Custom Conferences

[DirectFX]

We have thread for real life conferences but I wanna know has anyone done their own conferences based on geography or team prestige?

I usually take West Virginia out of BIG 12 and add Missouri and Texas A&M back to BIG 12 from SEC. I put West Virginia in American as just can't stand the rivalries killed and bad geographic location. I did all conferences in one dynasty based only on geography and rivals to try to keep them together.

Let me know what custom conferences you have done>>>

[xboxxerx]

I go pretty much by regions. In doing this, my biggest moves were putting all Texas schools in the Big 12. The PAC were West Coast plus Hawaii, then moving Penn to the ACC. I also did all Florida schools in the Sunbelt. lol Don't ask me why on that last 1, just thought it was fitting all Florida schools in the Sunbelt. I also moved Notre Dame to the B1G.

[beelo]

After a few seasons I end up making mine by geography. I have a template I use from i believe it is called CowboyAltitude over on SBN. I leave the military schools as independents and everyone else is relocated.

[DirectFX]

Quote: Originally Posted by xboxxerx

I go pretty much by regions. In doing this, my biggest moves were putting all Texas schools in the Big 12. The PAC were West Coast plus Hawaii, then moving Penn to the ACC. I also did all Florida schools in the Sunbelt. lol Don't ask me why on that last 1, just thought it was fitting all Florida schools in the Sunbelt. I also moved Notre Dame to the B1G.

I tried that once too with all Florida schools in Sunbelt and number worked out good just boring after couple years lol. But most years put worst teams or new FBS schools in Sunbelt so they aren't easy wins for bigger schools and move them when they become prestige 3.
I forget every move but heres some usually do to make 6-7 conferences competitive instead of only 3-4 and take in geography and natural rivals best I can.

-American/old Big East
I put West Virginia, BC, Pitt, Syracuse all back in Big East mean American. Sometimes add Notre Dame or Virginia Tech if I want conference to have auto bid and needs competition. I move UCf and USF to ACC. Houston, Memphis, SMU and maybe Louisville moved south to C-USA.
Conference gets championship game, better schools, and old American geography was a mess.

-ACC
If need to fill ACC for 12 take ECU or FAU and FIU ffrom CUSA. Also sometimes switch Georgia Tech to SEC and move South Carolina to ACC.
Def better geographically having UCF, USf and or ECU .

-Big 12 just move Texas A&M and Missouri back then move Iowa St to Big 10 so get Iowa v Iowa St rivalry. Usually then add in from these schools to get Big 12 title game; Tulsa, Houston, Rice, or SMU.
Huge Geographic and natural rivals. Basically Texas and Oklahoma teams with others mixed in .
Big 12 also needs championship for auto bowl bid

-Big 10 usually just add Iowa St and move lower team like Indiana or Minnesota to MAC
Iowa St v Iowa adds rivalry and school moved to MAC gives MAC a little stronger conference.

-Independents
Idaho and BYU to MWC
New Mexico st and ODU to Sunbelt
Keep military academies and maybe one new FBS team here

- MWC
Fresno St, Hawaii, San Diego St, San Jose St moved to PAC 12
New Mexico to Sunbelt
Air Force to Independents
BYU, Utah, Arizona, Ariz St, Colorado and Idaho better rivals and geographically

-PAC 12
Move Colorado, Utah, Arizona , and Arizona St to MWC
Now have all Cali schools and Hawaii in conference better geographically.

-SEC
If going competitive and rivals move Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Tennessee to CUSA.
Send sunbelt or CUSA teams if need more for championship
Switch South Carolina with Georgia Tech or Florida with Clemson.
New rivals Clemson vs South Carolina or Georgia v Georgia Tech better than Vanderbilt, Tennesse or Kentucky.
Low teams added usually natural rivals and keeps other conferences competitive.

-Sunbelt
-CUSA mix and match teams depending if making most conferences competitive and geographic with CUSA teams.
Usually move WKU, Troy, ArK St, ULL, and ULM to CUSA
Move to Sunbelt UAB, UTEP, UTSA, Louisana Tech , and Tulane to Sunbelt

I find CUSA, Independents and Sunbelt basically interchangeable. If I move SEC and American teams to CUSA rivals and geography make good Kentucky, Tennesee area teams ( Vanderbilt, Tennesse, mid Tenn St, WKU, Memphis, Louisville as main rivals)

[elantradave]

For me, I pretty much do the same "roster" each time. Mine is based on prestige, though some are based on geography:

ACC: Notre Dame (real life addition in all sports except football starting in 2014), Cincinnati (natural fit, they've had success, and in real life, they have a huge trust), and Louisville (real life in 2014). Those get placed in the same division with the former Big East schools.

