I shared this with Dan Wetzel from Yahoo Sports a year ago and he liked it a lot:
Realign into seven 10-team conferences to facilitate an 8-team playoff and improve the value of all conferences in advance of negotiations for new media deals. Doing so would eliminate the issue of unbalanced conference schedules and facilitate a CFP with 7 automatic qualifiers and one at-large team while keeping the college football calendar as-is (a must for approval by the Presidents) and keeping the existing bowl system intact.
The realigned conferences would be focused on re-establishing the Pac-12, Big 10, SEC and ACC (kind of) to their 10 team roots with the other 3 conferences as follows:
Big 10: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin
SEC: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Pac 10: Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington State
ACC: Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami FL, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest
“Big Northeast”: Boston College, Louisville, Maryland, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn, Virginia Tech, West Virginia,
Big 12: Arkansas, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M
Mountain West: Baylor, Boise State, BYU, Colorado, Colorado State, New Mexico, Texas Tech, TCU, Utah, Wyoming
Independent: Notre Dame (who can join the existing Big East private schools for their other sports)
Each conference plays a 9 game round robin with the 7 conference champs auto qualifying for the 8 team playoff. The one at-large team and seeding would be determined by the CFP Committee. Instead of playing Conference Championship Games the first Saturday in December, there would be 4 quarter-final games played at the four highest seeds.
In addition to Power 5 to Power 7 realignment, the sport would be enhanced by a separate playoff for realigned Group of Six programs as follows. These programs currently have no shot to play in or legitimately compete in the existing CFP or even in an expanded 16-team CFP scenario :
AAC: Cincinnati, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, South Florida, Tulane, Tulsa, UCF
MAC: Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent, Miami OH, Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan
WAC: Air Force, Fresno St, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico St, San Diego St, San Jose St, UNLV, Utah State, UTEP
CUSA: Arkansas St, Louisiana Tech, North Dakota St*, North Texas, Northern Illinois, Rice, Texas State, UL-Lafayette, UL-Monroe, UT-San Antonio
“Little Northeast”: Army, Buffalo, Charlotte, Liberty, Marshall, Middle Tennessee St, Old Dominion, Temple, UMass, Western Kentucky
Sun Belt: Appalachian St, Coastal Carolina, FL International, FL Atlantic, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Troy, UAB
*North Dakota St jumps up to G6 to make 60 schools.
There would be 6 auto qualifiers and 2 at-large teams for the G6 Playoff with selection/seeding determined by the CFP Committee. Quarterfinal games would also be played the first Saturday (and Friday night) in December. Semi-final games would be played at two existing bowl sites during the Holidays with the G6 Final played at an existing bowl site a day or two prior to the P7 Final. These three bowl sites (and ESPN) would have enhanced attendance and visibility as a result of hosting these G6 Playoff games.
Here are the benefits of this realignment:
1. The biggie is significant positive stimulus to future Media/TV revenue value
2. The value of four CFP quarterfinal games on the first Saturday of December exceeds that of the existing Conference Championship Games.
3. The value of regional rivalry games in a 9 game round robin during the regular season exceeds that of the existing diluted scheduling formats in the Big 10, ACC, SEC and Pac 12. The best example of increased value would be the SEC where Georgia and Alabama play every season instead of once every 10 years. They have stunningly only played once since 2008 in the regular season! All of the other high profile SEC programs would also be playing each other on an annual basis. Same logic applies for all other conferences as well.
4. Regional rivalries nixed by conference realignment would be reinstated and also increase value: Texas/Texas A&M; Texas/Arkansas; Oklahoma/Nebraska; Penn State/West Virginia; Pitt/West Virginia; Kansas/Missouri, etc.
5. Existing rivalries created by the prior realignment can be reinstated with non-conference scheduling; a prime example being Penn State/Ohio State.
6. The ONLY reason for the most recent conference realignment was the pursuit of cable television subscriptions for BTN, SECN, ACCN and PACN. With cord cutting and cord shaving, a very high percentage of those subscription revenues are being eliminated from non-sports subscribers and will never be replaced.
7. As a result, the next round of media deals will be more focused on increasing Tier 1 (Over the Air) and Tier 2 (ESPN, FS1, CBSSN, NBCSN, Amazon, YouTube, etc.) revenue streams instead of Tier 3 streams from Conference Networks delivering 24x7 conference only content. The best way to max out those new Tier 1 and Tier 2 revenue streams is with enhanced regular season and CFP content from seven 10-team conferences as previously described. There is also no question that the formation of a new G6 division with their own football championship playoff would enhance their media revenues, fan interest and profile of all the G6 schools who currently and never will have a shot at the existing CFP.