The Big "Ten" Conference now having 14
teams makes me once again cringe at all the conference shifting that has gone
on around college football in recent years. I don't mind expansion, when
conferences add teams which make sense geographically.
Maryland and Rutgers moving to the Big Ten makes
sense for Penn State, but they aren't close to the rest of the conference,
which is midwestern other than Penn State, which was a stretch add itself, not
being in the midwest, and being much closer to the former Big East Conference,
which had most of the teams PSU played when they were an independent.
Nebraska made slightly more geographic sense in
the Big 12 than the Big 10. Sure, they are close to Iowa, but they are too far
west for the Big 10, just like Penn State is too far east.
TCU joining the Big 12 made a lot of sense. They
now play schools close to them, instead of Mountain Region teams. They also are
proof that a "small school" can play with the big boys in a
"major" conference. But West Virginia moving to the Big 12 made no
sense at all. The state isn't adjacent to the states of any other Big 12 teams.
They are closer to the SEC, or even the new eastern Big Ten teams. And Iowa
State would definitely make more sense in the Big 10.
Virginia Tech moving to the ACC made sense, but
Pittsburg, Syracuse, and Boston College? Huh?! They are no where near the other
teams. Plus the ACC stands for Atlantic Coast Conference, so what's with these
new landlocked schools? The implosion of the Big East cause a lot of the geographical
mess we now have in college football. Pitt lies in between Penn State and the
Big Ten. Perhaps we need a northeastern conference, much better constructed
than the Big East, including Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Pitt, Syracuse, BC,
etc, but without Big East geographic oddballs like Miami and VA Tech?
Then we get to the SEC. Texas A&M and maybe
even Missouri should be in the Big 12. Arkansas is borderline to go either way.
Florida should be in the ACC, since I'd love to have the 3 big Florida teams
(Florida, Florida State, and Miami) in the same conference.
All of the NCAA Football teams jumping conferences
lately has made a jumbled mess of random opponents. I think the NCAA should
completely scrap the current conferences and start from scratch, making
regional conferences where you play the teams closest to you.
Sure, there are some longtime bitter rivalries
(such as Ohio State vs. Michigan) that should be kept intact, but most of them
are geographically close already, so they wouldn't be impacted. And the
longtime members of most conferences are geographically close to each other,
because that was the original point of the conferences. Plus, I'd have the
non-conference games of each conference be against a nearby conference, so that
is another way to ensure established rivalry games if the two teams didn't end
up in the same geographically based conference.
Think of the new or renewed rivalries: Penn State
vs. Pitt vs. West VA, Miami vs. Florida vs. Florida State, Texas vs. Texas
A&M vs. Texas Tech vs. TCU vs. Rice vs. Baylor, Nebraska vs. Oklahoma, Iowa
vs. Iowa State, maybe Pitt vs. Ohio State.
Most geographic areas have big schools, small
schools, and schools somewhere in between. This would eliminate the current
problem of smaller schools struggling to gain revenue and exposure, and being
lowballed in the rankings and bowl selection, simply because they play in a
"small school" "non-BCS" conference with an
"easy" schedule. If they played in a regional conference with school
of varying size, they would garner more respect in the overall college football
picture. And the many upsets in recent years prove the talent gap has lessened,
and the smaller schools would be able to compete better than you think.
Do I think this makes sense? Yes. Do I think it
will happen? No, not wide scale anyway. But I do think there will be some major
changes in NCAA football conferences the not too distant future.
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