With all the talk about the Big Ten becoming the Big 14, the SEC stealing some ACC schools just after the big ACC merger a few years ago along with the whispers of realignment of the Pac 10 which could become the Pac 12 I start to wonder just WTF is going on?
Earlier this week it was rumored the Big Ten had offered membership to four schools: Notre Dame, Nebraska, Missouri and Rutgers. The ACC is looking anxiously at the Big Ten expansion because it could set off a chain of events that one day affects the ACC with regards to Bowl games and the money those games generate for the ACC. Already losing the Gator Bowl this year the ACC is scheduled to have three New Years Eve games which we all know is nothing monetarily in comparison to the January 1st games.
The big loser in all of this would be the Big East.. They could lose up to 4 maybe 5 teams out of a conference still looking for an identity after losing Miami, Va Tech and BC to the ACC a few years back. They have added Louisville, Cinci and UConn which are nice schools, but only in basketball are they a marquis brand. Losing a Rutgers, UConn, Syracuse and Pitt would be devastating for the league considering that football is the big purse that allows for the other sports to survive.
As far as the Pac 10, they plan to hire super agency CAA to find out if what they want to do is a viable solution for the league, Geesh, so SoCal it makes me want to puke and I live here. You don’t need an agency to conduct studies and get paid millions to come up with the answer because the answer is to EXPAND you Idiots! Get BYU and Utah or raid the wo-be-gones from the Big 12 like Colorado and Kansas and expand the brand into the middle of the country. Basketball as well as football would be affected in a positive manner. Every year 2 of the most storied programs (KU and UCLA) could play in hoops in a home-and-home. Sounds better than Utah vs UCLA or BYU vs Oregon State, right? Whatever they do I hope they do it fast! Knowing how the Pac 10 purists handle emerging ideas I say that the conference will still be in the same boat 5 years from now, but maybe with a Pac-10 and Big 12 partnership — NOT a merger — to maximize TV opportunities.
And finally the SEC. One of the most popular scenarios right now is for the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Pac-10 to expand and form four super-conferences by absorbing teams from the Big East and Big 12. Ya right, and we will have a college football playoff to boot! Anyway, the SEC is looking at grabbing South Carolina rival Clemson as well as Miami and Fla St out of the ACC to create a super duper conference. Maybe ESPN can start a new network called ESPN-SEC and throw in Tim Tebow as their lead analyst.
In any case all these adjustments are leading to what we may all want. These super conferences happen and let the winners of the conferences play in a 3 game tourny where we would have a semi-final and a final to at least give us some sort of playoff system to crown the absolute champion.
It would definitely be better than what we have now!