Conference Realignment: Can Big East & Big 12 Teams Survive Without Each Other?

In a move that caught nearly everyone off guard, the ACC struck the first major blow in conference expansion nabbing Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East to form a 14-team league.

The Big 12 has also suffered a major blow in losing Texas A&M but the final shot could be delivered in the coming days because Oklahoma and Texas both agreed to give their presidents the authority to act on conference realignment.

That is about as close as you can get to bolting out of the conference.

But the question now becomes whether either conference will be able to salvage what is left and survive as a BCS conference.

The two leagues have talked about a possible merger and that is really the only way the remaining schools can stay in a BCS conference.

At the moment it appears the Big East will adhere to its 27-month timeline for any school wishing to leave which means the Big East will be intact until the start of the 2014 season but after that, a merger is necessary.

There simply are not enough football playing schools in the Big East left to warrant an annual BCS Bowl bid.

And this is before the Big Ten makes any kind of move and the SEC still has not found a 14th team to balance out the addition of Texas A&M. Missouri and West Virginia are two teams that have garnered a lot of talk about leaving for either one of these conferences.

Should they both leave, it is unlikely that even a merger could save these conferences because they are the two major football schools left in the Big 12 and Big East.

The Big East basketball schools could get left out in the cold in all of this but, frankly, the teams outside of Villanova, Georgetown and possibly St. John's brought little to the conference anyway. There will be plenty of conferences who would love to add all of these schools, namely the Colonial Athletic Association.

Conference expansion comes down to television deals and football and without each other the Big East and Big 12 do not have football and without Syracuse, Pittsburgh or possibly Missouri, they don’t have much in television markets either.

Together at least they cover enough ground to get a decent television deal which would hopefully be enough to get the combined leagues a BCS Bowl bid.