Colorado Returns to Big 12

The first change in the Pac 12's composition since the June 2022 announcement that UCLA and USC would be joining the Big Ten has taken place and it's not a good one for the Pac 12. Colorado will be leaving the Pac 12 to return to the Big 12. Before joining the Pac 12 in 2020, the Buffaloes had been a member of the Big 12 and its predecessor, the Big 8.

Enticing Colorado to return gives the Big 12 a short-term psychological boost after its loss of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, if not a marquee football program (CU's record is 44-73, .376, over the past 10 years).  The upcoming debut of former star player Deion Sanders as the Buffs' coach has created some excitement, though.

The loss of Colorado, meanwhile, is a major embarrassment for the Pac 12 (in the short term, at least), as the move highlights the Pac 12's failure to land a new television deal. The Buffs' move is widely attributed to the Big 12's deal. According to the Associated Press:

Colorado is expected to get $31.7 million in annual TV revenue in the Big 12, which last year came to an agreement with ESPN and Fox on a six-year extension worth more than $2 billion that runs through 2030-31. 

As shown in the following map, Colorado is not far from the Big 12's main geographic cluster of schools running from Kansas down through Texas (underlined schools are new members that will be joining the conference this fall or the year after).

Assuming the Big 12 wants an even number of schools, it will need to add one member (to go up to 14) or more to go higher. Landing additional Pac-12 schools such as Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and/or ASU would certainly boost the Big 12's stature. 

Another question for the conference is the excitement value of matchups between teams that are geographically distant and have no history of sports competition. BYU vs. Central Florida, anyone?

CU's departure leaves the Pac 12 with only nine schools, so the conference will need to bring in some new ones to get back to a respectable size. The school that has gotten the most attention is San Diego State, which would fill the Pac 12's void in southern California (although with nowhere near the cache of UCLA and USC). On the positive side, SDSU has built a new football stadium and the Aztec men's basketball team made the NCAA national championship game this past spring.

Other candidates for Pac-12 expansion include Southern Methodist University (giving the Pac 12 a foothold in Texas), Boise State, Fresno State, and UNLV.

Compilation of All Conferences' Changes Slated to Take Effect by 2025

Zach Miller has put together a summary of realignment-related changes scheduled to take effect by 2025 (link). For each conference, Miller lists the entering and departing teams and offers some observations.

Five-Thirty-Eight on Evolution of Conference Realignments

Five-Thirty-Eight, the website famous for quantitative analyses of sports, politics, and culture, examines the evolution of conference realignments (link). What I found most interesting are geographical "footprint" maps for five conferences -- the Big Ten (B1G), Big 12, SEC, ACC, and Pac 12 -- in the years 2000, 2010, 2015, and 2025. Each of these conferences' land mass has greatly expanded from 2000 to 2025. The article also describes how, for each conference, each school's travel distance to the geographic center of each conference has grown:

In 2010, the average distance for an FBS team to its conference center was 336 miles. By 2021, that average rose to 365 miles. Within four years of that, the average will be 412 miles.

Once UCLA and USC (both located in Los Angeles) begin play in the B1G, their distance to the conference center will be 1,621 miles!

UCLA and USC to Big Ten

This came out of nowhere! As I started listening to a Lubbock-based sports radio show this afternoon at 3:00 pm Central, I was shocked to hear that longtime Pacific 12 schools UCLA and USC would be joining the Big Ten (B1G), effective 2024. As someone who attended both UCLA (undergrad) and Michigan (graduate school), I'm very excited about the move. Let's go to the map...

As you can see, the two Los Angeles-based schools are geographically distant from the rest of the B1G schools. It is approximately 1,500 miles from LA to Lincoln, Nebraska (previously the westernmost B1G institution). Aside from distance, however, UCLA and USC are a good fit for the B1G, athletically, academically, and culturally.

Athletically, UCLA and USC have a long history of competing against B1G schools in major events. From New Year's Day 1947 to 2001, the Rose Bowl football game always matched the winners of the Pac 12 and B1G (or their predecessor conferences). The Pac 12-B1G Rose Bowl rivalry was sometimes disrupted post-2001 to accommodate the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and College Football Playoff systems, but Pac 12 and B1G teams still met in the Rose Bowl as often as possible in more recent years. Hence, fans of USC and (to a lesser extent) UCLA have lots of memories of their teams taking on Ohio State, Michigan, and other B1G schools in the Rose Bowl. 

