Well it was rumored to be coming and it is almost now a reality, a major shakeup in the college football conferences. As it looks right now, the Big 12 Conference will soon cease to exist due to Colorado and Nebraska officially applying for memberships to the Pac 10 and Big 10 Conferences, respectively. This is now going to create a domino effect as the Pac 10 reportedly has a plan to raid the Big 12 South division by taking every team except Baylor, (teams taken would be Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State). With those teams being added, to the Pac 10 that would create a 16 team super conference creating a lot of money being brought into the Pac 10 or possibly soon to be known Pac 16. With reports about the Pac 10 expanding, there have been reports about the Big 10 expanding to 16 teams also; teams in that discussion have included Missouri, Rutgers, Notre Dame and Maryland. Mizzou is most likely headed to the Big 10 with Nebraska officially applying today.
Rutgers is sexy to the Big 10 because of the huge New York City TV market. As the New York market would bring in plenty of revenue from TV, merchandise sales, conference tournaments and so on would add to the current revenue already being brought by the Big 10 Network and other sales from the current 11 teams, but the question is can Rutgers compete in the Big 10 for both football and men’s basketball? (The NCAA’s 2 main money making sports) On the gridiron, since going 11-2 in 2006 they have had two 8-5 season and one 9-4 season in the Big East conference, where the level of play is a lot lower than the Big 10. Rutgers has been a non factor for a while in men’s basketball and has not made it to the big dance since 1991. The level of play for Basketball, in the Big 10, is just below the level of play in the Big East. While there would be a lot more money made by joining the Big 10, Rutgers would remain irrelevant in the Big 10 and would have a better chance of succeeding in the Big East for both football and men’s basketball, if the Big East remains intact. Remember it was rumored earlier this year that both the ACC and Big 10 would raid the Big East.
For Notre Dame, it would make sense for the Irish to move to the Big 10 based on geography if more than just the Big 12 dissolves, but get this Notre Dame’s contract with NBC helps them make $21.1 million to the Irish’s academic programs. Everyone knows that the school will not give up that money just to be in a conference. As long as the BCS exists, the Irish won’t join a conference because all they have to do is get 9 wins and they get into a BCS bowl. 9 wins will become even easier if there are 4 super conferences because teams will only have 2 non conference games and at least one of those games will be cup cake team, but right now Norte Dame maybe considered a cup cake to some of the top 10 teams so they may just get those games anyways. Now on to Maryland…..
For the Terrapins, it would be smart for one out of the two major college sports to move to the Big 10. Competition wise Gary Williams and company will be competitive in the Big 10 as the ACC is just a ledge higher than the Big 10 basketball wise. The question is Gary willing to break ties with their ACC rivals? Border wars with UVA and Virginia Tech have become traditional games and of course there’s the Duke rivalry and weather if Duke fans like it or not it’s a rivalry. Anyways, the point is Maryland is just as big of a part of the ACC as all of the North Carolina teams. For football the move would be complete insanity, the Terps would get destroyed by the likes of Ohio St, Penn St and Iowa. The Terps couldn’t even beat Duke, yes in football not basketball, last year and could lose to Navy in the Crab Bowl this year. The one plus for both football and basketball is that Maryland would be able to recruit from the east coast to the mid west giving them one of the largest recruiting bases in the country. Like with Rutgers, Maryland is in the same situation, do the Terps want to trade winning for money? Maryland draws from both Baltimore and DC markets which is why Maryland has been discussed for the Big 10 since the conference would get two markets with one school. Maryland is more of a basketball school than football, but the Terps have won the ACC before in football and they would have no chance at a conference title in football if they move to the Big 10.
For Georgetown, they have to pray that the four 16 team conferences don’t emerge from this realignment or that the Big East emerges as one out of the 4 super conferences. The biggest problem for the Hoyas is that they are I AA or FCS for football, but of course we all know how historic the basketball program is. If the Big East does implode, both Georgetown and Villanova will be looking for a conference that will just take them as basketball schools. Both the Hoyas and Wildcats are basically in a holding pattern right now, because they do not have a I A football team they would not have enough say in the realignment since all of this seems be surrounded by football.
Here’s how I see things shaping up, if the Pac 10 does raid the Big 12 south to create a 16 team conference; other conferences will follow suit because they would not make as much money as the Pac 10 would be making and may lose money if they don’t expand with the Pac 10. So I have taken all of the current 6 major conferences and created 4 super conferences with 2 divisions of 8 teams in each conference. Teams would play everyone it there division once a year and 3 teams from the opposite division leaving room for 2 non conference games, but if this were to happen I could see the NCAA expanding to a 14 game schedule that way there would be 4 non conference games. The biggest plus for 4 super conferences is that opponents of a football playoff system will say that the 4 conference championship games are basically the semi final games for the national championships and since the conferences are so big the regular season games would be like first round and quarter final games. A plus one system can also emerge from this with the conference championships being the default quarterfinal games and the bowl games being the default semi final games.
