My Insane Proposal To Save The Big East, End Realignment Drama, Moot The BCS, And Fix College Sports Forever

Are you sick of realignment talk? Good. Because folks, I have an idea that will put an end to this realignment crap for now and eternity.

There will be little realignment drama, because the need for realignment will be gone. No school will ever have to worry about its future, as USF and other schools are very much worrying now. It'll also make the BCS moot, preserve existing rivalries, cut travel costs, improve non-revenue sports, create better bowl games, and increase college football's overall fairness. And it'll do all of this in a way that ESPN, the bowls and the power schools will probably accept.

And best of all, the Big East can make all this happen in their next expansion move. I mean, this can happen NOW, people. Here's how it works. Sometime soon, the Big East Conference would extend invitations to...

...every single school in the FBS division.

Yep. You heard that right.

I hereby suggest that the Big East Conference extend football-only invitations to Air Force, Akron, Arkansas State, Army, Ball State, Boise State, Bowling Green, Brigham Young, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Colorado State, East Carolina, Eastern Michigan, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Fresno State, Hawaii, Houston, Idaho, Kent State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Massachusetts (moving up in 2012), Memphis, Miami University, Middle Tennessee State, Navy, Nevada, New Mexico, New Mexico State, North Texas, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Rice, San Diego State, San Jose State, South Alabama (moving up in 2013), Southern Methodist, Southern Mississippi, Temple, Texas-El Paso, Texas State (moving up in the future), Toledo, Troy, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, UCF, UNLV, UTSA (moving up in the future), Utah State, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan, and Wyoming.

Sound crazy? It shouldn't. From what I've read in the media, the Big East is already considering half of those schools. I say, let's go all the way with it. I call it the Big Everybody Conference. We can even keep the same initials, BEC. But it would technically be the football arm of the Big East. And just like there's no NCAA rule saying how big a women's track roster can be, there's no rule about how big a conference can be. Superconferences? Pffft. We win that game, bitches.

What we are really doing is turning the Big East football conference into a consortium of all "non-BCS" teams. The Big East's BCS bid would be shared among the 60 or so schools who were not fortunate enough to land in the SEC, Big XII, Big 10, ACC, or Pac-however many. Every year, one team from this group would earn an automatic berth in a BCS bowl game.

Would such a league pass BCS muster? Oh, yeah. The benchmarks aren't public knowledge, but they are known to include the BCS ranking of the highest team, and the number of teams in the BCS final Top 25. Here are the results going back to 2003 for all teams that would comprise this league:

2010: Boise State (10th), Nevada, West Virginia, Hawaii, UCF
2009: Cincinnati (3rd), Boise State, BYU, West Virginia
2008: Boise State (9th), Cincinnati, BYU, Ball State
2007: West Virginia (9th), Hawaii, BYU, South Florida, Cincinnati, Boise State, Connecticut
2006: Louisville (6th), Boise State, West Virginia, Rutgers, BYU
2005: West Virginia (11th), Louisville
2004: Boise State (9th), Louisville
2003: Miami-Ohio (11th), Boise State, Bowling Green

Taken as a group, the 55 or so "non-BCS" schools produce the same number of highly-ranked teams that a BCS conference does, and a top team comparable to that of the champion of a BCS conference.

Would the BCS go for this? I think they would. Currently, they have to accept a Big East champion, and a "Top 4" automatic qualifier if there is one. By combining these into one automatic bid, they limit the number of gate-crashers, while granting all the access they could be expected to. And since there's probably going to be a new BCS bowl game, the burden of taking on a less-desirable team would be more evenly spread amongst the BCS bowls.

But how would a 55-team conference work? Simple. We borrow an idea from basketball. But first things first.

Let's get this out of the way: we're not going to divide this huge league into arbitrary divisions. That's the problem we have now; realignment has forced teams into groups with faraway schools they have no history and little in common with. That increases expenses and hurts fan interest. No more of that. The BEC will be one huge league, with regionalized conference games.

Every team will play nine conference games. The first seven games will be determined in advance. Teams' conference schedules would largely resemble the ones they play now, but can be tailored to each team's desires rather than arbitrary groupings. A school like UTEP could play Texas schools and its former WAC/MWC rivals, instead of having to commit its entire athletic program to a league comprised of just one or the other. Hawaii can stick to mostly western opponents, but they could intermingle WAC and MWC schools, and not have to play any east of the Rockies. Louisiana Tech can join the C-USA group. The four Florida schools could play meaningful games against each other... if they want to. The schools would have some say in this, and some fairness rules would have to be made, but ultimately it would all be a collaboration with the league office. (For now, let's forget who's currently in the league office, and just focus on the idea.)

At some point in early November, after all teams have played 7 BEC games, the last two rounds of conference games will be determined, in the manner of basketball's BracketBusters tournament. For those not familiar: before the season, a pool of mid-major teams agrees to participate. Before the season, each team commits to a date but not an opponent. Once the season has reached its midway point, the tournament (and ESPN) create the most interesting pairings they can.

