A few thoughts on college realignment … Needless to say, the ongoing college football conference realignment hardly ended with last week’s virtual decapitation of the Pac-12 when literally within hours Oregon and Washington jumped to the Big Ten, while Colorado, Arizona and Arizona joined the Big XII leaving the Pac-12 with just four teams. And attention could very well shift to the ACC where Florida State is making noises about wanting out, presumably to join the SEC. It also wouldn’t be a total shock if Clemson and Miami were also thinking they might be better off in the SEC. At the same time, the ACC has reportedly talked with Stanford and California, two of the 4 remaining Pac-12 teams; the ACC has also reportedly had some conversations with SMU. Then there’s the elephant in the room, also known as Notre Dame. The Irish already have a working arrangement with the ACC that the conference would like to make permanent. However, the Big Ten would also like to add the Irish in a relationship that appears to make more sense geographically, although truth be told almost nothing about the current realignment frenzy makes much sense geographically, or any other way for that matter. I mean if the ACC does add Stanford and Cal, for example, would they have to call it the A&PCC. The travel, in particular, is nigh onto nonsensical. It probably won’t be that bad for the football teams which only play4-5 road conference games anyway, but does this also mean, for example, that the USC and UCLA women’s basketball and volleyball teams will literally have to travel to road games east of the Mississippi, at least, as often as a couple of times a month.
And where it all leads is anybody’s guess. There’s certainly been commentary that once the dust finally settles there will be just 2-3 super conferences with 20 teams each. In that contest, one has to wonder, though, are there really enough good teams out there to stock that many so-called super conferences because as we noted yesterday, the talent is already highly concentrated. Indeed, of the 40 players on the current GBN Big Board for 2024, 36 play for just 15 teams. That means the remaining other 50 or so teams in the Power 5 conferences account for just 4 top 40 prospects at this time.
