My College Football 25 Dynasty Mode Conference Setup

For all the cool features in College Football 25, my favorite is the ability to customize conferences in dynasty mode. If you hate the bullshit current day conference configurations like I do, this is your opportunity to play the role of college football commissioner and make things the way you like. Whether that's reverting conferences to a previous iteration, or blowing things up and making Penn State play in Conference USA - it's all up to you!

If you're looking for some inspiration on your conference setup, this article is how mine will look. Here are the foundations I worked off to create it:

• This is a hybrid between how conferences looked pre-2011 conference expansion, a touch of how things looked post-2011 conference expansion, and a handful of teams I've thrown into new conferences because of pure personal preference.
• Every single conference has two divisions, eight conference games, and a conference championship. I know that everyone –including myself– became out on the idea of divisions at some point in the four-team playoff era, but I've changed my tune. Divisions didn't always give us a conference championship between the two best teams, but it did give us some extremely weird shit - I need that in my college football.
• Every power five conference –Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, Pac-12, ACC– is back to their rightful number of teams: 12. Some are back to a previous era, while others welcome in some new faces.
• Every other conference –American Athletic, Conference USA, Sun Belt, MAC, Mountain West– has 14 teams and some major shakeups. I tried my best to make these moves seem as logical as possible. Let's get into it!

Big Ten

My reasoning: It's time, Notre Dame. The rivalries [Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue] are already there, and I wasn't interested in keeping in Rutgers, Maryland or Nebraska. I did toy with the idea of an 11-team Big Ten, but just couldn't do it if I wanted to make things uniform among the Power Fives. It's up to you to decide whether 'Lakes' and 'Plains' is any better than 'Leaders' and 'Legends,' but I had no interest in sticking with the B1G's east-west format. Before you yell at me for having Wisconsin in the 'Plains' division: Yes, I know. It just made a little more sense to have them there for geographic and balance purposes.

Big 12

My reasoning: This is the way God intended the Big 12 to look.

SEC

My reasoning: Same as the Big 12.

Pac-12

My reasoning: The OG Pac-10 is back, joined by Boise State and Utah. Just like the Big Ten, I debated keeping it in it's pre-2011 expansion form, but chose to roll with 12 in the end. I don't think I need to justify Utah's spot after their track record over the last decade-plus. Boise isn't what they were in their glory days, but they've earned their seat at the table. A bit of division maneuvering had to be done with no Colorado, so Stanford moves to the south.

ACC

My reasoning: If you're of a certain age, this is what you think of when it comes to ACC Football.

American Athletic Conference

My reasoning: This is where things start to get wild. To Louisville, Pitt, Rutgers, TCU and West Virginia fans: I'm sorry, but decisions had to be made. Rolling with 12-team Power Fives meant a few teams had to go, and these were the most logical from a tradition/location standpoint. On the bright side: They're all grouped together again in a conference that's a reincarnation of the Big East, with some added flavor. Army joins Navy to add another option attack into the equation, Houston, TCU and SMU bring Texas into the fold, while App State's consistent success and location earns them a bump up in competition. People made fun of the 'Power Six' thing, but this is another power conference, as far as I'm concerned.

Mountain West

My reasoning: The classic Mountain West you know and love, with some slight differences. New Mexico State finally finds a home that makes geographic sense, while the addition of UTEP makes more sense than you think. El Paso is less than an hour away from Las Cruces (where NMSU is).

MAC

My reasoning: Making all the G5 conferences 14 meant I had to move some teams around. Re-adding Marshall (1997-2004) and Temple (2007-2011) to a conference they've already played in made them the most reasonable choices.

Sun Belt

My reasoning: With all the shuffling I did, this might end up being my favorite conference. 13 of the 14 teams come from Alabama, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Virginia, and Florida. I wanted the Sun Belt to be a clear step above Conference USA, and the additions of Tulane, Jacksonville State, Liberty, and Western Kentucky help accomplish that.

Conference USA

My reasoning: If there was a way to logically have a division full of Texas programs, I would've done it - but the Oil™️ division is about as close as you're gonna get. C-USA has always felt like a grab-bag of southern/Texas teams, and I think this collection is reasonable enough.

Independents

My reasoning: Kennesaw State is new, Louisiana-Monroe might be the toughest gig in the country, and UConn and UMass really don't have a true argument to be placed in a conference ahead of any of the other teams.