Memphis to the Big East: Re-Ranking Every Conference with Tigers' Move

Now that football season is over, the Big East will take these next several months and try to rebuild its conference. With the losses of Syracuse, Pittsburgh and eventually West Virginia, the conference is on the verge of becoming irrelevant.

The conference took a big step yesterday by adding Memphis to the Big East in all sports. They will become a member next season as they are leaving Conference USA after being with them since 1996. Of course, the Big East still has tons of work to do, but this is a step in the right direction.

With this move now official, let's re-rank every BCS conference in college football.

6. Big East

Okay, this addition of Memphis may be a step in the right direction to try and keep the conference afloat, but the Big East is still by far the weakest BCS conference. We're talking about adding a team that hasn't won a bowl game since 2005 and has won a combined five games in the last three seasons.

Teams like Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida have the potential to give this conference solid seasons, but this in no way shape or form means the Big East can compete with any of the other BCS conferences. It consists of mainly basketball programs that simply don't do well on the football side of things.

I like to see that the Big East is at least trying to add on to the conference, but they still have a lot of work to do. And it's not going to change overnight.

5. Pac-12

This may come off as surprising to some people, but is there any respectable team in this conference besides USC and Oregon? We're still not sure about Stanford with Andrew Luck leaving, UCLA has a first year head coach, Washington plays no defense and Cal lost nearly every one of their top recruits.

This conference has the potential to be good in a couple of years, but you need to have more than two teams controlling the conference to be ranked any higher. Teams like Washington, Arizona and Arizona State are moving in the right direction, but we need to see more from those teams before we move the Pac-12 up with the big boys.

4. Big 12

The Big 12 was very surprising last year as they had four teams finish the year with double-digit wins. The question now is, how will those teams respond next season?

I'm pretty sure we can bet that Kansas State won't get anywhere close to the 10 wins they finished with and with key players leaving Baylor, they won't either. Oklahoma State may experience growing pains with Justin Blackmon and Justin Weeden leaving and with Missouri and Texas A&M leaving, it only hurts the depth of this conference.

It'd be nice to see Texas get back on track, but I think with a lot of star power leaving the Big 12, they won't be as competitive as they were last season.

3. Big Ten

The Big Ten isn't an exciting conference, but they sure are on the rise.

With Urban Meyer taking over the Buckeyes and Brady Hoke doing a fabulous job at Michigan, one of the best rivalries in sports has a new life. That alone should put this conference above a few of the others. I think Penn State will be fine, even with all of the distractions and a new head coach. Wisconsin isn't going anywhere, as long as they have Montee Ball carrying the football 20 plus times a game.

Overall, this conference may be a little top heavy, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the Big Ten. Expect this conference to only get better in the next couple of years.

2. ACC

The ACC was weak last season, but that doesn't mean much heading into this year.

Clemson returns majority of their starters and will remain one of the most exciting teams of the year. Florida State appears to be national championship contenders once again, especially with an absolutely ridiculous recruiting class coming in. Head coach Mike London is doing fantastic things with Virginia and they should remain a dark horse in the conference.

And of course Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Miami will do their things as well and should stay in the polls for majority of the year. I think it's safe to say that the ACC is back and may amaze a few people along the way. 

1. SEC

What a shocker, huh?

Whether you're a fan of the SEC or not, you have to agree that they do have the best conference in all of college football. After all, they have won the last six BCS National Championships and have the deepest conference from top to bottom in the sport. There have been four different SEC teams that have won the national championship in the last six seasons. That says a lot about that conference right there in itself.

With the way this conference recruits, they're not going anywhere anytime soon, and until somebody knocks them off, they deserve to be labeled the best conference in college football.

Randy Chambers is a B/R featured columnist that covers college football and the NFL. You can contact him @Randy_Chambers or [e-mail].