Dawn of the New Age...

Sorry for the overdramatic title, but it felt necessary for such a daunting post.
In this venture "Under the Cap," I decided I would take a crack at re-aligning college football.
I started with all the teams currently in so-called power conferences because that would be the only way for a solid re-alignment to hold.
Since six 12-team conferences would seem to be the most logical scenario, this left me with seven spots to hand out to teams outside the six BCS conferences.
Four teams earned their spots in the new conferences via last year's rankings: Boise St., BYU, Utah, and TCU.
One team, Notre Dame, earned its spot based on history.
Two teams, Nevada and Fresno St., earned their spots based on geography and mild success in recent years.
The system isn't perfect, as Central Michigan and Navy may be better candidates for the new re-alignment, but they aren't national title contenders, so I don't really care.
That said, here are my conferences:

NORTHERN CONFERENCE
West Division- Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Boise St., Nevada
Central Division- BYU, Utah, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa State, Iowa
Last year's title game would have most likely been Boise St. and Iowa, which would have made a good one, in my opinion.

WESTERN CONFERENCE
Pacific Division- USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Fresno St., Arizona St.
Plains Division- Colorado, Kansas St., Kansas, Baylor, Arizona, Texas Tech
Even adding a few Big 12 teams to the mix couldn't make a Texas Tech-USC matchup all that juicy for a title game.

MIDWEST CONFERENCE
West Division- Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Notre Dame
East Division- Ohio St., Michigan, Michigan St., Cincinnati, Purdue, West Virginia
Ohio St.-Wisconsin would just be what the Big Ten title game should've been anyway, but who doesn't think Cincy would've taken down the Buckeyes?

SUPER SOUTH CONFERENCE
West Division- Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma St., TCU, Arkansas
East Division- LSU, Mississippi St., Ole Miss, Auburn, Alabama, FSU
Yeah, so I don't need to hype up this conference any more than the above names already did. Just realize that last year's national title game would've been this conference's championship game, sponsored by a company who paid a ludicrous amount of money to have their name in someone else's logo.

SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE
North Division- Vanderbilt, Tennessee, UNC, Duke, NC State, Clemson
South Division- Florida, Miami, South Florida, Georgia Tech, Georgia, South Carolina
I don't want to talk about the most likely result of the 2009 championship game between Clemson and Florida. Let's just say Clemson got off easy playing Tech in the ACC.

EASTERN CONFERENCE
North Division- Boston College, Syracuse, Connecticut, Rutgers, Penn State, Pittsburgh
South Division- Maryland, Wake Forest, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Louisville, Kentucky
This wouldn't be the toughest conference every year, but Virginia Tech and Penn State would put on an incredible game, I think.

There would be plenty more to sort out, such as how to arrange the national championship tournament. I, of course, would support a six-team bracket with two first-round byes.
Yes, that would mean that only one team per conference would make the playoffs, but the good news is that all those other athletic directors would get their teams in those meaningless pocket-lining bowl games we all love.
I'll not go into the potential playoff games from last year since the conferences would completely change for the most part.
In this way, every conference game would matter because simply winning your conference would give a team a shot at the national championship.
Thus, teams would be more likely to schedule big-time non-conference games because, for a team like Clemson, losses to Oklahoma and Alabama would leave the Tigers more prepared to make a run at the conference title than blowout wins over Louisiana-Monroe and Temple.
Plus, a win in one of those big games might make the difference in a first-round bye and a trip to someone else's turf for the first round of the national playoffs.
When the NCAA wakes up and realizes what they're missing, have them contact me.