For college sports junkies: a proposal for conference realignment

[GeorgiaModerate]

This is something that’s been muddling around in my head.

The Power 5 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC) are the dominant conferences in college athletics, especially in football which drives everything else.  The ACC, Big Ten, and SEC each have 14 members (15 for basketball in the ACC’s case with Notre Dame).  But the Pac-12 has 12 members, while the Big 12 has only 10.

14 members seems to be the maximum workable size; 16 would be too many.  So it seems like eventually the Big 12 and Pac-12 are going to want to get to 14 too.  What's the best way to accomplish this?

Notre Dame is obviously the top candidate –- if they want to do it, which is a big if.  They might well prefer to remain independent in football and continue their basketball association with the ACC.  After the Irish, the following look like the best candidates (good, or at least decent, in both football and basketball, with strong fan bases and solid financial backing from the schools):

Boise State (MWC)
BYU (independent football, WCC basketball)
Cincinnati (AAC)
Houston (AAC)
Memphis (AAC)
UCF (AAC)

So here’s what I’d do…

1. Putting Boise State and BYU in the Pac-12 is an obvious move, which completes the Pac-12 at 14.

2. Houston to the Big 12 is another no-brainer, bringing them to 11.

3. Move Nebraska back to the Big 12, and replace them in the Big Ten with Notre Dame.  If Notre Dame wants to stay independent, put Cincinnati in the Big Ten instead.  Alternative: put Cincinnati in the Big 12 (they’re a natural travel partner for West Virginia) and leave Nebraska in the Big Ten.  The Big 12 now has 12 members.

4. Move Texas A&M back to the Big 12, and replace them in the SEC with UCF.  Alternative: put UCF in the ACC instead, and move Miami or Florida State to the SEC.  The Big 12 is now at 13.

5. For the last Big 12 team: either add Memphis, or move Arkansas back to the Big 12 and replace them in the SEC with Memphis.

Thoughts?

[Del Tachi]

Eh, Conferences won't exist in 20 years anyway

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

14 is a miserable conference size. I still dream of 18 (de facto 9 team divisions - the conference title being little more than a play-in game until a new paradigm develops), but I know this is just as unlikely until the ACC makeshift pasting of teams becomes untenable. Unfortunately, the Pac-12 is in much more dire shape. I don't think any obvious moves are on the horizon. Ten is a wonderful size for basketball, so the Big XII has no reason to make a move and dilute the payout.

Addressing your actual proposal, Boise will NEVER get a Pac-12 invite ahead of San Diego State, and I have a hard time seeing BYU admitted no matter how talented they may be (heartbreaking indeed).

UCF is a nice story and has fans, but no power conference is going to damage their brand by inviting a useless directional school, least of all the SEC. The ACC would sooner take UConn. They are not a cultural fit in either conference. The Big XII is the closest fit, but they have about six better options at least.

I think the biggest expansion candidate that you missed out on is SMU. The re-brand as 'Dallas' has been an enormous success, and I think athletic success is closer than it is for Houston.

I think you are right that Memphis and Cincinnati are destined to be power conference teams (almost assuredly the Big 12), but the timeline is very uncertain right now.

[YE]

Unpopular opinion: Conferences are too big as is Big 12 notwithstanding.

[Santander]

Kicking the Huskers out of the Big Ten is literally all I care about. Standards need to be maintained, and they're not even good at football.

[Illiniwek]

Schools like BYU, Boise State, Cincinnati, UCF and Houston just don't belong in the Power 5 Conferences. They've had nice runs and can rise to the top of the Go5 conferences, but would just be dominated by the big state schools year after year.

[RINO Tom]

Unpopular opinion: Conferences are too big as is Big 12 notwithstanding.

This is only unpopular among conference commissioners who are simply seeing $$$.  Big Ten fans had barely grown used to Penn State, and I would much rather be playing traditional rivals twice per year in basketball and once each per year in football than watch Illinois play Rutgers or Maryland.  Again, that is from a selfish fan perspective, not a monetary one.  (The Big Ten's expansion does seem to have been a financial success, based on significant increases in revenue.)

[Illiniwek]

Unpopular opinion: Conferences are too big as is Big 12 notwithstanding.

