Rudy Canoza
6/14/2010, 08:51 PM
http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2010/06/14/conference-shakeup-are-we-done/
Just when it appears the landscape of college athletics would be drastically altered, the Texas Longhorns decided to stay put in the Big 12. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Texas A&M followed suit. Meanwhile, the Big 12 announced its plans to decline plucking teams from other conferences and just move forward 10-strong.
In the answer to the question posed in the headline above, I'd say we're very close to being done. Consider:
• The Big Ten has a round number of teams at 12 and can set up two six-team divisions and play a conference championship game. As long as Notre Dame isn't pressured into joining a conference -- and it looks like that won't happen anytime soon -- the Big Ten will likely stand pat at 12.
• The SEC didn't get Texas A&M, so it likely won't bother to move past 12 teams.
• The ACC isn't going to grab anyone.
• The Mountain West already grabbed Boise State and now won't have access to attractive schools from the defunct Big 12, as the league survived. And with Boise, the MWC has an even number of teams (10). So it is probably done.
• The Big East already stated it wasn't going to do anything unless the Big 12 fell apart or it lost a team. Neither happened, so it will stand pat.
• Conference USA, the MAC and Sun Belt were untouched in any discussions and there's no reason to think something will change now.
• The Pac-10 doesn't get Oklahoma or Texas and, in turn, lost out on other attractive schools in a potential Big 12 raid. Considering it did add Colorado, though, it's likely the Pac-10 still needs to add one more team to get to that magic "12" number the power conferences are all shooting for. Which means we probably aren't totally done seeing conference shifting. Expect the Pac-10 to make a run at either Utah or BYU. When it does land one of those two teams -- and I fully expect either to jump at the chance -- expect the Mountain West to either be satisfied with nine (as it had before the Boise State addition) or grab another WAC team (Nevada? Utah State?). And that's about all the movement we're going to see in the next few years.
So, what once looked like a gigantic tidal wave is likely to end up merely a ripple. There's still plenty of time for things to change, but it would appear the grandiose unraveling and realigning of conferences speculated by many was quite off the mark. At least for this summer.
Just when it appears the landscape of college athletics would be drastically altered, the Texas Longhorns decided to stay put in the Big 12. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Texas A&M followed suit. Meanwhile, the Big 12 announced its plans to decline plucking teams from other conferences and just move forward 10-strong.
In the answer to the question posed in the headline above, I'd say we're very close to being done. Consider:
• The Big Ten has a round number of teams at 12 and can set up two six-team divisions and play a conference championship game. As long as Notre Dame isn't pressured into joining a conference -- and it looks like that won't happen anytime soon -- the Big Ten will likely stand pat at 12.
• The SEC didn't get Texas A&M, so it likely won't bother to move past 12 teams.
• The ACC isn't going to grab anyone.
• The Mountain West already grabbed Boise State and now won't have access to attractive schools from the defunct Big 12, as the league survived. And with Boise, the MWC has an even number of teams (10). So it is probably done.
• The Big East already stated it wasn't going to do anything unless the Big 12 fell apart or it lost a team. Neither happened, so it will stand pat.
• Conference USA, the MAC and Sun Belt were untouched in any discussions and there's no reason to think something will change now.
• The Pac-10 doesn't get Oklahoma or Texas and, in turn, lost out on other attractive schools in a potential Big 12 raid. Considering it did add Colorado, though, it's likely the Pac-10 still needs to add one more team to get to that magic "12" number the power conferences are all shooting for. Which means we probably aren't totally done seeing conference shifting. Expect the Pac-10 to make a run at either Utah or BYU. When it does land one of those two teams -- and I fully expect either to jump at the chance -- expect the Mountain West to either be satisfied with nine (as it had before the Boise State addition) or grab another WAC team (Nevada? Utah State?). And that's about all the movement we're going to see in the next few years.
So, what once looked like a gigantic tidal wave is likely to end up merely a ripple. There's still plenty of time for things to change, but it would appear the grandiose unraveling and realigning of conferences speculated by many was quite off the mark. At least for this summer.