In college football 22 teams in a conference is a crowd; 32 teams bundled together could be utter chaos.

But this is how Fresno State and 31 other teams feel after the recent rumors that surfaced over the weekend. The Boston Globe reported that the Big East Conference has a plan to combine with two non-automatic-qualifying conferences in the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA to help it maintain its AQ status and provide the luxury to the formers.

The Big East just recently lost Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast Conference and is looking for ways to save its AQ status if it wants to continue to have the opportunity to award its conference champion a shot at a Bowl Championship Series game at season’s end.

The plan for the 32-team mega conference would include four divisions: the Big East Division, the Central Division, the Mountain Division and the West Division.

The Big East Division would consist of Louisville, Connecticut, Rutgers, Cincinnati, South Florida, Central Florida, East Carolina and Navy. The Central Division would consist of Marshall, Memphis, Southern Mississippi, Alabama-Birmingham, Tulane, Rice, Temple and Louisiana Tech.

The Mountain Division would include Air Force, Wyoming, Colorado State, New Mexico, UTEP, SMU, Tulsa and Houston. The West Division would include Boise State, Utah State, San Jose State, Fresno State, UNLV, Nevada, San Diego State and Hawaii.

The plan emerged just a couple weeks after the Mountain West and Conference USA announced they were going to merge into a football-only 22-team conference with there being two eleven-team divisions. The top teams in each division would have an opportunity to play in the mega conference’s championship game with the winner possibly getting an opportunity to play in a BCS bowl game.

With all this talk surrounding conference realignment, this is the perfect situation for Fresno State, because for the first time since the implementation of the ever-controversial BCS, it is included in the conversation. Since the conference realignment talk heated back up, the ‘Dogs have been involved because they are going to the Mountain West next season.

In the 22-team Mountain USA, or whatever they wish to call it, format, Fresno State will still play against the schools that will be in the Mountain West next season. If it runs the table then it would get an opportunity to play in the title game against the best team from Conference USA.

The pending realignment would make Fresno State’s 14-year head coach’s dream of playing on the BCS national stage a reality, something the ‘Dogs have only sniffed in years past.

In this new gargantuan conference, Fresno State would still be playing some teams that it is familiar with in the current Western Athletic Conference foes in Utah State, Hawaii, San Jose State and Nevada. Also, former WAC teams Boise State, San Diego State and UNLV would be reoccurring opponents, helping the ‘Dogs continue to establish rivalries in the new division.

With these ideas in place for the teams that are going to be in the Mountain West in 2012, the real question is which plan would benefit Fresno State the most?

The answer is tough to pinpoint, but an obvious choice is the mega conference because of potential rewards by season’s end. But the risk-reward lays in how Fresno State feels competing with 31 other schools for one prize.

Hill has scheduled some of the top teams in the country every year to achieve the prize of BCS consideration at the end of each season. But the challenge as proved to be too mighty in many cases.

Also, the ‘Dogs would be able to add more money to their athletic budget with the amount of revenue sharing that would take place in a 32-team conference. The added money would benefit Fresno State in recruiting and facilities, just to mention a few.

The opportunity to play in a BCS bowl game and gain money to the athletic budget should have Fresno State chomping at the bit for the three conferences to decide what the final verdict will be.

So by this time next season, the college football landscape at Fresno State and across the country could be drastically different — even more so than current realignments.