The Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, & PAC 12 conferences are trying to keep up with the SEC, and the Big 12 is on the outside looking in. But what’s happening is anything but a bad thing, and it could represent athletic salvation.
Money rules. It always has. And if anybody thinks that it doesn’t matter in big-time college football, then I don’t know what planet they are living on. It’s not this one, for sure, and it’s definitely not in America 2021. All you need to know about the significant college football industry is well described in the tagline of the recent DISCOVER commercial, ‘MO’ MONEY, ‘MO’ MONEY!”
https://youtu.be/rKpIikS2Oik
You can make all the proclamations you want about how great the game is, but the fact of the matter is that college football is the amateur sports version of Wheel of Fortune. And now athletes are getting a cut of the money pie with copious NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals from corporate (and even local businesses) America. Schools are getting into the act, too–coaches and athletic departments, specifically–doing everything they can to use NIL opportunities to recruit young athletes to their respective programs.
Only the inattentive needed a public event to let the cat out of the bag. And they got it when–in stealth-like fashion–the Southeastern Conference made a play to poach Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12. In a deal that was done before it ever went public, the Sooners and Longhorns picked up and left the Midlands–the fifth and sixth schools to leave the Big 12 over the last decade.
Those moves by two college athletics brand names (and, I might add, with top-ten athletic budgets) seals the Big 12’s fate. It’s destined to be a “used to be” Power 5 conference. And I say that even if no other schools defect, which isn’t a sure bet. While the SEC will trot out teams like Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, the Big 12 will counter with K-State, Texas Tech, and (newcomers) Central Florida and Houston. If this is a shootout at the O.K. Corral like it was in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881, then you know in advance who will win the modern version.
Northern Arizona players celebrate after beating Arizona — first win v. Wildcats since 1932 (photo, AZCentral)
And talking about Arizona, that brings me to the Pacific 12–a conference that has never been competitive in the reformulated national football championship competition and, today, is having trouble competing, period.
The 2021 season is barely underway, and Arizona lost last weekend (and it’s hard to believe this) to Northern Arizona. The week before the Wildcats lost to San Diego State, a “Group of 5” team from the Mountain West–a league that has had its way with the PAC-12 this year.
Utah also lost to SDSU, Cal opened by losing to Nevada, UCLA went down to Fresno State, Washington State was beaten by Utah State, and–to finish off this giant upside-down cake–Washington lost at home to Montana of the Big Sky Conference.
Those are too many teams losing too many games to teams that they scheduled to beat. That said, this year’s performance isn’t a one-off, an anomaly. The PAC-12 is having trouble competing in college football’s top-tier. Yes, Oregon went to Columbus to vanquish the Buckeyes and UCLA won over LSU, but the loss list is much longer–Colorado got whitewashed last week (30-0) at home vs. Big Ten Minnesota, Stanford lost to Kansas State, Oregon State lost to Purdue, Cal lost to TCU, Washington lost to Michigan, and BYU beat both Utah and ASU.
The problem, of course, is that it’s easy to argue (I do) that this isn’t a problem unless you focus exclusively on being able to compete with the very best in college football. That’s because at issue is what you need to do to accomplish that objective. And what it takes is increasingly (as I see it) not worth the effort.
U.S. News and World Report
Consider this. At the very time that the PAC-12 is struggling in the pigskin game, you can make a strong case that it’s in the Southeastern Conference’s spot when it comes to … drumroll, please … academics. Stanford is arguably the best private university in the U.S. (yes, the Cardinal compete head-to-head with Harvard and Yale). Inarguably, the two best public universities in America are UCLA and Cal-Berkeley. National ranking (universities, not football) consistently say it’s so.
So do you want to do what it will take to compete on a level basis with the Alabama’s of the college football world? Perhaps not. I don’t think the PAC-12 is alone, either. And that’s why I believe it joined hands with two other Power 5 conferences–also with outstanding schools academically, the ACC with the likes of Duke and Virginia, and the Big 10 with highly ranked Michigan and Wisconsin– to create “a football alliance.”
The fascinating thing about “the alliance” is that the Big 10–a financial juggernaut–joined the ACC and PAC-12 when it very well could have sided (theoretically) with the SEC to control the college game. Think about it. An SEC-Big 10 alliance would have separated major college football into two widely spaced tiers (money and influence). That didn’t happen, though, and the outcome may be the most important beneath-the-veneer feature of this story.
Alliance is an interesting word, too. And in this case, it accentuates the goal of self-protection of the three conferences from the bombastic SEC. One alliance member, the ACC, is directly in the SEC’s line of fire because of geographic proximity–sometimes with opposing conference schools residing in the same state (e.g., South Carolina, Georgia). Worse yet, the ACC is increasingly in the same boat with the PAC-12 competitively.
Georgia Tech lost this year at home to Northern Illinois. Syracuse is struggling (24 points scored against by Albany, and this weekend the Orange are a six-point home underdog v. Liberty), Florida State can’t find its footing (losing to Jacksonville State at home), Duke lost at UNC Charlotte, and Pitt was another home loser to Western Michigan. Again, the pattern is clear: too many teams are losing to discretionary opponents that were put on the schedule to beat.
Not expanding (photo, CBSSports.com)
And talking about “the alliance,” an enduring feature of any alliance is who’s in and who’s not. The Big 12 is not only out, the PAC-12 made it very clear that it is NOT interested in expanding. That’s a public memo sent to Big 12 schools (TCU is a prime example) that may have been hoping to escape out West. “You are on your own” might as well have been in the subject line.
So, what do we have, then? The Power 5, as it existed for some time, is now (drumroll, again, please), the Power 1, namely, the SEC. Then, you have the PAC-12, Big Ten, and ACC, followed by a used-to-be-member, the Big 12. Perhaps it’s more than the Power 1–maybe it’s the 1-plus-3–but it certainly is not the Power 5 we’ve known.
And if you think this column is an indictment of “the other four” for not being able to go toe-to-toe with the SEC, you are wrong. None of what’s going on in college football has anything to do with why universities exist and, what’s more, about what those universities should be about. So, if the SEC wants to rule the world of college football, and do what it takes to achieve that status, then so be it.
What I hope we’re seeing is the beginning of a shakeout in college football and that we’ll see more and more ‘major’ schools decide that it’s not worth competing to be the best.
It’s time to stop living in a world of college athletics where the tail wags the dog or–perhaps stated more aptly–where hyperactive dogs keep chasing their own tails.
