The following is what I have come up with after one week of digesting the news. Feel free to pick apart, respond like mocat, or talk trash on whataburger as necessary in your replies.
Big 6/7/8 (OU) Division- OU, OSU, KSU, KU, Iowa State, and a pick/picks)
Southwest (UT) Division- UT, Tech, TCU, WV, Baylor, and a pick/picks)
Scenarios:
Rivalry Games and Crossover Divisional Games - A guaranteed rivalry game to preserve the RRR and maybe some other rivalries that came about in the past few decades (my choices match above, in order, for a 12 team model). This is simple to apply in a 14/16 team league with 9/8 conference games in the regular season. The crossover games would be on either a 1-2-2-2 model (14 teams) or just straight divisional games and a crossover game (16 teams). It's more problematic in a twelve team model because it eliminates the 3-3 possibility.
12 teams - UT picks Houston and OU picks Colorado State or BYU.
14/16 teams - The team that OU doesn't choose from CSU/BYU goes Southwest and OU chooses whomever they want at that point to get to 14. You can see where it goes from here. I don't think anyone outside of the Arizona's, BYU, CSU, Houston, Memphis and/or Cincy should be added. Memphis and Cincy should be avoided if possible. Throughout the course of American history, I cannot think of one successful, progressive venture that started by expanding eastward except the western half of the transcontinental railroad.
Schedule Improvement - UT and OU would be given the opportunity to improve their own schedules with each pick. UT can avoid playing the ISU's and KU's of the world as often as they do now which increases the novelty of those games. It also helps them avoid pud schools, that they don't care about, being on their schedule every year. UT would get a consecutive home and home series with the other OU Division teams every 6 years, with 4 years off, in the 14 team league and never play the others in a 16 team league. Additionally, there's the added possibility that OU and UT would meet in the championship game with the winner to the CFP. If you add the Arizona's down the road to get to 14 or 16, you can split them and have the same possibility. It's almost like playing blackjack!
Naming Rights - Pretty sure the league owns the rights to Big 6/7/8/12/14/16 and Southwest names.
Considerations - Are there 8 votes for this to pass?
Anyway, that's about enough for now. I'm exhausted.
-Grandpa
