Introducing the SB Nation Conference Re-draft Project

by Vasherized on Jun 9, 2025 12:30 PM CDT in Texas Longhorns and Other Football

While Barking Carnival still flies an independent banner -- Bill Little at the helm of the Dreamwagon chasing unicorns into a burnt orange sunset -- we are technically a member of the SB Nation tribe and that union will become official once we all exchange spiritual vows on the banks of the Blanco.

Sailor Ripley will also enter the Octagon with Peter Bean at the first home opener tailgate. I predict both will simultaneously fall down without being touched and claim they can't continue fighting due to injury.

Anyway, SB Nation has tapped its prodigious braintrust to find a way to re-invent college football in the sweatervest-neck tat-briefcase of booster cash-era. It's time to wipe the slate clean, put the shart-stained BCS underoos in the washer, and start over.

Heretofore, we are drafting six new conferences, each hailing from respected lands controlled by valiant lords that sit upon high thrones overlooking their scrolls, golds, flocks, and indentured servants. That was how Jim Delany described it anyway. And that's sort of what we have already.

Here's how the new one works:

Game Objectives. The purposes of the fantasy draft are: (1) to explore the values of individual schools by drafting them sequentially, and (2) to have fun strategically building a conference of schools.

There will be six conferences, and such conferences are NOT meant to be new versions of current conferences. That is, the objective of the game is not to create tweaked versions of what we already have. Do you really want another Big 12 featuring Texas, OU, and 8 life-challenged cousins? The goal is to draft schools based on their overall value, and to compile a conference of teams strategically and coherently.

What makes a school valuable? We leave that largely up to you, with a few important guidelines. First, bearing in mind that we are drafting athletics conferences, that factor should be weighted heaviest, if not exclusively.

The following are factors you may, but are not required to consider:

Academics
Co-eds
Weather/Desirability of Destination
Historic Success
Traditions
TV Revenue Potential
Ethics
Rivalries (two teams)

On the flipside, for purposes of this game there are two factors that are NOT to be considered. First, do not take travel/geographic concerns into consideration. (Boston College fans should be used to this). In real life, Washington and Florida are unrealistic conference partners; in our world, that doesn't matter -- either from a travel/time zone standpoint or should they care to attempt intra-conference breeding. Second, while we may take individual rivalries into consideration (e.g. pairing Texas and OU), preservation of current conference history/rivalry/alliance is not to be considered or you will be dunked in a vat of fried beer at the Texas State Fair.

The goal is not to improve the status quo, even if many would endorse this fantasy adventure as reality knowing that the only thing holding Texas back from achieving universal domination is its shitty conference. The goal is not to create a conference that will actually play games. The goal is to use a draft to value schools and have fun strategically grouping them together.

It's like a game of Stratego with college mascots being played by future Hall of Fame bloggers. (Q: If there was a blogging hall of fame, where would it be? A: Rural Iowa basement)

In sum, there is no single way that schools must be valued and/or grouped together. Some may wish to create the best conference of all-around athletic/academic virtues. Others may want to create a revenue superpower (hi!). There are any number of valid ways to do this. The only limitation is not creating a group that is based on regional and historical ties.

Conference Commissioners. As mentioned above, there will be six conference commissioners chaired by six representative SB Nation blogs:

BC Interruption (Boston College), House of Sparky (Arizona State), Big East Coast Bias (Big East), Black Heart Gold Pants (Iowa), Team Speed Kills (SEC) and Red Cup Rebellion (Ole Miss).

These sites probably aren't in your bookmarks but they should be.

I challenge you to find a blogger that has embarrassed his immediate family more than Adam Jacobi of Black Heart Gold Pants. When he walks into a room, you kneel. Then rip a wet fart. Team Speed Kills sits around playing beer pong with BCS crystal while others try to keep up. And with the Sun Devils heading to Austin this weekend for Super Regional Action (think of it as Omaha foreplay), you might want to head over to House of Sparky and meet some local natives, make plans to meet up at the game and then attempt to steal their hot ass women. There aren't many places in the country with finer tail than you'll see roaming the 40 acres but the ASU campus is one of them. I'm presuming the name SunPoonDevilKings was already taken when they settled on House of Sparky. And you can blame Big East Coast Bias for UConn's last minute capture of prized forward DeAndre Daniels after recruiting him for all of three days. Red Cup Rebellion is an Ole Miss blog and I'm sure there's a captivating story there involving Houston Nutt, two girls, and one red cup. They are the Choose Your Own Adventure novel of SB Nation's 300+ member strong blogging community.

