Fourth and Dumb

Seeing as we have journeyed deep into the college football offseason, I decided to throw out some random or not so random thoughts you can wrap your brain around as you lie dying of boredom before the start of summer practice.

1.  This first thought is very sobering, but it is important to keep in mind when reading about the decisions of the sport’s power brokers.  The free intent to make changes that are intended to solely or partially benefit student-athletes or fans are the exception rather than the rule.  There are enough people exhibiting good faith that changes that benefit the student-athletes and the fans do occur, but the number one focus will always be money, and let that not be forgotten.  This does not make the power brokers evil; rather, they are amoral, doing what will make the most money rather than doing what is right.

2.  There has been a lot of discussion lately on conference realignment.  Did not this happen five to seven years ago?  To review, the ACC ripped three schools from the Big East, the Big East ripped a bunch of schools from Conference USA for both basketball and football, C-USA ripped a bunch of schools from the MAC and WAC, and the WAC ripped a few schools from the Sun Belt.  It was quite a shift at the time, but it was not as earth-shattering as it seemed, since four of Les Six stayed intact.

The ACC got its conference championship game, but nothing else about expansion went right, as Florida State and Miami went into a swoon at the same time as the championship games were scheduled for Florida venues, basketball lost its double round robin, and Boston College still seems like an outsider.  The Big East actually came out in better shape, as they picked up some nice football and basketball entities at the expense of possible instability due to half of its schools not playing football (in-conference).  Conference USA clearly fell to mid-major status, but is more stable and more geographically compact.

However, with the advent of the Big Ten Network, a whole new revenue stream has appeared to tempt the power brokers, one that could accelerate college football’s transformation into a developmental league for the NFL.  There are suggestions 16-team conferences are coming soon.  You know what collection of football teams also has 16-team conferences?  The NFL!  Do you remember what happened the last time there was a 16-team conference?  The WAC split in half.  Tradition and stability will be damned as long as revenue not dependent on drawing and keeping fans is flowing in.

3.  As for specific expansion scenarios, it is just as likely that the age of the 16-team superconference begins (funny, 20 years ago the term superconference was used for 12 teams) then it is that the sea change everyone fears turns out to be the Big Ten offering Notre Dame an offer it cannot refuse.  What would the Big Ten do to sweeten the pot?  Perhaps they could offer the Domers a larger share of revenue permanently or temporarily; place them in the same division as Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue; or get the NCAA to allow Notre Dame to play 13 regular season games so they can maintain all of their non-Big Ten rivalries.

4.  However, Notre Dame joining the Big Ten would be just too easy, so lets go for a conference wrecking scenario: Missouri to the Big Ten.  Whether the rumblings from Missouri are genuine longing to be in the Big Ten or they are passive aggressively hinting to their Big 12 overlords to establish revenue equality will be established eventually, but the fact remains is if Missouri leaves the Big 12, that starts a chain reaction much like the 2003-05 realignment.  The most interesting aspect is the predations could be non-linear this time.  Several conferences, seeing the Big 12 in a huge spot of vulnerability, could take advantage of a Missouri defection to move in together and rip the Big 12 apart limb from limb.  This could get grisly, folks, about two movie ratings above the death of the Southwest Conference.

5.  A legion of four 16-team conferences is not as farfetched as you would think.  Welcome to NFL lite, and if you watch closely, you see a stream of casual college football fans running for their lives.  Would another conference be sacrificed to the gods of big money?  The most likely candidate, ironically, is the conference that started the 2003-05 realignment, the ACC, which could be ripped apart by the SEC and the Big East, with some chunks falling to C-USA.  This is getting absurd, but it may just be normal 10 years from now.