The 2024 college season entered the next era of conference realignment in college sports, and it might have been the craziest yet. The PAC-12 became the most recent league to fall by the wayside, granted Oregon State and Washington State are still trying to save it, but it will no longer be a power conference. The PAC-12 schools that left were split among the Big Ten, Big 12, and even ACC, giving those conferences coast-to-coast presences, going against the regionality these conferences were originally formed on.
This era of conference realignment is not over by any means. The PAC-12 still needs at least one more school to get back to having eight full members to be recognized for automatic berths in NCAA competition. While the ACC and Big 12 are in good spots at the moment, there is fear that their teams could look to jump to the SEC and Big Ten, who are the two top dogs revenue-wise at any moment like Texas and Oklahoma did. Florida State is the school most open about their frustrations with the revenue they are making in the ACC and how they would look to jump to the SEC.
As mentioned, regionality is completely out the window, and acquiring major media markets to boost revenue is the new trend of conference realignment. The Big Ten started this in 2014 when they added Rutgers and Maryland to secure the New York and DC markets, and continued with the trend this time, going west and grabbing the LA, Seattle, and Portland markets with USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington.
The SEC also expanded westward but not as extreme by adding Texas and Oklahoma, two big national brands on top of the media markets they bring. The most extreme was Cal and Stanford, two Pacific Coast schools joining the ACC where all their other conference members are on the opposite coast, but at least they can meet in the middle with the addition of SMU as well.
In my opinion, geographic rivalries are what make college sports, especially football, so great. By teams now following the money and leaving some of their rivals behind, we have lost games like the Civil War, Apple Cup, the Backyard Brawl, and Bedlam. While some of these games still happen in non-conference play, they do not have the same feel as they did when they were played in the final week of the season and had conference stakes on the line. There are college football creators like Josh Pate and CFBudge who agree with me and want these teams back in the same conference.
Those two creators are where I got this idea to write about what would be my dream conference realignment. While I agree with a lot of their sentiments and choices, there are some I disagree on as well. For me, geography and keeping as many rivals in the same conference was my priority number one. Secondly, I drew on history as well as a little bit of revisionist history for teams that almost joined a conference, and if I thought they would be a good fit in the conference, they almost joined back in the day.
Finally, I wanted every conference to have 12-14 teams rather than 8-10 like the two previous creators did. While the 16-18 teams conferences currently have are too big, I wanted conferences at the size where a championship game was still necessary, and you played a majority of your conference, so I think 12-14 is the right number for that.
ACC: Clemson, Duke, Louisville, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, West Virginia
The ACC always has to include the four tobacco road schools in Duke, UNC, NC State, and Wake Forest. Maryland was a founding member in 1953 and better fits geographically in the ACC. Virginia was a founding member as well, and Virginia Tech’s rivalry with them is more important than any of their former Big East counterparts. Clemson and South Carolina were both founding members as well, so I moved the Gamecocks back to the ACC so the Palmetto Bowl could be a conference game.
Geographically, West Virginia fits in well with Maryland and the Virginia schools, so I added them to rejoin their Backyard Brawl counterpart in Pitt. Those two schools along with Louisville I considered for the Big East, but thought that geographically as well as competition level they fit better in the ACC.
Big East: Army, Boston College, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Connecticut, Memphis, Navy, Rutgers, South Florida, Syracuse, Temple, Tulane
If you follow me on Twitter, I had this football conference be a combination of the Big East and Metro basketball conferences. Boston College, UConn, Syracuse, and Rutgers were all original Big East football members and fit the northeast geography. Temple was a former Big East football member, and while they did not have much success, they fit geographically. South Florida was also a former Big East member, and their rival Central Florida is now a power conference school, so they are good additions.
Tulane and Memphis are the first schools that come up as the next schools to join the power conference ranks and geographically work as eastern major media markets. Cincinnati is also a former Big East school, and I considered adding Pitt, West Virginia, or Miami with them, but instead decided to go with affiliate members Army and Navy with instead to keep those two rivals together.
Big Ten: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
The version of the Big Ten following the 2011 conference realignment was perfect, in my opinion. Penn State was one school I debated moving to the Big East since they almost joined in the 1980s, but I think their rivalry with Ohio State and Michigan State makes it worth keeping them in the Big Ten.
Nebraska was a former Big 12 member, but I think their new rivalry with Iowa makes it worth keeping them in the Big Ten and keeps the conference balanced with six teams in each the east and west. The only other team I would consider adding to the Big Ten would be Notre Dame, but I do not see a world where Notre Dame ever joins a football conference.
Big 12: Baylor, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, SMU, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech
My ideal Big 12 conference realignment would be identical to what happened when the conference started when the Big 8 and Southwest Conference merged. But this time, rather than it being all eight members of the Big 8 and four Texas schools, I have it an even 7 & 7 split between members of the two leagues. Nebraska is the only original Big 12 member I do not have in the conference, and I explained why previously in the Big Ten.
Adding Houston, TCU, and SMU to the original mix made sense to me since all three of those schools are now in power conferences, two of which are currently in the Big 12. I considered adding former SWC member Rice back into the mix but did not think they were on the same level as the other schools anymore.
Pac 12: Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington, Washington State
The PAC 8/10/12 was founded over 100 years ago and has always been the premier conference on the West Coast, and it is going back to that in my dream conference realignment. The 10 members that had been there from 1978 until they left this past year in the Arizona, California, Oregon, & Washington schools were a no-brainer to add back. Considering their level of football success, I liked adding back Utah. But rather than adding Colorado like in 2011, I decided to go with the Utes main rival of BYU.
SEC: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, LSU, Miami, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
The SEC is probably my most controversial conference realignment out of the bunch since it does add some schools that have never been members of the conference previously but have strong cases to be in the conference. The ten members who have been a part of the conference from 1932 onward I kept, as well as the 1992 addition Arkansas. Rather than add the other 1992 expansion team in South Carolina, I swapped them with Georgia Tech, who was a member from 1932 to 1964, to return the Georgia vs. Georgia Tech game to being a conference matchup.
Florida State and Miami were two of the harder placements for me. I considered both the ACC and Big East for them, but I ended up deciding on the SEC since it fit the best geographically. Both teams have won multiple national championships and are big enough brands that I believe they could compete in the SEC, so I decided to add them rather than take Big 12 teams like the SEC originally did.