Big Ten: Add Rutgers, Maryland (two teams which will be added in real life in 2014), Oklahoma and Oklahoma State (Two old Big 8/12 rivals for Nebraska). Re-align divisions based on geography (East/West)

Pac 12: Adds Air Force (Colorado-Air Force rivalry "reborn"), BYU (Finally!), TCU (only spot left for them, plus it brings about a natural rivalry with...), Boise State. All of the "new" teams get placed in their own division with Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. That division is called the "Mountain" division. The old Pac 8 schools are in the "Ocean" Division (like that?)

SEC: Texas to the West. West Virginia to the East. Easy as pie

Big XII/American: After Houston and SMU get moved over to the Big XII, basically it's a pick em of the best non-BCS schools to get both conferences to 12. I then keep them as BCS conferences, as their talent is still pretty good. The Big XII gets a few MWC teams plus a few C-USA (Texas) teams added to the "leftovers". American mostly gets C-USA teams added to their leftovers, plus Northern Illinois (they deserve to be in a good conference after last season).

The non-BCS conferences don't get much mix up, but I try to at least keep each conference at a minimum of 8. The two independents are Army and Navy.

Though not quite on topic of the discussion at hand, I keep the Rose Big Ten vs. Pac 12 (16), and the Big XII champ in the Fiesta. I make the Sugar Bowl between the SEC and ACC champs and the Orange Bowl gets the American champion.

[cbutler0509]

I wanted to ask the opinion of the community about custom conference realignment. I am trying to decide between doing a geography based realignment or setting up a relegation system. What have your experiences been for each? If you do geography based does it have any impact on recruiting? Specifically does it become more regionalized? Also how did you do the set up? Who received BCS bids?

Relegation seems like a fun idea anyone have any thoughts to deter me?

Thanks all

[RedSoxFox7]

I went with the real-world realignment through 2015: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoot...tball/21057704

Then after that it gets a little hairy. I forget exactly when I moved everyone, but I'll outline my thought process.

I haven't touched the SEC, B1G, or Pac-12, yet, outside of the real world changes.

I'm using UMass as my dynasty team, so as soon as they were good enough I moved them to the American. The MAC was already unbalanced, so this brings them back to a nice even 12 schools.

BC has been awful in the ACC so along with my move of UMass to the American, I moved BC there, giving me two rivalry games every year.

I personally can't stand having Independents, or competitive conferences without championship games (12-0 Notre Dame/Texas/some American team in the BCS Championship over a 12-1 SEC/Pac-12/B1G conference champ? No thanks.), so I've moved all the indies, and currently have Old Dominion as the sole team. With Navy's real life move to the American, it only seemed fitting to also put Army there. Air Force and BYU to MWC seemed like a no-brainer, and I sent Idaho along too since being in the Sun Belt didn't make much sense.

Notre Dame went to the ACC, obviously, and WVU was so out of place in the Big XII and too good for the American that I also moved them to the ACC.

I wanted to bring the American back to being an east coast conference, and bring the Big XII back to a championship division, so I moved SMU and Houston to the Big XII. So now I've got the Big XII as North and South divisions, with the South being all Texas teams.

I decided to go with a North vs. South theme for the American, and Tulsa seemed out of place, so they went to the Big XII to replace WVU. This makes the Big XII basically Texas vs. Tornado Alley. Cincinnati seemed good enough and didn't fit the theme, so they went to the ACC. Some traditionalists may hate this, but Duke and Wake Forest got "demoted" to the American to bring the ACC down to 14, to keep the North/South thing going, to give ECU some more rivalry games, to keep the American at 12 teams, and because it seemed a better competitive balance. At some point I moved Memphis back to C-USA because they just weren't good enough.

C-USA and the Sun Belt have been in flux a bit, still trying to find the right pieces to balance things out. At one point the Sun Belt only had 7 teams, and I found most of them were playing two FCS schools a year, so I made sure to move a couple C-USA teams to the Sun Belt. With 9 teams, they all get their 8 conference games and I haven't seen any doubling up in FCS games.

