In case you haven't seen it somewhere else on the network yet, SBN's college bloggers are collaborating on a sort of fantasy conference draft to pass the summer time away. Here's the deal.
First, if we're going to play, let's play, you know? So we're not about simply tweaking the existing conferences (let's keep the SEC, but replace Vanderbilt with Texas!). Nope. We're hoping to really shake things up.
So we instituted a few shake-things-up rules. First, we're pretending that Texas spent some of its new TV money on a transporter it found on ebay (or, more probably, decided to pocket the cash and farm out the project to a VA in the Phillipines) and that geography is no longer a reason to group teams because travel is a breeze. We're also ignoring time zone considerations because if we can bend space, time is soon to follow, right?
So no geography and no time. If we want to put Miami and Washington in the same conference, fine. The concourse comparisons of Starbucks and Cuban coffee will just add a caffeinated wrinkle.
After the jump, we have a detailed explanation of how it's all going to work over the next six weeks. Or rather, how we think it's going to work before some blogger breaks it. Read through the rules and stuff and then let's start talking. What's important in an athletics program? In a conference? Who would you draft? Who do you want to see in a conference with Tennessee?
What factors we should consider is an open question, but the fact that athletics should have the most weight is a given. Here are some other factors we can consider:
- Rivalries (two teams)
- Traditions
- Historic Success
- Ethics
- Academics
- Weather/Desirability of Destination
- TV Revenue Potential
- NOT geography
- NOT current conference structure
As you can see, we're really not worried about the logistics of trying to have these teams actually play football games.
Conference Commissioners
There will be six conference commissioners: BC Interruption (Boston College), House of Sparky (Arizona State), Big East Coast Bias (Big East), Black Heart Gold Pants (Iowa), Team Speed Kills (SEC) and Red Cup Rebellion (Ole Miss). These Commissioners will be starting from scratch, so if they want to have their school in their conference they're going to have to waste a pick on them. ;-)
Peter Bean pressed a button located somewhere on the internet and determined the order of draft as follows:
1. BC Interruption
2. Black Heart Gold Pants
3. Team Speed Kills
4. Big East Coast Bias
5. House of Sparky
6. Red Cup Rebellion
The draft will be a snake draft. Everybody gets one pick until we get to Red Cup Rebellion, who gets the 6th and 7th picks. When we get back up to BC Interruption, they get picks 12 and 13. And so on.
The draft is officially being run by the Oklahoma State Cowboys blog Cowboys Ride For Free, so they'll be playing the role of head commissioner.
Schedule. This week, SBN bloggers are introducing the Re-Draft project and want to get the conversation going. We need to start thinking about the following questions:
Who do y'all want to draft?
What kind of alliances do we want to preserve?
What sort of values are we looking for in a particular program?
On Monday, June 13, the draft begins and the first round selections are made. The conference commissioners will then consult with their first-round draft choice (if we have a blogger for that school) and the two of them will collectively decide on their draft strategy and make their second round choice. By Friday, each conference will have a commissioner, two schools, and up to two more bloggers to collaborate with on picks. By Sunday, each conference will select the name of its conference. It will be neither Legends nor Leaders, and we're hoping we can get the math right.
On Monday, June 20, Cowboys Ride For Free will announce the conference names and recap the first two rounds of the draft. We'll have a post here at BON about where Texas was drafted and who we helped select in the second round.
After the big reveal of conference names and founding members, the draft will continue in much the same manner, with two draft picks a week for the next several weeks. Once a conference drafts 12 members, a conference can be capped. If we want, the draft will continue for any Big East types who believe more is always better. If in any subsequent round only one conference remains, it may select the remaining members of its conference up to a maximum of 16 schools.
Finally, on Monday July 25, the full and complete conference rosters will be announced and discussed across the SB Nation community of NCAA sites.
No, you can't just pick Duke Basketball without also getting football
When selecting a school, you are bringing on all of its NCAA-sanctioned varsity programs. So if you select Notre Dame for its football program, all of the Irish's other sports come along with it.
So what do we do now?
Situation room, y'all. What do we at Tennessee value in a program? What do we value in a conference? What rivalries must we protect at all costs? Who else would we love to see on a regular basis? Go.