the NC schools to bail out of the ACC for another conference, let alone the Big East. You'd have some ADs getting some pretty serious death threats if the idea was even floated. You can have Clemson. For that matter, you can also have BC, Miami, and VT. We never wanted them, anyway.

Jimmie said...

Umm they tried this back in 1996 when the WAC expanded to like 16 teams. It didn't work with two divisions, like the SEC, since it hurt rivalries such as Fresno St/BYU/SDSU not playing each other each season in football. Anyways after 3 years, eight of the teams (including the core of good WAC football) split off to for the Mountain West. To be honest, some teams such as SDSU and Fresno St. have long been waiting for an expansion of the PAC-10 to the PAC-12. Maybe getting shut out of the BCS might lead to a merger, but it didn't work before and I don't see them returning to the WAC right now.

Jack Gonzo, MD said...

This is true, but that was before Boise State became a D1 school, Utah was known across the country, and Fresno State was playing with the big boys. Now I'd love to see the Pac 10 become the Pac 12, drop Stanford, and add Fresno State, Boise State and Utah.

Jimmie said...

How dare you leave out the Aztecs. Unfortunately the snobs of the PAC-10 will never agree to let in the riff raff of the WAC/MWC

Jack Gonzo, MD said...

Wait, the Aztecs have been good in a major sport last...

They might, they may get tired of constantly hearing of big and powerful the SEC is. With Fresno State winning in baseball and softball, Boise State beating Oklahoma, and well Utah would make sense to extend their states to Utah.