I'm not a college football fan. And all this nonsense with schools shifting conferences in pursuit of the almighty dollar everything else be damned isn't bringing me any closer to the Dark Side. In fact, I'm more turned off by the BCS now than I ever have been before, and I didn't even think that would ever be possible.
I'm a Big East baby. Always have been. Always will be. That's why it breaks my heart that Syracuse, one of the first schools you think of when you think "Big East," has decided to pack up and move to the ACC. All because of the "instability" of the current situation in college sports. You mean the instability that you're helping to create? Yeah. Just checking. Just do us all a favor and say what your real motivation is. Money.
Texas A&M's penis envy might've started the ball rolling, but all these hypocritical school presidents and conference commissioners need to stop kidding themselves and stop trying to get us all to believe that they're thinking about anything other than how much money their football team can make, things like rivalries and student-athletes actually being able to go to class be damned. Who cares about the rest of the teams. They don't make the school any money! Besides, going to class is for suckers. And who wants to play schools that are actually close to yours when you can get on a plane to Winston-Salem, North Carolina for that exciting Syracuse-Wake Forest football game!
In the past two years, we've seen all six of the BCS conferences, which include some of the greatest institutions of higher learning in the country, get very creative in the areas of math and geography. Hopefully they don't offer graduate degrees in these fields. The geography majors among us now know that Texas is now part of both the Southeast and East, Colorado is by the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Coast now extends into both Central New York and Western Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the Big Ten has 12 schools and the Big 12 has nine. Have you got all that?
For a while, it looked like a massive strain of defections was going to lead to the long feared "superconferences." There was even talk of a Big 12-Big East merger. But fortunately, Texas is as greedy as everybody else and didn't want to share any of the money it's going to make on the new Longhorn Network. The only way that was going to happen was if the Big 12 stayed in tact. It's in Texas' best interest to remain in the Big 12. They know that. As a result, the Big 12 isn't going anywhere. Not if Texas can help it. Likewise, the Big East is the only conference that's going to give Notre Dame what it wants (football independence, but conference membership in everything else). The Irish would prefer to both stay in the Big East and have their NBC football contract.
So, it looks like the waters have cooled and the defections will only end up being minor ones. The SEC still needs to find a school that's actually in the Southeast to join the conference with Texas A&M. UConn wants to go to the ACC, and would probably bring Rutgers with it to give that league 16. And the Big 12 is looking for at least one new member (likely BYU, which should be in a BCS conference anyway), but would probably take three so that there are actually 12 schools in the conference that has 12 in its name.
Meanwhile, the Big East is left scrambling. Assuming UConn and Rutgers do go to the ACC, that leaves five football-playing members of the Big East (none of which is a founding member of the conference): West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida and TCU. Villanova's always had one of the best football teams at the FCS level, and they've indicated they want to move up to BCS. That would obviously help the Big East out significantly. But that still leaves at least two that are needed. East Carolina has already applied for membership, so that's one down, but East Carolina's no Syracuse or Pitt.
What I think all these schools who are conspiring to create these superconferences are going to realize, though, is that bigger isn't necessarily better. First off, I'm not really sure from a business perspective why these schools would rather split money 16 (or 14) ways instead of 12 ways, but that's a separate issue altogether.
My real point is this: the 16-team Big East works because they don't all play football. In basketball, you can have 15 conference opponents and still play everybody. The "superconferences" want to have 16-team football leagues. That means conferences would likely be split into two eight-team divisions and you'd play maybe two of the teams in the other division each season. In other words, a student-athlete could play four years and graduate having never played a home game against one of their school's conference "rivals." Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of conferences?
And I guarantee that there's going to be schools that will be in these super-sized conferences, but won't really be thrilled about it. For argument's sake, let's say the ACC does add UConn and Rutgers, going to 16. That creates an easy North-South split, with the six Big East teams (UConn, Rutgers, Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt and Virginia Tech) in the North division with Virginia and Maryland. So, you're telling Maryland that instead of playing traditional rivals Duke and North Carolina, they're now going to play Rutgers and Pitt, as if that's somehow the same. Maryland fans hate Duke and North Carolina. They don't have an opinion one way or the other about Pitt and Syracuse.
Whether they meant it or not, Texas used that argument as a reason for staying in the Big 12. They actually want to play their traditional rivals. What a concept! They want to be able to walk into a recruit's home and tell their parents that the games will actually be close enough to home to attend them all in person. Money talks. But it's nice to know that loyalty still means something. So does integrity.
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