Where Would Virginia Tech Fit in a Major Conference Realignment? Here Are Some Scenarios
In recent years, there has been much discussion about college football realignment. A handful of Power Five teams switched conferences in 2014, including Louisville (from the Big East to the ACC). Nothing has happened since, and that has left a fair bit of imbalance across the college football landscape.
Pat Forde of SI.com recently released a 130-team restructure based largely on geography. Mike McDaniel also outlined the impact Forde’s idea would have on Virginia Tech. However, Forde’s proposal is a bit unconventional.
There are essentially two thought processes when discussing realignment. Either you create four 16-team “Super Conferences” – providing the option of placing each conference champion in the College Football Playoff – or you simply balance out the existing Power Five conferences.
At first glance, the Super Conference method seems more appealing. However, it becomes rather complicated, because it’s difficult to form a proposal that makes geographic sense while also keeping certain conferences from being overwhelmingly stronger than others.
From here, I take a tiered approach to the existing Group of 5 conferences.
— Stephen Newman (@stephen_newman1) July 6, 2020
The top two: pic.twitter.com/ORVzgRZUFl
Even though the numbers don’t work out quite as well in some respects, it would be much more reasonable to reconstruct the boundaries of the Power Five, promote a few teams from smaller conferences, and balance out the conferences that already exist. Jake Myers of Juke Sports used this method to create his own realignment.
There’s not a lot to argue against, other than the loss of four-team divisions and the easy ability to put conference winners in the Playoff. The toughest omission is probably Memphis or Central Florida, but finding teams that fit in the “Western Conference” like Fresno State does is a challenge.
As far as the ACC goes and how Virginia Tech is affected, the biggest change is that the mixed-and-matched Atlantic and Coastal divisions are gone. Instead, it’s now strictly geographic, which actually doesn’t appear to affect the balance across divisions. It does mean Clemson is grouped with the Hokies, though.
In terms of the conference as a whole, Miami, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Louisville are traded for Penn State, Maryland, West Virginia and Rutgers. Although that arguably hurts the ACC’s depth from top to bottom, Penn State’s insertion also boosts the conference at the top. Some of the rivalries this proposal would create – and in some cases revive – appear to be more natural than what currently exists.
Ideally, scheduling would mimic what currently exists in the Big 12 (nine conference games) with each team facing their entire division each season, plus three games against teams from the opposite division on a rotating basis – although the idea of cross-division rivalry games is appealing.
Fixing the College Football Playoff system can come later. This model seems to at least eliminate the question of whether teams from certain conferences can make the top four without going undefeated, which is something that most outlines fail to do.
Does it help the Hokies in any way? It probably creates more potential rivalries, but in the grand scheme of things, there’s no way to know unless it’s implemented.
