Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

[TON1C]

Alrighty, thanks to the findings of jaredm and others in another thread, I took another stab at these custom conferences and was able to get them in a much better spot! I'll leave my original post in a spoiler tag below, those will still work but I think these are a lot better and fix a couple of scheduling bugs as well (most importantly the unbalanced home/away conference games bug).

They follow the same principles as the previous custom conferences and my goals based on region, history and rivalries. Now they have the added benefit of divisions for 9 of the 10 conferences and with the way I set everything up, divisions essentially become mini-conferences. Full benefits include:

• Full custom conferences and divisions based on region, rivalries and history (generally in that order)
• P5 and G5 separation
• Guaranteed rivalry matchups every year
• Each team will play 8 conference games
• Each team will play the other 6 teams in their division, then 2 teams from the other division
• Each team will have 4 home and 4 away games
• The only exceptions to the above are for the MWC. It has 8 teams and each team will play the other 7 teams in the conference.

Setup

• Set up the conferences and divisions as below.
• Set each conference to have a championship game and to be played by the top teams from each division.
• Set each conference to play 8 conference games (7 for MWC)

Custom Conferences:

Spoiler

American A:
Army
James Madison
Navy
Rutgers
Temple
Uconn
Umass

American B:
App St
Coastal Carolina
Charlotte
ECU
Liberty
Marshall
Old Dominion

ACC A:
Boston College
Maryland
Penn St
Pitt
Syracuse
VT
West Virginia

ACC B:
Clemson
Duke
NC State
UNC
South Carolina
Virginia
Wake Forest

B10 A:
Cincinnati
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan St
Notre Dame
Ohio St
Purdue

B10 B:
Illinois
Iowa
Iowa St
Minnesota
Missouri
Northwestern
Wisconsin

B12 A:
Colorado
Colorado St
Kansas
Kansas St
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Oklahoma St

B12 B:
Baylor
Houston
SMU
TCU
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech

CUSA A:
New Mexico
New Mexico St
Rice
Sam Houston
Texas St
UTEP
UTSA

CUSA B:
Arkansas St
Louisiana
Louisiana Tech
North Texas
Tulane
Tulsa
UL Monroe

MAC A:
Akron
Buffalo
Kent St
Miami (OH)
Middle Tennessee St
Ohio
Western Kentucky

MAC B:
Ball St
Bowling Green
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois
Toledo
Western Michigan

MWC:
Air Force
Hawaii
Nevada
San Diego St
San Jose St
UNLV
Utah St
Wyoming

PAC12 A:
BYU
Boise St
Oregon
Oregon St
Utah
Washington
Washington St

PAC12 B:
Arizona
Arizona St
Cal
Fresno St
Stanford
UCLA
USC

SEC A:
Arkansas
Kentucky
LSU
Louisville
Mississippi St
Ole Miss
Tennessee

SEC B:
Alabama
Auburn
Florida
Florida St
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Miami

SUN BELT A:
FAU
FIU
Georgia Southern
Georgia St
Kennesaw St
UCF
USF

SUN BELT B:
Jax St
Memphis
South Alabama
Southern Miss
Troy
UAB
Vanderbilt

I spent a good bit of time testing these out way in the future and it all looked great and worked as expected. These are an improvement over the past version (which you can find below) and also circumvent a couple of bugs related to custom conferences and scheduling.

Hopefully for CFB26 we will have:

• Ability to add, edit and delete protected rivalries
• Ability to set number of weeks in the season
• Ability to choose which week conference games start
• The bug(s) fixed that cause teams to not play enough conference games, even if that means filling in more non-conference games against FCS schools
• Proper home vs away conference game balancing
• Better scheduling when conferences have divisions to prioritize playing each team in your division once, then the teams from the other division

Cheers - enjoy!



Original Post:

Spoiler

Just wanted to share my custom conferences that I've been using. I've spent dozens of hours trying all kinds of configurations, combinations and permutations and unfortunately there are some major issues with the scheduling system in general, regardless if you use custom conferences or not. Unfortunately they probably aren't getting fixed until CFB26 so we have to do our best with what we have until then. Unfortunately you'll still have the issue where you may have too many home or away conference games but afaik there's no way to fix this. The biggest issue with custom conferences is that sometimes teams will not play the correct number of conference games for some reason. I've tried to narrow it down and won't bore you with the details (unless someone is curious and really wants to know).

The below custom conferences and settings will work as best as something can for right now. Each team will play the correct number of conference games (either 9 or 10 depending on conference). I've tried making even small adjustments to the number of games or swapping a couple of teams around and it caused the conference games played bug to happen so it's best to set everything up EXACTLY this way, otherwise I take no responsibility for any changes

Power 5 schools will all play 9 conference games while Group of 5 schools will play either 10 conference games or 9 conference games in the case of the Mountain West as they only have 10 teams in the conference. Three of the five G5 conferences will play each team in their conference every year which I think is really cool.

