MORGANTOWN– The seminar adjustment wagon is once more hitched as well as all set to go as USC and UCLA announced Thursday they were leaving the Pac-12 as well as headed to the Big Ten, in an action that caught the college sporting activities landscape off-guard yet once again.
The relocation resembles what Oklahoma and Texas did a year earlier, bolting the Large 12 for the SEC, and keeping that, a significant pay day.
When all 4 colleges officially end up in their particular brand-new meetings, the Big 10 as well as SEC will rest at 16 groups each– and this shows up to only be the start.
Reports are currently swirling a few of the staying Pac-12 schools, such as Washington and also Oregon, are attempting to comply with USC as well as UCLA to the Big Ten.
While there is no movement on the SEC’s front, in real “Staying on par with the Joneses” fashion, it would likely want to add too to stay on top of the Big 10. Targets can include Miami, Florida State as well as Clemson of the ACC.
So what does this all suggest? There is a strong possibility we’re on our method to two mega-conferences, the Big 10 and SEC, and after that every person else.
Whether this is excellent or bad for college sports can be discussed until we’re blue in the face, but for the sake of argument, let’s simply talk WVU.
Football is the driving force for all of this, so we’re additionally just going to discuss this from a football viewpoint.
Now, certainly, WVU gets on the outside looking in, along with 11 other colleges in the Large 12, 14 in the ACC and 10 in the Pac-12, at the Power Five level.
The Big 10 and also SEC are nearly ensured to increase from their present 16-team positioning, but simply exactly how much are each willing to go?
That is the major question that requires answered for a glimpse at what the future could hold for the Mountaineers.
Starting with the best-case scenario, the Big Ten and SEC– which will likely be rebranded in the future, however we’ll stick to their current names– increase to regarding 24 groups each. That suggests 16 places are up for grabs out of the staying 36 (counting independent Notre Dame, which is plainly a significant player in this video game), and it’s tough to think of a circumstances WVU is not one of those last 16 colleges.
Yet allow’s carry on to a case where WVU does not get in to the mega-conferences. It would be frustrating (probably an understatement) for the Mountaineers to be omitted, as well as pretty much any kind of hope for a championship game would certainly be lost.
Similar to the Team of 5 institutions currently, there is an opportunity an institution beyond the Big 10 as well as SEC might make the playoff, yet it would certainly be incredibly difficult to do as well as would certainly take a special season.
However WVU has actually played football for 130-plus years and has been to one national title video game and has simply two unbeaten normal periods in its history. It takes a magical season anyhow for the Mountaineers to also remain in the conversation for a national title, also under the existing format.
Let’s claim Tier 1 of the college football landscape are the Large 10 and also SEC, while Rate 2 are Power 5 schools that didn’t make it.
Under this, there is an opportunity WVU would be in the very same tier as the leftover ACC groups fans have wanted to bet years and also years.
If you can not sit at the big table, exactly how does playing a purposeful timetable with Pitt, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Syracuse seem? If the Big 10 as well as SEC expand to just 20 or less, there is a strong opportunity WVU’s conventional competitors might additionally be compelled to sit at the youngsters’ table.
Of course, you bother with the financial effect as well as what it can provide for recruiting, however programs in this 2nd tier that embrace what fans desire could advance in a different way.
Football is football– individuals intend to watch it. That’s what the television networks such as ESPN and also FOX, the factor this is occurring to begin with, all desire– eyeballs.
Hold on limited, WVU followers. This is mosting likely to be a tough time.
Yet stressing that if WVU is excluded, then the Mountaineer football program will certainly disappear, is much from fact.