Conference realignment is changing football and basketball, for better or for worse. After Texas and Oklahoma became martyrs and joined the SEC, the Pac-12, Big 10 and ACC came together to form an alliance. The three major conferences are looking for some sort of negotiating power after seeing how ESPN and the SEC tried to break the fabric of organization.
While looking for information about this alliance, we at the Fizz listened to an NPR interview with Nicole Auerbach, a senior college football writer for the Athletic. Here are some interesting cliff notes from the interview:
Before the conference shift was announced, there was a large push to expand the college football playoff to 12 teams from just four. Interestingly enough, Auerbach reveals that the proposal was written without any advising from the three aforementioned conferences.
“There was a four-person working group that came up with the proposal for a 12-team format, which is what is being vetted right now. And the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 were not on that four-person working group.”
So the SEC pretty much made a power grab, pushing for more teams from their conference (which they knew would include Texas and Oklahoma).
“you had a lot of pressure on the other power conferences to do something in response and to show strength and to show might. And so they banded together essentially to say strength in numbers.”
That can all sort of logically be concluded, but this next part is what really matters.
“The NCAA has never been more fractured and less powerful than it is right now, which is part of the reason it is facing calls for drastic change.”
With NIL and realignment, the world’s worst governing body of “amatuers” is in a complete tailspin. And for SU fans, that’s a great sign. The NCAA unfairly put sanctions on Jim Boeheim and company for the whole YMCA camp payment thing, which in today’s world would absolutely be legal and welcomed for collegiate athletes. The NCAA won’t have the chance to ruin more programs or recruiting classes with egregiously random violations. Since recruiting is now open season with NIL, the former rulers of the collegiate sports landscape will have to sit back and accept their fate.
