New realignment idea to give Southwest Conference a rebirth

SI’s Pat Forde has generated an idea that would give the NCAA FBS a facelift. It would bring the Southwest Conference back with a twist.

Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde has a crazy idea under the current climate, NCAA realignment. With COVID-19 possibly factoring in to limit travel, this idea from Forde would limit travel for the conference games. Each conference would have 12 members and it would do away with the independents such as BYU and the like.

Ten leagues, each with 12 members, each designed to maximize proximity and reduce travel demands and costs. All current conference structures are broken and reassembled. There are no more than eight Power 5 programs in a single new conference, and no fewer than four. And there are no independents—yes, Notre Dame is in a conference.

Forde also mentioned how it would change the College Football Playoff comment.

All 10 conference champions, plus two at-large teams chosen by a selection committee, advance to the expanded College Football Playoff. The teams are seeded by the committee. The top four receive a first-round bye, while seeds 5–8 host seeds 9–12 at their home stadiums the first weekend of December. Quarterfinals are played the next week at the home stadiums of seeds 1–4. The semifinals and championship game are conducted under the current CFP format.

Essentially every team would play each other with one non-conference game each season and no conference championship game. For schools like Texas, the idea would to give the Southwest Conference a rebirth. It would bring back former conference rivalries such as Houston, Rice, SMU while maintaining the Texas-Oklahoma Red River Rivalry. The Sooners and Cowboys were actually part of the Big Eight before the creation of the Big 12 but would join the new SWC.

The new Southwest Conference:

  • Baylor
  • Houston
  • North Texas
  • Oklahoma
  • Oklahoma State
  • Rice
  • Southern Methodist
  • Texas Christian
  • Texas
  • Texas A&M
  • Texas Tech
  • Tulsa

This new conference alignment may not sit well with some of the brass at Texas A&M but it would bring back the Longhorns-Aggies rivalry game. That would be good for the state and college football. After all what makes the sport so great are the rivalry games.