The Pac-12, as a target of expansion for both the Big Ten and the Big 12, is a sitting duck (especially minus the Ducks.) Reporting for CBS Sports, Dennis Dodd detailed: This perpetual growth could eventually bring the Big Ten to 24 teams, prompting the SEC to follow suit. I could see perpetual and future growth.” In a recent HBO interview with Bryant Gumbel, Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren hinted at more moves to be made. The current buzz, despite Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff’s stern statements of denial, is that the Conference of Champions (founded over a century ago) will soon be dissipated. College football conference realignment breaking apart the beautiful sport And now, with streaming juggernauts interested in the college football product, bidding battles and realignment rumors are only getting started. For the ADs, making more money promises a robust department for all athletics. Realignment is drawing lines in the sand, vastly distancing the members of the Power Five (once the Power Six, and soon to be the Power Four) from the other schools.įor the players, their NFL hopes and dreams (ahem, money) are at stake. This is the largest factor destroying college football. “In 2019, the NCAA estimates, the NFL drafted 11 percent (197) of the 1,769 eligible players from the Power Five conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC).” Behind the scenes they are wheeling and dealing to bulk their departments’ bank accounts.Īnother mega effect of the mega power conferences, the haves versus the have-nots, are statistics of the NFL Draft. The actual bottom line, though, is a simple supply and demand curve. ![]() Will goes on to report that in 2020 the highest-paid public employee was either a Division I football or basketball coach in 40 of the 50 US States.Īthletic Directors around the nation proceed to make trite statements about realignment steps being taken for the best interest of student-athletes. Money makes the world go round and college football is a multimillion-dollar marketplace. Lubricated by an unsentimental disregard for historic rivalries, this arrangement should at long last silence the increasingly ludicrous pretense that college football’s premier programs are anything other than entertainment behemoths.” “The industry’s new landscape, littered with the smoldering ruins of torched traditions, was produced by cold economic reasoning, as befits industrial management. Will in The Washington Post asserted what we, the fans, feel about the game of musical chairs: The Border War: Missouri vs Kansas, first contested in 1891, has been played 120 times and you guessed it, the game hasn’t happened since Missouri left the Big 12.Įven the bitter Holy War between Utah and BYU, first played in 1896, has oddly not been scheduled for five separate unholy seasons since both schools split from the Mountain West. Nebraska’s rivalries with Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa State, which date back to 18, have not been played since 2010. The Battle of the Brazos, Texas A&M against Baylor (first played in 1899 and played 108 times) hasn’t happened since. Texas vs A&M, The Lonestar Showdown, one of the most storied games in college football and one that has been played 118 times, hasn’t happened since. A decade ago, the deck of conferences shuffled with Texas A&M and Missouri moving to the SEC, Colorado and Utah to the Pac-12, and Nebraska leaving the Big 12 for greener pastu-uhh, paper. Washington and Oregon will most likely be dragged far from their trusty in-state rivals to play in a conference along with UCLA and USC that is headquartered over 2,000 miles away from Los Angeles. Geography is now an afterthought the almighty TV dollar has spoken. The powerful folks of the college football industry are regrettably discarding many of these important traditions. A rivalry game brazenly claims that regardless of the number of wins a school has in a season, true success is earned by beating a hated foe. These games are the reason we still tune in 30 years later. The Choke at Doak is a pleasant memory of my childhood and an epic example of the true brick-and-mortar of college football. The raucous FSU fans tomahawk chopped with glee and the Seminoles gave them a show, scoring 28 unanswered points to tie the game at 31! (Unfortunately, that’s how it would end as the NCAA didn’t begin overtime play until 1996.) Then lightning struck for the home team! I was riveted, hypnotized, to the screen. And their feelings were reciprocated!Īs an 11-year-old, I multitasked while casually watching Florida dominate 31-3 after three quarters. ![]() FSU students confessed to the camera the hatred and disgust they deeply felt for their rival school. The ABC coverage team set the stage for an electric environment by conducting on-campus interviews at both schools before the game started. ![]() The uproar of over 80,000 frenzied fans left an indelible imprint during an epic fourth quarter that converted me into a college football fan for good.
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