Realignment Possibilities

[TheContractor]

There has been a few threads on realignment and personally, i find it very interesting. I do believe still that Texas and Ou will go together and that the Big 12, as it is, will come to an end. There is no one that Big12 can add right now, nor does any other P5 team want in.

I am hopeful that the schools will break away from the NCAA, not only in football but all sports. NCAA is not needed bc they are crap. IMO, there will be 4, 16 team conferences. 3+2+2+2=9 conference games and 3 non-conf games. Losing non-conf won't hurt bc conf winners will go to playoffs, meaning a lot of good non conference games. also, only 1 non P5 game per year, so some teams(and they know who they are) can't schedule the patsies just to generate wins. Its all about having different markets and viewers. Some don't think academics matter, others do. We know Big10 values AAU membership, but its not mandatory(Nebraska). BYU refuses to do anything on Sunday, are high maintenance and until that changes i think they will have a hard time getting in, unless Big12 tries to add.  

Here are the 4 scenarios i have for possible destinations for our University of Texas. There are positives and negatives for all of them as there is for keeping the current Big12 the way it is but i don't see that happening past a few years. Realignment is on the horizon (2024ish) whether we like it or not. 

Let me know which conference you would choose and why? and why not the others? To me its a very intriguing topic, especially this time of year.

 

[Randolph Duke]

When you limit the number of D1 schools you run into federal antitrust problems. There can't be a cut off of 64 schools.

 

[J.B. TexasEx]

I can definitely see the Top 80 FBS schools breaking away from the NCAA's oversight for football, but I don't see it being a clean break because the basketball tournament is too popular and profitable. I don't see how it can contract to 64 teams without some undesirable litigation. Most of the TV contracts expire middle of next decade, so maybe the top CFB teams will pool their TV rights for a NFL-sized deal.

I don't see UT and OU leaving the Big12 if there isn't a major geographical realignment. We're better off together and I think Boren knows that now after reviewing Bowlsby's data and reports. We're just one happy, numerically-incorrect Big12 family! 

 

[Randolph Duke]

Schools can be in one conference for basketball and another in football. There is no requirement schools belong to the same conference for all sports. Also, there are sports that are not part of NCAA oversight. Men's rowing is one. The Ivy league wanted nothing to do with NCAA rule making, so they formed their own association for the sport.