College Football Teams That Should Get Involved in the Next Realignment Craze
Who is going to be the next Louisville, Maryland or Rutgers?
When it comes to college football realignment, it's more a matter of when rather than if it will happen again. This season included another wave of schools joining or switching leagues, a fourth straight year of movement that has caused the power conferences to swell and others to fight over the leftovers.
In 2015 we'll see a small amount of change, with Navy joining the American Athletic Conference and Charlotte moving up from FCS to join Conference USA. The only move set for 2016 involves Massachusetts leaving the Mid-American Conference to become an FBS independent.
Will there be more in the near future? Probably. Who will it involve? That's where the speculation begins.
With the Big 12 getting shut out of the College Football Playoff this year—partly due to its lack of a title game—talk has already begun about whether the league should expand to 12 teams to improve its postseason hopes.
Such a move would likely start another chain reaction, like when the Big 12 was raided by the Big Ten and Pac-12 in 2011 and the SEC in 2012.
Here's a look at 10 schools that figure to be in the mix—or should get themselves involved—the next time the realignment carousel gets going.
Army
1 of 10
Current league: Independent
Best fit: Mid-American
An independent for nearly its entire existence (it was in Conference USA from 1998-2004), Army has had to piece together a schedule each year with teams willing to play the least successful of the three service academies.
This has mostly meant playing teams in the Mid-American and C-USA, and this past season it also had to play two FCS schools to reach 12 games.
In 2015, the Black Knights are in a similar boat with two FCS games and four American Athletic Conference opponents including rival Navy, which moves out of the independent ranks to join the AAC.
Army should follow suit, but considering its lack of football success—it has had three winnings seasons in the past 20 years, and only one since 1997—the smarter move would be to a league with weaker competition while also in close proximity to the West Point, New York, campus.
The Black Knights got two of their four wins this season against MAC teams, beating Ball State and natural rival Buffalo.
Boise State
2 of 10
Current league: Mountain West
Best fit: Pac-12
Boise State has wanted to be part of the big boys ever since it moved into FBS in the mid-1990s, but it was a slow climb for the program best known for its blue turf before becoming among the first so-called "BCS Buster" teams.
The Broncos twice played in—and won—the Fiesta Bowl during the BCS era, and this year they earned the first at-large bid awarded to a Group of Five team for a major bowl.
That again was the Fiesta Bowl, and Boise again came out on top, beating Arizona.
The Broncos have been in three leagues since their first FBS season: the Big West, the Western Athletic and now the Mountain West. They nearly joined the Big East in 2011 during the last realignment onslaught. Boise State was tabbed along with San Diego State and others to form a new Western Division of a league that had been pillaged by other conferences.
That move never officially happened, but if another chance to move leagues comes around, Boise needs to take it. The Pac-12 seems like the best fit—for location and competition—as Boise has consistently played Pac-12 schools in the regular season and often met them in the Las Vegas Bowl.
This would also help Boise State solve its scheduling problem, which over the years has seen it play power opponents on the road or in neutral sites without getting a return game on the blue turf.
BYU
3 of 10
Current league: Independent
Best fit: Pac-12
BYU decided in 2011 to go out on its own and become an independent in football and put its other sports in the West Coast Conference or other leagues. For football, though, the Cougars wanted to grow their brand on a national level, similar to Notre Dame—something they felt would work best as an independent.
The results so far have been good, but they could be better in a league.
BYU has won at least eight games in all four independent seasons, including this past year when it went 8-5. But it has struggled to land big-time opponents at the frequency Notre Dame has, though it did get Georgia Tech and Texas to come to Provo in 2013 and had Virginia at home this past season.
In 2015, though, the Cougars must visit Michigan, Nebraska and UCLA and face Missouri in Kansas City.
An additional issue BYU has dealt with as an independent has been relatively pedestrian bowl destinations. The school made arrangements ahead of time with different bowls, but odds are the Cougars had higher hopes than playing in the Armed Forces or Miami Beach bowls when they went out on their own.
Since going back to the Mountain West probably won't work, nor would it make things much better, the best fit would be the Pac-12.
