Expansion Edition

The talk of the offseason has been of expansion.  The Big Ten set things off by saying they were in the evaluation process.   12-18 months.  Yeah, whatever?  It’ll be more like 6 months.  Or at least someone will announce something within 6 months.  No one waits 12 months anymore.  Shoot, my school is doing a major stadium project…timeframe:  6 months.  That’s all you get. 

So since the Conferences may all be in Chaos pretty soon, I figured one of my off season columns would revolve around expansion.

Big 10

If JoePa is not the actual Godfather, I don’t know who is?  When he pushes for a playoff, the President supports him.  That’s pretty cool actually.  So, JoePa has said for years that the Big Ten needed to add another team, and also expand East.  Well, Joe I think you get your wish. 

I see the Big Ten adding Syracuse and Rutgers as well as Missouri to get to 14, a champ game and some new Big Ten Network markets.  Joe is happy, as he should be, living in Happy Valley.  The Big Ten plays after Thanksgiving, Joe has succeeded in breaking obsolete traditions again.  (Caveat…the only other scenario involves adding Nebraska and Pittsburgh as well, if that happens, I will be surprised (see below)).

PAC-10

Since the Big Ten moves as slow as their actual players on the field, the West Coast lefties make a move first.  The PAC-10 thinks about adding old PCC stalwarts Idaho and Montana, but since this move is about money, they decided to go with Colorado and Utah.   And now they can have a Championship game actually played in primetime so us East Coasters can watch PAC-10 football for once.  Wow, it seems the more traditions get broken, the better college football is becoming. (Caveat…they throw out Wazzuu and add Boise State…this would be too cool, which is why it won’t happen, the PAC-10 just thinks they are cool, they really aren’t).

BIG 12

So the Big 12 only has 10…well that obviously won’t work.  Even though the Texas schools don’t necessarily agree, they decide they have to add TCU along with BYU to add credibility.   We’ll call this expansion for religious purposes.  The Big 12 has really lost nothing in losing Missouri and Colorado and adding TCU and BYU.  In fact, it looks like they just got better in football.  They may be the big winner in all this. (Caveat…I think this is why Nebraska doesn’t leave for the Big Ten when offered).

SEC

The SEC decides no one has really made that big a move to jeopardize their reign of BCS championships, so in only the conceited way the SEC does things, they decide they are good. (Caveat…they go after Texas, and Texas puts them in their place…of course this is why they won’t go after Texas).

ACC

The ACC pats itself on the back for being so proactive a few years back.  If the SEC stays at 12, then the ACC stays at 12.  See the ACC only cares what the SEC does.  They try to emulate the SEC.  It’s rather pathetic actually. (Caveat…the ACC actually gets smart and becomes more proactive and adds UConn and West Virginia.  This actually makes a lot of sense for the ACC because they WVU would fit with Maryland, VT and UVA, and UConn would fit with BC…the ACC could just go to North and South Divisions…you heard it here first…and Coach K starts whining in the papers like he does with the refs).

Big East

Well the Big East just lost two schools.  The demise was evidently premature.  Breathing a sigh of relief, they decide to work on the major football scheduling issue they had by only having 8 schools.  They convince the BBall side that they can have an odd number of schools which will allow for 16 conference games.  They also have to worry about keeping their AQ status, which pushes them to add 2 time CUSA champ East Carolina, as well as a rival for USF in Central Florida and finally to add a basketball replacement for ‘Cuse by adding Memphis.  The Big East has a few new markets and actually kept some of its best rivalries intact.  Actually, they fared pretty well through this…except that the BCS reviews its criteria for AQ status.  (Caveat…the Big East ceases to offer football and USF, Cincy and Louisville are forced to return to CUSA, which would be an interesting result of this whole conference expansion).

Mountain West

Now this is where it gets real interesting.  The Mountain West had visions of grandeur and it just lost its best three programs.  But the push for AQ status is not over.  With the expectation that Houston will finish high in the polls in 2010, the MWC adds them, Boise State and Fresno State.  A deal is made with the BCS, Big East and MWC that the winners of each conference play each other in a Champ game for the AQ.  The conferences share the AQ revenue and any additional revenue from an additional at large qualifier.  (Caveat…if Big East football doesn’t exist the MWC and CUSA vie for position within the BCS system and get into a tug of war over the best NonAQ programs

CUSA

The nonAQ criteria still exists for a conference like CUSA, who must now re-group and add Louisiana Tech, Middle Tenn State, Troy, and New Mexico State.  The East division is now comprised of UAB, Troy, Marshall, Southern Miss, Middle Tenn State and Tulane.  The West has Rice, La Tech, Tulsa, SMU, UTEP and NM State.  (Caveat…wow, what a big caveat!! Either CUSA is made up like this or looks like the old CUSA with a couple of the best additional teams).

MAC

Stays put, although Temple pushes the Big East for football only membership.  The BE tells them they have an open invitation IF they bring the whole program with them, of which they may finally consider. 

WAC/Sun Belt

You might as well call this the Leftover conference.  These two join forces to create two separate divisions.  They’d love to have the CUSA name since they span from Florida to Hawaii.  It looks like this:

WAC division…Hawaii, Idaho, Utah State, San Jose State, North Texas, Nevada

Sun Belt division…Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Western Kentucky, UL-Lafayette, UL-Monroe and Arkansas State.

So there we have it, expansion has reduced the number of conferences to 10.  All conferences have champ games.  The only conferences with less than 12 are the Big East and Mountain West and they play each other for AQ status.

It’s the best we can get in the BCS world.  Someday…after JoePa dies, we’ll get around to his playoff.  Which, in my opinion, will not happen without government intervention.  It’s sad it will come down to that, but when there is this much money involved, especially with Public Universities, sometimes it does. 

No matter what happens though, we know that “Change” is coming.  As one astute AD pointed out “Positioning will intensify”.