REALIGNMAGEDDON Truths!

Believe what you want.

But first, please understand a few undeniable truths about REALIGNMAGEDDON.

Truth #1 -- Despite everyone's gut feeling of wanting to take the macro-look at conference realignment, the decisions are being made and the machinations are occurring on the micro-level.  It all boils down to individual schools following the piles of money and individual conferences looking for schools that will increase the size of the pie such that the individual slices get bigger.  That's all.  Where is the best money / who will bring in more money, that's always the question.  And really, at its basest level, conference realignment is about eyeballs watching televisions broadcasting college football games.  Which teams playing which games deliver the most eyeballs on the most TV sets?  That's the question at the throbbing, pulsating root of realignmageddon.  Sure, it'd be nice and tidy to see four 16-team conferences arise from all of this, with their champions playing in the four team college football playoff.  Ain't gonna happen.

For example, with Texas and Oklahoma (among others) off the table, there aren't enough teams west of the Mississippi that can make the Pac-12's pie grow.  Therefore, barring a catastrophic collapse of the suddenly-once-again-superpowerful Big XII, I think the Pac-12 is done with expansion.  Unless BYU suddenly finds a way to meet the Pac-12's criteria (and isn't cockblocked by Utah), or unless the Pac-12 gets the sweet eye for Boise's one-dimensional football relevance, I think the Pac-12 is done expanding.  Adding a team like Fresno State does nothing to increase the size of the pie, it only adds another slice being removed.  See what I mean?

Accept this truth and come to grips with the fact that there simply is not some all-powerful Godhand moving these chess pieces around on the board.  It's all about money generated by college football on television, and schools clumping together into conferences in an attempt to secure as much of that sweet, sweet TV money as they possibly can.

There is no such thing as a conference realignment Godhand.
This is all happening on the school / conference level, not above.  There is no "above."

Truth #2 -- SEC > B1G / B12 / Pac-12 > ACC / Notre Dame > Big East > C-USA / MW / BYU > Sun Belt / MAC > WAC.  Or, if that visual doesn't work for you, try this:

Tier 1

Southeastern Conference (SEC)

Tier 2

Big Ten (B1G)

Big XII (B12)

Pac-12

Tier 3

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)