Like many of you here, I was a fan of college sports long before all of the modern conference realignment and personally don't like the way that's trending. So my goal with the custom conferences was to essentially divide the country into 5 regions that make sense geographically, historically, and culturally - generally in that order. I also tried to get schools in the same state to be in the same conference, partly to make the hardcoded protected rivalries a bit easier on the schedule. I also got rid of independents because I think each team should have to belong to a conference. I then separated each region into P5 and G5. They are mostly pretty straightforward but there are a few exceptions and some tweener schools. You can try to swap them between P5 and G5 but do so at your own risk because in my experience even the smallest change caused scheduling bugs to start showing up.

• Set the custom conferences with the below teams and EXACT number of conference games
• No divisions
• I've also chosen to have the conference championship game be hosted by the top team in the conference at their home stadium which I think is cool but a neural site should be fine
• When entering week 1, be sure to randomly generate the schedule at least once and do so as many times as you'd like until you get the general schedule you're looking for. I didn't try manually making any matchups so use at your own risk.

Custom Conferences:

Spoiler

AAC (10 games):
App St
Army
Buffalo
Charlotte
ECU
JMU
Liberty
Marshall
Navy
Old Dominion
Rutgers
Temple
UCONN
UMass

ACC (9 games):
BC
Duke
Maryland
NC State
UNC
Penn State
Pitt
Syracuse
Virginia
VT
Wake Forest
West Virginia

BIG10 (9 games):
Cincinnati
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Iowa St
Michigan
Michigan St
Minnesota
Missouri
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Ohio St
Purdue
Wisconsin

BIG12 (9 games):
Baylor
Colorado
Houston
Kansas
Kansas St
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Oklahoma St
TCU
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech

C-USA (10 games):
Air Force
Colorado St
North Texas
Rice
SMU
Sam Houston St
Texas St
Tulsa
UTEP
UTSA
Wyoming

MAC (10 games):
Akron
Ball St
Bowling Green
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Kent St
Miami (OH)
Northern Illinois
Ohio
Toledo
Western Michigan

MWC (9 games):
Boise St
Fresno St
Hawaii
Nevada
New Mexico
New Mexico St
San Diego St
San Jose St
UNLV
Utah St

PAC12 (9 games):
Arizona
Arizona St
BYU
Cal
Oregon
Oregon St
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Utah
Washington
Washington St

SEC (9 games):
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Florida St
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
LSU
Louisville
Miami
Mississippi St
Ole Miss
South Carolina
Tennessee
UCF
Vanderbilt

Sun Belt (10 games):
Arkansas St
Coastal Carolina
FAU
FIU
Georgia Southern
Georgia St
Jax St
Kennesaw St
Louisiana
Louisiana tech
Memphis
Middle Tennessee St
South Alabama
Southern Miss
Troy
Tulane
UAB
ULM
USV
Western Kentucky

I spent way too much time looking at maps but it was also a good refresher on US geography. I spent a ton of time tweaking and testing this and this was the best that I could do with the limitations that we have.

Hopefully for CFB26 we will have:

• Ability to add, edit and delete protected rivalries
• Ability to set number of weeks in the season
• Ability to choose which week conference games start
• The bug(s) fixed that cause teams to not play enough conference games, even if that means filling in more non-conference games against FCS schools
• Proper home vs away conference game balancing
• Better scheduling when conferences have divisions to prioritize playing each team in your division once, then the teams from the other division

Just wanted to share in case anyone else was interested in using since I spent so much time on this and was really happy with how it turned out overall - enjoy!

[TON1C]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Posted an update thanks to findings from jaredm and others in the other thread and was able to really improve these and as a result fix the issue with home/away conference games as well. Enjoy!

[sdsuphilip]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

I have a powerhouse Rice dynasty going, I moved them to SEC and Miss State goes to AAC. However after I made this move I only have 6 conference games, what do I do?

[TON1C]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

I have a powerhouse Rice dynasty going, I moved them to SEC and Miss State goes to AAC. However after I made this move I only have 6 conference games, what do I do?

You could use these in your next season and try swapping Rice out with another team in the SEC or B12 so they're in a P5 conference still. But it'd be best to run a test and sim the entire season after doing so just to make sure nothing was messed up and that everyone plays 8 conference games as expected (7 for MWC).

[BoiseBronco2024]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

These are great, but the only thing I'd change/recommend is to change the MAC A & B from this...

MAC A:
Akron
Buffalo
Kent St
Miami (OH)
Middle Tennessee St
Ohio
Western Kentucky

MAC B:
Ball St
Bowling Green
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois
Toledo
Western Michigan

To this...

