College Football: What Do Superconferences Actually Mean?

Seemingly every other day, a new team is rumored to be possibly leaving their conference for greener money, I mean pastures.  With each rumor comes the inevitable chatter of:

Is this the right fit?

What is gained?

And, what rivalries are lost?

It all started when Texas announced that they would be launching their own television network, the Longhorn Network.  The network would show everything under that sun that is burnt orange and white, and even broadcast Texas High School football games. 

Sounds pretty cool...if and only if you're a Longhorns fan.

The problem with the network was that Texas was going to naturally keep all the revenues and not share it with anyone in the Big 12.  Additionally, Texas still wanted all the money they were previously getting from the Big 12. 

In short, they wanted their royal-wedding-sized cake, and wanted to eat it too.

Nebraska and Colorado we're the first to see the writing on the wall, and immediately bailed.  This set off the dominoes across the nation, which are still falling today.

Somewhere along the ever-changing narrative, however, came the notion of superconferences.  I don't know who proposed it, or when, but apparently someone stated that eventually there will be four 16-team conferences. 

This idea seems to have caught on so well, that it almost seems inevitable now.  It's common knowledge.  Ask anyone what they think about realignment, and they'll intently state that a superconference alignment is as inevitable as the polar ice caps melting if we don't find alternative sources of fuel.

Whether or not this all comes to fruition remains to be seen.  I'm not here to predict if it will, or who will end up where. 

For the sake of argument though, let's assume it does. 

There are two things missing from the superconference narrative: how will college football work? Secondly, what does this mean for the fans?

First off, I want to point out something I have not heard one person say. 

Currently, there are six BCS conferences, which have a combined 68 teams.  I don't need the degree in which I have in math to know that 4 x 16 is 64. 

Therefore, the superconference alignment that many are saying is such a sure thing means that four current BCS teams are out of luck.

I'd like to hear the explanation given to those teams. 

Hypothetically, if we want to follow the rules of the English Premiere League and kick out the teams who have the worst records over the past few years, then off the top of my head, it seems like Purdue, Washington State, Virginia and Colorado might be out of luck (it doesn't matter what teams it is).

All of those teams have been good within the past decade.  That's what is so great about college football, the surprise teams that can come together any season.  Apparently though, four of them have to go, and presumably join a non-superconference.  This would break tradition, it would hurt academics (not like we're even pretending to care about them anymore), and it is most likely illegal.

This also assumes that Boise State, TCU, etc., would not be in the superconferences.  As a result, the new alignment would not fix any of the non-AQ problems we have today.  In fact, it would make them worse.  If the current argument is that six conferences of 68 have too much power, then isn't four conferences of 64 worse? 

Less conference, less teams, same/more power and money.  How has no one brought this up?

Now, lets get back to the reasons why fans watch the games. 

That is—the games. 

What would a schedule under a superconference look like?

Let's look at a hypothetical Pac-16.  This would be your current 12 members, and then Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech.

Pac-16 commissioner Larry Scott wants to split the conference into two geographical divisions (so we can still have a Pac-16 title game). 

Therefore, in the North, we have:  Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Cal, Stanford, Colorado and Utah.  And in the South we have: USC, UCLA, ASU, Arizona, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.  

Sounds fair, right?

Following this line-up, there are three ways the schedules could proceed.  Every single one is problematic.

1) Teams play 12 games, three or four of them non-conference.  Therefore, eight or nine conference.  Additionally, they play everyone in their division once, which means they only play one or two teams from the other division. 

Therefore, despite the fact that USC and Stanford have played each other every year since the Pac-10 existed, they will only play each other once every four to five years now. 

Furthermore, if you're only playing 53.3% (8/15) of your conference, what is the point of being in the same conference (other than all the money that the players don't see).  If you could be in the same conference, and only play them once every five years, then by that rationale, aren't Texas and UCLA already in the same conference?

2) Teams play 12 games, zero non-conference.  They only play conference teams; seven in their division, five from the other.  This would lead to more marquee games, but eliminate all the tune-up games against weaker opponents.  For this reason, it will never happen, although, who needs those weak guys anyway? 

