FBS Conference Shuffling

If you want to talk about Monmouth University Football, Quincy University Basketball, Notre Dame Men's Soccer, or whatever, this is the place.
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Conference-USA in this reconfigured Frankenstein's monster iteration is awful.  Transversely with the help of some ESPN money the Sunbelt has evolved from a really bad conference to what appears to be a very good conference in terms of Geography, Quality of programs, rivalries being re-established. 

I hate to see the likes of JMU, JSU and SHSU leave the sub-division (am I terrible person if part of me want's to see them fail?). Seems like half the teams in the "G-5" at one point or another were FCS/1-AA.  Strange times.
 
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Some analysis now that the movement has stopped (paused?) for a while:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/295 ... ealignment
 
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I don't think any of this is new information, but there are now official announcements from Charlotte, FAU, and UTSA stating that they are leaving C-USA for the American in 2023. Statements from UNT, Rice, and UAB probably coming soon.

https://fbschedules.com/three-conferenc ... n-in-2023/
 
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Sounds like UCLA and USC might be heading to the big ten.
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leatherneckcountry wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 1:17 pm Sounds like UCLA and USC might be heading to the big ten.

 
It's official now. Moving over in 2024.
Is this the end of the Pac12? The beginning of the 16-team "superconference" era? It's been predicted for a while that we'd eventually have 4 16-team conferences (from a scheduling and "playoff" perspective, it makes things fairly easy).
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https://www.extrapointsmb.com/big-ten-e ... explainer/
Shoot man, nothing matters. Who knows? Merge the Pac-12 and Big 12. Send Hawaii to the ACC. Make the Sacramento Kings play in the Sun Belt.
:lol:
 
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Something else to keep an eye on, apparently there's interest between the Big 10 and Oregon + Washington. Those two schools are waiting on a decision from Notre Dame, which the Big 10 has been trying to add for years, but I guess USC has been working on ND to get them to join the Big 10 with them.

If ND decides to stay put, you'll probably see the Big 10 stick with the 16 teams they have/will have.

If ND decides to join the Big 10, then it's likely Oregon, Washington, and one other school (strong likelihood of Stanford) will join up as well, bringing them to 20 total teams. If all that happens, look for the Big 12 to target Arizona, Arizona State, and maybe Utah, with the remainder of the former PAC12 (Cal, Colorado, Washington State, and Oregon State) left to try to work something out with maybe the Mountain West.
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Not really FBS shuffling, but FBS-related news. Starting in the 2024 season, the FBS playoff system will expand to 12 teams (from the current 4).
1-4 will get a first round bye, 9-12 will play at 5-8 sites.

Based on the current CFP Rankings, you'd get the following:
Winner of #9 Clemson at #8 Penn State -> #1 Georgia
Winner of #10 K-State at #7 Tennessee -> #2 Michigan
Winner of #11 Utah at #6 Alabama -> #3 TCU
Winner of #12 Washington at #5 Ohio State -> #4 USC (Southern Cal)

The first round will be a higher seed sites, or at a site of the higher seed's choosing.
The 4 quarterfinals and 2 semifinals games will rotate through the "big" bowls: Fiesta, Peach, Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange.

EDIT - regarding the "...or at a site of the higher seed's choosing" allows, for example, teams in the north to figure out a way to play in an indoor stadium if the weather is bad/cold. So, Michigan might want to move their game to Detroit's Ford Field, Minnesota (if they made the playoffs) could work out a way to play their game across the river at the Viking's U.S. Bank Stadium, or maybe Ohio State might want to play their game over at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy (which is where the Big 10 holds their championship game and is less than 3 hours down I-70 from Columbus). Now, if it's like 30 degrees with light snow, I think they'd stay at their home stadium, but if you happen to have a forecast of like -20 or something...nobody is going to want to be outside in that, regardless of where you're from and what you're used to.
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Couple of bits of news on the FBS front...

The PAC is taking a solid look at adding SMU (currently in the AAC) and San Diego State (currently in the MWC).
The Big 12 has negotiated an early exit for Oklahoma and Texas (now moving in 2024 to the SEC) and is expected to "aggressively pursue" further expansion (after already adding BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston for Fall 2023).
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Colorado has announced that they are moving (back) to the Big 12 as of the 24/25 school year. This will take the PAC down to 9 members and bring the Big 12 up to 13 (with Texas and Oklahoma leaving for the SEC at the same tie).

There's speculation that the Big 12 could either decide to bring in: Utah (so they'll have Utah and BYU) and both Arizona and Arizona State, or that they'll look to go more into the basketball side of things and bring in UConn and Gonzaga. I don't think either conference is interested in staying at an odd number of teams if they can help it though.
If the PAC loses three more teams (Utah, Arizona, AZ State) and drops down to 6, they'll probably look to backfill from the best of the Mountain West...San Diego State, Boise State, etc. at which point the Mountain West may look to the top of the FCS for new members...the Montana schools and XDSUs possibly...New Mexico State maybe (they are independent for football but play in the WAC for other sports).
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