Every year during the doldrums of summer, the topic seems to pop up: How about some college football realignment? The BCS Sucks! chatter usually dies down in the months following the fraudulent National Championship game, but everyone still wants a competitive landscape, and in our effort to tackle the issue, Intern Parrish riffs off of the Orlando Sentinel’s “Superconference” idea.

Tim Stephens of the Orlando Sentinel has proposed creating “super conferences” consisting of 16 teams in each conference that would blend the big six into the bigger 4. While I like his thinking, this will never happen. There could be some tweaking of the conferences that would help create a more competitive atmosphere. As it is right now, the Big 10 has 10 schools that are borderline useless and one juggernaut, the Big 12 has half a conference after you weed out the crap, and the Pac 10 needs two more teams.

While I agree that conference supremacy is cyclical I am not too sure that the Big 10, Pac 10 or the Big 12 will be competing with the SEC anytime soon on a year-to-year basis. Each of the conferences has dead weight (Baylor anyone?) or it is top heavy. I am proposing something less dramatic than Stephens;. Something that could be feasible.

First let’s discuss Notre Dame. The Irish will never join a conference unless it is mandated by Congress (or God). They make too much money – even when awful – for them to join a conference, so the Irish remain independent.

But what the Big 10 could do is add Cincinnati. The Bearcats have a great coach in Brian Kelly and this would enable the Big 10 to have 12 teams and hopefully prevent a team from winning the league without having played the best teams in the conference.

The Big East could then add Florida Atlantic so that they could continue putting out mediocre teams who don’t play anyone of substance (angry WVU fans send email to thebiglead@gmail.com).

The Big 12 needs to drop Baylor and drop them fast. Yes, they are good at tennis and track. Good for them. They could then add Houston to the mix. Houston has a large enrollment and would be able to recruit with the big boys due to their location. This means, however, that you would need to shift the structure of the Big 12.

I suggest putting Kansas State and Kansas in the South (call it another name if the geography bothers you) and take Oklahoma and Oklahoma State up North. To keep classic games alive they could do what the SEC does and have natural rivals. OU would play Texas every year no matter what while Kansas State would do likewise with Nebraska.

The Pac 10 could add any number of schools should they choose. BYU, Boise State, Fresno State or UNLV would be good choices, but you could only choose two and I would take BYU and UNLV. Both have the ability to compete with the giants of the Pac-10 after a few years of recruiting.

This would mean that five out of the six BCS conferences would have 12 teams and the NCAA could mandate that during a 12-game season you must play nine conference games (like the Pac 10 already does). This would weed out some of the crap that the SEC, Big 10 and other conferences do in terms of non conference scheduling.