Major college football is getting all topsy turvy

College football is scheduled to resume on Saturday, Aug. 28, and everyone is talking about a “realignment of the conferences” that is sure to come. 

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) will top off with 16 members by 2025, when Oklahoma and Texas join the league. 

The departure of the Sooners and Longhorns from the Big 12 Conference, will leave that league with just eight members – Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Christian, Texas Tech and West Virginia. 

The big question is whether the Big 12 can recruit worthy replacements of equal stature and survive. Oddsmakers believe the Big 12 is likely to unravel...unless the Pacific-12 Conference takes pity and agrees to “merge” and take the Big 12 in under its wing

 

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), however, is likely to try to pick off West Virginia. The Mountaineers never were a good geographic fit in the Big 12 in the first place. 

WVU is new territory for the ACC, and it would plug a nice hole in the map between Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh. 

The Big Ten Conference (with 14 current members) is poised to expand by taking in Kansas and Iowa State to get to 16 teams. 

The Big Ten logo already looks like a stylized "16."

Both Kansas and Iowa State are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), which is an organization of leading research universities. 

Only 64 U.S. universities make the grade to carry the AAU label, which is a standard of excellence that is important to the Big Ten. All of its members have AAU status except Nebraska, which had the classification when it was admitted to the Big Ten in 2011. 

Realignment is all about football, the big-money sport, but the Big Ten’s basketball TV ratings would surely benefit from having the Kansas Jayhawks on the schedule. 

Neither West Virginia nor Notre Dame appeals to the Big Ten, because these institutions are not on the AAU roster. Moving on: 

The PAC-12 sees some value in extending its territory to include members from the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. If the conference becomes an 18-team league, that leaves one opening. The best option would be to snatch Houston from the American Athletic Conference (AAC).

 

That would make the AAC vulnerable to lose more members, especially if the ACC opts to follow suit and moves to an 18-team league (plus Notre Dame playing a few ACC teams each year). 

The ACC would see value in adding three current AAC members. 

The first target should be Cincinnati (46,800 students), a natural rival of Louisville, filling another gap in the ACC map – Ohio. 

The next pick should be Central Florida (71,950 students), located in Orlando. All teams would surely want to travel there. 

With its final selection in the ACC expansion draft, the league selects South Florida (50,000 students), located in Tampa, another popular destination within the Sunshine State. 

The ACC needs to latch its back door, however, to block Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina State from slipping out to hook up with the SEC. 

Many believe the SEC will try to add some teams that are actually located in the Southeast. An obvious SEC goal is to penetrate North Carolina and Virginia. 

East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., are on the SEC radar.

 

A challenge that needs to be addressed is how to schedule games in large conferences. We’ll go there next time.