Why ncaa realignment

This has crippled the conference severely, and in response, they have scooped up two new schools to play football, Texas-San Antonio, which is playing their first season of football in school history, and Texas State. In short, the WAC may never fully recover from its losses, and may be forced to merge into a superconference with the Pac The schools in question are not deserving of a conference upgrade—rather they are just convenient options for the respective conferences in question.

UMass isn't particularly good at football, having last made the FCS playoffs in , losing in the quarterfinal. If any team were more deserving of the spots offered, it would be Villanova, who has always been a championship contender; Eastern Washington, who won the national title last year; and Montana, also a postseason regular. Even in the NCAA, the changes are becoming more and more prevalent.

Certain schools are leaving their conferences to join others as "football-only" members. Others are simply uprooting from their old conferences in favor of joining a bigger and more established conference. This Great Realignment could potentially mean one thing: Expect the superconferences to take shape, then the Great Split. The likelihood is that there will be five superconferences.

Just the thought of the superconference system would drive the NCAA crazy, but they would be unable to do anything about it. In conclusion, we can agree that FBS football is definitely becoming too powerful and the Great Realignment could potentially kill fan interest.

However, there is nothing that we can do about it, so unfortunately we will have to deal with the consequences—thus the toxicity of the Great Realignment will be too much for the NCAA to contain. Conferences serve a variety of purposes. They are formed by a group of teams that agree to play each other for a set number of games every year. They also split profits from TV contracts. Not only does this make scheduling easier, but it also makes the league a bit more stable, as teams that are underperforming still have a baseline income that allows them to stay competitive.

Well, the answer to that question is emerging — there is nothing stopping this. The SEC, which already had 14 teams, will now be an even larger giant in the realm of college football. Many analysts felt that they were witnessing the death of the Big 12 Conference, which can be traced back to the Big Eight Conference founded in This could be seen as another blow to the dwindling Big 12 or perhaps as a promising sign that conferences will remain competitive with each other.

The alliance allows each of the three conferences to schedule more games together, increasing the quality of potential matchups. This essentially turns college football into a battle between two conferences, the SEC and this alliance. Finally, early in September, just as the Big 12 seemed hopeless, the dwindling conference was credibly rumored to be adding four new schools: Brigham Young University, the University of Houston, the University of Central Florida and the University of Cincinnati.

These new teams add big names to the Conference across several sports and also open up new markets for the Big 12 in Florida and Ohio. Clearly, this has been a hectic time for NCAA realignment, but it has exposed several of the major issues with the current conference system.

Firstly, these large mega conferences are a dangerous trend for the sport. Yes, it allows for more competitive games during conference play, but I would argue that the downsides outweigh this single benefit. Both recently arranged to leave. C-USA loses programs to conferences greater in the hierarchy and plucks from conferences lower. What we've found with the latest maneuvering is that there might not be anyone lower in the hierarchy anymore. But it aimed for schools close to major markets and long known for having football potential; in response, the Sun Belt brought in well-supported football programs -- Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern -- and quickly surpassed C-USA from a football perspective.

Either way, the Sun Belt will win this round of realignment as it did, in retrospect, the last time around and C-USA will look almost completely different in a few years than it does now.

The MAC has been the quietest of the Group of 5 leagues during the latest realignment flurry as it hasn't had to ward off any suitors. The league's makeup is "solid," a source said, and, unlike some other leagues, MAC schools are fairly similar in location, structure and budget. Even so, the MAC must remain diligent about moves from other leagues, especially those that can offer better financial options, and Steinbrecher said in the statement that it would "continue to monitor the membership landscape.

One of the most puzzling developments of this latest round of realignment was the discussion Air Force and Colorado State had about joining the depleted American Athletic Conference.

It's well known throughout the Mountain West that Air Force has not been pleased with the direction of the conference in recent years -- mostly about inconsequential issues in the grand scheme of things -- so when the Academy sought out an alternative option, it wasn't out of left field.

What never made any sense is that Colorado State also considered a move. Had the American not been raided, sure, maybe a move would have resulted in the Rams playing in a more high-profile conference and they would have benefitted from a bigger media rights deal. But after Cincinnati, Houston and UCF left, they would have been leaving for an inferior conference with more travel and no clear benefits. Just to be Air Force's travel partner?

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