If conference loyalty always resisted progress/consolidation...

[ScottyBuff]

This is what college football conferences would look like (only eliminating schools that voluntarily dropped athletics or de-emphasized):

Big Ten (IFCR)	Big 6/8 (MVIA)	Skyline (MSC)	SWC	Pac-8 (PCC)	ACC (Southern)	SEC (Southern)
Minnesota	Missouri	Colorado	Texas	California	Clemson	Alabama
Illinois	Kansas	Colorado State	Texas A&M	Washington	North Carolina	Auburn
Wisconsin	Nebraska	Utah	Arkansas	Oregon	N.C. State	Georgia
Purdue	Iowa State	Utah State	Baylor	Oregon State	Virginia	Georgia Tech
Northwestern	Kansas State	BYU	Rice	Washington State	Virginia Tech	Florida
Michigan		Wyoming	Oklahoma	Stanford	Maryland	LSU
Indiana		Montana State	Oklahoma State	Idaho	South Carolina	Tulane
Iowa			SMU	USC	Duke	Tennessee
Ohio State			TCU	Montana	Wake Forest	Vanderbilt
Michigan State			Houston	UCLA	Florida State	Kentucky
						Mississippi
						Mississippi State
Border	Eastern (A-10)	WAC	Sun Belt	Big East	Conference USA (Metro)	MAC
Arizona	Penn State	San Diego State	South Florida	Syracuse	Louisville	Ohio
Arizona State	Rutgers	Hawaii	South Alabama	Connecticut	Memphis	Cincinnati
New Mexico	Pittsburgh	Air Force	UA-Birmingham	Boston College	Southern Miss	Miami (OH)
New Mexico State	West Virginia	Fresno State	Western Kentucky	Miami	East Carolina	Western Michigan
Texas Tech	UMass	UNLV	Arkansas State			Toledo
UTEP	Temple	San Jose State	Louisiana Tech			Kent State
	Villanova	Tulsa	UL-Lafayette			Bowling Green
		Nevada	Central Florida			Marshall
		Boise State	Florida International			Central Michigan
		Texas State	North Texas			Eastern Michigan
		UT-San Antonio	Middle Tenn. St.			Ball State
			UL-Monroe			Northern Illinois
			Troy			Akron
			Florida Atlantic			Buffalo

 

[HotRack]

What hell is this? Makes no sense...

 

[ScottyBuff]

I left some of the D-IAA members that probably would have stayed D-IA like Montana, Montana State, and Villanova if they had stayed with those conferences all along.

Obviously the Big East members would have more than likely joined up with the Eastern Conference (hindsight is always 20/20, eh there Big East?) rather than forming their own conference. That would have prevented Penn State from eventually joining the Big Ten.

The interesting dynamic would have been if the Skyline Conference would have eventually merged with the Border Conference or the Big "6".

Iowa was a partial member of both the Big Ten and the Big "6", choosing the Big Ten obviously, but if they had chosen the Big 6 there might have been stability with that group. If not, then possibly the Conference USA members, or at least several of them, would fit with the Big 6 group.

 

[HotRack]

Thanks for the explanation, but my head still hurts.:lol:

 

[Heywood]

I count 14 conferences? how many are there now?

A big think that drew conference borders was the speed of the world back then. As we saw a CU game with Hawaii took a month of travel. And fans (especially out west) probably rarely left the state (or town) they grew up in so it was hard to get any interest outside of your immediate geographic area.

 

[ScottyBuff]

Thanks for the explanation, but my head still hurts.:lol:

Sorry for inducing brain pain on you! just bored and was doing some revisionist history on college conference formation.

It really illustrates how out of place Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would be in the PAC. They were SWC members, then Big 6/8 members, then Big 12 members with more in common with Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Texas, Texas Tech, and Arkansas than they do with any current members of the PAC.

The last time there was a "super-conference" the Southern Conference (the precursor to the SEC and ACC) started with 14 members then expanded up to 23 teams. After 10 years there was a split in the membership along geographic lines that led to the SEC and ACC forming separately.

If the SEC went "super" all by there lonesome (meaning the ACC was left intact and staved off any Big Ten expansion attempts) by inviting Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Missouri; I could see a repeat of that happening in the future with the division occurring along East/West division lines.

 

[HotRack]

Sorry for inducing brain pain on you! just bored and was doing some revisionist history on college conference formation.

It really illustrates how out of place Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would be in the PAC. They were SWC members, then Big 12 members with more in common with Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Texas, Texas Tech, and Arkansas than they do with any current members of the PAC.

The last time there was a "super-conference" the Southern Conference (the precursor to the SEC and ACC) started with 14 members then expanded up to 23 teams. After 10 years there was a split in the membership along geographic lines that led to the SEC and ACC forming separately.

If the SEC went "super" all by there lonesome (meaning the ACC was left intact and staved off any Big Ten expansion attempts) by inviting Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Missouri; I could see a repeat of that happening in the future with the division occurring along East/West division lines.

[video=youtube;hUjI3tslL_4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUjI3tslL_4[/video]

 

[ScottyBuff]

I count 14 conferences? how many are there now?

A big think that drew conference borders was the speed of the world back then. As we saw a CU game with Hawaii took a month of travel. And fans (especially out west) probably rarely left the state (or town) they grew up in so it was hard to get any interest outside of your immediate geographic area.

11 now. The Border, Skyline, and Eastern disappeared as D-IA football "conferences".

Certainly a valid point about the "progress" of technology, communications, and travel has helped to shrink the world of college athletics. It is easy to look back and see the "victims" of that progress along the way and see why the deck was stacked against them: Sewanee, Denver, CC, Drake, Grinnell, Southwestern U, Washington & Lee, VMI, William & Mary.

Who is the next that will join that group?

For every South Florida or Louisville that rose from humble conference origins and elevated themselves into a BCS conference, there are many more regional teams that were left behind during subsequent realignments (Idaho and Montana in the PCC/PAC; the leftover SWC members; Tulane in the SEC, UMass or Temple that were "in the group")