So those are your six commissioners and they only need to surpass the exemplary standard set by the Big 12's The Dan Beebeh.

"I sunk your battleship. Go ahead, punch me. You'll feel better."

One very important note: The six conference commissioners will start with a blank slate. If you want your own school, you have to draft them.

By luck of a ~~paypal wire~~ random number generator, BC Interruption gets first pick in the draft (hint: Boston College is available!). The complete draft order is as follows:

1. BC Interruption
2. Black Heart Gold Pants
3. Team Speed Kills
4. Big East Coast Bias
5. House of Sparky
6. Red Cup Rebellion

The draft will be a snake draft, meaning RCR will receive the 6th and 7th picks (last pick in the first, first pick in the second). The draft is officially being run by the Oklahoma State Cowboys blog Cowboys Ride For Free, so Samuel Bryant of CRFF will be playing the role of supervising overlord. CRFF has the final say in the matter in any and all disputes.

Schedule: This week, we are introducing the Re-Draft project and want to get the conversation going.

Monday, June 13, BC Interruption is on the clock. They'll need to submit our first overall pick of the draft then. Upon making their first round selection, their conference commissioner (so, them) will then consult with their draft choice (assuming SBN has a participating blogger for that school) and the two of them will collectively decide on our draft strategy and make our second round choice. It builds from there, with every subsequent school's blog having a say in the next program drafted. How can this not go perfectly well with all parties in gleeful accord?

Friday, June 17: Each conference will have a commissioner, two schools and up to two more bloggers and SBN sites to collaborate with on picks.

By Sunday, June 19, with a conference commissioner and two schools solidifying the conference's identity, we'll select the name of the conference. This could be the high water mark of the whole exercise. The early leader in the clubhouse is T. Boone Wipes His Ass With 100's While You Settle For Charmin.

Monday, June 20: Cowboys Ride For Free will announce the conference names and recap the first two rounds of the draft.

After the big reveal of conference names and founding members, the draft will continue in much the same manner, with two draft picks a week for the next several weeks. Once a conference drafts 12 members, a conference can be capped. If we want, the draft will continue for conferences who wish to add more members (i.e. Big East Coast Bias will likely keep going until they hit 20 programs, but most of them will be basketball programs only).

If in any subsequent round only one conference remains, it may select the remaining members of its conference up to a maximum of 16 schools. Bigger is not necessarily better.

Monday, July 25: The full conference rosters will be announced and discussed across the SB Nation community of NCAA sites.

Tuesday, July 26: The BCS steering committee calls SB Nation to officially endorse it's new leagues, signing us to a 20 year, $960 billion deal.

We all retire. Yes, you too. ALL OF US.

Here is your pre-draft kit, courtesty of a pretty decent Oklahoma State Cowboys blog.

Barking Carnival is a mere spectator to this fantasy conference drafting experiment, but it will be interesting to see which teams go first and what thought processes go into determining the overall best draft. If they can pull this off, can healthcare reform be far away?

Who's your top five? Let us help you get started.

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Comments

It’s like a game of Stratego with college mascots being played by future Hall of Fame bloggers.

I prefer to think of it as Archon, replete with mascot-esque pieces.

Who’s your top five? Let us help you get started.

Just off the top of my head, Texas, Florida, Ohio State, Stanford, USC, in some order.

by jc25 on Jun 9, 2025 12:53 PM CDT reply actions

Stanford?

by Scipio Tex on Jun 9, 2025 1:29 PM CDT reply actions

Great weather, great location, and depending on how lenient the admissions committee, a great selling point for recruiting in terms of what that degree does for you.

