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Writer's pictureChase Gibson

College Football's Conference Dilemma

Cover Photo Courtesy of Pxhere.com


The chaos of conference changes has sprung among the College Football world.


College Football conference realignment has been in motion for years. Conferences have been created and been destroyed. Teams have risen and fallen. But in these next couple of years, it will truly be set into motion. In the past, college football has just endured minor changes each year. The forming of the Big 12 in 1994, set into motion the collapse of the Southwest Conference, as Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, and TCU joined the conference. Colorado and Nebraska left the Big 12 in 2010. The Big East collapsed as Louisville, Maryland, and Syracuse left for the ACC and West Virginia left for the Big 12 in 2013. That same year, Texas A&M and Missouri left the Big 12 to join the SEC. But throughout those changes, most conferences stayed somewhat the same. They each had 10 to 14 teams, all within a certain distance from each other.

But the standard that had been established in this sport for so long has been questioned quite often in the past couple of months. It all started when it was announced that both Texas and Oklahoma would be joining the SEC. It came as a complete surprise in the world of college football and first introduced the idea of a mega conference to college football. The SEC held 16 teams, larger than any conference that had ever been created and this left the college football world wondering what the future held for them. Just a few months later, to fill the void left by the departure of Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12 accepted BYU, Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston into their conference. The rumors of mega conferences exploded. You couldn't talk about college football without talking about realignment. But after a few months, everything had settled down and it seemed like those would be the only changes made, minor just like the rest of conference changes ever made. However, more changes were to come. On June 30th, 2022, UCLA and USC joined the Big Ten out of nowhere. Now if you know anything about college football and the Big Ten, you know that every Big Ten team is located in or around the Midwest, with Nebraska being the farthest team out west. To add two teams from California to the Big Ten would question the very existence of conferences. Why would you need conferences when you have teams spread out all over America?

And so, the mega conference idea popped back up and has stayed in orbit as a colossal topic to start this college football season. As this article is being written, more teams are requesting to move conferences. Oregon and Washington are targeting the Big Ten, while the entire rest of the Pac-12 is requesting a move to the Big 12. College football is being shaken up like never before and it seems the CFB universe is evolving into an eventual battle between the Big Ten and the SEC for supremacy as the mega conference ideal grows in strength. Until then, we’ll sit back and watch the chaos ensue.


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