This is only unpopular among conference commissioners who are simply seeing $$$.  Big Ten fans had barely grown used to Penn State, and I would much rather be playing traditional rivals twice per year in basketball and once each per year in football than watch Illinois play Rutgers or Maryland.  Again, that is from a selfish fan perspective, not a monetary one.  (The Big Ten's expansion does seem to have been a financial success, based on significant increases in revenue.)

Maryland and Rutgers are doing a decent job rising to the B1G's level of play by being competitive in basketball, and Rutgers will soon get better in football now that Schiano is back. That being said its still BRUTAL watching my school play these two teams on a regular basis. I think Penn State and Nebraska were excellent additions and proof that expansion can work. I also refuse to believe these schools make a difference with the tv viewership. No one in NYC is watching Rutgers sports, and the same with Maryland in DC. There are plenty of B1G alumni in those two cities that would support the BTN.

If Notre Dame really wouldn't join the B1G, then I really, really wish the B1G would have expanded with schools like Missouri and Iowa State. That doesn't do much for the "footprint", but that would have added significant quality to the conference. If the quality and prestige is there, the viewers will come.

[Santander]

Unpopular opinion: Conferences are too big as is Big 12 notwithstanding.

This is only unpopular among conference commissioners who are simply seeing $$$.  Big Ten fans had barely grown used to Penn State, and I would much rather be playing traditional rivals twice per year in basketball and once each per year in football than watch Illinois play Rutgers or Maryland.  Again, that is from a selfish fan perspective, not a monetary one.  (The Big Ten's expansion does seem to have been a financial success, based on significant increases in revenue.)

Maryland and Rutgers are doing a decent job rising to the B1G's level of play by being competitive in basketball, and Rutgers will soon get better in football now that Schiano is back. That being said its still BRUTAL watching my school play these two teams on a regular basis. I think Penn State and Nebraska were excellent additions and proof that expansion can work. I also refuse to believe these schools make a difference with the tv viewership. No one in NYC is watching Rutgers sports, and the same with Maryland in DC. There are plenty of B1G alumni in those two cities that would support the BTN.

If Notre Dame really wouldn't join the B1G, then I really, really wish the B1G would have expanded with schools like Missouri and Iowa State. That doesn't do much for the "footprint", but that would have added significant quality to the conference. If the quality and prestige is there, the viewers will come.

New Brunswick and College Park are in the NYC and DC TV markets, so BTN gets a bigger slice of the revenue from all cable subscriptions in those markets, whether people watch Maryland or Rutgers or not. It was a genius move from a business perspective.

E Gordon Gee, former Ohio State President, in that infamous speech where he denigrated Notre Dame and the SEC, said that Iowa State, Mizzou, Kansas, and Pitt were all targets for the Big Ten, but Iowa and Penn State rule out sharing their home states, and Kansas politics make it very difficult to pry KU from K-State. Mizzou has SEC $$$ now, so there's no reason for them to make the switch anymore. Notre Dame is still definitely the #1 target, though.

[dead0man]

Missouri turned down B1G offers on a couple of occasions because they wanted in the SEC.  Geographically Mizzou makes more sense in the Big 10, but their play style tends to be more SEC like.  I do agree that Iowa State would be a good fit in the Big 10.

AFAICT, the Huskers like being in the Big 10 and the Big 10 likes having the Huskers.

[RINO Tom]

Citation needed that Missouri denied the Big Ten's overtures, as there were often rumors of the opposite happening back in 2010 or whenever that all was going down.  Iowa State would be an absolutely worthless add to the Big Ten.  Missouri might have been an okay addition, but their academics weren't good enough alone to get them invited, their revenues are simply okay and they would actually only deliver the Kansas City market; BTN is already included in the St. Louis market thanks to the Illini.

[Donerail]

Well folks, you heard it here first: it's time for the UofC to activate the clause hidden deep within the withdrawal agreement, kick out Michigan State, and rejoin the Big Ten.

Schools like BYU, Boise State, Cincinnati, UCF and Houston just don't belong in the Power 5 Conferences. They've had nice runs and can rise to the top of the Go5 conferences, but would just be dominated by the big state schools year after year.

Schools like UCF and Houston would be fine. They're well-defined brands operating in regions that are overflowing with football talent. Give them the resources that come with major conference membership, and they would absolutely hold their own. The Pitt game this year notwithstanding, do you think a UCF in the ACC Coastal would end up getting pushed around by UVA and Georgia Tech?

