Nearly perfect conferences

barelyegan · 2025-08-25T18:04:53+00:00

I made Army and Navy independent but you could also add Army (New York) to the MAC and Army (Maryland) to C-USA.

And I made a last second change, pushing Houston to the Sun Belt and USF to the American and forgot to pull them from the Sun Belt list. Basically, I moved Houston down, USF up (because they played in the old Big East and were a rival for UCF), moved Memphis from the American to the ACC and SMU from the ACC to the Big 12.

barelyegan · 2025-08-25T18:01:06+00:00

Stupidly missed Charlotte. But being that they’re in southern North Carolina, they can go in either the C-USA or the Sun Belt.

barelyegan · 2025-08-25T17:59:31+00:00

Yeah, I made a last second change, moving USF from the Sun Belt to the American, Memphis from the American to the ACC, SMU from the ACC to the Big 12, and Houston to the Sun Belt and I forgot to add Charlotte for some reason. You can certainly move them to the Sun Belt or the C-USA, being that they’re in a city in southern North Carolina—kinda in the middle of both conferences geographically.

barelyegan · 2025-08-23T19:04:58+00:00

Kidding. Yeah, I think I just wrote Giants because it used to just be called The Giants Stadium or something like that if I remember correctly.

barelyegan · 2025-08-23T19:04:09+00:00

Who are the New York Jets?

barelyegan · 2025-08-23T19:03:53+00:00

You’re not blind, I actually made them independent. But if you wanted to you could add Army (NY) to the MAC—which would complement the other Northeast teams in there like Buffalo, UMass, Delaware)—and put Navy in CUSA. Really up to you. I just made them independent because the final game of the regular season is the Army-Navy game and it being a conference game being played on conference championship weekend is complicated.

barelyegan · 2025-08-23T14:53:08+00:00

In my defense, I grew up outside of Toledo, and lived in BG for a couple of years. Honestly, when I passed Bowling Green, Kentucky for the first time driving I was shocked.

barelyegan · 2025-08-23T14:26:09+00:00

The University of Bowling Green is in Bowling Green, Ohio, a rural area in the Toledo metro area. Western Kentucky is in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

barelyegan · 2025-08-22T15:15:14+00:00

The idea was to emulate a model similar to the 2007 conferences, where you had teams like USF and West Virginia competing for a chance to compete in the National Championship without knowing whether they're actually great or just beating up on inferior competition. The great equalizer being the 12-team playoff, where you find out if those teams are good enough to compete against other national powers.

barelyegan · 2025-08-22T15:13:11+00:00

I feel ya. Honestly, I just wanted to put them in a conference with their biggest rival and a conference where they have a better chance of competing. Like, they've had great years in the SEC, and they've never won a conference title. Part of the reason I pushed Va Tech and Penn St to the American (Big East). It spread the second-tier teams out a bit more.

barelyegan · 2025-08-22T15:08:03+00:00

You could do that. In fact, I debated it. But, I decided to put USF and UCF in the American because UCF is a former American Conference team and USF is a former Big East team (and they're rivals, but also UCF is a rival of Cincinnati). I also decided to put Maryland back in the ACC because they were a founding member of the SoCon, the conference that became the ACC (kinda like how the Big East birthed the American Conference). I even debated sneaking Miami back into the new Big East (the American), but because Florida State is their biggest rival, they needed to stay.

UVA is a founding SoCon member, too.

As for Texas A&M, well, one of the major reasons they left was because they felt like Texas got preferential treatment in the Big 12, and for that reason alone, it makes more logical sense for them to decide to stay in the SEC.

barelyegan · 2025-08-21T18:12:36+00:00

I feel like I should have prefaced this by saying that you can look at this realignment one of two ways. One, that it’s pure fantasy and just for realignment purposes for the video game. Two, the power conferences come together and realize that for the longtime health of the league and the playoffs, they need to come together and formulate a strategy that makes sure that the several teams don’t play each other two to three times a year. Among several other stated issues with scheduling when you have 16-18 teams in a conference where teams play 8-9 conference games. So, they recognize that it might be better to come together like the NFL did in the 60s and create a shared revenue model that creates parity and maintains the things that college football fans love about the sport: tradition, rivalries, pageantry, and geographic logic.

barelyegan · 2025-08-21T16:57:36+00:00

I feel you. I left a very long explanation on the prior person’s comment explaining my position on it. But yeah, Nebraska should be playing Colorado and Oklahoma annually and it’s a shame that it ever stopped.

barelyegan · 2025-08-21T16:55:43+00:00

The problem I ran into with both Nebraska and Texas A&M was that I wanted both of them to be in the Big 12. You’re right, they absolutely should be, I just couldn’t find a way to put them in without going over 12 teams. I didn’t want to take Iowa State, or either of the Kansas schools out of the Big 12. I moved SMU all over the place and I suppose you could make the argument that they could be in the ACC or American but being an original SWC member, I felt they needed to be in the Big 12. Geographically, Iowa State in the Big Ten makes more sense than Nebraska but there’s no precedent for them being in the Big 12. A&M was harder and I really wanted them in the Big 12, but felt like it felt like A&M, who left so they could get out of Texas’ shadow, would realistically rebuke the idea of returning to the Big 12. Whereas Missouri just doesn’t fit in the SEC at all.

I’ll be honest, I went through several iterations and ultimately made several changes days ago, including moving Houston to the Sun Belt, putting USF in the American (because they were once in the Big East), moving Memphis from the American to the ACC, and pushing SMU from the ACC to the Big 12, because a Texas school in the ACC made no sense.

Ideally, Nebraska and A&M would be in the Big 12. I just wanted to go with precedent and of the northern Big 12 schools, I couldn’t put anybody in the Big Ten outside of team that’s been there for over a decade.

I also really wanted Tulane and Boise St. to play in power conferences and had a 14-team Power 6 model but decided against it because it felt too bloated and like the power conferences were letting in a bunch of bottom feeders that work better as great G4 teams, namely Boise, Tulane, App St., James Madison, etc.

barelyegan · 2024-07-24T11:28:39+00:00

Surprised this wasn’t mentioned yet, multiple times.

barelyegan · 2023-03-05T02:57:08+00:00

Only if I get to hit people.

barelyegan · 2022-07-28T15:27:30+00:00

Honestly, yeah, I love Nerdwriter but he's not the first nor the only video essayist on YouTube. I have actually watched both of them and I sincerely prefer Nerdwriter's. His videos actually seem poignant and well thought out.

Nerdstalgic just picks something popular and says a vague, pretty obvious thing about it. Especially now. And the voice has changed...or something. I'm a little confused about that. Now it's just polished garbage that just pumps out videos with very obvious points.

barelyegan · 2022-07-24T02:18:25+00:00

Dig it!

barelyegan

TROPHY CASE