The Bruins and Trojans have faced off with B1G schools in NCAA-tournament competition in other sports, as well, such as men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, women's volleyball, baseball, and softball (UCLA only, as USC does not participate in this sport).

Academically, UCLA and USC are members of the elite 65-school Association of American Universities, as are 13 of the prior 14 B1G members (all except Nebraska). If academics were the major driving factor of conference realignment -- rather than football success and television viewership -- then Stanford and UC Berkeley would almost certainly be joining UCLA and USC in switching from the Pac 12 to the B1G (although, Stanford and Cal's television market of San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose is No. 6 in the US).

Culturally, with enrollments in the high 40,000s, UCLA and USC resemble many B1G schools. Also, like UCLA and USC, some B1G schools are in or near large cities (Northwestern, Minnesota, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Maryland, and Rutgers). Finally, even though current and future B1G students do well academically, they also enjoy their time outside the classroom and library. In a 2021 Newsweek magazine compilation of top party schools, in fact, Ohio State ranked No. 23, Michigan State No. 19, Indiana No. 14, Iowa No. 13, Penn State No. 11, USC No. 9, Illinois No. 8, and Wisconsin No. 3. 

Spillover effects of the UCLA and USC departures on the Pac 12 are certain, along with effects on other conferences as the dominos topple. In future entries, I will examine where the Pac 12 might go from here.

ESPN.com Introduces Realignment Tracker Focused on College Hoops

ESPN.com now has a page devoted entirely to documenting universities' conference shifts, with a focus on college basketball (LINK). Basketball has far more Division I conferences (32) than does football (10), so this new tracking site will be a lot more informative than ones dedicated to football. 

Big 12 Reportedly Eyeing Four Schools to Join Conference

The Big 12 may actually have 12 schools before long. According to reports circulating yesterday, the conference may soon invite Brigham Young University (BYU), Central Florida (UCF), Cincinnati, and Houston to become members. Currently, the Big 12 has only 10 schools and with the departure of Oklahoma and Texas in the next few years, will be down to eight. Hence the four new schools would bring the total back up to 12. 

Adding schools in the East (particularly Cincinnati) will alleviate some of West Virginia's current travel burden, with all of the other schools being well to the west. Morgantown, WV and Cincinnati are only a one-hour flight apart (about five or six hours driving).

Here in Lubbock (and perhaps in Fort Worth and Waco, as well), adding Houston to the Big 12 has not been popular, as it introduces a competing school from a huge metropolis within the same state. Others, however, see Houston's status as the fifth-most populated metro area as a strength. UH has also built a new football stadium and renovated its basketball arena, and made last season's Final Four in men's hoops.

I always come back to geographic or historical rivalries, though. Thus, prospective match-ups such as Iowa State-UCF or BYU-WVU, regardless of which sport, don't really excite me very much.

Pac-12 Stands Pat "At This Time"

The Pacific-12 Conference will remain at a dozen schools "at this time," according to an ESPN.com article published this afternoon. From my location in Lubbock, Pac-12 expansion was viewed by many as a possible landing spot for Texas Tech and other Big-12 schools in the aftermath of football powers Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big-12 for the Southeastern Conference (SEC). 

Now, speculation will only intensify regarding whether the Big-12 (now down to eight schools) will expand to get back to 10 or 12 members. According to the ESPN.com article:

If the Big 12 is able to lure in valuable programs -- most likely from the American Athletic Conference -- and remain a Power 5 entity, the overall landscape would remain relatively stable. 

If the AAC is able to hold the upper hand, though, and lure Big 12 schools to make a case to become a Power 5 league, it could create another tremor that might cause the Pac-12 to rethink its position.

Instead of expanding, the Pac-12 has formed an "alliance" with the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The alliance has not been defined very precisely, but appears to include increased non-conference football games between teams in these leagues. According to the ESPN.com article, people within the Pac-12 seem to be banking on the alliance increasing its schools' visibility on a national scale, while maximizing revenue:

The hope within the Pac-12 is that the partnership with the ACC and Big Ten will allow the league to play across different time zones and form new rivalries -- all without having to split the revenue beyond the current 12 teams.