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First of all, drink.

It's that time of the offseason once again. Now, longtime members of this thread may see my name and be like "oh God, we gotta deal with this guy's STUPID realignment proposals again?" However, I assure you this will be my only one (probably). You may also wonder "didn't this dude make a realignment a long time ago? Why's he wasting his time with another one?" Also a valid question, but one with an easy answer. Whenever I tried to make a P7 realignment, I always ran into the problem of SOMEONE getting demoted, usually UCF and someone else. When I tried to propose recreating C-USA 1.0, many UCF, Cincinnati, and Louisville fans got quite upset, with one Louisville fan in particular really giving me a piece of his mind.

Yet, when I look for any realignment ideas, whether they be for CFB25 or other purposes, a lot of them do the same thing (ten teams per conference, usually at the expense of UCF or other former C-USA schools). That's why, for this year's offseason realignment, I wanted to take a different approach. Rather than seven ten team power conferences, I want to try to make six historically-ish based twelve-team Power conferences as well as five twelve-team Group of 5 conferences and a handful of independents. Doing this does something magical: rather than limiting P7 slots to 70 teams which, unless you want to sacrifice geography or some rivalries, requires some demotions, you have 72 P6 slots, which should be enough to include all current P5 teams and even a couple of promotions. My only other rule is no football-only members (which will become important in the independents section).

Without further ado, realignment:

Power 6

Now, before you yell at me, hear out my reasoning:

• AAC - The AAC is a mix of post-2004 Big East (minus UConn) and the original AAC in 2013 (minus Temple). The only difference is that TCU is added, which is based upon TCUs 2010 acceptance of Big East membership, which they only withdrew from to join the Big 12.
• ACC - The ACC is pretty much identical to the 2005 version of the ACC, albeit with Georgia Tech and South Carolina swapped (more on that in the SEC section).
• Big 10 - The Big 10's membership would be restored to its 2011 roster, with the original ten members plus Penn State and Nebraska.
• Big 12 - The Big 12 was restored to its original, 1996 roster (minus Nebraska). Without Nebraska, I considered a few members, but ultimately settled on Arkansas. Part of this, again, will be expanded on in the SEC section, but part of this was also because Arkansas in the Big 8/12 has been a realignment what-if for a while and because, outside of LSU, Arkansas doesn't have many big time rivals in the SEC while, in the Big 12, they have many former Southwest Conference rivals.
• Pac-12 - The Pac-12 would be pretty standard, just including the Pac-10 plus Utah and BYU (how original, I know). I'm aware that Stanford and Cal would probably not be super cool with BYU in real life, but I really wanted to prioritize most of the OG Big 12 being together. However, if you wanted, you could easily swap BYU and Colorado.
• SEC - I know I referenced the conference a bunch, mostly because I imagine it would be the most controversial change. Rather than simply going back to 1992, I wanted to take the SEC *all* the way back to 1933 (minus Sewanee, of course). Part of this was because I wanted to make the Battle for the Rag a Thanksgiving game again, but another part of it was because I really like the more compact footprint of the original SEC and wanted to find some way to recreate it in a Power 6 model.

You may now say "okay, well that's cool and all, but how would conference schedules work? I don't see any talk about divisions here, after all." So, on that note, I have a confession: while I greatly dislike what has happened to conferences in football (if I didn't, I wouldn't be making this post), I do think the move away from divisions to a "protected rivals" model was, at least in theory, a good idea. However, I do not think it worked as well in these large megaconferences (see Texas's and Indiana's schedules). But in smaller conferences, I think this is a perfect model. That's why I would adopt a 4+4 model, which would mean that every team would have up to 4 protected rivals and play 4 other opponents on a rotating basis. This would function similarly to the Big Ten's current "Flex Protect" model, where not every team will have a maxed out number of protected rivals, but it will instead vary by team. However, with the 4+4 model, a team will play everyone in their conference at least once over a two-year span, and will have completed a home-and-away over a four-year span. Now, who would be crazy enough to go research every single team and come up with a comprehensive list of protected rivals? Me, of course (although, fwiw, this was made with CFB25 in mind before we realized that EA wasn't putting protected rivals in)! However, that would be insane to put in a post, so I will attach a link to an Excel spreadsheet here.

