It could be 16 teams with four divisions. You play each team in your division plus 2 from each of the other divisions. That's 9 games allowing for 3 OOC games every year.
Northern Division:
Notre Dame
Michigan
Ohio State
Penn State
Southern Division:
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Miami
Florida State
Central Division:
Texas
Oklahoma
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Western Division:
USC
Stanford
Washington
Colorado
Maybe too late to grab Texas and Oklahoma but, you could substitute A&M and Oklahoma State. With this alignment you could keep the travel reasonable. You would only have to travel to 3 games "out of your region". The conference would blanket the country and have a heavy presence in all of the recruiting hotbeds. Hell, why not steal LSU from the SEC to replace Oklahoma State?