With the first domino toppled, America is heading toward some pretty drastic changes in the college sports landscape. When the dust settles we may find that entire conferences will be wiped off the map and dozens of schools find themselves with new friends to play on a regular basis. The momentum seems to be behind some magic number of sixteen team conferences, and while I don't personally get it that decision is not mine to make. However if the 4x16 scenario must happen it has to happen in a way that can legitimately spawn a playoff. It may or may not have been thought about by the gentlemen concocting these plans, but a real sixteen team conference simply cannot crown a champion in less than thirteen games. Taking up thirteen games to find those four champions leaves no room for a legitimate playoff that involves not just the 64 "chosen" teams but all teams in Division I. That is why something a little more outside the box needs to be imagined, because while I don't doubt the NCAA is incompetent I hope they are competent enough to not have a sport where half of its members have no chance at a title.

In order for everything to work, numbers need to be even on all sides. Sixteen actually is a good number, in a bit of a macro sense. But instead of viewing what will unfold as sixteen team conferences we should look at them as two eight team conferences that are tied to each other. What I mean by this is you take a group of sixteen teams and separate them into eight team divisions and play a 7 game round robin with three non-con games. At the end of that ten game regular season the champions of each eight team division play each other in what becomes the first round of a playoff. Every single year these two divisions play each other in the first round, but there isn't any cross division games. This allows the regular season to be shortened while still legitimately determining who should play in the postseason, which is the only way a real playoff is going to happen.

Now that the rough framework is established, it's time to plug some teams in. Before we even get started I must put out the disclaimer that there is no way to fit 66 current AQ conference teams into 64 slots. Put Notre Dame and TCU into the equation and we will be left with four teams out of the top tier that currently are there. I don't like it but there mathematically is no way of avoiding it.

Now, the first issue to tackle relates a bit to the seemingly imminent collapse of the Big 12. Not only do I personally hate to see the Big 12 go away, but it unnecessarily leaves the entire center of the country with only half a conference to represent it. Shoehorning the Big 12 remnants into coastal based conferences hasn't made sense to me since this all started and this plan addresses that issue. With this 4x16/8x8 proposal the top tier of 64 teams is divided into regions moreso than conferences. Interestingly enough these regions are very strongly based on pre-existing conferences so as to preserve as many rivalries as possible, so I won't go off on a dissertation on how they will be composed. Instead you can look here or check it out in text form below. Divisions 1 and 2 mean nothing within the tiers, it's just a generic placeholder.

East Tier 1, Division 1: BC, Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Virginia, UConn

East Tier 1, Division 2: Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, Florida State

Southeast Tier 1, Division 1: Cincinnati, Virginia Tech, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Southeast Tier 1, Division 2: Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, LSU, Louisville, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Baylor

Midwest Tier 1, Division 1: Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska, Iowa, Notre Dame, Minnesota, Wisconsin

Midwest Tier 1, Division 2: Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana

West Tier 1, Division 1: Oregon, Oregon State, Cal, Stanford, Washington, Washington State, UCLA, USC

West Tier 1, Division 2: Arizona, Arizona State, Texas, Texas Tech, Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State

As was mentioned before, each division above plays the other seven schools in a round robin format with the winner squaring off against the winner of the opposite division of their region. These matchups would rotate between divisions every year so everybody knows before the season starts where that game will be. This exact same setup will happen on a second tier, but expanding Tier 2 to 64 teams will require adding about ten current I-AA teams. However, without keeping everybody in Division I-A on the same schedule a playoff can't happen, and that is the entire point of all of this isn't it?

East Tier 2, Division 1: East Carolina, Marshall, UCF, Southern Miss, UAB, Memphis, Army, Navy

East Tier 2, Division 2: Kent State, Toledo, Buffalo, Akron, Bowling Green, Temple, UMass, Villanova

Southeast Tier 2, Division 1: North Texas, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Arkansas State, Western Kentucky, James Madison

Southeast Tier 2, Division 2: FAU, FIU, South Florida, Mississippi State, Troy, Jacksonville State, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern

Midwest Tier 2, Division 1: Ball State, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Miami (OH), Ohio, Youngstown State

Midwest Tier 2, Division 2: Tulsa, Tulane, UTEP, Houston, Rice, SMU, TCU, Iowa State

West Tier 2, Division 1: Fresno State, Hawaii, San Diego State, San Jose State, Nevada, Idaho, Boise, Montana

West Tier 2, Division 2: BYU, Air Force, Colorado State, UNLV, Wyoming, Utah State, New Mexico, New Mexico State

Obvious standouts there are Iowa State, South Florida, and Mississippi State who currently occupy spots in BCS AQ conferences along with TCU who is slated to join the Big East next year. As was said before, there's no way to fit 68 teams into 64 spots and somebody has to get bumped. Just because South Florida and Mississippi State are current members of a conference that may still be around they get to keep their spot while a good chunk of the Big 12 is left in limbo - victims of simple geography. To me no school should be off the chopping block when it comes to dropping down into Tier 2, so these four missed the cut. Youngstown State, Villanova, James Madison, Jacksonville State, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, and Montana all get the call up from I-AA to join the big boys, albeit in Tier 2.

