BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Kentucky and South Carolina both play soccer in C-USA, as well as the National Champions, Marshall.

Forgive me. I don't get to say something like that about C-USA teams often... well, ever, other than this.

 

The Big 12 will cease to be a P5 conference, or most likely might hang on by charity as a marginal one. But it will continue to exist because, like a stripped Hyundai on the roadside, the few good parts are taken and the carcass remains.

Men's basketball is nowhere near the revenue producer that football is, so strike Kansas from the parts-that-can-be-fenced list.

Okie Lite is a fine and proud school, but geographically there's nowhere else for them to go (and they might like being the big dog in the league for a change, so there's that).

The Big 12 will instead most likely extend invites to SMU and Houston, which I'm calling because of old SWC ties. They could even cast a wider net and go back to the proper dozen teams by inviting 2 others (I don't think there's any animus between OSU and Tulsa, they play each other regularly).

 

Quality pull.
And before the Doobie Brothers conference expanded to add Michael McDonald.

 

To be brutally honest, Michigan has won one football national championship since the invention of facemasks, a huge stadium and a great fight song. With apologies to TigerVols, it's the Big Ten's equivalent to something like Tennessee (see large stadium and consistently underperforming football team).

Or Notre Dame without the national TV contract.

 

Supposedly according to an SEC Insider (got it from the Sun Belt board) the Big 12 is about ready to invite Cincy, Memphis, Houston, and BYU to their party and it could happen as soon as next week. Take it for what it is worth.

 

BYU? So you're saying the Big XII is taking a Missionary position?

 

Touch them all... In a baseball sense, that is.

 

Paradise by the Mormon Lights.

 

BYU entering? Cue the cursing from the Big 12 schedule guru. BYU leaving? Cue the celebrations at every WCC school except Gonzaga.

 

That's the obvious end game. The Vanderbilts and Wake Forests aren't going to turn down that sweet conference tie-in money, but they're only going to fall farther behind the powerhouses. As long as the money train keeps stopping at the station, the Commodores would probably be fine taking a knee for the good of the SEC.

At some point, ESPN, CBS or FOX is going to offer crazy money to break major college football apart from the conference structure, with a 48- or 64-team "super league." And perhaps basketball follows.