Standardizing every conference to 8 games also has the added benefit of allowing up to 4 OOC games per school. So why not make this a little exciting and use more protected rivals. While I would make a spreadsheet for that, there is a lot of consideration that would go to who plays whom. However, to give some ideas, rivalries that are already protected or are otherwise played regularly (i.e., the Florida Cup, Notre Dame's annual rivals), old rivalries that are played irregularly or not at all that could now be revived (Nebraska vs Oklahoma, Michigan vs Notre Dame, and Pitt vs Penn State), and current in-conference rivalries that would become out-of-conference (Arkansas and Texas A&M vs. LSU, the Revivalry and TCU vs Texas Tech) would all have room to be protected.

Group of 5

Now, with the Power conferences out of the way, we need to look at the Group of 5. While the G5 has certainly not experienced near the realignment turmoil that the Power conferences have, there is absolutely some room for improvement, particularly if we want to try and make every conference set at 12 teams. And, with this standard, we will see an old face reappear. So, with that said, here is the G5:

And my reasoning for these alignments:

• C-USA - My main goal for C-USA was to restore C-USA 3.0, which was the version of C-USA from 2014-2022/23, plus ECU and Tulsa (who themselves only left in 2013). However, I wanted to keep ODU in the Sun Belt in order to protect their rivalry with JMU. So, between that modification and the two other slots that needed to be filled, I decided to include current C-USA members Liberty and Kennesaw State as well as promote Eastern Kentucky from FCS, giving Western Kentucky another rival.Delaware could replace Eastern Kentucky, if so desired.
• MAC - The MAC, perfect as it is, would remain unchanged.
• Mountain West - The Mountain West, like the MAC, is honestly a pretty perfect, regional conference as is. I considered adding Utah, BYU, and TCU to revive the mid-2000s MWC, but that kinda went against the whole purpose of doing this exercise, and I can imagine many Utes, Cougars, and Horned Frogs would be displeased with that state of affairs.
• Sun Belt - The Sun Belt is relatively unchanged, swapping out Marshall, Southern Miss, and Texas State while adding Jax State. The main reason for this change, besides the reasons mentioned under the C-USA section, was to make the Battle for the Ol' School Bell and intra-conference rivalry.
• WAC - With the C-USA and Sun Belt being repurposed as definitively Eastern leagues and the MWC full, what do we do with the remaining schools out west? Well, now seems a better time than ever to revive the Western Athletic Conference on the FBS level. I am aware that the WAC does currently exist, but it is on the verge of collapse. So, assuming a collapse of the conference (more on that in a second), why not repurpose it? It includes any leftover G5 schools between Texas and New Mexico, as well as promoting Tarleton State (who has been in realignment discussions and is a current WAC member), UC Davis (who is moving to the Moutain West, likely to prepare for an FBS move themselves), and Sac State (who's highly publicized Pac-12 bid is gearing them up for G5 play).Missouri State could replace Tarleton State, if desired.

I will admit that I am not as familiar with G5 rivalries as I am with P4 ones, but I will still make an effort to include some in-conference protected rivals, which can be seen in the previous spreadsheet. Some of the conference rivalry pages are sparsely populated, though, so feel free to give suggestions!

Independents and BONUS ROUND

The list of independents is nothing too crazy, but each has their own reasoning

Remember how I said that there would be no football-only members? That's where the BONUS ROUND comes into play, as each of these independents is in a non-FBS conference, each of which (as well as select mid-major conferences that have been changed) will be fully detailed below:

And the reasoning:

