Analyzing the Conference Realignment That Shaped Today’s Football Landscape | McMurphy’s Law
Remember the 2010 college football season?
Led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton — before he became an NFL MVP and fashion icon — Auburn won the BCS National Championship Game, defeating Oregon 22-19 on the slippery surface inside then-University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
That year also marked the end of college football as we know it. It was the calm before the realignment storm.
Because in 2011, Nebraska did the Texas two-step from the Big 12 to the Big Ten, Big 12 member Colorado went west to the Pac-12 and Utah left the Mountain West for the Pac-12.
In the next three years, nine more schools — Louisville, Maryland, Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Texas A&M, TCU and West Virginia — would change or join Power Five conferences.
Among the non-Power conferences, it felt like dozens of schools were shuffling to different leagues by the second. TCU, Boise State and San Diego State even joined the Big East for a few days, before changing their minds and never playing a game in the conference.
Ahh, the good old days.
Of those 12 Power Five schools, only three are ranked in this week’s Associated Press poll: No. 10 Utah, No. 17 Texas A&M and No. 25 TCU.
And as we near a decade since those tectonic realignment plates shifted, let’s look at the institutions that rode college football’s realignment merry-go-round between the years of 2011 and 2014.
5. Louisville
Conference win percentage: .525 percent
Division titles: 0
Bowl appearances: 4 in 5 years
I’d argue that Louisville — who gets to tout Lamar Jackson’s 2016 Heisman Trophy campaign — has experienced the biggest benefit of any of these schools for one simple reason: they were lucky enough to avoid Connecticut’s fate. UL and UConn were once the finalists for the last spot to join the ACC, and the ACC chose Louisville, which did wonders for the university’s entire athletics program. Meanwhile, UConn is leaving the American Athletic Conference for the Big East in all sports but football as that program ventures into the treacherous waters of trying to compete as an FBS independent.
https://watchstadium.com/news/analy...-football-landscape-mcmurphys-law-09-17-2019/
Remember the 2010 college football season?
Led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton — before he became an NFL MVP and fashion icon — Auburn won the BCS National Championship Game, defeating Oregon 22-19 on the slippery surface inside then-University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
That year also marked the end of college football as we know it. It was the calm before the realignment storm.
Because in 2011, Nebraska did the Texas two-step from the Big 12 to the Big Ten, Big 12 member Colorado went west to the Pac-12 and Utah left the Mountain West for the Pac-12.
In the next three years, nine more schools — Louisville, Maryland, Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Texas A&M, TCU and West Virginia — would change or join Power Five conferences.
Among the non-Power conferences, it felt like dozens of schools were shuffling to different leagues by the second. TCU, Boise State and San Diego State even joined the Big East for a few days, before changing their minds and never playing a game in the conference.
Ahh, the good old days.
Of those 12 Power Five schools, only three are ranked in this week’s Associated Press poll: No. 10 Utah, No. 17 Texas A&M and No. 25 TCU.
And as we near a decade since those tectonic realignment plates shifted, let’s look at the institutions that rode college football’s realignment merry-go-round between the years of 2011 and 2014.
5. Louisville
Conference win percentage: .525 percent
Division titles: 0
Bowl appearances: 4 in 5 years
I’d argue that Louisville — who gets to tout Lamar Jackson’s 2016 Heisman Trophy campaign — has experienced the biggest benefit of any of these schools for one simple reason: they were lucky enough to avoid Connecticut’s fate. UL and UConn were once the finalists for the last spot to join the ACC, and the ACC chose Louisville, which did wonders for the university’s entire athletics program. Meanwhile, UConn is leaving the American Athletic Conference for the Big East in all sports but football as that program ventures into the treacherous waters of trying to compete as an FBS independent.
https://watchstadium.com/news/analy...-football-landscape-mcmurphys-law-09-17-2019/
