Going to 5 16 team conferences, 80 teams total, will never happen, but it would be nice

Big Ten
Division 1: Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Notre Dame*, Wisconsin
Division 2: Missouri, Ohio State, Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Boston College

Southwest Conference Lives!
Division 1: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, Houston*, Southern Methodist*, Arkansas
Division 2: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Air Force*, Southern Miss*, Colorado

Southeast
Division 1: Florida, Florida State, Miami, Georgia, South Carolina, Clemson, South Florida, Georgia Tech
Division 2: Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky

Pac 16
Division 1: California, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, Nevada*, Boise State*
Division 2: Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU*, Hawaii*, Fresno State*, Southern Cal, UCLA

Big ACC
Division 1: Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Syracuse, Rutgers, Navy*, Central Florida*, Maryland
Division 2: Virginia, Virigina Tech, West Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, East Carolina*

*Not Currently in a BCS conference
From 2010 Attendance Figures

Teams in the top 80 attendance figures not in:
#70 San Diego State
#76 Army
#79 UTEP

Teams outside the top 80 included:
#83 Washington State
#85 Southern Methodist
#95 Nevada

Teams not from AQ conferences
Big Ten: 1 - Notre Dame
Southwest lives: 4 - Houston, Southern Methodist, Air Force, Southern Miss
SEC: 0
Pac16: 5 - Boise State, Nevada, Fresno State, BYU, Hawaii
Big ACC: 3- Navy, Central Florida (UCF), East Carolina

getting to 64 or 96 is hard

I feel like Army/Navy/Air Force come as a group. Either you put them all in or you leave them all out. Especially Army/Navy. That's one of the most historic american sports rivalries ever, and I can't imagine them being broken up into D1/non-D1.

okay, army get's UCF's spot in the BigACC then, since it's really hard to find another east coast team to put in/take out

They should probably all move down to FCS given their recruiting disadvantages.

This is the most realistic super-conference proposal by far. 64 cuts out way too many teams while 96 takes away from the point of super-conferences by placing teams that aren't close to being competitive with the top tier schools in their same conferences. The only real downside is that 5 conferences doesn't work that great for a playoff as there's too many conferences for a 4-team playoff, but not really enough for an 8-teamer without going really heavy on at-larges and kinda taking away from the whole conference system.

I feel like the optimal long-term solution is for 5 big-time AQ conferences, 2 mid-majors and an 8-team playoff, but that's still a long ways out.

This would be awesome.

b

I think there would be a pretty strong push to get SDSU in there. That program has been a huge underachiever and should be much stronger. Probably would have turned things around if they could have held onto Hoke. Plus the SD big market would make them hugely attractive to.

Tulane is the most prestigious program in Louisiana, can't leave them out imo

I don't really understand why TAMU will bring so much more money to the SEC. What is the basis of the "large TV market" argument? That there are a ton of potential bandwagoners who will emerge if TAMU makes a run? That the SEC undersold to ESPN in the first place and we need to do whatever we can to renegotiate? That Texas fans will want to watch TAMU get owned in the SEC? I seriously don't know the answer; people always just seem to take for granted that having a team in a big market will bring cash.

We're not the Big Ten. We can't put a flag in the ground and strongarm the cable providers into adding our network to the lower-tier packages. ESPN needs people to actually watch the games to translate into $$$. Would TAMU even raise the average interest of an SEC matchup for non-SEC fans? Let alone Mizzou ffs. We need LSU/Alabama/Auburn/Georgia/Florida/Tennessee to play each other, not waste precious schedule slots against these other schools. We need lots of clashes between high-ranked teams with national title implications, something it doesn't seem like TAMU provides very regularly.

The arguments in favor of SEC expansion just don't have me convinced that it's in our interest to do it.

At the risk of being leveled:
You have more people in more markets, so you can negotiate for a bigger TV contract, or get more subscribers for a future SEC network. You increase your recruiting base to Texas. Really nothing bad can come from adding Texas to your conference footprint.
Why would you want constant games between your title contenders? Excess marquee matchups potentially knock your teams out of the title race and out of BCS bowl matchups, which is bad for the conference's national title hopes and potentially costs the conference money if they knock each other out of big bowl games. And I think you are underestimating Texas A&M as a team...they have been down for the last few years but generally they are a decent team, and a team with a lot of history.

We can't? Last I recall the SEC got a pretty sweet deal for its network. The likelihood of adding Houston / Austin / Dallas as major markets with A&M (and yes, I realize that they're maybe like the third-most popular team, at best, in each of those markets) has to count for something.

A&M is gone, Big12 just let us go w/o legal ramifications. Only thing left is the exit fee, non-A&M media reporting up to $28,000,000. Texas A&M sites/mods think it will be around $12,000,000.

Could be nothing if this POS conference falls apart soon enough.

I believe the state of Texas has a larger population than Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama combined.

Should help

To my understanding, the SEC network and BTN are completely different. The SEC networks just gets local affiliates to air a noon game each week (here in Atlanta it's on Peachtree TV). Maybe I'm wrong about this?

I think Houston already has an SEC network affiliate. They'd probably set them up in Dallas and Austin and San Antonio would make some more money, sure. I don't think it would be a gamechanger.

True. How many of them passionately follow TAMU football? That seems like the more important question.

I haven't seen any analysis of TAMU football ratings. I should do some research on that.