• A-10 - The A-10 has gotta be the only conference where I've seen a somewhat positive reaction to the idea of kicking schools out. That's why I've excised the bottom feeders (La Salle and Fordham) as well as realigned well-performing but geographically isolated members (St. Louis and Loyola Chicago) while readding former members in Temple and UMass.
• Big East - From my time in r/CollegeBasketball, the general consensus from Big East fans I get is that the conference should, in no circumstances except for two, mess with the double round robin. Those two circumstances, however, are adding Gonzaga or adding Notre Dame. So, with that in mind, I added Notre Dame, standardizing the number of teams in each high major conference across every sport. In this scenario, Notre Dame and UConn would share bowl bids with the AAC, who would in turn have basketball home-and-homes with Big East members.
• MVC - With the American becoming a Power Conference and the A-10 reshaping itself, there were many high-performing Midwestern mid majors without a conference, those being St. Louis, Loyola Chicago, and Wichita State, all of whom were once in the MVC. So, similar to the A-10, I removed many of the newer, lower-performing members to readd these prodigal sons, arguably making the MVC a mid major on par with the A-10, MWC, and WCC.
• Patriot League - The Patriot League, like the Ivy League, is very much an academics-first kind of conference, and so I originally wasn't going to even touch it. However, with Fordham (a former member of the Patriot League) out of the A-10, this seemed like the perfect home for them. Meanwhile, William & Mary, currently a member of the CAA, is another historically excellent academic institution that, while public, would still be a relatively good fit with the Patriot League given its history.
• WAC Remnants - While I didn't go into detail of the WAC remnants, I'll do a quick lightning round to show where they all go. Abilene Christian, UT Arlington, and Utah Valley join the Summit League to create a 12-member league. Cal Baptist joins the pre-2024 WCC, along with Grand Canyon and Seattle, to create a 12-member league. Southern Utah and Utah Tech join the Big Sky to replace Sac State and UC Davis, keeping that conference as a 12-member league.

Other Notes

Ideally, the playoff would expand to 16 teams, with an autobid per conference and the remaining 5 spots at large.

I considered adding a 12th Group of 5 East Coast League, but finding who to add was tough. However, I would think a beefed-up version of the mid-2000s CAA on the G5 level would be really entertaining, even if I don't 100% know who the members would be. I also considered promoting the best of the Missouri Valley Football Conference (mostly the Dakotas, UNI, and Missouri State) plus the best of the Big Sky (the Montanas, Idaho, and a few others), but the reasons why those schools won't move up has been litigated endlessly, so no reason to try and force that here.

If you've gotten this far, I'm honestly a bit surprised, but very appreciative of your time! I'm open to any criticisms, suggestions, questions, etc., so feel free to comment!

As a realignment enthusiast I've always tried to look at the wackiest ideas just to imagine alternate realities where they did happen.

My favorite ideas that were rumored about were the Pac-12 merging with the remaining members of the Big 12 after Oklahoma and Texas left for the SEC (which would have turned the Pac-12 into the Pac-20), or an older one where Nebraska joined the Big Ten accompanied by Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa State.

While I feel that Power realignment will slow down thanks to the ACC announcing their media deal extension, I'll keep thinking about all of those ideas just for fun.

X: https://x.com/YogiRoth/status/1886471145286983994

Now that we've reached the offseason, we're reopening our policy from last year that we're closing down the weekly Playoff and Realignment posts, which means it's once again permitted to post on these topics as standalone posts

We try to strike a balance in how to organize content in terms of allowing the community to be creative but also not having certain types of content overrun everything else. Our rules are generally more relaxed in the offseason when there's less traffic and we can have more free-flowing conversations. These two topics are of such frequent discussion that having a single thread as a home to concentrate discussion each week has been a good balance to date.

Based on a poll of randomly sampled frequent commenters prior to the season, the significant consensus on both Playoff and Realignment posts was not to allow them during the season, but to allow them during the offseason. Effective immediately posts on these subjects will be approved if submitted.

Please note that all other rules and posting rules must be met, notably:

• Make a good-faith effort to check whether or not the exact content you want to post has already been posted.
• All text-only posts must have a minimum of 2 sentences.
• To keep spam down, we limit users to three posts per day. This includes recruiting posts. Please follow the recruiting guidelines as listed in the "Recruiting Post Rules" section.
• You need to participate as a commenter in the subreddit first before posting, so that you can best get a feel for sub dynamics, culture, and rules.

Happy posting!

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This is a weekly thread for any /r/CFB related memes. Feel free to post any memes, GIFs, tweets, or other things related to college football that make you chuckle. This thread is a little more casual, but the rules still apply. Check out /r/CFBMemes for more meme fun!

With the high salaries and pressure to win, so you think it’s possible that a HC with a $10M salary would ever consider donating a considerable amount to help lock down a blue chip?

