The Big 12 Conference must be feeling pretty crappy, especially after yesterday's events of both TCU and Baylor getting snubbed out of the inaugural College Football Playoff semifinal games (and the Big 12 crowning both of the co-champions didn't do them any favors either). This is going to get the Big 12 schools and administrators talking and taking some sort of action, with many speculating that the conference might look towards expanding up to two more members, thus sparking off another round of conference realignment.
The question now is, if so, who would they invite? Many feel that BYU is a probable front-running candidate but I've also seen names such as Cincinnati and even Boise State being thrown out. Who else can you think of? Is Notre Dame a plausible candidate too? Futhermore, how much of a ripple effect could this possibly have in the entire college football landscape.
Also, don't forget that with UAB shutting their football program down, C-USA will most likely be looking for a new school to replace them as early as the 2015-2016 academic year (since they seem to only want schools that have football programs); this will also be affecting other programs as well since shifting will most certainly occur from this (thus contributing to the conference realignment phenomena). Other contributing factors: UMass looking for a new conference after the 2015 season for their football team and the Sun Belt still being on their quest for a 12th football member.
If my supposition proves correct, get ready for another wild ride folks! Only time will tell how this (possible) new wave of significant conference moves will compare to the previous one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9313_NCAA_conference_realignment
The question now is, if so, who would they invite? Many feel that BYU is a probable front-running candidate but I've also seen names such as Cincinnati and even Boise State being thrown out. Who else can you think of? Is Notre Dame a plausible candidate too? Futhermore, how much of a ripple effect could this possibly have in the entire college football landscape.
Also, don't forget that with UAB shutting their football program down, C-USA will most likely be looking for a new school to replace them as early as the 2015-2016 academic year (since they seem to only want schools that have football programs); this will also be affecting other programs as well since shifting will most certainly occur from this (thus contributing to the conference realignment phenomena). Other contributing factors: UMass looking for a new conference after the 2015 season for their football team and the Sun Belt still being on their quest for a 12th football member.
If my supposition proves correct, get ready for another wild ride folks! Only time will tell how this (possible) new wave of significant conference moves will compare to the previous one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9313_NCAA_conference_realignment
