In what would feel like an unprecedented event if it didn’t seem to happen every couple of years, there’s been another seismic shift in the college sports landscape. However, this one feels like the beginning to something bigger and will likely have serious ramifications for the future prospects of many universities, including UNM. In fact, it seems like such a big deal that I actually decided to come out of whatever rock I’ve been hiding under and start writing again.
So What Happened?
As with a lot of these big shifts, this all started with a conference realignment. The University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas both accepted invitations to join the SEC, making the most powerful football conference in college sports even more powerful. This sort of thing has felt inevitable ever since the Big 12 started bleeding conference members to the Pac 12, the Big Ten, and the SEC about a decade ago. The reason the Big 12 is valuable right now is largely because of OU and Texas and the value of those two schools will only be amplified when they’re paired with other premier programs. And they know it. They may control their conference right now, but that feels small compared to what their upside is now that they’re going to be in the SEC.
The second shift that happened was the alliance between the Pac 12, the Big Ten, and the ACC. I think that it’s important to notice two things from it. First, it appears that they’re trying to be proactive in making sure that they aren’t trying to poach members from each other, trying to avoid the messy relationship that now exists between the Big 12 and the SEC. They know that the future of college sports continues to run through them, so the last thing they need to do is mess up a good thing though infighting. The second thing is who wasn’t invited. In particular, the Big 12. I’ve seen others suggest for years that the end game for college sports is likely four super conferences. With these moves, it’s clear what four conferences those would be.
Finally, the last shift just happened… and it’s more realignment! In response to dropping down to eight members, it sounds like the Big 12 is looking to add some new members. Specifically, BYU, UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati. That’s underwhelming, to say the least, and also shows why they didn’t have an interest in expansion before. But, they need to have more members to stabilize their conference, so they’re in a tough spot.
What does all of this mean in general?
From these things happening, and the Name, Image, and Likeness policy change that also happened this summer, we’re moving closer and closer to college football being, effectively, minor league football. Fewer and fewer schools will actually be able to compete in an environment where not only are there drastic differences in school resources, but differences in what sort of endorsement deals are available. It also feels as though we’re heading in a direction where players will be able to receive a salary from their school, on top of a scholarship. There is a lot of money in college football, but it’s not going to be spread out evenly and only a handful of schools and conferences will get the lion’s share of that revenue. Hence, the four super conferences idea.
That does feel like it could still be a little ways off, but there are near term effects as well. In particular, the Big 12 and the AAC are both about to be in rough shape. Well, relative to where they are now. It is unlikely that the Big 12 will be able to continue to demand the same level of TV contracts without OU and Texas, which will affect the budgets for each of their members. The same actually goes for the AAC. Here’s what their football membership is about to look like:
- Memphis
- Tulane
- Tulsa
- Eastern Carolina
- Navy
- Temple
- SMU
- USF
That’s not going to give them the case of being the 6th member of the power conferences. They’ll need to add members, likely from Conference USA, but there’s not a lot of inspiring choices there. For what it’s worth, this realignment will likely make the Mountain West the clear sixth best football conference, after what will be the Power Four and the Big 12.
What Does This Mean for the MW and the Lobos?
If I were an athletic director at any school in the Mountain West, I would be figuring out what I could be doing to get into the Pac 12. Starting today. With the way things are trending, Mountain West football will have an extremely hard time competing in the future, especially for any sort of national relevancy. The differences in resources, scheduling, and media attention will make it nearly impossible for them to make the College Football Playoff. However, a school that makes it into the Pac 12 still has a chance. The Pac 12 did announce that they are not planning on expanding right now, but there has been rumblings of that happening at some point for a while now. I would make sure I’m at the top of the list in that case.
Let’s say that the Pac 12 decides to expand to the Pac 16 and then only wants to pick teams in either the Mountain or Pacific time zones. Who are they taking? Well, BYU is (probably) not an option at this point, so the prominent names are all in the MW. Of those teams, the only one with long-term, national relevancy in football is Boise State. So let’s say they’re a candidate (even though they would get axed based on my next requirement). The next thing that the Pac 12 supposedly would find important is the university’s research quality. Of the teams in the MW, the schools that are R1 universities (meaning they are doctoral universities with a very high research output) are: CSU, Hawaii, UNM, Nevada, and UNLV. I doubt that the Pac 12 would take Hawaii for travel reasons, but the other four feel possible.
But that’s five teams for four slots! Someone’s going to miss the boat, so if I were an AD, I would be doing everything in my power to make sure that wasn’t me. And if I was one of the remaining teams, it might make the most sense to start focusing on basketball and turning the conference into the dream west coast basketball conference, similar to what the Big East is now. After all, I’m not completely sure how football would be worth it at that point.
If the Pac 12 decides to stand pat, then some decisions are going to need to be made. One option is to just lean into basketball, as mentioned before, but the other is to see what happens with the Big 12. It would not be incredibly surprising to see other schools join either the ACC or the Big Ten (I keep forgetting that Kansas isn’t in the Big Ten already), and if that happens, it’s not clear what that conference even is at that point. It might make sense at that point for the MW to try to grab some of the remaining teams there in hopes of strengthening their own position.
Regardless, this feels like an inflection point in college sports. Because football is the dominant money maker, these shifts will have ripple effects across all sports and, as we already see now, there will be the haves and the have-nots. Eddie Nuñez will need to be acting with some urgency right now, as we want the Lobos to be one of the haves.