The old Southwest Conference left behind Houston, Rice, TCU, and SMU when it merged with the Big 8 to become the Big 12. An older version of the Pac 12 left behind Idaho and Montana many years ago and now the conference is leaving behind Oregon State and Washington State. Other conferences have done similar things.
What has happened to these "left-behind" schools in terms of their football competitiveness in later years? This ESPN.com investigation provides the answers. Here is some background on the SP+ metric used in the ESPN article.
