By Steve Springer
Summer is here, normally a dead period for the typical college sports fan. A time to relax and refresh, quietly anticipate the coming football season.
Not this year, however. The next few days, heck, even the next few hours, could be some of the most landscape-altering times in college sports history. Major changes could turn the college football world upside down.
What’s the Big Ten going to do? What does the PAC Ten have up its sleeve? Is Nebraska staying or going? What will happen to the Big East? Where will Louisville end up? Lots of questions. Few answers.
The average football fan feelx helpless, with no control over what happens. But not here at Card Game. There is hope. At least hypothetically, you are in charge of it all. You are in the driver’s seat. You get to design your ideal conference for the Cards. Charlie Strong’s future is in your hands. Tom Jurich is your play toy. You get to decide whose ankles Vic Anderson gets to break this season.
Your job is to pick and choose a conference that best suits U of L. There are a handful of rules, however:
- No politics in your way.
- Let’s keep it somewhat realistic, geographically speaking. No teams west of the Mississippi.
- This conference is for hoops and pigskin for balanced scheduling.
- As many teams as you like, from an eight-team league to a 16-team mega-conference.
- No Wildcats allowed, not deserving of a spot at our table.
Here’s mine:
Big Dream Conference
North Division
- Louisville
- West Virginia (good rivalry brewing here)
- Cincinnati (good rivalry, good hoops, growing football)
- Ohio State (good hoops/football)
- Pittsburgh (good hoops/football)
- Penn State (good football, basketball cupcake)
- Syracuse (good hoops/football might rise again)
- Virginia Tech (good football/basketball gimme)
South Division
- Florida (good hoops/football)
- Florida State (decent hoops/good football)
- Miami (good football/decent hoops)
- Tennessee (good hoops/football)
- North Carolina (good hoops/decent football)
- Memphis (good rivalry, decent hoops/football)
- Southern Miss (old rivalry, decent football/hoops gimme)
- Murray State (alma mater, team no one wants to meet in NCAA tourney)
But best of all, U of L, my favorite team, would be playing in my back yard. Now it’s your turn!
North
1. Syracuse
2. West Virginia
3. Va Tech
4. Michigan
5. Michigan St
6. Pitt
7. Penn St
8. Indiana
South
1. Louisville
2. Memphis
3. Tennessee
4. Ole Miss
5. North Carolina
6. Duke
7. South Carolina
8. Clemson
ECU is a viable choice and I hope they are considered strongly for the Big East when the raiding begins.
After that, Memphis, Central Florida and maybe the service academies make sense.
It’s coming…the Colorado jump appers to be just the beginning of a total makeover in the conference schemes.
I like East Carolina because of the facilities and rabid fans. I would substitute them for Memphis or Syracuse (just to spite Syracuse).
I miss Memphis bad, so let’s trade out Syracuse for Memphis in our bracket. We will get rid of the geographic titles for the divisions since Memphis is not in the North. I keep hoping that since Calipari is gone from Memphis, Rick will put them on the schedule again. We need them back.
I like it! I defer to your judgment, what with being a mere “sports widow” and all. But, how about if we add Marquette, for the sake of the rivalry in BB? (Is it west of the Mississippi?) As well as to round out that number of 16 teams? BTW, how do you figure UofL would condescend to play in Murray??? Never gonna happen.