With conference teams on all sides of BYU, including in-state rival Utah, there would be the opportunity to continue playing in front of the school's massive alumni bases throughout the West while also increasing its chance to get into bigger bowl games.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Cincinnati
4 of 10
Current league: American
Best fit: Big 12
Cincinnati has been one of the most successful and consistent programs over the past nine years, with its 83-34 record during that time ranked as the 13th-best in FBS. That's been in spite of the Bearcats having four head coaches, with the three prior to current coach Tommy Tuberville leaving for more high-profile jobs.
A program that was previously run by Michigan State's Mark Dantonio (2004-06), Notre Dame's Brian Kelly (2007-09) and Tennessee's Butch Jones (2010-12) played in BCS bowls twice by winning the Big East but has been relegated to the second tier with the American Athletic Conference not included in the College Football Playoff system.
That could change, though, especially with the Big 12 possibly in the market to expand following its own playoff snub this season.
"UC's football and basketball programs would hold their own in the Big 12," wrote Paul Daugherty of USA Today. "The school would likely need to spend some money to get the entire athletic program up to standard. It's money the Bearcats would have."
Besides being a pretty decent market—with connections to both the South and Midwest—Cincinnati is one of a handful of viable schools the Big 12 could add that would help bridge the (sizable) gap between its nine members in the middle of the country and West Virginia, which is a time zone away.
Hawaii
5 of 10
Current league: Mountain West
Best fit: Independent
As college sports move closer toward an era of compensating student-athletes—or at least increasing the payments for players' academic and living needs—some schools could end up facing major budget crunches.
Hawaii is among the schools that have already pointed this out. In August, now-former athletic director Ben Jay said "there's a very real possibility of football going away," per Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com.
A $2.1 million budget deficit, as well as a floundering program, has Rainbow Warriors football on the chopping block in the near future.
Maybe a move to independence would help. At the very least, it would limit the amount of money spent by the school on costly road trips.
Whether as a member of the WAC from 1978-2011 or the Mountain West the past three years, Hawaii has had to make at least three trips to the mainland every season to meet conference requirements. Most times, the program was able to manage this by loading up its non-league slate with home games—often against power programs—but that opponent pool has dried up.
Oregon State and Washington came to Hawaii in 2014, and Colorado will be there next season. After that, though, the only power foes lined up are Kansas (2017), Arizona and Oregon State (2019) and Wisconsin (2021).
It might seem like leaving a league would make matters worse, but schools that travel to Hawaii are allowed to add a 13th game (usually at home) to offset the cost of making that trip. If Hawaii were to become independent, and if schools wanted to keep alive the chance to play a regular-season game in paradise, maybe something could be done to help sweeten the pot for such visits.
The NCAA and the College Football Playoff this week announced it would help cover the travel costs for Ohio State and Oregon players' families or guardians to attend the national title game on Jan. 12, with the legislation initiated to expand this to all bowl games in the future.
If that's doable, then why not a way to make it more (financially) attractive to play in Hawaii, in an effort to keep this tradition-rich program alive?
Louisiana-Lafayette
6 of 10
Current league: Sun Belt
Best fit: Conference USA
Louisiana-Lafayette can only win so many New Orleans Bowls before it starts to get old.
The Ragin' Cajuns have finished first or second in the Sun Belt Conference each of the past four years, and they were rewarded with a virtual home game for a bowl in New Orleans. They won all four, making them arguably the top non-Power Five program not named Boise State.
Amazingly, the school has managed to hold on to coach Mark Hudspeth during that stretch, but to expect that to continue while also remaining in the lowest-rated league in FBS seems short-sighted. If ULL indeed wants to remain a mid-major pillar, it needs to have some upward mobility.
Seeing as the Sun Belt has basically been the breeding ground for future Conference USA schools, it would make sense for the next team to make that jump to be ULL.
The current C-USA makeup includes five schools that were in the Sun Belt as recently as 2012. That includes Western Kentucky, which is located in the sizable city of Bowling Green but isn't as major a market as where other C-USA schools (current and former) were based.
In fact, Lafayette has about twice as many people as Bowling Green, so that shouldn't be a detractor for the C-USA to extend an invite. And considering C-USA often gets plundered by other leagues when realignment gets rolling, it could be proactive for once and make additions before suffering subtractions.
Marshall
7 of 10
Current league: Conference USA
Best fit: American
When in doubt, grab a Conference USA team.
No league has seem more realignment-related turnover than C-USA, which in 2015 will have only four members who fielded football teams in its conference just three years ago.