Now that we have our 128 team Division I-A, it's time to revisit just how the season will play out every year. In weeks 1-11, teams play a ten game regular season consisting of seven conference round-robin games and three nonconference games. Once the winner of each regional division is determined, they will match up with the winner of their other regional division of appropriate tier in week 12. This matchup will be hosted on a rotation basis between regional division winners. The Tier 1 winners then face the Tier 2 winners of their respective regions in a quarterfinal game hosted at the campus of the Tier 1 winner two weeks after the week 12 first round. This weekend is the final weekend of our current season with conference championship games and final conference matchups for those that don't have a championship game. After this week, without adding any time to the current schedule we are down to a final four. The national semifinals are bid upon (before the season) and held at neutral sites and won't take place for two weeks after the quarterfinal round - for a couple of reasons. First, it allows fans of teams to make travel arrangements if need be. With a set bracket teams will know before the season which location they could possibly play at, but many fans will likely wait and there may be a team in the semifinal that is a complete surprise. The second reason for the two week delay is so that finals can take place without a final four game lingering on the weekend. Not every university has finals at the same time, but nearly all of them will have finals during that two week period. The national semifinals take place then typically the week before Christmas, and the national championship game is somewhere around New Years Day, give or take a couple of days (but not a week and a half, that's ridiculous).

If you're a bit confused, or just want to see everything in visual form, again feel free to check out the team listings as well as a sample playoff bracket here.

What is about to happen to college football will not come easily. There will be flaws in any plan (only 5 home games are you crazy?) and the ultimate result will certainly be flawed. This plan even has its flaws as well. However, the ball seems to be rolling downhill too quickly to stop at this point. All we can hope for is that whoever is in charge of it all picks a plan that makes sense without screwing up this game that we all love so much. However, I can't say I have much faith at all that this is going to turn out that well.

I welcome any and all comments.

Author's note: I realize this is exceptionally long, but hacking it up would require the assistance of somebody else and quite frankly I'm afraid that this whole concept is about to expire.

For nearly 18 months the theme of the college sports landscape has been major conference movement. Many thought that Nebraska and Colorado bolting the Big 12 last year would light the fuse to blow up the landscape of collegiate sports as we know it. As it turns out, somebody stepped on that fuse before it could get to the dynamite and we all soldiered on knowing that major changes where a matter of if - not when. With Texas A&M's official announcement that they would be joining "another conference" for the 2012-2013 academic year that fuse is once again lit and it just may find its target this time around.

Look around the interwebs and you will find many theories about what will happen once the cards go flying in the air and are dealt out for good. The consensus seems to be four 16-team superconferences as the ultimate end game. But I don't personally see it. For one, it bumps at least three (don't forget TCU is joining the Big East in 2012) teams from auto qualifier status. Four if BYU finagles an invite to the table. Five if Notre Dame jumps in like many believe. Quite frankly you can't simply tell five schools to piss off without very very serious ramifications. Even the dregs of current BCS conferences have in many cases held their status for several decades and as much as Iowa State hasn't been competitive in the Big 12 recently, you simply cannot tell a founding member of the Big Six that they no longer get a seat at the table.

So what should the endgame be? Five conferences composed of 14 members apiece. With some minor to moderate shifting it can be done quite cleanly in a way that actually makes some sense. We'll break it down conference by conference starting with the one that will get the axe of the current auto qualifiers.

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Since Bill Self was hired as the coach at a certain school to the west, he has led his team to tremendous success.  His teams have won or tied for 7 straight Big 12 regular season conference championships.  His teams have won oodles of games.  He has even won a national title.  There is no denying that Bill Self has been an excellent coach at ku.  At lest until March rolls around.

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Expectations are a funny thing when applied to sports.  In nearly every case, expectations serve only one purpose - to ruin an upcoming season.  Have you ever been a fan of a team who entered into a season with lofty expectations and seen that time live up to the hype?  If you have then you know that in those rare cases fans spend the whole season dreading something bad happening only  to feel relief, not joy, when their team's goals are finally realized.  As Missouri fans we have dealt firsthand several times just in the last few years with teams that begin their seasons with big dreams, and nearly every time those expectations have "ruined" the season in the eyes of the fans because what was "supposed" to happen didn't come to fruition.

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In light of Saturday's disappointment it is important as fans to re-evaluate what exactly is still on the table for this team.  Lost, for now, is the inside track to Dallas and a spot in the final Big 12 championship game - but with 4 conference games left for each team and only 3 of those 8 at home even that outcome is far from certain just yet.  Let's take a look at how things could unfold over the final month of the college football season.