I’d put LSU above ’em though, since they can build a strong fence around their state for recruiting.

by tjarks on Jun 9, 2025 1:41 PM CDT reply actions

Nothing wrong with Stanford. I understand you might not want them for football, as they’ve only recently been good, but they have one of the better overall athletic departments in college sports. And just consider the yearly Water Polo domination.

by Triston27 on Jun 9, 2025 4:09 PM CDT reply actions

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2010/11/25/stanford-football-great-product-plus-great-stadium-equals-empty-seats/

A quick explanation of why Stanford doesn’t belong in the Top 20.

by Scipio Tex on Jun 9, 2025 4:17 PM CDT reply actions

A quick explanation of why Stanford doesn’t belong in the Top 20.

But is it a football conference or an athletic conference?

by Triston27 on Jun 9, 2025 4:22 PM CDT reply actions

Football and basketball are athletics. Everything else is hobbyism.

by Scipio Tex on Jun 9, 2025 4:24 PM CDT reply actions

Fair enough. Suck on that, Johns Hopkins!

by Triston27 on Jun 9, 2025 4:27 PM CDT reply actions

1. Texas
2. Florida
3. Ohio State
4. USC
5. Alabama

Texas gets the nod over Florida because Austin > Tallahassee, more TV revenue associated with the program.

Florida has more recent championships in sport that count than Texas, of course, so, it’s a close call.

Ohio State is the best option from the northeast quadrant of the country.

USC is the only recognizable brand for football west of the Rockies.

Alabama runs a close second to Florida in the SE, and, may have a stronger nationwide brand based on the very long dark shadow Bear Bryant casts across football history.

But, since this is a draft, here’s a board:

Top Pick: Texas or trade down to pick up Boston College and the best left tackle left on the board in the third round.
Round 2: Alabama if they’re still left. I like Penn State for it’s immense East Coast following and massive post-JoPa upside if they make a great hire there. Oregon also shows some promise, but might not be great value in round 2.

by LiveBait on Jun 9, 2025 5:26 PM CDT reply actions

Screw conference re-alignments. The point is playoffs, right? As far as I can tell, current conference affiliations seem to be working well for pretty much everything except football - we are talking about football here, right? Never mind, dumbass question - nothing else really matters, does it? Damn, another dumbass question. Never mind.

Leave the conferences alone, and let’s get a workable playoff system.

I’ve offered this one a few times over the last years. The main grumbles seemed to have to do with mostly stadium revenues and preserving bowl games, but I’m not sure those are insurmountable.

I’m just going to outline the Longtex Playoff Proposal – feel free to throw rocks at it until it sinks, but if anyone’s interested, let’s talk… I think it has two big pluses:

First, there’s no "beauty contest" - no polls, no screwing around, no voting for the two, four, eight, twelve or any other number of “best” teams: everybody plays.

Second, with two distinct sets of games (let’s call them Payoff or Tourney and Friendly – some might like to call the latter "Rivalry" instead, but whatever), no one needs to schedule patsies to practice on while avoiding potential loss of votes (since there aren’t any votes to lose – Texas, Ohio State, USC, ’Bama and everybody else can play each other every year, with no effect on getting into the playoffs.

Here’s how it works.

1. We start with 128 teams. Last I looked, we have 120, so add eight more (Texas State or UTSA for the same Region Texas is in… anyone? Someone else come to mind hereabouts?)

2. We divide the country into 8 Regions, with 16 teams in each Region. Yes, that’s 128 teams.

3. The season starts as usual, and the first five or six weeks are for Friendlies (or Conferences if that floats your boat). This year that’s 9/3 through 10/1.

4. Around the first week in October, Regional Playoffs begin. We’ll worry about seeding later, but you know it can be done and that it will be controversial. Number 1 plays Number 8, and all that good shit. This year, that’s on 10/8.

5. The next week is for Friendlies again. The next for Tourney/Playoff games. Everybody plays four weeks of Tourney games – who plays whom determined by winners and losers. After four rounds the Regional Champion has been determined – it’s the team that’s 4-0. Someone is last, at 0-4. They’re "relegated" next year, at least for football. The best of the next level in the Region moves up to the Regional Playoff next year – or not – lots of people don’t like the idea of relegation, but I do. One of the upsides is that the fourth-round game between the two 0-3 teams becomes very, very important and ought to boost interest, attendance, hype and all. Playoffs this year would be 10/8, 10/22, 11/5, 11/19. Friendly/Conference/Rivalry games on 10/15, 10/29,11/12, 11/26 (or Turkey day, etc).

