Chatelain: Taking a shot at Project Realignment

• Video Below: See a 35-minute conference realignment analysis video by Dirk Chatelain, Tom Shatel, Lee Barfknecht and Jon Nyatawa:

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You've seen the forecast. You've heard the speculation.

College athletics are in the midst of a tectonic shift. Motivated by TV revenue, conference commissioners are preparing for a turf war.

Soon the marquee programs will divide into four 16-team leagues. The TV contracts will blow your mind. The geographic footprints will leave you shaking your head.

Super-conferences may take three years to materialize, they may take 15. But the landscape will never be the same.

That's the easy part of analysis. Here's the difficult (and fun) part: What would a super-conference plan look like? And what series of events might lead us there?

That's my task: Piece this puzzle together. Create a blueprint both compelling and realistic. Design the future of college athletics.

Where do Oklahoma and Texas end up? Which Big 12 schools will be relegated to the minor leagues? Where do the SEC and Big Ten go to fill a 16-team roster? And which major conferences bite the dust?

At this point, there are no right (or wrong) answers. So kick up your feet and open your mind. Consider a world where Notre Dame sheds independence, where Florida and Florida State fight for the same conference title, where Kansas develops hoops rivalries with Georgetown and Connecticut.

Welcome to Project Realignment.

Step by step.

The first rule in conference realignment: prepare for the unexpected.

It's easy to argue for the status quo. But five years ago, how many people envisioned Nebraska bolting the Big 12? How many saw Texas A&M leaving its archrival, Texas?

If super-conferences happen, some seemingly impossible steps will be taken. The process will not be a democracy. The strongest will survive — and thrive.

That's enough disclaimers. Break out the crystal ball. Look into the future. And imagine an era of super-conferences. Here's how we get there:

• Step one: Oklahoma jumps to the Pac-12, taking with it Oklahoma State. That essentially ends the Big 12. Texas drags its hoofs for a while before following the Sooners. Texas Tech goes along, forming the Pac-16.

• Step two: The SEC is too powerful to accept just anyone. Commissioner Mike Slive will chase the biggest name possible. That means Florida State. (Florida opposes, but gets outvoted after Slive promises that the final two additions will come from outside the SEC footprint — and won't be football juggernauts).

Florida and FSU in the same league? Voices in Florida say it will never happen. But if we're headed for super-conferences, it makes no sense for Florida and FSU to be separate, especially since they already play every year.

The SEC divisions change minimally. Vanderbilt, currently the only Eastern school in the central time zone, moves to the West, offsetting Duke in the East.

• Step three: Once Slive grabs the Seminoles, ACC schools get nervous. With Miami in shambles, Virginia Tech is the only football power left. The Big East makes a minor move, nabbing Boston College (which left the league for the ACC in 2003 but has struggled to fit in).

• Step four: Duke and North Carolina see the writing on the wall. When Slive invites college basketball's best rivals to the SEC, they leave their in-state brethren (N.C. State and Wake Forest) behind.

This completes the ideal scenario for the SEC: Florida State, UNC and Duke. Football powerhouse. Check. Basketball boost. Check. Academic upgrade. Check.

• Step five: Jim Delany joins the game. Determined to move into the Sun Belt, he grabs Georgia Tech and Virginia and bolsters his East Coast contingent with Maryland. This brings the Big Ten to 15.

• Step six: Who's Big Ten No. 16? Notre Dame. The Irish, concerned about scheduling and access to the biggest postseason games, finally cave to Delany. That's a pretty sweet quartet for the Big Ten, both for athletic and academic reasons.

In an effort to preserve rivalries, Big Ten divisions get very complicated. Too complicated for this exercise.

• Step seven: The Big East completes the ACC raid by adding Virginia Tech, Clemson and North Carolina State. That gives the Big East 13 football programs, including TCU. (The league started the 2011 season with eight). But the Big East needs 16 to become a football super-conference.

• Step eight: Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State accept Big East bids. That's 16. The Big East adds Wake Forest as a member in every sport except football. The Demon Deacons drop to the FCS level in football, like Villanova.

The Big East (with its seven other non-football participants) forms a 24-team basketball league, split into three divisions.

• Step nine: Only three current BCS-conference schools end up without a home: Miami, Baylor and Iowa State. All three land in an expanded Conference USA. The other biggest names from non-super-conferences? Boise State stays in the Mountain West. BYU remains independent.

• Step 10: The four super-conferences still operate within the NCAA, but they increase scholarship packages for football players and form a six-team playoff.

The four conference champions receive bids. Two wild cards are awarded for a conference runner-up or non-super-conference team (like Boise State). The top two seeds receive a bye.

So there's the plan, highlighted by major moves for Oklahoma, Texas, Florida State and Notre Dame.

Great traditions would crumble in a super-conference era. But plenty of good ones would begin, too.

Like frequent road trips to South Bend ...

Contact the writer:

402-649-1461, dirk.chatelain@owh.com

twitter.com/dirkchatelain

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• Video: It’s the hottest topic in sports, so The World-Herald gathered some of its brightest minds and decided to film a speculation-filled discussion about the future of college athletics. What happens when the Big 12 falls apart? When will Notre Dame finally commit to the Big Ten? How big will the Big East get? Tom Shatel, Lee Barfknecht, Dirk Chatelain and Jon Nyatawa join in for a 35-minute video analysis, offering their opinions about the potentially seismic alterations that many predict will strip the college landscape of tradition. The conversation quickly turns chaotic a fitting reminder of how wild things might get in the not-so-distant future:

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