PITTSBURGH — The world of college athletics was rocked with news that UCLA and USC were leaving the Pac-12 to go to the Big Ten. There was shock and horror and anger and ...
OK, that’s being a bit dramatic, but that has been the tone of the coverage and discussion about the latest round of conference realignment, and I am not really sure why. It isn’t like we haven’t seen this before. It isn’t like we won’t see this again. And again. And again in our lifetimes.
The only thing that is constant about college athletics is change. The only thing that remains the same is the endless quest by college administrators to use their athletic programs to try to line their pockets with as much money as possible.
They are all in a constant search for the next golden goose laying golden eggs and have very little regard for any long-term implications of their decisions. Then again, why should they? As we have learned over the course of the past three decades, if they don’t like their lot in the world of college athletics, they can move.
The doom and gloom stuff, though, take that somewhere else because it is silly. There are Pitt and West Virginia fans legitimately worried their programs are going to be left out in the cold somewhere when all the dust settles, but I can’t quite figure out why.
OK, let’s say the Big Ten and SEC go out and create these megaconferences that dominate the landscape. They still need teams to play, and the other conferences still need to fill themselves with teams.
There are going to be enough good teams left over in all this to form — or rebuild — one or two other conferences. The ACC or Big 12 or Pac-12 may not look like they do today, but they will have enough good teams to still play major college football.
Think about the last round of conference alignment, which really began in about 2002 when the ACC poached the Big East for Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech. The Big East survived for a few years while the dominoes began to fall and the SEC and Big Ten expanded. In the end, though, every team in the Big East survived and the major programs like Pitt, Louisville, West Virginia and Syracuse all found good homes in major conferences.
Cincinnati actually thrived in the American, so much so that they got to the playoff last year and got invited to join the Big 12, The same can be said about a handful of other programs that ended up in a Group of Five conference. The world of athletics changed; the power shifted even more to the Big Ten and SEC, yet everyone else survived and found good homes.
About the only team that lost in the last realignment was Connecticut, whose program is on FBS life support. That isn’t a surprise, though, because that program is relatively young as an FBS team and didn’t have a great financial structure. And that’s the one team everyone holds out there as an example of what getting left behind looks like.
But that’s one program and not a very good one at that, one that doesn’t really matter much to a major conference in football. The other thing is UConn made it clear what their commitment to football is when they decided to go independent so they could rejoin the Big East and emphasize their basketball programs.
Pitt, West Virginia and Louisville are not UConn though, and neither is Washington State, Kansas State, Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina and a handful of other teams that may not get the invite to the SEC or Big Ten. They are all programs with large fan bases, tradition, history, name branding and everything else that make them attractive to a major conference.
OK, so they don’t get to the Big Ten. What if the ACC sheds Clemson and, say, Florida State but aligns itself with the remaining 10 teams of the Pac-12 to create a major conference themselves? You mean to tell me that conference wouldn’t put teams in the playoff? That conference wouldn’t be able to negotiate a big enough TV deal that the members can still hire great coaches, have great facilities and recruit great players?
And we haven’t even gotten to basketball, which, yes, football drives the bus, but do you really believe the teams in the Big Ten and SEC want to destroy the NCAA Tournament? And if they scoop up 6 to 8 more teams and break away from the NCAA or try to shut everyone else out of the football playoff, that’s exactly what they will do.
I do believe the ACC was short-sighted, arrogant and downright dumb to veto the 12-team playoff, as that is what has all of this stuff in motion. It is going to happen, and the ACC would likely be in a better position to survive all of this had they embraced the reality of where college football is headed.
All of that aside, I am here to tell you to settle down. Stop with all the over-the-top doomsday scenarios. Stop letting your worst fears ruin your ability to think critically. I can’t answer the question of what it will all look like when the dust settles. I can’t tell you where Pitt and West Virginia will ultimately land, if either even ever has to move.
What I can tell you is both are positioned to land somewhere in a good spot, and they will be able to continue to have major college football programs and play games on the biggest stage. It will all work out, and the reason I say this is because history repeats itself and we have plenty of history to dissect when it comes to conference realignment.
It will work out — well, at least for a few years until the unadulterated greed that currently grips these college presidents forces the next round of realignment ...