In the BEC's case, we would have each team schedule a "road" and "home" date sometime in November against a TBD conference opponent. The league office, through some process, would pair the teams with the best conference records and/or poll/BCS standings to play each other, thus resolving the conference race. And as with BracketBusters, the lesser teams would pair up as well, to complete their nine-game conference schedule and to provide interesting games against teams they don't normally get to see. 

You think mid-season schgeduling might be an interesting topic? Will Boise State be forced to travel to Houston with a BCS bid on the line? One-loss West Virginia having to win a game at SMU? Southern Miss going to Louisiana-Lafayette for a loser-goes-home match? USF suddenly getting a home game against... Marshall? South Alabama? Fresno State? A road trip to Temple? Tulane? UNLV?

After seven scheduled games and two rounds of impromptu ones, every team will have played 9 league games. Then, on the first Saturday of December, the top two teams in the league (in order of conference record and then BCS ranking) would play in the Big Everyone Conference Championship Game. MAC and C-USA football won't exist anymore, so the game could be in the current time slot of one of their games.

Obviously, there are a lot of logistics that need to be worked out. But this is where I think this arrangment actually helps. Right now everything has to be done at the conference level: local TV contracts, bowl tie-ins, membership in all sports, and moving up in divisions (from I-AA to I-A and non-BCS to BCS). Too many moves are being made for football reasons, and hurting schools in other ways. Let's look at these individually.

TV CONTRACTS: Conferences have become so large and farflung that their footprint exceeds that of local TV sports channels. Here in Nebraska we get Fox Sports Kansas City, which is inundated with Texas A&M and Iowa State games for some reason. They have a deal with the entire Big XII when there are only three local teams. Imagine if Fox Sports Ohio could make a deal to air only games of Ohio schools -- Ohio, Toledo, Bowling Green, etc., and Cincinnati. They could get teams of interest to their viewers without ever having to show Buffalo-Northern Illinois or USF-Rutgers. Even better, this moves negotiations from the conference office back to the schools themselves, who can form whatever consortiums they wish to.

BOWL GAMES: Similarly, conference footprints are much larger than anyone could reasonably be expected to travel for a bowl game. City-conference pairings often don't work for anyone, as we saw with USF-Toronto, and as we will see this year with Mountain West-Shreveport. With the conference barriers removed, bowl games will have a stable of local teams available, and rarely be forced to make picks as the current rules often do. The Charlotte bowl game could invite East Carolina. The Champs Sports could go for UCF, FAU, or FIU just as easily as they can invite USF (with the current Big East tie). The Armed Forces could take any one (or two) Texas schools. And so on. The bowl games that pair with BCS opponents, like the Liberty and Las Vegas bowls, can be given to the best teams to create the most interesting matchups.

MEMBERSHIP IN ALL SPORTS: With all football-related reasons for conference realignment removed, schools would would have no reason to be in far-flung, expensive leagues like C-USA. I think you'd see an entirely different sporting landscape, with these football conglomerations breaking up, and re-forming in groups that make sense and will last. If West Virginia and Rutgers want to still play basketball in the Big East, they can; Boise State and USF don't have to. You might see schools with big football programs and little else joining smaller leagues, like Army and Navy now (in the Patriot League). And who knows? If football were removed from the equation, and some of the distant schools spun off, we might not even hate Conference USA that much. There is far much more hand-wringing in USF land about possibly having to play Southern Miss in football than there was about actually losing to them in basketball.

MOVING UP: BCS membership drives so much. Obviously, the desire to keep this affiliation is what's compelling the Big East Conference to make such crazy moves as inviting Boise State (and let's face it, inviting South Florida six years ago). Without that carrot, Villanova probably never would have looked into moving up. Surely this figured in UConn's thought process. And it is the lack of certainty about bowl access and revenue that is keeping otherwise worthy programs in the red-ink netherworld of I-AA.

With the BEC being an open conference that any I-A school can join, and have a real shot at a major bowl game, I think you'd see a whole lot of schools finally pulling the trigger. Appalachian State: come on down. Montana: love to have ya. UNC Charlotte: whenever you're ready. Richmond: anyone who embarrasses Duke three times in six years is cool with us, even if it's not in basketball. Georgia Southern: welcome aboard, we owe you an ass-whooping anyway. Eastern Washington: bring that freaky red field. And so on. And these teams could, as above, enter into local consortiums rather than having to join some far-flung conference just because it's I-A.

Similarly, there would be no reason for football teams to change from the MWC to the WAC to C-USA and back, since it's all the same level with the same access. The only football-driven moves would be from FCS to FBS, and from the BEC to a BCS league. And if the Big XII comes calling for Louisville or someone else, we'll charge them a nominal fee and wish them best of luck. Unlike now, losing one or two schools would threaten no one's existence.

Rather than merely expanding or surviving, the Big East can redefine college football -- nay, college sports -- for the better, for everyone, forever.

Make this happen.