Conference, schmonference...nothing to see here.

The musical chairs game of conference re-alignment has picked up again. Maryland and Rutgers maybe to the (fill in the blank). Connecticut pondering a move to the (fill in the blank). FSU and Clemson mad as hell at (fill in the blank). Philadelphia Textile and Pharmacy College looking at (fill the prescription by Monday, please).

It just doesn't matter.

Why? Because the scenario is just going to change again in a couple of months. People get worked up about it. Message Boards fret about it. Otherwise respectable journalist obsess about it. Aliens monitor the Earth and laugh about it. The chimps have taken over the zoo.

I was talking with someone the other day about when the Major Leagues had (8) teams in the National League and (8) in the American League. He looked at me like my hair was on fire.

"How long ago was that?" he asked skeptically.

"When I was in grade school." I politely replied.

"Oh...back before there were I-Pods and Call of Duty?"

"Back before there was touch-tone and Pong..."

Football, of course...and ESPN are the driving factors in all this shake-up and musical chairs. Football equals money. I'll say it again. Football = money. ESPN dictates football. If ESPN likes you, you will prosper and get the Saturday afternoon games. If they don't, you play at noon or play Friday at 8 p.m.

My solution? Form eight "superconferences" with 16 teams each. Do it regionally. I'd call them the East Coast, West Coast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, Rocky Mountain, Northern and Southern. That's 144 football teams. Drop everyone else down to Division I-AA status. You could divide each conference into two divisions of eight schools each. Have the winners of the divisions play each other for the Conference championship. Then, the eight winners go into quarterfinal playoffs. Seed them, just like basketball does and #1 plays #8 and so on. You can tie-in bowl games into it if you want. Eight games, followed by four more games, then two games and a championship. Fifteen "bowl" games. It's half of the number out there currently. It's plenty.

If you want more...then have the runner-ups of each conference championship play each other. Eight more games. Let's be brutally honest. 36 bowls games a year is ridiculous.

The process would take four weeks. Most bowl-bound schools are practicing during those four weeks anyway, so playing up to four games isn't too much. Divide the games equally among the networks and rotate which network gets the National Championship game each year...just like Pro Football does. ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN. Three each. What could be more simpler?

Would I miss the Car Care Bowl and Motor City Bowl? Are you kidding me?

How would this work out for the other collegiate sports...like basketball, baseball and soccer? No problem. Just add the other 200 or so to the conference nearest them for the additional sports. A basketball team plays 30 games during the season. If your Duquense, for example...would it kill you to play 30 games against schools in a four state area around you? Travel expenses go down (a boon for struggling-revenue athletic programs) and fans are more liable to travel to West Virginia for a game than Florida Atlantic in Boca Raton.

Food for thought.

In closing...imagine this basketball conference..

Louisville
Kentucky
Cincinnati
Indiana
Eastern Kentucky
Western Kentucky
Morehead
Murray State
Indiana State
Purdue
Ball State
Murray
Xavier
Dayton
Miami (OH)
Evansville
Vanderbilt
Memphis
Tennessee
Tennessee Tech
Austin Peay
Tennessee Martin
Middle Tennessee
Ohio State
Wright State
Ohio U
Marshall
IUPUI
Belmont
Northern Kentucky

How many of those "away" games would you travel to?

Wake up, NCAA. It's time to get organized and use a little common sense.
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