6. If you’re keeping track, we’ve now gone 5 weeks of friendlies and seven more weeks of alternating playoffs and friendlies, with a total of 9 weeks for friendlies and/or conference games. The Regional Champion has been determined. You don’t have to play every week, so you may be sitting with anywhere from 10 to 13 games under your belt at this point. The "last" week is a non-Playoff week, and by choosing the start properly, it’s Thanksgiving Week. Definitely Rivalry Week. We could make that so, every year.

7. At this point, we’ve hit December and we have 8 Regional Champs for the three-round Playoffs. Let’s do the same thing, and alternate a Playoff Week and a Bowl Week. Appropriate scheduling will work through the Holidays and New Year and wind up completing the season in just about the same time frame we have now. No reason not to have Bowl games… and although they won’t have anything to do with the National Championship, only one of the thirty-odd bowl games we have now even purports to have. Playoffs (this year) would be 12/3, 12/17, 12/31. Serendipity. We could have a full playoff, or do the "lose and out" thing, which would have an advantage in providing (albeit late) bowl opponents from the Elite Eight. Besides, that way we’re only (potentially) replacing seven Bowl games, which is about one out of five… and how big a deal is it lose the Beef O’Brady Bowl, if that’s even necessary? With only two teams left in the Playoffs on 12/17, the other six could be in Bowl games, if desired. Hell, there’s no good reason the two finalists couldn’t play a Bowl if they wanted.

Oh, hell yes, it would be different in a lot of ways – but keep in mind that all teams would have up to nine games they could schedule pretty much the same way they do now, with the one exception being – as mentioned – no need to schedule patsies to pad the ol’ W-L record.

by Tex Long on Jun 9, 2025 5:31 PM CDT reply actions

Florida is in Gainesville. But your point holds.

by Scipio Tex on Jun 9, 2025 5:31 PM CDT reply actions

Florida is in Gainesville. Ted Bundy would like a word with you.

by magnusbleuveigner on Jun 9, 2025 5:33 PM CDT reply actions

I thought Florida was in Gainesville, no???

by KilgoreTrout on Jun 9, 2025 5:33 PM CDT reply actions

Yup. The precise unappealing location of FloridaU changes nothing. Miami is the only program of note that has geographic appeal and, really, I’m not even all that big a fan of that city.

Miami might make a great 3rd round pickup…

by LiveBait on Jun 9, 2025 5:40 PM CDT reply actions

Fla? What’s in Key West, besides The Pirate?

by Tex Long on Jun 9, 2025 5:50 PM CDT reply actions

Key West? Duvall street, Green Parrot bar, Hemingway’s house with multi-toed cats, Harry Truman’s presidential get away home, lots of tourists from the cruise ships…..

by KilgoreTrout on Jun 9, 2025 8:45 PM CDT reply actions

Livebait,

I had the same top 5, with LSU, Notre Dame, North Carolina, and Michigan in the next tier. For all of the Wolverines’ recent struggles, they’re still filling seats and raking in the dough.

Tex Long,

I’ve seen so many hypothetical playoff scenarios (none of which are likely to happen) that I honestly found this experiment more amusing.

by Vasherized on Jun 9, 2025 8:47 PM CDT reply actions

Texas
Florida
Alabama
USC
Georgia

No way I put Ohio State in my Top 5

No. Friggin’. Way.

by srr50 on Jun 9, 2025 9:23 PM CDT reply actions

I’ve seen so many hypothetical playoff scenarios (none of which are likely to happen) that I honestly found this experiment more amusing.

