Sports Illustrated proposes a conference realignment that would put the Badgers in the College Football Playoff

Sports Illustrated writer Pat Forde’s article yesterday called “Realigning America” throws out today’s college football structure and…

Sports Illustrated writer Pat Forde’s article yesterday called “Realigning America” throws out today’s college football structure and introduces an entirely new one, one which would ensure the Badgers’ spot in the College Football Playoff for years to come.

His nationwide changes include 10 12-team leagues, a round robin schedule within each league with each team playing one out-of-conference game, all 10 conference champions and two at-large teams making an expanded 12-team playoff and a committee to decide those two extra teams and award the top four teams first round byes.

His proposal would also work for the college basketball season, though obviously with the regular NCAA tournament format staying in place.

Now, you’re probably wondering who the Badgers would have in their division and why I’m writing them into the playoff.

Here it is.

Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri, North Dakota State and Nebraska.

For schools like North Dakota State and all three Michigan-based schools this would be a painful schedule to play each year.

For the Badgers? They would have just Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa State to get through in order to make the playoff. Now, they obviously won’t have their way with these teams every year, but compared to having to beat Ohio State, Penn State or Michigan? This new alignment would be a cakewalk for Paul Chryst and his team.

 

Now my personal thoughts.

I’m a big fan of the traditional Big Ten and the football culture and history surrounding the conference. Seeing it disbanded would be tough and would make the sport feel weird for years on end.

One huge positive that would come from this structure, though, is an insanely-captivating College Football Playoff format–one seen in the tweet below.

There has long been talk about expanding the playoff under the current conference alignment but given how the sport is currently structured that expansion would be a difficult one.

In this new format what you see above would come easily, and would make for an entertaining and, for lack of a better word, awesome end-of-season tournament each season.