I actually would prefer a 16 team conference with 4, 4 team pods (you get four major 16 team conferences and then have the winners play in the playoff, perhaps you put a minimum wins or rank so if one of the conferences is really crappy one year they aren't guaranteed a spot). You rotate your other pod every two years and then play 1 team from each of the other pods.
So if the Big Ten were to add OU and TX you would have something like this
Pod 1 - OSU, UM, IND, PUR
Pod 2 - PSU, MSU, MD, RUT
Pod 3 - OU, TX, ILL, NW
Pod 4 - NEB, IOW, WIS, MINN
So you have 7 "division" games and then you play 1 "rival" from the other 2 pods for your 9 game conference schedule. You try to make the rivals as balanced as possible and keep as many rivalries as possible. So OSU might have PSU, ILL, WISC. UM might have MSU, OU, MINN. IND might have MD, TX, IOW. and PUR gets RUT, NW, NEB. Or whatever.
So year 1 - Pod 1 and 2 play and Pod 3 and 4 play
Year 2 you reverse the home and away.
Year 3 - Pod 1/Pod 3 and Pod 2/Pod 4
Year 4 - reverse home and away
Year 5 - Pod 1/Pod 4 and Pod 2/Pod 3
Year 6 - reverse home and away
Then you repeat the process. So every 6 years you play in every stadium in the conference.
11/29/2015 10:32 AM (edited)