[DINGO Joe]

Schools like BYU, Boise State, Cincinnati, UCF and Houston just don't belong in the Power 5 Conferences. They've had nice runs and can rise to the top of the Go5 conferences, but would just be dominated by the big state schools year after year.

Well, TCU, Baylor, Vandy and Northwestern don't really belong either but they're there anyway.

Of course as you may have noticed by the two hour halftime in the Championship Game it's all about money now, so symmetry or regional balance/rivalry don't matter much anymore, unless you can monetize it.

[Santander]

Well, TCU, Baylor, Vandy and Northwestern don't really belong either but they're there anyway.

Vandy, Baylor, and Northwestern have been there forever though, long before TV money was a factor, plus they have deep affiliations, and in some cases, institutional like-mindedness, with their counterparts. The college administrators who make these decisions value institutional relationships first, and care about sports mostly from a financial perspective. Even TCU isn't that out of place in the much-changed Big 12, although they should perhaps consider themselves lucky to have beaten Houston and SMU to the punch and got in during the realignment turmoil.

BYU and Boise State are really different, and it's hard to see them being accepted anywhere. Colorado State is probably the best candidate from that region to find a P5 home. If they eclipse Boise, I could see them joining the Big 12.

[DINGO Joe]

Amusingly, Idaho is actually a larger state now than West Virginia though WVU still has an older broader alumni base.

[7,052,770]

As stated, Boise State's academics make them a total non-starter for the Pac-12. I read an article talking about a proposal to merge Boise State into the University of Idaho and maybe that combined university could be a Pac-12 candidate, but the time to do that was probably a decade ago.

BYU is an even longer shot, as BYU is particularly conservative for a religious university, particularly anti-LGBT for a conservative religious university, and has an archaeology department that believes the Book of Mormon is literally true and goes looking for Jewish ruins in the New World. It's just not the type of institution that the other Pac-12 universities want in their conference, right or wrong. The refusal to play games on Sundays also creates scheduling headaches.

Realistically, there are 3 scenarios under which the Pac-12 expand:

• Adding Texas and Oklahoma, along with whatever other schools are necessary to make that happen. Like Oklahoma State might be necessary for the state of Oklahoma to sign off on this, who knows what the Texas politics will require. This came close to happening a decade ago, but the Pac-12 decided not to just add the Oklahoma schools when Texas backed out.
• Add some Mountain West schools that aren't academic impossibilities. New Mexico, UNLV, Nevada, and Hawaii would be the plausible choices, but none of those currently have a commitment to athletics or football. Hawaii is an inconvenient geographic fit, but if the Pac-12 is serious about marketing in Asia, it might make sense. The other 3 are pretty blah candidates overall, but have some theoretical potential in the long run.
• Add some UC schools that are great academic fits. UC Davis and UCSD get the Pac-12 playing in 2 more large metro areas, and they have large rich alumni bases. But Davis currently plays FCS football and UCSD is a D2 school just now upgrading to D1 and has no football at all, so it would be a huge step up.

None of the above are very plausible right now, which is why the Pac-12 hasn't expanded yet. But if it does expand some time down the road, I think it's very likely to be one of the above 3.

[Orser67]

I'm not as into college football as I am with a few other sports, but I always find realignment talk fascinating. My dream is four mostly geographical-based conferences of 16 teams each, with a promotion and relegation system. Most of these divisions are based on old conferences, with some various adjustments.

Northern Conference
East (90s Big East): Boston College, Syracuse, Rutgers, Penn State, Notre Dame, Pitt, West Virginia, Virginia Tech
West (old Big Ten): Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota

Southern Conference
East (old ACC): Virginia, North Carolina, NC State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Maryland
West (part of old SEC): Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisville, Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama

Central Conference
North (old Big Eight): Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Iowa St., Kansas St., Iowa
South (Texas+rest of old SEC): Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, TCU, Ole Miss, Miss St., LSU, Arkansas

Western Conference
North: Oregon, Oregon St., Washington, Washington St., UC Berkeley, Stanford, Boise St., UNLV
South: Utah, Arizona, Arizona St., Colorado, USC, UCLA, New Mexico, BYU

Biggest losers would be five private schools losing power conference status: Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Baylor, Wake Forest, and Duke. Also Iowa for getting moved away from its traditional rivals. The way that the SEC is split is also not ideal. Biggest winners would be BYU and the states of Idaho, Nevada, and New Mexico.