ACC: Clemson, Georgia Tech, FSU and Miami all leave the ACC to join their rival foes in the SEC. Unfortunately, I do not see the Big East emerging as one of the 4 super conferences due to only 8 teams in the conference for football. The ACC will take WVU, Pitt, Syracuse, UConn, Rutgers and USF from the Big East. For football there would just be 14 teams with 7 teams in each division as the ACC would grab Georgetown and Villanova for basketball only. You may think the ACC would lose money by just having 14 teams for football, but this has basically combined the 2 best conferences year in and year out in college basketball and has created a super power basketball conference. Any money lost from a 14 team football conference would be made up during basketball season. Imagine Duke vs Nova, UNC vs WVU, Syracuse vs Duke, Villanova vs NC State, the battle of DC with Maryland vs Georgetown, Georgetown vs Duke who have already had some good games between each other in the past few years so imagine what that game would be like every year. With match ups like these every night, money would be easily gained as there would be no doubt that this would become the best basketball conference in the country. In fact, there are 17 men’s basketball national championships between the teams in this super conference, most likely the most in any of the 4 conferences for basketball. Here’s how it would look for football.
South: Duke, North Carolina, NC State, USF, UVA, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest
North: Boston College, Maryland, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn and West Virginia
SEC: The SEC would grab Clemson, Georgia Tech, FSU and Miami from the ACC. This move could draw protest from South Carolina, Georgia and Florida as those 3 schools are the only SEC schools in their respective states and draw a recruiting advantage from that. Obviously with 2 SEC schools in South Carolina and Georgia and 3 schools in Florida, SC, UGA and Florida could lose some recruits to their rival schools. On the other hand, now that rivalry games would be conference games; they would mean even more to the winner as the victors would not only have state bragging rights but a spot in the SEC championship game could be on the line when the rival teams meet up. Even with recruiting there would be a rivalry as coaches will most likely go after the same players for their teams and add story lines about how this kid said no to FSU but yes to Florida to add fuel to the rivalries. Here’s how the toughest football conference in America would shape up.
East: Clemson, Florida, FSU, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Miami and South Carolina
West: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Vanderbilt
I know a lot of you are saying shouldn’t UK and Tenn be in the same division? Let’s be honest here, Kentucky hasn’t beaten Tennessee in 25 years, yes there have been close games, but I couldn’t find any other way to form the divisions. I could’ve had all the Florida teams in the west and put UK, Tenn and Vandy in the east, but the west would be stacked with Florida, FSU, Miami, LSU and Alabama all in the same division. It may not make a lot of sense for Tennessee and Vanderbilt to be in the west, but they are closer to the other west teams than Kentucky Schedule makers will just have to put UK vs Tenn every year on the schedule as an opposite division game.
Big 10: The Big 10 may have to change its name to the Big 16; then again they didn’t change it to the Big 11 when Penn State joined. The Big 10 has already grabbed Nebraska officially and Mizzou will be most likely be soon to follow. The Big 10 will then get what is left over from the Big East by getting Louisville and Cincinnati. The last team that I can see joining is either Notre Dame or Iowa State since Notre Dame is stubborn and won’t join anyone’s conference the Big 10 will take Iowa State since Iowa is already in the Big 10, making that in state rivalry a conference game. Here’s how I see it.
East: Cincinnati, Indiana, Louisville, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Purdue
West: Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, Mizzou, Nebraska, Northwestern and Wisconsin
Pac 10: For the Pac 10 simple, they get what they originally planned by taking Colorado, Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma state. Here’s what the divisions look like.
Coastal: California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington and Washington State
West: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech
The New Big 8: Here’s the answer for everyone saying, “What about Baylor, Kansas and Kansas State?” In this scenario the Big 8 makes a return with 2 out of the original 8 teams in Kansas and Kansas State, also joining the Kansas schools would be Baylor, Boise State, BYU, TCU, Utah and UNLV. Football-wise this would be a competitive conference and this conference would also receive an automatic BCS bid since the only mid-major schools to make it to a BCS bowl are in the conference and there are 3 former BCS conference schools in Baylor, Kansas and Kansas State. Basketball maybe a different story as I see Kansas dominating for a long time until the other schools start getting better recruits which will happen from it being known as the 5th BCS or major conference. The rest of the teams from the Mountain West and WAC will form a 14 team conference. Yes, I know a little much for a mid-major conference, but the MAC has 13 and this will give a chance for the Mountain West and WAC teams to win a conference crown instead of getting beat up by Boise, BYU, TCU and Utah all the time.
Here’s where the rest of the Big East schools not picked by the super conferences would go. St. John’s, Providence and Seton Hall would join either the A 10 or CAA. De Paul will most likely go the MAC brining that conference to 14 teams. It will be sad to see all of the basketball history in the Big East go. Yes Providence, St. John’s and Seton Hall were part of the original Big East but none of those schools have division I A football and that would be a turn off to any super conference if that was to form. Georgetown and Villanova have a bigger profile and more money than Providence, St. John’s and Seton Hall, that’s why I see Georgetown and Villanova surviving the formation of super conferences. It’s a shame that all the NCAA cares about these days is making as much money as possible, the NCAA doesn’t care about many traditions that could be in jeopardy with the formation of super conferences and that is not right at all.
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