MAC A:
Akron
Buffalo
Kent St
Miami (OH)
Bowling Green
Ohio
Toledo

MAC B:
Ball St
Middle Tennessee St
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois
Western Michigan
Western Kentucky

That way the MAC A has all the Ohio teams in the same division. Just my thoughts.

[TON1C]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Yeah I had played around with those a bit but as I did for most of the divisions, I tried to visualize a straight line to separate them as that just made more sense to me. But that split should work too as long as there aren’t any hard coded protected rivalries that it’d mess with. I really wish we could add/edit/delete those. With them being a hardcoded mystery it makes a lot of things unnecessarily difficult.

[xboxxerx]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Thanks for the info, Tonic, and all for the hard work. I was wondering, for example, the Pac 12. You have it set in your dynasty as 14. Can we just do 12 team alliances, do 8 or 9 conference games, and not have the bug issue?

Sent from my SM-S928U using Operation Sports mobile app

[TON1C]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Unfortunately bugs start popping up pretty easily even making small changes. We’ve essentially reversed engineered how the game is coded to generate the schedules and 14 team conferences with divisions and 8 conference games is one of the configurations that work. So doing that 9 times and having the remaining 8 teams be the 10th conference is the best we can do until EA fixes some bugs but probably won’t happen into CFB26 at this point.

[Gocanes44]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Anyone noticing Army sometimes not playing Navy when adjust conferences even though those teams aren’t touched?

[TON1C]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Yes, that’s one of the bugs that can happen unfortunately. But luckily it doesn’t happen with the above configuration at all - they’ll play each other week 15 and be the only game as expected.

[paco86]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Tonic, thanks for all the work you did on this! I tried many combinations of custom conferences with the P5/G5 separation while keeping rivalries as much as possible. But many didn't work or wasn't entirely satisfied with the results. Creating 12-team conferences (with or without divisions) was the biggest headache for me. For whatever reason, some teams end up playing one less conference game than the established number under conference rules. Very frustrating to say the least.

Yours definitely works and is the best I've seen!

[TON1C]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Thanks! I’ve spent way too much time messing around with all of this but really glad how it all worked out, especially the latest version with the divisions. Helps add another layer of rivalries, whether current or future, and makes the conference games a bit more important, consistent, and reliable. Especially the home/away issue not happening with this.

[Taleron]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Thanks for pulling these together, these make a lot of sense and I’ve had fun naming divisions based on colloquial regional names.

Had a very specific issue: I put these into my UVA dynasty, and separating UVA and VT between the ACC divisions led to their annual rivalry game not getting scheduled. Is there a tweak I can make that would put them in the same division without messing up other rivalries in the ACC?

[TON1C]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

Thanks for pulling these together, these make a lot of sense and I’ve had fun naming divisions based on colloquial regional names.

Had a very specific issue: I put these into my UVA dynasty, and separating UVA and VT between the ACC divisions led to their annual rivalry game not getting scheduled. Is there a tweak I can make that would put them in the same division without messing up other rivalries in the ACC?

Thank you! Curious on some of your names, I started doing that myself but ran out of steam and desire to finish haha.

You can probably just swap one of the other teams in the ACC South with VT or vice-versa. While not as ideal geographically, I feel like it make the most sense to swap Virginia with West Virginia, that way you can keep the 4 NC and 2 SC schools together. I ran into this issue a couple of times (this one included) where the division split that made the most sense wasn't super ideal.

[Taleron]

Re: Region Based Custom Conferences That Work

I think I will swap UVA for BC or Cuse to preserve the WVU-Pitt rivalry, even though it’s awkward geographically.

The names I came up with came from geographical features and regional names; I tried to pick the more esoteric ones when I could:

AAC:
- Highlands for the northeast teams as that’s a geographical feature of New England
- Waxhaws for the southern teams, as the term is specific to North Carolina/South Carolina

ACC:
- Appalachia for the western division
- Tidewater for the eastern division, though I might change that if I take UVA out

Big Ten:
- Driftless Area for the Wisconsin-Iowa-ish teams; apparently this is a name of an ecoregion there and was too weird to pass up.
- Rust Belt for the Michigan-Ohio side of things.

Big 12
- Lone Star for the Texas division
- High Plains for the non-Texas teams

CUSA
- Gulf Coast for the division with the Louisiana teams
- Llano Estecado for the Texas-New Mexico division; apparently this is a regional term for that area (I originally had Cactus Country before coming across that one)

MAC
- Lake Erie for the eastern division
- Lake Michigan for the western division

PAC 12
- Cascadia for the division with the Washington and Oregon teams (sorry Utah)
- Mojave (like the desert) for the Arizona-California division

SEC
- Delta for the division with Mississippi teams
- Dixie for the eastern division, though I might change because the name has too many connotations

Sun Belt
- Piney Woods for the division with Arkansas teams; another one that comes from an ecoregion
- Sunshine for the Georgia-Florida division (this one got a little lazy)