MAC, Sun Belt and WAC teams get rich by being paid to travel to a powerhouse and get beat by them.  Now, we can stop paying them, and just keep all monies for ourselves.  Those other teams will cease to exist because they'll have no revenue, but hey, they're not in a superconference! 

This would also eliminate any exciting upset games, but we'll leave those for Basketball and March Madness.

3) Teams play 15 games.  They play everyone once. If a true round robin, this could eliminate Pac-16 title game (which would never happen), or otherwise, they'd still have that: 16 regular season games.

I laughed at myself for even coming up with something this absurd, but then I realized that those who play in conference championship games already play thirteen games.  What's three more games of a physically taxing sport around academic finals going to hurt? 

We don't care about academia anymore, that's why we didn't care who joined up with each other in the superconferences!  You know that ad we run, about most of our scholar athletes going pro in something other than sports?  Its now:

"most of them go pro in something other than sports....but they can only get a degree if they submit to increasingly brutal physical demands, set forth by us, all the while they see no monetary profit, and we sell 90,000 tickets at an average of $400 a ticket for the conference championship game alone."

So pick your poison with the regular season scheduling. 

Following conference play, what happens?  Do we still have one BCS national championship game?  Or, as many are arguing, do we now have a four team playoff (winners of each superconference)? 

Where are those three games going to be played at?  Three of the current BCS arenas?  What happens to the other location? What happens to the best teams outside of the superconferences? 

Again, there are plenty of good teams out of the 52 that make up the non BCS conferences, wouldn't it stand to reason that if there are now 56, that there would be equal-more good teams?  How are bowl affiliations going to work?  It used to be that the SEC and Big 12 played in the Cotton Bowl, is it now Superconference Southeast vs Superconference West?

These are all questions that no one has begun to answer.

Many have pointed to the popularity of the Big East conference in terms of basketball to support a change to superconferences for football.  Already a pseudo-superconference, due to them having eighteen teams, the Big East is traditionally one of the better conferences in the nation.

It has flaws, though, too numerous to go into detail here. 

One such flaw, however, is the regular season scheduling.  Teams can sometimes not play someone in their conference, and play others twice. Therefore, scheduling can play a major part in conference standing.

There is one undeniably huge difference though between Big East basketball, and any football superconference they can put together.

Big East basketball makes up for all of its flaws by:

a) having a Big East tournament

and...

b) basketball having March Madness. 

Big East basketball is cool, entertaining and quality, but the regular season ultimately doesn't matter as much as football.  This is just inherent, as basketball champs are determined in March by multiple games played out over a few short weeks.  It doesn't matter if the team finished sixth in the regular season—they'll still have a chance to win the conference title, and the national title. 

Football doesn't have the luxury of playing so many games because it is a different sport that is more physically demanding.  Therefore, citing the Big East's popularity in basketball for support in football would be egregiously stupid.

So everyone has accepted superconferences as an inevitability, but I haven't heard one explanation of how they are going to work.  I outlined some possibilities and questions above, and there are most likely other explanations and more questions I haven't thought of, but all result in a major shake-up of the game that is so rich with tradition.

And this is where you come in.

Everyone knows that presidents and ads are doing this to get rich.  It's a given at this point.  Let them get rich.  Everyone knows at this point that athletes are being exploited.  This has to change, but they're going to get exploited no matter how the conferences are aligned.  But not one person has mentioned how this change is going to affect the mood of you, the fan. 

How your attitude and appreciation of the game will change.

If you're a fan of college football like I am, I would imagine that you're not happy with what I have written above.   How could you be?  How could you have grown up watching the same teams play each other for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years plus, and then just have that yanked away from you?  How could you be happy that you were sold on the idea of rivalries, academic integrity, and even conference competition (bragging rights), to just learn it is all a fraud and is being sold for money.

However, you are not going to see a dime.  And worse yet, the ads and Presidents know you'll continue to watch.

Boycotting college football if such a realignment were to occur would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Clearly, it isn't something that will happen in large enough numbers.  It may turn some people off of the game, but there will still be plenty of people out there who will line the pockets of the conference big-wigs.

It's terrible to see things have reached this point, and may be coming to an end in such a way.  The powers that be are acting in a fashion that shows no consideration for their loyal customers.  A piece of the greats who played and coached the game is going to be lost, as well as a piece of our fandom. 

Things will never be the same.