Not that they’ll ever do it… but I think it would work. Parasites would complain, because they wouldn’t have four years to plan to have 175,000 paper cups and 350,000 hotdogs on hand, but it’d damn sure be fun, and nobody could complain about not getting their fair shot at it - well, other than the miserable, cheating stripe-shirt sunsabitches who give your opponent five downs to score.\\

by Tex Long on Jun 9, 2025 9:59 PM CDT reply actions

Well you are a Michigan sympathizer so that’s not surprising. But Georgia? Top 15 fine not sure about top 5.

by Vasherized on Jun 9, 2025 10:15 PM CDT reply actions

Personal favorite — one of the 2 or 3 prettiest campuses I have been on. I figure its a subjective list to begin with.

by srr50 on Jun 9, 2025 11:11 PM CDT reply actions

Not to discount the many cogent points made in defense of Lebron above, but when I say you’re not the King, it’s because you’re not the motherfucking King.

Ball.

Don’t.

Lie.

by nobis60 on Jun 10, 2025 12:15 AM CDT reply actions

Wow I blew that one - posted in the entirely wrong thread.

by nobis60 on Jun 10, 2025 12:39 AM CDT reply actions

It resonated quite well out of context. I’m going to leave it.

BALLDONTLIEBITCHES!

And welcome to the draft, nobis. We already picked for you:

Bucknell
Fordham
Wofford
A&M
Grambling State

by Vasherized on Jun 10, 2025 9:00 AM CDT reply actions

I like that second tier, Vasherized.

ND and Michigan are both former giants fallen on hard times.

LSU has a great game-day, and, for all that you might not care to have known what they cook at those tailgates while it was walking around, it can still be one of the best things you ever stuck in your face.

My second 5 is:

LSU
OU
Michigan
Nebraska
UCLA

I think LSU/OU is almost a dead heat, but, I like drunk cajuns more than I like tornadoes.

I like Nebraska because of their built in regional fanbase. They seem closer to rebuilding past success than Notre Dame is to me.

UCLA SHOULD be much better than they are. As a legendarily successful basketball school and with home football games in the Rose bowl, and being the only major public school program in the nation’s most populous state, it’s a total mystery that they can’t get it together any better than they do. Sort of like California itself.

I still like Oregon for their recent success out west, but, I don’t like the weird out-of-balance influence that Phil Knight has over that program.

by LiveBait on Jun 10, 2025 10:21 AM CDT reply actions

“UCLA SHOULD be much better than they are. As a legendarily successful basketball school and with home football games in the Rose bowl, and being the only major public school program in the nation’s most populous state, it’s a total mystery that they can’t get it together any better than they do. Sort of like California itsel”

When you consider that LA is the largest major city in the country without a NFL football team, you can understand why the UCLA football team generally sucks. They really just don’t care about football. I think the popularity of USC football is based partially on tradition, and also on the LA star factor. Southern Californians don’t care about football per se, they just want to see and be seen where ever there is an E V E N T!

Oh and the fact that USC was cheating their ass off really curtails UCLA’s chances of winning. For more on this subject see ATM and Texas circa 1985-1995.

by roach on Jun 10, 2025 10:48 AM CDT reply actions

For anyone who thinks geographic distance is a throwaway, I commend the following to your reading: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=%2420+gallon&x=0&y=0

Running this redraft without accounting for travel distance is not only lame, it removes the potential for a fascinating constraint. Limit each conference to 5,000 miles of inter-school separation. Want to put Florida and USC in the same conference? Fine, but the rest of your schools will have to be that much nearer to Gainesville or LA.

Actually, this all sounds like a pretty cool traveling salesman problem and linear programming exercise.

by Dmitri Kissov on Jun 10, 2025 3:05 PM CDT reply actions

Looks like Texas will be the #1 draft choice.

by Scipio Tex on Jun 12, 2025 5:18 PM CDT reply actions

“Running this redraft without accounting for travel distance is not only lame, it removes the potential for a fascinating constraint. Limit each conference to 5,000 miles of inter-school separation. Want to put Florida and USC in the same conference? Fine, but the rest of your schools will have to be that much nearer to Gainesville or LA.”

That would definitely limit the value of the Pac 10 schools relative to the rest of the schools. USC might still be a first round selection, but that conference is almost locked in to drafting the rest of the Pac 10.

by Texas Wahoo on Jun 13, 2025 12:21 PM CDT reply actions