We're now officially through two rounds of the SB Nation conference re-draft project and we're unveling the beginnings of those "new" conferences today. As expected many of the traditional football powers have been selected, but there might be a few teams that used to fall in that category but no longer truly fit the bill.
So far there have been two Big 12 teams selected. The SEC leads with four teams drafted, followed by the Big 10 with three, and the Big East, Pac 10 and ACC all showing one team drafted.
Here's your rundown of the current state of the conference re-draft in order of selection.
Conf #1 TEXAS
Conf #2 FLORIDA
Conf #3 ALABAMA
Conf #4 OHIO STATE
Conf #5 USC
Conf #6 LSU
Conf #6 MICHIGAN
Conf #5 NOTRE DAME
Conf #4 FLORIDA STATE
Conf #3 OKLAHOMA
Conf #2 PENN STATE
Conf #1 GEORGIA
Early thoughts? Obviously we're following a football theme to date although Notre Dame and Michigan have certainly had their challenges in recent years and I'd say Penn State might be a bit of a reach considering they have ZERO interest in anything else.
Most compelling matchups so far? USC v Notre Dame has some historical significance but that might be it for the moment. I like Stoops v Saban in Conference #3 the most of any.
I'm also curious who everyone thinks has done the best job of setting up the power players in their league? I kept looking and thinking slam dunk here, slam dunk there, but I can find arguments for an against a lot of these teams. Florida, Texas and Ohio State are the most well rounded in the first round although Alabama seems to be moving that direction. At the same time Ohio State and Florida might be the only two out of those four that care about being well rounded. In the second round it's fairly football heavy with Michigan, Oklahoma or Notre Dame being the three that I could see having potential to round things out.
Where would you want Kansas? Tough to view those teams and get real excited about Kansas' place on the gridiron but I think I'd take conference #1 with Texas and Georgia. I like the KU v Texas rivalry and I feel like it provides some strong exposure in State's that Turner Gill recruited in this past year.
Interesting exercise. So far a little predictable but it will certainly be interesting to see how things start to shake out as the obvious football powers begin to slide by the wayside.