Big 12 Expansion Seems to Be Heating Up

The prospects of the Big 12 conference (currently with 10 schools) expanding seem to run hot and cold. Right now, on the heels of the Big 12's football media days, the temperature is as warm as I can remember it being in a long time.

According to this Dallas Morning News article, "The Big 12's board of directors, comprised of school presidents and chancellors, voted unanimously Tuesday in [Dallas suburb] Irving to have Commissioner Bob Bowlsby contact and evaluate schools that have expressed an interest in joining the conference, then reporting back."

ESPN reports conducting an anonymous poll of Big 12 coaches on their top-two preferences (among non-Power 5 schools) to bring into the league. Here are the results:

Houston and BYU each received five votes. Cincinnati and Memphis tied for third with four votes each, followed by Colorado State and UCF with one vote apiece.

I personally favor bringing in the top-four vote-getters (Houston, BYU, Cincy, and Memphis). Bringing in only UH and BYU would do nothing to relieve West Virginia's travel burden (and in fact trips from Morgantown, West Virginia to Provo, Utah are 1,673 miles in the air).

Five 16-Team Super-Conferences?

ESPN.com writer Ryan McGee shares his "utopian" vision of conference realignment.

Expanding the Big 12 Back to 12 Teams? The Topic That Never Dies

Sports Illustrated/Campus Rush presents a thorough overview article on the topic of Big 12 expansion and the related issue of a conference title game for football (link). I don't know that there's much new in the article, but there are some tidbits such as the implications of the leadership turmoil at the University of Texas and the possibilities for a full-time Big 12 television network. As far as possible schools to add to the current 10, the article focuses on Cincinnati (to combat West Virginia's geographical isolation) and BYU, consistent with conventional wisdom.

Useful College Football Maps

SB Nation/Vox's "25 Maps That Explain College Football" include a few maps (15, 16, and 17) that delve into realignment issues. Map 15 is particular useful, in my view, showing in color-coded fashion the conference memberships of all FBS (formerly Division I-A) schools.

Useful Information on College Basketball Conferences Under Realignment

ESPN.com recently has published some useful resources concerning the new configuration of college basketball conferences. These include a list of changes to conference lineups, a summary of winners and losers from those changes (in the eyes of writer Jason King), and an Andy Katz piece on how realignment has allowed many conferences to arrive at 10 basketball schools, a comfortable number.

Resolution of Big East Break-Up into "New" Big East and American Athletic Conference

I'm a little behind on this one. But after months of unfolding developments, the break-up of what has been known for nearly 35 years as the Big East Conference has been worked out. For starters, it should be noted that some of the top Big East basketball schools, including this year's men's national champion Louisiville, and Syracuse and Pitt, are in the process of moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Also, Rutgers is going to the Big 10.

As shown in the following diagram, the remaining Big East schools (and some set to join) will be splitting into two conferences. Shown in blue are what had been widely referred to as the "Catholic 7" (some of the Big East's longest-term members, whose athletic programs are focused on basketball), plus like-minded schools Creighton, Xavier, and Butler, who will be coming on board (Butler is private, like the other schools, but not Catholic-affiliated). This group will retain the name Big East.

The other schools, shown in red, consist of "leftover" schools from the current Big East, plus newly joining schools (mostly from Conference USA). Tulsa is a very recent addition. These schools will be known as the American Athletic Conference (AAC). My preferred name for this new conference would have been the "Big Triangle," as one would get from tracing the shape from Connecticut to Texas to Florida, to encompass all the schools. 

Schools in the new AAC play football in the NCAA's top classification (known as the Football Bowl Subdivision and formerly Division I-A) and have enjoyed various degrees of success on the gridiron. None of them would be considered among college football's elite, however.

I see the new Big East as being very stable, as it essentially is a new incarnation of a league that has been around since 1979, with a similar culture as the original.

In contrast, I would be very surprised if the American Athletic looked the same in five years as it does today. In general, circuits with large geographic distances between members have tended to be volatile. UConn and Cincinnati have been known to covet membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Further, though it may not currently seem likely, the two Texas schools, Southern Methodist (Dallas) and the University of Houston, conceivably could find themselves in the Big 12 (which currently has 10 institutions). U-of-H is building a new football stadium, which can only help the Cougars' prospects for joining the Big 12.

New Big 10 Divisional Set-Up for 2014

The Big 10 conference will go to a purely geographical divisional set-up for football, East and West, in 2014, according to this article. Previously, the conference had focused on schools' historical winning percentages to create two divisions that equalized competitive balance as much as possible.