The last two seasons I've had Boise State and SDSU dominating MWC and the rankings (SDSU got torched in the BCS CG in my previous season, but somehow still led the Coaches & AP Polls, wtf), despite their only ranked games coming against each other in the MWC title game. For that reason, I'm moving both of them to the Pac-12 next season. I was considering swapping them for underperforming Pac-12 teams (likely Colorado and Utah), but I decided to go with the "Pac-14" instead, giving my all my "top-tier" conferences 14 teams, and the rest 12 or fewer.

I'm not going by any hard relegation rules, but I've got a rough outline for promotion/demotion to keep things balanced and geographically reasonable. As it stands now, I'm considering the SEC, Pac-12, ACC, and B1G as the top-tier conferences. The Big XII has been a half step behind them with the American right on its heels, then C-USA, MWC, Sun Belt, and MAC as the real bottom dwellers (Sun Belt and MAC, especially).

If I see a top-tier conference team having consistently bad years (both looking at record and <85 rating), they could get relegated down a step, but only if there's an available team that's has at least >90 OVR, a good record, and geographically makes sense. If I continue improving UMass, that means Syracuse is probably getting sent to the American soon.

At the end of each season, I've been entering records, rankings, and ratings into an Excel sheet and using that to make realignment decisions, and bowl bids for the next season. I've kept the Pac-12 & B1G getting the Rose Bowl, ACC gets the Orange bowl, and the SEC the Sugar Bowl. Depending on the average ranking of the conferences, and how many top 50 teams they have, the American or Big XII either get the Fiesta or at-large bids. I also gave the MWC an at-large bid for my current season based on their performance, but I doubt they'll keep it once I move Boise & SDSU.

Here's my current conference alignment, with Boise & SDSU soon to be on the move. I also want to move Tulane out of the American, party because they're terrible and partly because an empty Superdome is just depressing to play in, but I haven't decided who to replace them with yet. Leading candidates are MTSU or Southern Miss, or a two team move bringing FAU & FIU up and sending ECU down with Tulane.

Spoiler

ACC Atlantic

Florida State
Notre Dame
N.C. State
Clemson
Syracuse
Louisville
West Virginia

ACC Coastal

Virginia Tech
Pitt
Miami (FL)
North Carolina
Virginia
Georgia Tech
Cincinnati


American North

U.Mass
Temple
Navy
Army
Boston College
Conn

American South

U.S.F.
Wake Forest
U.C.F.
Duke
Tulane
E.C.U.

Big XII North

Kansas
Tulsa
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Iowa State

Big XII South

Texas
Baylor
Houston
Texas Tech
S.M.U.
T.C.U.

Big Ten East

Ohio State
Michigan
Penn State
Michigan State
Indiana
Maryland
Rutgers

Big Ten West

Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Purdue
Iowa
Illinois

C-USA East

Florida Atlantic
MidTenn State
Western Kentucky
Marshall
F.I.U
U.A.B.

C-USA West

Memphis
U.L. Lafayette
Rice
North Texas
Louisiana Tech
Southern Miss

Indy

Old Dominion

MAC East

Bowling Green
Kent State
Miami (OH)
Ohio
Akron
Buffalo

MAC West

Western Michigan
Central Michigan
Toledo
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois
Ball State

MWC Mountain

Boise State
Utah State
Air Force
New Mexico
Wyoming
B.Y.U
Colorado State

MWC West

U.N.L.V.
Fresno State
San Diego State
San Jose State
Nevada
Hawaii
Idaho

Pac-12 North

Washington
Washington State
Oregon State
Oregon
California
Stanford

Pac-12 South

U.S.C.
U.C.L.A.
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Utah

SEC East

Florida
South Carolina
Georgia
Kentucky
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Missouri

SEC West

Auburn
L.S.U.
Alabama
Ole Miss
Arkansas
Mississippi State
Texas A&M

Sun Belt

Troy
U.L. Monroe
Georgia State
Texas State
Arkansas State
South Alabama
New Mexico State
U.T.S.A.
U.T.E.P.

[Kodos]

This is my alignment in year 6 of my NCAA 2013 OD. I replaced a few teams with western-based fictional teams to balance out things geographically. It's a promotion / relegation league. Teams move up and down the ladder within their geographic region.

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...splay.php?f=69