CFB Realignment

[TuscanSota]

I know that we as a sim are following the IRL sport as much as we can. We have a playoff system that was based on the one that was discussed and is now in-place within the College Football Playoffs.

 

With that said, I want to open a discussion on moving conference realignment away from the IRL reflection on the sport and instead on ones that are geographically relevant and traditionally aligned.

 

I love college football, but I also need to be honest that I do not like where the recent realignments from the past four years have taken the sport. I think that by realigning the schools into smaller conferences will make the playoff more exciting and will allow better representation of the sim from a geographic basis.

 

There currently is no system in recruiting where players are enticed to compete in certain conferences; which leads me to propose why not have our own realignment.

 

Thoughts?

[BabaYaga]

I do not like conference realignment in IRL CFB.

That said,

I would prefer that the sim mimics IRL CFB.

[SageBow]

Every Conference has 10 teams and 9 conference games. Winner of each power 7 conference gets an auto-bid to the playoffs.

[JC.]

8 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

I do not like conference realignment in IRL CFB.

That said,

I would prefer that the sim mimics IRL CFB.

I largely mimic this sentiment although I will add that whilst the ongoing real life conference realignment is particularly turbulent, I would not be against doing our own thing. With the long term intention of returning to real life (or at least holding another discussion) when conferences have sorted themselves out (assuming they eventually do).

 

[Bundy]

Big East when 👀

I really like having the West Virginia/TCU/Houston/BYU/Colorado/etc in the Big 12 (could not care less about UCF being in the conference really but will take them, same boat with the Arizona schools rn) so part of me doesn't want to roll that back, but the Big Ten having the Pac 12 teams in it is stupid, and Cal/Stanford/SMU in the ACC is also stupid to me (talking about IRL). My ideal Big Ten would still maybe include Nebraska but kick Rutgers and Maryland (who should really be playing ACC teams), ideal Big 12 has the losers who abandoned us for the SEC (and I'm not referring to Texas/Oklahoma when I say that but them too), etc. But they've all been gone for over a decade so who am I to say they don't belong where they are.

I don't know how long the sim will be around (obviously hopefully "forever") but I think if we don't mimic IRL CFB, maybe we're excluding the current/future fans of CFB from their CFB. We all have nostalgia for basically a certain time period because that time period is when we got accustomed to the then-current layout of CFB, but there's someone out there who preferred a Penn State-less Big Ten, someone who preferred the Southwest Conference, etc. If we make exceptions ("UCF can stay in the Big 12 but fuck it let's kick Rutgers to the ACC or make the Big East revival, Boise can leave the MWC for the PAC but we're kicking UCLA back to the PAC, etc") then who is to say a user couldn't be like "you know what? Kansas should go independent" and then if that user doesn't stick around forever, now we've got independent Kansas playing a bunch of random schools while any new potential coaches are either stuck with that, or then they move them back to the Big 12 or move them to the Big Ten or SEC and we stray even further from reality trying to accommodating our own changes. Basically, I think if we're trying to force our user controlled teams into conferences, how much say would that user controlled team have in doing it, and then where/when do we draw the line?

[Rabbit]

Honestly, I am all for conference realignment. My biggest suggestion would try and keep some of the biggest rivalries within the same conference. Ex. NMSU, UNM, UTEP, should all be in the same conference so while yes the games already mean something. It adds more value to whoever wins since its a conference opponent at that point.

[Dr_Novella]

I don't have a huge connection to CFB irl so I don't really mind doing the realignments as they happen. But I understand they're kinda dumb and so I trust the group to come to the best decision.

[PoopyRhinoPickle]

I like following IRL realignment. 

[npklemm]

I think following IRL realignment does make sense. 

Our chance to avoid that has kind of left the ship imo

[BabaYaga]

1 hour ago, npklemm said:

I think following IRL realignment does make sense. 

Our chance to avoid that has kind of left the ship imo

I agree. I think if we would have just kept the original P12 then it would have been doable but we’ve already been swapping stuff for years as realignment happens. 

[dearden]

I think that a lot of folks have raised a bunch of good points both in favor and in opposition to the prospect of deviating from the IRL College Football Realignment; however, there's one factor that I'd like to posit in favor of retaining the structure we currently employ (mirroring IRL CFB) - new member attraction and retention.  As an incoming head coach, there's a lot to wrap your head around: whether that be adjusting to a college football landscape with completely new athletes, to learning how to recruit and gameplan, alongside understanding the "who's who" of the community.  Having the SimCFB conferences in line with the IRL counterparts removes a potentially complicated aspect for a first-year head coach to comprehend, especially if they were attracted to joining a specific program with IRL conference play in mind.  Moreover, I also think @Bundy's point goes hand-in-hand with my own; shaping SimCFB conferences in our own image, while a super-exciting and fun prospect, could turn off prospective coaches who are unfamiliar with our brand of nostalgia or the time we've spent shaping the conferences based on past play.

Something that could be interesting to explore in lieu of deviating from the IRL CFB realignments would be to either encourage or facilitate the movement of coaches between realigned conferences.  For example, with the 2026 Pac-12 expansion (at the time of writing), Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, and San Diego State are all poised to join from the Mountain West.  In compensation for losing four teams for no reason within the sim, the Mountain West Commissioner would be allowed to grant some sort of privilege deemed suitable by the Admins to any departing coach (i.e. the head coach of Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, or San Diego State) to join a vacant team within the Mountain West to keep conference coaching numbers stable.  In turn, the Pac-12 Commissioner would be allowed to grant a lesser privilege deemed suitable by the Admins to any incoming or existing head coach to fill any vacancies at the incoming programs so as to increase the number of "coached teams" within their newly enlarged conference.  All in all, I'm not particularly sure how this could operate within our current SimCFB landscape, but it could be a fun way to stimulate coaching mobility while functionally "compensating" conferences for realignments outside of their control.

Edited 16 hours ago by dearden

[Weeze]

honestly i do not like some of the realignments seen in recent seasons. i would be happy to step away a little to let some conferences make sense.