I know I am late to this party and someone has already probably posted this exact thing, but I feel like a massive realignment is coming as the Big Ten expands. I think the result will be four “mega” conferences. This means that a national semifinal game becomes easy and we can have a four team playoff.

Here is how I envision the conferences look. The ACC may be called something else, but since most of the teams there came from the ACC I still called it that.

B10 ACC Pac 10 SEC
Michigan Boston College Washington Florida
Ohio St. North Carolina Washington St. LSU
Purdue Clemson USC Alabama
Indiana Duke UCLA Auburn
Northwestern Georgia Tech Arizona Georgia
Michigan St. Maryland Arizona St. Vanderbilt
Illinois Virginia Oregon Kentucky
Wisconsin Louisville Oregon St. Arkansas
Minnesota NC State Stanford Mississipi
Iowa Wake Forest California Mississippi St.
Penn St Cincinnati Colorado Tennessee
Notre Dame West Virginia Texas Tech South Carolina
Nebraska Syracuse Texas A&M Florida St.
Missouri UConn Baylor Miami
Texas Kansas Oklahoma USF
Pittsburgh Kansas St. Oklahoma St. Virginia Tech

I felt like 16 teams in each conference makes sense. Then split each into two divisions. Each team could play 7 intradivision games and 5 interdivision games. No more D2 cupcakes. Four conference title games among division winners. Then the four conference winners would face each other in semifinal games. Seeding would go by regular season record so that there is extra reward for winning lots of games.

Two teams got dropped to make this work, Iowa St. and Rutgers. This is probably what makes my scenario unlikely. But I needed it to work out to a number divisible by 4. Better suggestions?

I really believe the four mega conference scenario is where we are going. It is going to be triggered by expansion and would then allow for an easy 4 team playoff.

The problem is that non-BCS schools are totally out of the picture. And the bowl games would need some tweaking. Some out of conference rivalries and teams that change conference rivalries get eliminated.

So this is probably mostly crazy talk. But it’s fun to speculate.