The only upside to 20 is we can go back to having divisions. It would make most sense to grab Stanford and either FSU or UVa.
West: Washington, Oregon, USC, UCLA, Stanford
North: Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Purdue
Lakes: Michigan, OSU, Michigan State, Illinois, Northwestern
East: Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, FSU, Virginia, Indiana
Making the beyond obvious correct replacement of FSU with Virginia (lock up DC and NoVA, high academic school, wealthy alumni), this permutation still needs a bit of tweaking.
With 20 conf teams and 9 conf games, going into divisions of 5 like this means defacto you have 4 locked-in annual games against your division mates. As noted by SG, you play everyone else every three years (six years for home/home), since there are 15 remaining conf teams and 5 remaining conf games per year.
But the Big Ten has declared the following rivalries must be played every year:
- Conference schedules include 12 protected annual matchups: Illinois-Northwestern, Illinois-Purdue, Indiana-Purdue, Iowa-Minnesota, Iowa-Nebraska, Iowa-Wisconsin, Maryland-Rutgers, Michigan-Michigan State, Michigan-Ohio State, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Oregon-Washington and UCLA-USC.
All of these must be played, except I think Mary-Rutgers could be let go and was just fabricated to give those schools something. Maryland-Virginia has much better appeal and history to it.
Not sure if Rutgers realistically has a rival, similar to Penn State. Although they do have a true rival in Pitt, which might be relevant as an addition farther down the road. And Stanford would be fine in the western division.
This makes the task a bit difficult. Basically, you've got Stanford, PSU, and Rutgers that are one-off "floaters", while the following groups must be in some division together:
- Washington, Oregon,
- USC, UCLA
- Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa,
- Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana
- Michigan, OSU, Michigan State,
- Virginia, Maryland,
Stanford obviously has to be with the western group. But then no matter how you slice it, you're going to have some odd teams together to make the other three divisions work out. Think the best you could do is:
Washington, Oregon, USC, UCLA, Stanford
Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Penn State
Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Rutgers
Michigan, OSU, Michigan State, Virginia, Maryland