Conference Realignment: 5 Non-BCS Schools That Deserve a Chance to Move Up

For the second time in as many summers, college football and the BCS stepped right to the brink of wholesale superconference realignment before being pulled back by a cooler head or two.

The ACC now sits at 14 members, pending the ability of Syracuse and Pittsburgh to break the terms of their current deal with the Big East. The SEC is awaiting Texas A&M, assuming the Aggies survive Baylor's legal bloodbath, and will likely pursue a 14th team afterward. The Big 12 may soon be down to nine if A&M does, in fact, leave and will need to beef back up to 12 schools in order to survive. All the while, the Big East is even more screwed now than it was before, while both the Pac-12 and the Big Ten will stand pat...for now.

And there you have it! More than a month's worth of college football reshuffling summed up in a paragraph.

So what does all that nonsense mean for the Davids and the Goliaths of the sport? For most, the slow, tectonic shift toward four 16-team superconferences is devastating, as there will only be room for a select few outsiders to join the big-money party. These five schools, in particular, deserve careful consideration from the BCS big boys when (not if) this game of musical chairs gets ramped up again.

BYU

A winning tradition in football? Check. A talented recruiting pool? Check. A massive student body? Check. Wealthy alumni? Check. Access to a major media market (i.e., Salt Lake City, the Rocky Mountain West)? Check.

BYU has all of the ingredients needed to fit right in with one of the major conferences in college football, with the Big 12 as the most likely suitor.

The one big hang-up, of course, is BYUtv. The university runs its own television network, as a means of both printing its own cash and spreading the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Texas, with its Longhorn Network, and the recent near-collapse of the Big 12 serve as a cautionary tale to all conference commissioners who would dare entertain even the possibility of bringing in a school with its own private pool of TV money.

Then again, the allure of a whole new audience could go a long way toward getting the Cougars into a big conference that much quicker, particularly if the money talks loudly enough.  

Boise State

Money and market are not things that Boise State brings to the table. What the Broncos do have, though, is a fantastic football program with a growing national appeal.

Unfortunately, Big Sky country isn't exactly a burgeoning media market, which is a big part of the reason the Smurf Turfers have to play in the middle of the week most of the time, just to get their games on TV.

That being said, if the Broncos buck the system and win the BCS National Championship this year, someone will simply have to step up and give these guys a shot at the big time.

Begrudgingly, of course.

Houston

Houston has a similar profile to BYU's, except without the private TV network and the religious bent. If anything, the Cougars should be right atop the wish list of those BCS commissioners looking to poach from among the small fries.

After all, Houston is the 10th largest media market in the country and sits smack-dab in the middle of the recruiting hot bed that is eastern Texas.

As for the program itself, the Cougars had their five-year streak of reaching bowl games snapped in 2010, when their top two quarterbacks succumbed to injury early in the season. Houston also comes well-versed in the ways of the big-time, having played alongside the likes of Texas and Texas A&M in the Southwest Conference before it went defunct.

UCF

How it is that Central Florida, with the second-largest student body in the entire nation, isn't in a BCS conference already is beyond me. Granted, Orlando isn't a huge media market, but it's still Top 20 in the nation.

On the field, the Knights have been to four bowl games in six seasons under head coach George O'Leary, including a win over Georgia in the 2010 Liberty Bowl to cap off an 11-win season—the first in school history.

Look for the Big East to extend an invitation to UCF at some point in the near future, unless that conference crumbles first.

Navy

The US Naval Academy sports one of the winningest programs in all of college football, yet the Midshipmen can't seem to get a fair shake among the big conferences.

Navy has long held its own among the big boys of college football, sustaining rivalries with the likes of Notre Dame and Maryland while reaching a bowl game in each of the last eight seasons. In the process, head coach Ken Niumatalolo has done a masterful job of keeping the program on course after Paul Johnson departed for Georgia Tech. His Midshipmen nearly upended defending SEC East champion South Carolina in Columbia just last week.

Certainly, the Midshipmen will find their behinds planted firmly in a chair when the music stops playing.

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