Salaries are only going to go up in the next decade and we’ll be seeing $12M-$15M for blue blood schools.

Does anyone know if this is legal with potential conflicts of interest?

They’ve played twice. In 1938 and 1941. Northwestern beat Kansas State both of those times by a combined score of 72-3 (51-3 and 21-0)

They should set up a home and home between them

Both are purple

Both have a mascot named Willie Wildcat

Urban vs Rural

Private vs Public

Coastal vs Inland

Think about it

If we were still in the 4-team playoff system,OSU's season would've ended without a B1G title or playoff appearance and a loss to 6-6 Michigan team. I think his seat would been scorching hot at least

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I've seen multiple posts in past regarding "if you could change a moment/outcome/etc in your team's past" posts here on the subreddit. This will be in same vein, but with a twist. If you could change a moment for a team outside of your tried & true fandom, what would it be and why?

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Obviously, the players going to the NFL would probably opt out of anything that they might get hurt doing, but them playing College Football 25 tournament they would probably do.

I think it would be a cool send off for any player that wants to participate.

EDIT: I want to be clear this would be all college football players at every level invited who don’t have any eligibility left and those who opt to go to the NFL, not just the best players in college football like other events

It didn’t take long after the clock hit 0:00 in Mobile, Alabama on Saturday for the entire American team bench, and eventually the entire Senior Bowl squad to swarm TCU WR Jack Bech after his game-winning 2-yard touchdown catch. Bech was the most reliable target for the four quarterbacks in the American rotation all game, so it would not have been any kind of surprise for him to win Senior Bowl MVP.

What made it all the more emotional was this was Bech’s first game since he lost his older brother Tiger in the New Orleans terrorist attack exactly one month prior to the Senior Bowl, in a city just two hours from Bourbon Street. Visibly moved after the game, Jack repeatedly thanked his older brother for looking out after him his whole life. “My brother had some wings on me,” he said in his post-game interview with NFL Network right before he was awarded the Senior Bowl MVP award.

It was just another angle to a dramatic win for American, who rallied from a 19-8 fourth quarter deficit to win.

National struck on the opening drive of the game, going up 8-0 on a double pass play from Ollie Gordon II to Iowa State’s Jayden Higgins and a conversion from Dillon Gabriel to Elijah Arroyo of Miami (FL). Mobile-area native Riley Leonard was the starting QB for American, but did not have any sustained success due to a first drive fumble from Georgia’s Arian Smith and a series of penalties in his only other drive.

Despite some bold coaching decisions, including the aforementioned trick play and multiple fourth down attempts, the first half only featured one scoring drive for each team. American equalized early in the second thanks to a deep reception from Jaxson Dart to Bech setting up a Dart scramble for a touchdown two plays later. American’s defense managed to hold the rest of the half after Tulane’s Caleb Ransaw picked off Louisville QB Tyler Shough just before half, leaving both squads level at 8-8.

National looked to be in control late in the third quarter after getting an offensive spark in QB Taylor Elgersma. Elgersma was this year’s winner of the Hec Crighton Trophy, the Canadian equivalent of the Heisman, for the Laurier Golden Hawks and led them to a national runner up position in the Canadian U Sports division. Elgersma is the only U Sports quarterback to ever be named to a Senior Bowl team. Elgersma drove them to a tie-breaking field goal and a botched snap on the ensuing American possession netted National another eight points for a 19-8 lead early into the fourth.

American answered quickly however, thanks to a lengthy kickoff return from SMU’s Brashard Smith and a double pass touchdown of their own, with UCF running back RJ Harvey throwing a loft to Tai Felton from Maryland. National had multiple chances to salt the game away, but failed to gain an offensive first down on two drives. American received the ball with 2:32 left in the game, turning to Memphis QB Seth Henigan after the previous drive led by Jalen Milroe had ended in a four-play turnover on downs. Two passes to Alabama TE CJ Dippre and Jack Bech put American in a first & goal to win situation. Forsaking the chance to tie, American went for it all on 4th and goal from the one, and found out that yes, Jack Bech had some wings on him.

If not can someone more talented than me make it? Would be a cool tool to find local games.