It seemed that when the Big XII was breaking up in the early 2010’s with the loss of Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado and Texas AM, that the is conference would be finished. The conference added Texas Christian and then somewhat oddly West Virginia, a school about eight hundred miles from its nearest new conference neighbor. The conference for about a decade lasted with ten teams even though it was the Big XII.

But it is not the XII who has collapsed, it is the PAC 12. Why? I will say as someone from the central part of America, that conference on football just held little interest. College football is Southern and Midwestern game.

Now perhaps the ACC might be teetering and schools like Florida State and Clemson might want to leave for the SEC. Seems the ACC is on a much better footing than the PAC-12 but I don’t know and the ACC does have some strong football teams. But really all the conferences have two or three strong teams and everyone else are also rans.

The Big 10 (BIG) now to me lives up to its name. It’s now too big, as alluded above. I was shocked somewhat when USC and UCLA decided to make a jump to that conference. The BIG truly wants a nationwide reach.

I think what is lost here is that these are not professional athletes, these are college students. How in the hell can one be a student athlete and then be shuffled two or three time zones to play a game and then study, and go to class? I think this is what is lost in all of this, many say it is greed and it is, but there is a much more way to equitably spread out the greed.

The thing for me is that now there are going to be conference members two and even three time zones away. As it stands now the longest distance for the BIG is going to be from Los Angeles to Rutgers New Jersey. The XII is going to be from Arizona all the way to West Virginia and Florida. West Virginia except for a short hop to Cincinnati is going be travelling a bare minimum of 800 miles to its nearest competitor (Iowa State) or Orlando Florida (Central Florida).

Not all sports are football. There is basketball, but what about the other sports which make little to no revenue? The ladies softball team? The golf team? Even college baseball. Seems insane to do all that traveling.

What I would like to see is for conferences broadly geographical of about twenty to twenty four teams, in six team brackets. All conferences are operated by one entity and everyone shares in the revenue with maybe some exceptions, like ticket sales and merchandising. No hopping from conference to conference.

College football fans, chime in!

There was an outstanding article in The Washington Post "College Football Doesn't Need Realignment. It Needs To Start Over" by Kevin Blackistone, to me it's the blueprint forward.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/08/13/college-football-league-realignment/rward.

PAC 12 gonna die.

Big Ten gonna be Big Fifty.

PAC 12 gonna die.


Going fast….

Pac-12 Has Two Schools Remaining After ACC Officially Expands (https://kslsports.com/504291/acc-expansion-stanford-cal-smu-pac-12-remaining/)

On the bright side, scheduling the conference games will be super quick and easy.

There's been speculation that some ACC Olympic sports contests could be held in Dallas as a travel compromise, for example Cal vs. Miami. The only problem with that plan is that potential "host school" SMU does not participate in all Olympic sports, so in some cases facilities would be a serious issue.

Some claim the additions of Cal/Stanford/SMU will ultimately destroy the ACC, but with Florida State previously having announced they want "out," I don't see the move as causing the problem of unhappy schools that wanted out. They're leaving no matter what.

Where does Florida State want to go?

The BIG already has too many schools/teams. It is literally coast to coast. What is the endgame? How many schools is enough?

I have read that the SEC isn’t so hot about acquiring Florida State as it already has Florida and Florida State just doesn’t bring that much to the conference, as say the Texas teams and Oklahoma would. Or really Clemson since the SEC already has South Carolina.

Maybe Florida State is overvaluing their worth.

The ACC getting California, Stanford and SMU seems ridiculous to me. It is going to suck for the California teams to have to travel three time zones to play, and it’s all sports and not football. Imagine flying from San Francisco to Bloomington Indiana for a Tuesday night women’s basketball game. And do this about ten times a year. I think what is lost in all of this is that the athletes are students. I went to college and most professors are not forgiving, and many classes are on huge classrooms with a hundred students and you are just a number. College classes are not easy.

Really kids who have real talent and a chance to go to the NFL should give the XFL or USFL a try. Or for a basketball player, to play in Europe or the NBA D League. At least get paid to travel and not have to go to school.

I would like there to be four geographic conferences of 24 teams each in six team brackets and get a dovision and a conference champion and then go to a Final Four with the winners of the four conferences, with each conference ran by one governing body.

The people who follow this stuff closely believe the B1G (Big Ten) will add Florida State and North Carolina eventually. It's less clear where Clemson or Miami would go.

Originally when it became known that SMU wanted to join the ACC, they offered to forego revenue for the next 5 to 7 years. Now it's being reported that's been updated to 9 or 10...! They desperately wanted to get in with the "big boys."

In other news, Army will be joining the American, where Navy has been a member for several years.

Amid all of this, the landing spots for Washington State and Oregon State remain undecided/unresolved. All we do know is that when it comes to CFB conferences, it seems clear that regionality "belongs to yesterday."