Notre Dame

Tier 4

~~~~~~~

Tier 5

Big East

Tier 6

Conference USA (C-USA)

Mountain West (MW)

Brigham Young University (BYU)

Tier 7

Sun Belt

Mid-American Conference (MAC)

Tier 8

Western Athletic Conference (WAC)

Conferences on any given tier are free to feed on conferences/teams on lower tiers.  Basically. We'll see how things shake out if/when the B12 officially invites Florida State, but I suspect the pecking order is as I depicted it above.  And the more tiers a conference fishes down into, the more the schools in that lower conference will fall all over themselves to make the leap up.  For example, if the SEC ever invited Southern Miss to leave C-USA, I'm pretty sure there'd be a fan elation atomic bukkake all over the streets of Hattiesburg.

It's a pretty simple concept, so I hope you're able to grasp it.  (The big fish eats little fish thing, not the bukkake.)

Also, as higher-tiered conferences take chunks out of lower-tiered conferences, those bitten lower-tiered conferences could slide down one or more tiers on the list.  Example: If the SEC takes Southern Miss from C-USA, then C-USA might slide to tier 7 and below the Mountain West on tier 6, allowing the MW to more easily poach UTEP from C-USA.

The real confusion sets in when conferences try to raid other conferences on the same tier.  That becomes like a game of paper-rock-scissors to see which conference wins, with the loser dropping down one - or more - tiers on this ladder.

If the B12 gobbles up FSU and Clemson, I think the ACC slides from Tier 3 to Tier 4, for example.  Luckily for us, there's an opening on Tier 4.  The only thing that changes is that at that point, Notre Dame lives a tier above us, and is no longer even a quasi-option for the ACC fish to eat.

Purple fish (aka the WAC) says: "Where the hell is the bukkake?"

Truth #3 -- Only football matters.

Well, that's only really half true.  When it comes to TV money, only football matters.  But to the conferences themselves, other things might matter.  For example, UVA's academic prestige probably matters to the Big Ten.  And as was evidenced by the expansion including Syracuse and Pitt, academics matter to the ACC, as well.  That's the prevalent reason ECU will never, ever, ever be an ACC school.  That's the prevalent reason why West Virginia was never seriously entertained as an option for the ACC, despite its relatively high football prestige.  Et cetera.

I bring this up because I have a theory that when realignmageddon ends, the schools that actually value their academics will end up more or less clumped together, while the football-first schools will similarly end up together, having a big giant LMFAO-DJed pool party in their Scrooge McDuck coin room.

Party at Alabama's place!

Truth #4 -- Everything is in a holding pattern until two things happen: 1) The four-team playoff is fleshed out, and 2) Notre Dame decides what it is going to do... if anything.

Four teams could mean any of many, many things.  It could be four teams chosen by BCS-style computers.  It could be four teams chosen by a selection committee.  It could be four conference champions -- THE conference champions (read: the champions of the SEC, B1G, Big XII, and Pac-12.)  It could be the four highest-rated or committee-chosen conference champions of any of the eleven - soon to be ten once the WAC dies - conferences.  It could be three conference champions and a wildcard.  It could be two conference champions and two wildcards.  Et cetera.  Et cetera.  Et cetera.

I tend to think the SEC's greed will ultimately lead college football into the "three champs, one wildcard" model since they will think they always have more than one team worthy of top four status and playoff berths, but if it's a strict "four champs" model, is it so hard to connect the dots and make the tier 1 and tier 2 conferences the only ones that matter?  In this scenario, the ACC dies.  Not literally, but in terms of its elite-level football viability, it dies.  In such a scenario, you can bet that more than Florida State will be looking to jump ship.  Say goodbye to Virginia Tech, Clemson, Miami, and whoever else refuses to be frozen out of the possibility of winning a national championship.

Interestingly, if being a conference champion is any sort of prerequisite for the playoff, then that delivers a hard kick in the pants for Notre Dame.  It would be time to shit or get off the pot for the Irish, as they'd have to join a conference in order to win a national championship via qualifying for the playoffs and then winning the tournament.

So those are the two dominoes for the ACC --- the playoff is fleshed out, and then depending upon those details, Notre Dame decides if it's going to join a conference or remain independent.  The so-called "big four" conferences could very easily drive Notre Dame into the ACC and establish a fifth elite-level conference.

In other words, if it's a "four champs" playoff model, the ACC has a reasonable chance to lure in Notre Dame and ascend from Tier 3 to Tier 2.

If there are wildcard berths into the playoffs, then Notre Dame has no real pressure (other than its next deal with NBC, which might track lower than a slice of a conference's revenue) to join a conference.

So if you're an ACC enthusiast, roll big by hoping for the "four champs" model or play it safe by hoping for a "wildcard" model, for which ACC teams will be eligible.  "Four champs" with Notre Dame joining the Big XII is the worst case scenario.

Truth #5 -- Irony abounds for the ACC, and especially for Florida State.


I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, other than to say the following:


The ACC is the 5th-best football conference right now in no small part because the football schools it brought aboard through earlier expansion - Florida State, then Miami and Virginia Tech - have sucked and embarrassed the conference on the national level.  Take a look-see at the ACC's games in the BCS.


1999 -- Tennessee 23, Florida State 16
2000 -- Florida State 46, [Big East champ] Virginia Tech 29
2001 -- Oklahoma 13, Florida State 2 (c'mon, two points? TWO POINTS???)
2002 -- Florida 56, Maryland 23 (nice)
2003 -- Georgia 26, Florida State 13
2004 -- [Big East champ] Miami 16, Florida State 14
2005 -- Auburn 16, Virginia Tech 13
2006 -- Penn State 26, Florida State 23
2007 -- Louisville 24, Wake Forest 13 (but it was a strong effort, Wake)
2008 -- Kansas 24, Virginia Tech 21 (this one is my personal favorite)
2009 -- Virginia Tech 20, Cincinnati 7
2010 -- Iowa 24, Georgia Tech 14
2011 -- Stanford 40, Virginia Tech 12
2012 -- West Virginia 70, Clemson 33 (I also like this one)
2012 -- Michigan 23, Virginia Tech 20


That's a sterling 2-13 record in the BCS.  That's a .133 percentage.  Well below the Mendoza Line.  Nice job, gang.


FSU and Clemson want to complain about our deal with ESPN being worth less than the deals inked by the SEC, B1G, B12, and Pac-12?  That BCS history documented above is the reason why.  They sucked in the BCS, and they let glass ceilinged and world-renowned choke-artists Virginia Tech represent the conference too often.  Hell, they let Maryland and Wage Fucking Forest win the conference this decade.  Miami hasn't even played in the conference championship game as a member of the ACC.


Florida State, I understand that you probably want to jump ship.  But please know that you are a big reason why the ship is sinking in the first place.  The noble thing to do is get your head out of your ass and get this conference back on track.  You have a chance to do the right thing.  I'm not holding my breath, but we'll see what happens.

Truth #6 -- No matter what happens, the ACC is going to survive.  As a football conference.  A decent football conference.  Fuck Florida State.

The alarmists are seeing FSU, Clemson, and Miami bolting to the Big XII.  Maybe Georgia Tech, too.  They also see Maryland to the B1G, Virginia Tech and NC State to the SEC, and Virginia left to hope/pray/grovel/beg/fluff for a lifeline sent from the freaking Big Ten.

I personally hate the idea of going to the B1G.  Not because I dislike the B1G, but because I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around the notion of UVA trying to forge a rivalry with Minnesota.  Or Iowa.  Or Illinois.  You get the point.

The medicine increases the disease.

But here's the thing I keep coming back to: The ACC is going to survive.  Maybe it's a bastardized version of Tobacco Road fused with the choisest nugs left from the Big East.  Maybe it's a smaller basketball-centric conference that plays a perfect round-robin schedule and doesn't stage a football championship game.  Maybe it's a lot of things, but it will still exist. And for the life of me, I can't envision the University of Virginia in any other conference.

In its 59-year history, only one school has ever left the ACC: South Carolina.
That doesn't really mean anything... but it does feel like it means something.

So with these truths in mind, let's plow boldly into this latest shockwave of realignmageddon.  Let's stare the ACCpocalypse in the face and dare to survive it.