Flagship member UAB has dropped the sport, leaving Southern Mississippi as the only school part of the original lineup, while Marshall, Rice and UTEP have been around since 2005.
If anyone else is going to leave C-USA, it's likely to be Marshall. Of those in the current group, it has had the most consistent results and figures to have the best chance to succeed at a bigger level.
The 2014 Thundering Herd went 13-1, flirting with perfection until the regular-season finale before winning the conference title and dominating its bowl game. That bowl win, over Northern Illinois, came in the Boca Raton Bowl, which allowed the team's Florida-heavy roster to play in front of friends and family.
Marshall has managed to capitalize on having other Florida schools in its league, first UCF and now Florida Atlantic and Florida International. Moving to the American Athletic Conference (which has South Florida and UCF, as well as six other former C-USA members) would enable the Herd to continue mining the Sunshine State for talent.
Memphis
8 of 10
Current league: American
Best fit: Big 12
Memphis' football program wasn't invited to the American Athletic Conference in 2013 because of its success—or even because the school was in a market that would help the AAC grow. More than anything, the Tigers were asked to join because that league needed to take whatever it could get after watching Louisville, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse and West Virginia jump ship.
Oh, and seeing Boise State and San Diego State back out of joining.
But now that Memphis had one of the biggest one-year turnarounds in FBS history, going from 3-9 to 10-3, the Tigers are suddenly an attractive option for power leagues looking to add enough schools in order to hold a conference championship game.
And like fellow AAC member Cincinnati, the Big 12 could come calling if it wants to find viable schools who could make for a nice round number of 12 members and can make the road trips in the league a little more spread out.
Poor West Virginia is all alone far east of everyone else, but Memphis (as well as Cincinnati) would make for a less unwieldy geographic footprint.
North Dakota State
9 of 10
Current league: Missouri Valley (FCS)
Best fit: Mid-American
On Saturday, North Dakota State will face Illinois State in Frisco, Texas, in its quest for a fourth consecutive FCS title. The Bison have gone 57-3 during the past four seasons, a record that includes wins at FBS schools Minnesota (2011), Colorado State (2012), Kansas State (2013) and Iowa State (2014).
During that same time span, Kansas beat five FBS opponents.
There's no form of European soccer-style relegation or promotion in college sports, though budget issues could cause some schools to drop out of the big leagues. Several FCS teams have made the move up over the past decade with varying success, though, and NDSU should be the next one to do this.
It seems only fair, since the Bison lost their longtime coach (Craig Bohl) to Wyoming after the 2013 season. Now current coach Chris Kleiman, who has kept the run going with a 14-1 record, can take the program and its passionate green-and-gold fans into the Mid-American Conference.
Odds are the Bison would have little trouble competing in that league, since the lower-end MAC teams tend to be the FBS opponents that power-league bottom feeders like Kansas, Purdue and Wake Forest have the best chance of beating.
And if NDSU can best one of those teams every year—on the road—imagine what it could do with a slate of FBS teams coming to the FargoDome?
Notre Dame
10 of 10
Current league: Independent
Best fit: Big Ten or ACC
We'll wrap things up with the team that always gets mentioned—yet remains uninvolved—each time realignment comes about.
Notre Dame has held to its desire to remain independent, though this past year it forged an agreement with the ACC (where all its other sports compete) to play four or five of its schools in football every year.
That gave us a great matchup this first season, with the Fighting Irish visiting Florida State, but that also means future stinkers like next year's visit from Wake Forest. And those games have also pushed aside some of Notre Dame's great rivalries, such as the series with Michigan.
Notre Dame is making a push to pick up bigger home-and-home series with national powers, such as Georgia, Ohio State and Texas, but the year-by-year variance in the quality of ACC opponents leaves a lot of uncertainty when it comes to schedule strength. And as it saw this season—prior to dropping four straight—at 7-1 Notre Dame wasn't getting much love as a playoff team from the selection committee.
If the Irish finally gave in and joined the ACC full time, or stuck closer to home and became part of the Big Ten, there would be a more navigable route to the playoffs.
Being in the ACC or Big Ten would boost either league to 15 teams, which might mean needing to add a 16th school to create a super conference. Or, as a way of placating Notre Dame and its fickle scheduling whims, the welcoming conference could allow its new member to bounce back and forth between divisions every two years.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
