I have already posted multiple college football realignment proposals, but constantly come up with more, so here I am yet again. This proposal returns to the 8 10-team conference concept I've visited before. In this case, I've drawn heavily on the actual alignment scheme from the 1991 season, with a few modifications. I've chosen 1991 for a few reasons: 1) this was the first year that the Big East sponsored football; 2) this was the last year before the SEC expanded and split into divisions; 3) Penn State had not yet joined the Big Ten; and 4) the Southwest Conference still existed.
Here's what I've come up with:
Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa
SEC
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, LSU
Pac-10
These three conferences would all just be their alignments exactly as they were in 1991.
Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, SMU, Rice, Houston, Arkansas, Tulane
The reborn Southwest Conference would consist of the 9 teams it had in 1991, along with one newcomer: Tulane. Tulane seems like a reasonable pick here. Geographically, Louisiana borders on both Arkansas and Texas, and adding Tulane would bring both the New Orleans media market and the state's recruiting territory more into the fold. Tulane is a private school like 4 existing SWC schools (Baylor, TCU, SMU, and Rice), and the school was cited as a potential expansion pick for the SWC at the end of it's existence. Lastly, Tulane does have an SEC pedigree, having been a founding member.
Maryland, Virginia, UNC, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, South Carolina, Georgia Tech, Florida State
The ACC would consist of the eight schools here in 1991, with two additions to get it to 10. Florida State is an obvious choice here, since they joined the ACC the following year anyway. South Carolina rejoins the ACC in this scenario, where it was a founding member, instead of joining the SEC. This restores the Clemson-South Carolina rivalry as a conference game.
Iowa State, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Colorado, Utah, BYU
This one was slightly more challenging, as the Big Eight obviously had only 8 teams in 1991. Utah and BYU are the additions here. While this does expand the Big Eight's footprint, Utah does border on Colorado so it's not a huge deal. Utah currently plays in the Pac-12 with Colorado, and since the Pac-10 already has 10 schools this is only other logical place to put them. Adding BYU with Utah allows that rivalry to become a conference game. It's also worth noting that BYU was mentioned as a possible school to the join the Big 12 during the Big Eight/SWC merger talks.
Boston College, Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple, Penn State, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Miami, Notre Dame
This version of the Big East consists of the founding football members from 1991, plus two additions: Penn State and Notre Dame. Penn State fits well here both geographically and in terms of potential rivalry games, especially since they're locked out of the Big Ten in this scenario. As I've previously mentioned, Penn State missed admission to the Big East during the 1980s by one vote. Notre Dame also works well, as they are another strong independent program, similar in profile to Miami and Penn State pre-1991. Also worth noting that Notre Dame was a Big East member in all sports except football for quite a while. These two additions make this conference much stronger and more viable than the actual Big East was in practice.
Army, Navy, UCF, USF, Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, Air Force, Boise State, San Diego State
This is the one conference I had to make up from scratch, as no such alignment remotely existed in 1991. These are some of the strongest Group of 5 schools currently. Five schools here currently play in the American (Navy, UCF, USF, Cincinnati, and Memphis), while Louisville was a founding member before joining the ACC the following year. Joining Navy here are the other two service academies. Boise State and San Diego State were two of the schools the Big East tried to recruit as it was collapsing and transitioning to the American. Despite having only one current Power 5 school, this conference had 6 different schools finish in the final AP top 25 in 2019.
In terms of the postseason bowls, this proposal would use the same regional structure as my previous eight 10-team conference alignment, with the following conferences corresponding to each region's bowls:
Southwest: SWC vs. Big Eight
Southeast: SEC vs. ACC
East: Big East vs American
One difference here is that I would use a similar playoff structure as I proposed for the 96-team alignment. So the quarterfinals would be:
Cotton Bowl: SWC vs. Big Eight
Sugar Bowl: SEC vs. ACC
Orange Bowl: Big East vs American
As before, the Rose and Cotton Bowl winners would play in the Fiesta Bowl, and the Sugar and Orange winners would play in the Peach Bowl. The Fiesta and Peach winners would play in the national championship game.
Because the Fiesta and Peach Bowls are serving as semifinals, the Las Vegas and Independence Bowls replace them in their respective regions. Also, with the Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange Bowls serving as quarterfinals, the fifth place team in each conference would not get a bowl berth in this scenario.
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