Will College Football Ever Have Another Realignment Craze?

Thursday marked the five-year anniversary of the Nebraska Cornhuskers announcing they were leaving the Big 12 and joining the Big Ten. In turn, this week marked the five-year anniversary of "realignment-palooza," as it was unofficially known.

In the height of the frenzy, the Pac-10 was going to expand to 16, forming the first of four superconferences. The Big 12 was on its deathbed and likely to be absorbed by...wait for it...the now-defunct Big East. 

“This part of the country, all of its significant institutions would have belonged to conferences somewhere else,” former Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe told Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated about the possibility of the conference disintegrating. “If it all fell apart, the sad part is the ‘Flyover Zone’ would have been a true flyover zone.”

No other time in college football's history was more chaotic, as noted by Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports: 

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Today, 43 FBS schools -- 33.6 percent of the current membership -- compete in a different conference than they did five years ago. Along the way, one league (the WAC) died, while another (the former Big East) lost its name (it's now the American Athletic Conference) and its privileged postseason status. All 10 remaining conferences include at least one team they did not claim in 2010.

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The effects of realignment were felt even further down the ladder. Grand Canyon University—yes, there is such a thing—became a Division I member in the WAC, which still fields basketball, in 2013-14. 

The term "back-channel discussions" became a realignment buzzword. Articles claimed a supposed "gentleman's agreement" for SEC expansion, and message boards blew up about the location of the nearest airport to West Virginia University.

Everyone was on crazy pills.

Naturally, the question is this: Could it all happen again?

Yes, but likely not for some time. Television contracts for the five power conferences won't start to expire until next decade at the earliest; an example of an exception would be the SEC's contract with ESPN, which runs through 2034.

As Staples recently tweeted, conferences wouldn't even start exploring ideas like pooling television contracts until their current deals run out.

In the meantime, everything is in a standstill. Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany has his East Coast presence. The SEC has its network on ESPN, and the Pac-12 has Pac-12 Networks. The ACC and Big 12 are, well, alive.

Notre Dame kept its Independent status but has a stronger presence in ACC territory thanks to its partial membership. The Big 12 has no imminent plans to expand because of the lack of viable options. 

And Texas, the program at the heart of the 2010 realignment craze, is still ironically in the same spot it was. 

How long will things stay that way? It could be years—a decade or more even—before we see anything that would potentially rival what began in 2010. Once those grant-of-rights and TV contracts expire, though, a new round of conference shuffling could commence.

The question then would be this: What sets it off? Dissatisfaction with previous conference acquisitions? Not forming the superconferences the first time? Lessons learned from the first time around?

It's hard to tell for sure.

When the realignment craze of 2010 began, it was fueled by deep-rooted issues within the Big 12 and ignited by the desire to rake in more television money. Whatever drives the next round of realignment internally—the "why" factor—the more pertinent question is whether media-rights contracts are still the focal point of how it gets done.

But here's what one can say definitively: We have about another decade for those frustrations to build. Long-standing rivalries and history be damned, major college athletics wants the next best thing before it enjoys what it has in front of it.

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. All quotes cited unless obtained firsthand.