Don't believe the Hype

Pac-12 may say that they are sticking with 12, but more likely they are posturing in order to get Texas to agree to revenue sharing. Apparently Texas is standing its ground and possibly reaching out to the ACC. Others are thinking that the Big Ten may also approach Texas for another shot at getting them to join. I really have trouble seeing Texas in the ACC because I don't believe that they will join without Oklahoma who in turn is tied in with Oklahoma State (Texas Tech is just along for the ride but not essential to any deal). So . . . adding three makes it more likely for the teams to still look at joining the Big 10 over the ACC. Unless the ACC can pull off one of the biggest coups ever in college athletics and somehow convince Texas and Notre Dame to join the league. Could this be the start of something huge?

Notre Dame

In some news that caught me off guard, Notre Dame is reportedly looking at ACC affiliation over the Big Ten. This is something worth keeping an eye on. They are still toeing the company line saying that they will remain independent in football and Big East members in all other sports but those days may be coming to an end. If this is true, it obviously changes my original big four conference predictions. In a simple swap I would move Rutgers over to the Big Ten and Notre Dame over to the ACC North.
In other news, there is talk between the remaining Big East and Big 12 members to join forming one conference (known as the Big 12 is my understanding for financial reasons). I'm not sure at this point if they would operate similar to the current Big East rules as far as the non-football powers in the Big East (Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's) still joining for all other sports. Seems like it would be a very big conference.

First Try at what the Big 4 will look like

ACC:
South:
UNC, Duke, NC State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Miami, Florida State, Georgia Tech
North:
UVA, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Boston College, Syracuse, Pitssburgh, UConn, Rutgers

Although I would still prefer West Virginia I feel like signs are pointing towards Rutgers as the 16th.

Darkhorse candidates: West Virginia, Louisville, South Florida

SEC:
East:
Florida, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia, Louisville
West:
Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, Mississippi, Mississippi State, LSU, Texas A&M, Baylor

West Virginia will be picked up by someone and I feel that the SEC will be happy to take them. As for the other two, Louisville and Baylor were my best guesses as to who might land in the SEC. I feel like Louisville has a good shot at bringing in quality basketball and football as well as a natural rivalry with UK. Baylor is thrown in as a way to get them to back off their lawsuit.

Darkhorse candidates: TCU (probably should switch Baylor to this spot), BYU,South Florida


Big 10:
Leaders:
Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Indiana, Kansas, Kansas State
Legends:
Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Northwestern, Iowa, Iowa State, Notre Dame

Notre Dame finally caves and joins, the other three seem to just make sense geographically and either have a natural rival or bring one along with them. I just can't see Kansas being left out of a big conference with the basketball tradition and my understanding is that they are a package deal with K State.

Darkhorse candidates: Boise State, West Virginia, Rutgers, BYU

Pac-12:
North:
Standford, California, Oregon,Oregon St., Washington, Washington St., Oklahoma, Oklahoma St.

South:
USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona St., Colorado, Utah, Texas, Texas Tech

Darkhorse candidates: I would say Boise State and BYU but there doesn't seem to be any question as to who is coming on board.

What does it all mean

The natural conclusion to draw from all the realignment moves taking place in college athletics is that we will be left with 4 'Superconferences' made up of the future Pac-16, the Big 10 (will they ever change the name), the SEC and the ACC. The obvious losers in this scenario are the former Big 12 and the Big East. So what happens from there. I'm not sure but I have a sneaky feeling that we could see the end of the NCAA as we now know it. 16 x 4 equals 64 teams. These conferences will now have enough teams to play there own basketball tournament at the end of the year without worrying about who the committee left out. Interestingly enough there are currently 30 bowl games (with 2 more planned). Now I don't think that they would also send every team to a bowl and I don't know why people would go see two bottom of the barrel teams play each other but I do feel that the basketball tournament is a real possibility. There is nothing that would stop these schools from forming a new oversight committee and do away with any NCAA affiliation.  The NCAA only has power because the Universities gave it power and bought into the system, nothing that I am aware of stops them from breaking away from it.