College Football Reorganization Will Take on Uncontrollable Proportions Next Season

Living here in the great state of Texas, we know as well as anyone how crazy and chaotic the reorganization of college sports has become. Much of the reason for this is football, because it is the sport that provides the money for everyone else.

There were some small shifts in conference makeup in the ’80s and ’90s and even in the early 2000s, when the Big East as a football conference essentially disintegrated, turning the Power Six into the Power Five. It was in the early 2010s that realignment began to take hold in Texas, most notably with the Texas A&M Aggies moving from the Big XII to the SEC.

Then, after about a decade of peace and realignment, Texas and Oklahoma dropped a grenade on the college football world, choosing to move from the Big XII to the SEC, a move that was made official Monday. It was that move that essentially injected meth into the geographic knowledge of college football conferences. A year after Texas and Oklahoma announced their decision, USC and UCLA chose to join the Big Ten, where the closest team geographically to the two was Nebraska. Repeat, NEBRASKA!

After that, it was chaos. The entire Pac-12 scrambled to find life rafts in other conferences, geography be damned!

So here we are with a total of 15 FBS schools changing conferences this summer, including several in the Power Four. Oh, what are you saying? You thought this was the Power FIVE? Yes, it was, until the Pac-12 exodus left Oregon State and Washington State orphaned from college sports. It’s hard to call the Pac-TWO a “power conference.” To help you keep track of all the moves, here’s a look at the changes that will go into effect this season:

BIG TEN (18 teams)
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Maryland
Michigan
State of Michigan
Minnesota
Nebraska
North West
Ohio State
Pennsylvania State University
Purdue
Rutgers University
UCLA
University of Southern California
Oregon
Washington
Wisconsin

SEC (16 teams)
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana State University
Mississippi State
Missouri
Ole Miss
Oklahoma
Caroline from the south
Tennessee
Texas
Texas A&M University
Vanderbilt

Grand XII (16 teams)
Arizona
State of Arizona
Baylor
Brigham Young University
Cincinnati
Colorado
Houston
Iowa State
Kansas
State of Kansas
Oklahoma State
University of Toronto
Texas Tech
University of California, Fayetteville
Utah
West Virginia

ACC (17 football teams)
ACC
Boston College
Cal
Clemson
Duke
State of Florida
Georgia Tech University
Louisville
Miami
State of North Carolina
North Carolina
Pitt
Montreal university
Stanford
Syracuse
Virginia
Virginia Tech University
Wake Forest
(Notre Dame is not a football member)

There’s so much stupid, crazy, and somewhat exhilarating stuff going on here. Just a few thoughts on this new conference structure, in which the ratchetest Magic 8-Ball couldn’t have generated a dumber outcome with some of this stuff.

SILLY: West Coast Schools in the Big Ten
The advantage of the pre-realignment universe is that not only did the conferences make sense geographically, they each had their own culture and vibe, which of course reflected geography. The Big Ten was cold, trenches, tough-guy football. The Pac-12 was casual, high-flying, offensive fireworks. So UCLA and USC (and Oregon and Washington) make no sense culturally, not to mention the fact that all their non-football sports have to travel to places like Minnesota and Rutgers for away games. It’s stupid.

CRAZY: The ACC, whose name contains the word “Atlantic”!
Okay, it’s bad enough that the Big Ten now has West Coast schools as conference members, and sure, the Big Ten now has 18 schools, but there’s nothing stupider, or more insane in a realignment, than a conference with the word “Atlantic” in its name and SMU, Stanford, and Cal as members. Cal and Stanford are literally minutes from the fucking PACIFIC OCEAN! I’d bet big on the ACC disintegrating in the next five years.

EXHILARATING: Coach Prime is in the Big XII!
Okay, now for the sake of those of us in Texas. In 2024, the Big XII actually picks up one of the biggest stories of 2023. Coach Prime, Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, and the Colorado Buffaloes were the story of college football for the first month of the 2023 season, largely due to their brash personalities and some big upset wins. The season didn’t end well, as the Buffs finished 4-8, but they still head into the 2024 season with some buzz, with Deion’s son Shedeur Sanders a leading Heisman candidate and likely top-10 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

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