There seems to be a lot of talk around the shifting college conference landscape lately. So, I thought I would take it upon myself to try to clear things up.
So far, we know for sure that Colorado is leaving the Big 12 for the Pac-10. If things were to stop with this, the Pac-10 would then have 11 teams, as would the Big 12 (11). However, it would seem a lock that Nebraska will be leaving the Big-12 (now 11) as well. They would be headed to the Big 10, which currently has 11 teams, which with Nebraska would be 12. So, we would have 12 Big 10 teams, 10 Big 12 teams, and 11 Pac 10 teams. One would have to assume this would beget renaming the conferences to align with their new number of institutions, to make the Big 10 the Big 12, the Big 12 the Big 10, and the Pac 10 the Pac 11 unless we throw out USC for their recent violations making the Pac 10′s 11 10 again.
However, it doesn’t stop there. There’s more talk that the Big 12 with 10 teams (not to be confused with the Big 10 with 12 teams that had 11 before) could further loose more teams to any mix of the Pac 10 (11), the Big 10 (12), or the SEC (number withheld to protect the innocent). If, from the remaining Big 12′s 10 teams, Texas and Texas A&M were to leave for the Pac 10 (11 carry the two for 13) that would leave the Big 12 with 8 teams, not to be confused with the former Big 8, which became the Big 12 when they added 4 teams (how reasonable), and would make the Pac 10 13, the Big 10 12, and the Big 12 8 (but not, mind you, the Big 8).
With all of this, there is of course speculation that both the Pac 10 now 13 and the Big 10 now 12 (but not the Big 12, or 8) would then want to continue to expand to 16 teams each, further dissolving the Big 12 to the Little One. This would thus make the Pac 10 16 and the Big 10 16 and the Big 12 one, and we could then just rename them all to the Pac 16, the Big 16, and the Big Nothing Plus One (presumably Iowa State on both accounts), removing a lot of confusion.
And, never failing to look long term, one could see a day where the Pac 16 and the Big 16 would want to merge into one super-conference which would of course be known by one of two names.
In the first case, the conference would be known as Every Relevant Football Team – West, which would then compete with Every Relevant Football Team – East, aka the merged SEC/ACC, aka SAC, and thus replacing the BCS with the ERFT playoffs, which the ERFT-West would dominate. The yearly playoff would thus be nicknamed The Annual SAC Kicking Contest. The beer commercials at half time would be epic.
In the second case, the merged Pac 16 and Big 16 would choose to combine their names to form the Pig 32, which the still excluded and horribly confused Iowa State would attempt to mate with, producing a new, wildly deformed chimera offspring conference. The new Monster Conference would by genetics consist half of relevant football teams, and half of Iowa State, thus mirroring the current Iowa / Iowa State rivalry, but on a much larger and more horrifying scale. I’m also pretty sure it would be a signal of the end times.
Notre Dame (still independent) would then attempt to engage in a battle (football) with Monster Conference in a final contest of good vs evil (I’ll let you be the judge as to which side is which in a half-pig/half-ISU vs Fainting Irish contest) in order to bring about the Apocalypse as foretold in the book of Revelations. However, Monster Conference would be confused as to whom “Notre Dame” is, as it would have long since been relegated to little more than a folk tale among devoted Catholics and viewers of NBC, with little recognition in the outside world. Monster Conference would then assume the challenge from “Notre Dame” was just a prank phone call and hang up, thus avoiding the Apocalypse and making the world immortal. Logically this would cause my Iowa Hawkeyes to be crowned The World Champions Of All College Football Forever Amen. This would of course take place at the Rose Bowl.
Hope that clears everything up.
