What NCAA Conference Realignment Should Look Like

Oct 12, 2013; University Park, PA, USA; A general view of the Big Ten logo prior to the game between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Michigan Wolverines at Beaver Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew O

Big Ten (B1G)

With the way the Independents are set up and what the Big East and the ACC would have to be made up of, it only makes sense that Notre Dame joins the Big Ten. The Fighting Irish would finally be forced to become a member of a conference full-time, something they have been able to avoid at the resentment of many fans for years.

Maryland, Rutgers, and Penn State would all be in the Big East, and we will get to where Nebraska would be in a minute. That would leave 10 teams. Adding Notre Dame is one.

Iowa State would make sense as the other. That’s how you come up with these two divisions, and it protects the oldest rivalries that we have always loved in college football, particularly the Big Ten rivalries along with Notre Dame’s rivalry with so many of the Big Ten schools, including Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue, all of whom they would play every year under this format.

With this setup, the Big Ten East could very well be the toughest division in all of college football, which it might become anyway in reality with Penn State and Michigan about to be back on Ohio State’s level. This would make a perfect collection of Midwest teams right along the Great Lakes region, and they would recreate the regional pride that used to exist in the Big Ten before the recent additions.

The only thing is perhaps we could actually change the name of the conference now. The Midwest Conference would not work because the acronym would be the same as the Mountain West, but the Midwest 12 would not be a bad one. Just have something to have the conference name make sense with the number of teams in it.

Next: Big 12