My impression is that given enough time, eventually it will go like the pro leagues and Div I will be just two conferences, Big10 and SEC — and those names will be just trademarks that really stand for nothing…
I’m sure that the marketing people have done their homework and this is a net win.
I’m not much of a sports fan anymore but I grew up in the shadow of Westwood and was a big Bruin fan (although I went to college at UC San Diego which didn’t have athletic scholarships). This is like when the Dodgers and the Giants relocated to the West Coast in 1958. The precursor to the Pac-12 started in 1959 with UCLA and USC as members.
Yeah - is there enough cachet to the names that they are still worth keeping - even when they are downright ridiculous?
Players traveling for Thursday games was silly enough. Let’s just put to rest the idea of “student-athletes.”
Is there anyone who considers themself a fan of - say - the Big 10? Or do they just like a particular team, and that is the organization they are presently aligned with?
I’ll bet a couple more Pac-X schools end up in the Big 10 before this is over. Oregon is an obvious choice with its national recognition and Nike ties. Cal has sucked in football for a while now, but the Baty Area is a big market. Same with Washington.
I think Stanford is too small and focused on non-football sports to make a move, but who knows. In a dumpster fire, anything can catch.
I can’t say I’m a fan of the Big Ten in particular, but I used to associate it with college football and the changing of the weather. I spent most of my time before 9th grade in Ohio, so I associated Big 10 football with a season that started out hot and humid, changed to crisp fall weather and then getting ready for the the first snow as the season ends. It was events like the Rose Bowl that helped teach me about geography. No, California isn’t next door, and here’s what a time zone is. And, the weather is much different in Southern California than Ohio on January 1!
I’d say I’m sorta a fan of the Big 10. It’s really the only conference I follow, and have ever followed, on a regular basis for college football. I grew up and currently live in the Midwest, so I enjoyed watching the teams from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Iowa play each other every year. Adding Nebraska and Penn State and Rutgers kinda sucked some of the Midwestern charm out of it for me, but whatever. Now adding California teams just seems like… I don’t know, a further cheapening of a classic…bah, get off my lawn, assholes!
So, no more USC-Ohio State Rose Bowls any more?
I grew up a huge fan of Big East basketball but I was always kind of indifferent to the football side of things. As a Rutgers fan I cared more about the visiting team than I did about conference loyalty. I did get to watch a lot of great teams absolutely destroy RU over the years though.
History aside, how excited would people be for a conference game that would already played at least every other year or even twice in years they both win their divisions?
The last one was in 1985 so effectively no change.
ETA: USC-OSU has happened seven times out of 107 Rose Bowls. USC-Michigan is the only more frequent match up, eight times with the most recent in 2007 and four times since the last USC-OSU game.
I’d be fine with eliminating conference championships and allowing another scheduled game. Didn’t the PAC 12 championship feature more empty seats than fans?
Eliminating a conference championship game? In 2022? That’s not happening. This is tied into the reason to realign conferences in the first place - the playoffs and associated money.
But even without that, they’d be playing each other regularly anyway and that would make any Bowl games redundant, even if they somehow managed to get assigned to the same one.
I’m flabbergasted. What the actual fuck? I don’t even know what to say. Like dale, I had to do a double-take at the TV, and think about what I had to drink lately.
This just seems so… wrong.
When I was a kid, 2 of my uncles were alums/fans of Nebr/OSU. Believe me, they woulda been happy w/ a season that consisted of nothing other than matchups between those 2 teams. I suspect some fans of Michigan/OSU would feel the same.
Oh, no doubt. But it’d be like Georgia and Alabama last year. Those fanbases would be thrilled, the rest of the SEC would accept it, and the rest of college football fandom would just sigh and wait for next year.
How’s that going to shake out? I had always figured we’d end up with four 16-team super-conferences. But it looks like the Big 12 AND the Pac-12 are going to implode. That leaves the SEC, ACC and Big 10.
Do you suppose that one of the other two will manage to attract enough big-time programs to stay relevant, or are we really going to end up with the Power 3, then the Group of Eight?
At 16 teams each, there’s room for 4. The SEC, the Big1$, the “Wait until basketball season” (formerly the ACC), and the “We just needed to join a conference” (the remnants of the Big12/PAC12).
The playoff will be expanded to 8 teams, 2 each from the SEC/Big$, the 2 conference champs of the WUBS and WJNTJAC, and 2 at large - which, unless there’s some other undefeated team from the Group of X or a 2nd place 1-loss team from WUBS/WJNTJAC, will be the 3rd place teams from the SEC and Big1$.
Really only one at large - Notre Dame will be granted the other berth on a permanent basis. Record doesn’t really matter as long as they’ll draw eyeballs and $.
The Big 12 and Pac-12 have been openly discussing a merger since last summer so I think this just makes it a certainty.
Maybe we’ll finally get a proper playoff for football 
The end goal is the the SEC and BIG 10 split away and form their own college football league with games broadcast on ESPN and Fox respectively. The winner of each conference will meet to play in a national championship game.