Before we begin it must be thrown out there that in order for any of this to really matter it is assumed that Missouri finishes 4-0.  This is by no means a guarantee and any one of the four teams on the schedule are capable of handing the Tigers a loss under the appropriate circumstances.  However, for the sake of this exercise we'll assume that Mizzou is able to win four straight in which they should be heavily favored.

Week 10

Missouri stands at 14 in the human polls and is projected to come out at number 12 in the next BCS standings.  However this week there are a few powerhouse matchups that will help Missouri move up:  TCU@Utah, Alabama@LSU, and Arizona@Stanford.  All six of those teams are either in front of, or just behind Mizzou in the polls/BCS.  The losers of all three of these games will most certainly fall behind Missouri, but the winner of Arizona/Stanford may jump the Tigers leaving them at 11 in the polls and the BCS both.  Oklahoma goes on the road to face Texas A&M and while they should win, it is possible that they drop that game.  Also worth keeping an eye on is Nebraska traveling to Ames.

Week 11

Now at 11, possibly 10, Mizzou finds themselves on the fringe of the elite teams.  No more than 15 teams will have one loss or less and more are guaranteed to fall as the season closes.  While this week doesn't feature any head to head clashes it does feature many losable games for the 10 teams that will be ahead of Missouri.  Oregon travels to California, Alabama hosts Mississippi State, Arizona has a home tilt with USC, and our good friends the San Diego State Aztecs head to Dallas to take on TCU.  The two most likely of those four would be Alabama slipping up against Mississippi State and USC taking down Arizona, but one of the other two wouldn't shock me, either.  Odds are though that Missouri holds steady at 10/11 with a Senior Day victory over K-State, possibly moving up a spot if Arizona beats Stanford but loses to the Trojans.

Week 12

Week 12 features another decent slate of losable games for teams still in front of Missouri.  Ohio State @ Iowa is the most likely game to produce a favorable outcome but Oklahoma @ Baylor, Nebraska @ Texas A&M, Utah @ San Diego State, and Stanford (if they beat Arizona in week 10) @ Cal.  As a quick aside no two teams can help Missouri out more down the stretch than Texas A&M and San Diego State, who combine to play four teams that are currently ranked ahead of Mizzou.  I think Missouri moves up one spot with an Ohio State loss and moves permanently ahead of Arizona/Stanford to land solidly at #9 with a win in Ames.

Week 13

Thanksgiving week, being the de-facto last week of the regular season, features another heavy slate of clashes.  Auburn @ Alabama is the biggest by far but Arizona @ Oregon, Boise @ Nevada, Oklahoma @ Oklahoma State, and LSU @ Arkansas all feature very losable games by teams that could still be ahead of Missouri at this point in the season.  If Mizzou is able to knock off the Jayhawks (not a given no matter how bad they are) they could very conceivably move ahead of Alabama/LSU and Oklahoma.  The top of the polls, assuming no terribly major upsets, would look something like this:

1.      Auburn/Oregon

2.      Auburn/Oregon

3.      Boise

4.      TCU/Utah

5.      Nebraska

6.      Wisconsin

7.      Missouri

Potential 1-loss teams that would still be behind Missouri include Oklahoma State, Michigan State, and TCU/Utah.  Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Arizona, Stanford, and Nevada are all likely or guaranteed to have a loss by then.

Championship Week

In this scenario the Big 12 Championship would be Nebraska/Oklahoma State with the winner going to the Fiesta Bowl and the loser falling behind Missouri.  The SEC Championship would be Auburn and whomever.  The ACC Championship will be two teams who will not factor into BCS at-large selections.  Without looking that closely Wisconsin would appear to win the Big 10 and Michigan State would likely be behind Missouri even at 11-1.  Oregon would have the Pac 10 and a spot in the national title game both wrapped up and the Big East would go to some team with the runner up being a complete afterthought.  Four at-large bids would be awarded to Boise, TCU/Utah, Missouri, and Michigan State.

It would take a lot of very big upsets for Missouri to get back into the national title hunt, but with a few minor breaks they will still be very likely to be awarded a BCS at-large bid.  Even if OU runs the table I think it is fairly likely the Big 12 championship loser would fall to the Cotton Bowl a la 2007 if Missouri is sitting there at 11-1.  Of course the Big 12 Championship becomes very much in play if Nebraska slips up, which is possible.  If that happens then Missouri would likely still be ahead of Nebraska in the event of even a Big 12 Championship loss.  The bottom line is if Mizzou can win their next 4 their biggest hurdle to the BCS would be the two team limit and not their ability (or inability) to climb high enough in the BCS rankings.

The committee was headed by Baylor Associate Athletic Director Paul Bradshaw.  Even more disgusting that a committee headed by a Big 12 associate AD snubbed Mizzou.  Way to look after your own, Paul.

Paul_Bradshaw@baylor.edu, if you would like to give him a piece of your mind.

Should Baylor be promoted a notch or two on the hatred scale for this?  Perhaps now we actually root against them from time to time in some sports?