It’s now been a decade since the college football world
chased the money. And all they have to show for it is the money.
But on the field, the sport hit a nadir during the
pandemic-plagued 2020 drudge of a season. The playoff has been reduced to
Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State or Oklahoma (sometimes both), and a rotating
fourth team. The games have rarely been close and TV ratings for bowl games
have never been worse.
Even before the pandemic, ratings and attendance were
trending down as the powerful got more powerful, the little guys were
forgotten, and too many people stopped caring.
Most importantly, realignment meant the sport lost its soul.
I’ve previously written about how college basketball was ruined by football-driven realignment, removing so many things that made the sport great.
Now, college football is being ruined. We’ve lost so many
rivalries and games between neighbors, replaced by made-for-TV neutral site
snores and conference championship money grabs.
We know everyone made money. But did any school actually
benefit in any other way – namely on the field – from realignment? I’m glad you
asked.
The Unqualified Success: Texas A&M
I’ve been wrong before and I’ll be wrong again. I was wrong
about Texas A&M moving to the SEC. There was a wave of attention that
swelled the Aggies' heads after their first two years of the SEC coincided with
Johnny Football’s transcendent two years there. No other college athlete in the
past decade, with the possible exception of Zion Williamson, moved the needle
like Johnny Football did.
The Call-Ups: Utah/TCU/Louisville
When the realignment wheel spun in 2011, TCU and Utah were
two of the mid-majors, along with Boise State, that had previously crashed the BCS party. While Boise State got left out, these two got the call-up to the
majors. Though neither program has fully realized its vast potential from those
glory days a decade ago, they have remained fringe conference title contenders
and they know the playoff is a possibility out there for an undefeated season.
For Louisville, the ACC was a lifeline out of the dying Big
East and they’ve largely made the most of it, specifically with the
Heisman-winning season of Lamar Jackson. While the jury remains out if they can
continue to have success in football in the ACC, there’s no doubt the program
is in better shape on the field than it was a decade ago before Charlie Strong
righted the ship.
The Opportunity Takers: UCF/Houston/Memphis
The American Athletic Conference drove UConn fans crazy and
may have killed the USF program. For these three teams, the AAC has completely revitalized
these once-dormant programs.
They have combined for 4 New Year’s Six bowl appearances
since the new system started in 2014, with UCF in particular becoming a
national sensation in 2017. Thanks to residing in football-rich hotbeds, they
have used their new status to boost recruiting and regularly compete on the
field with Power Five teams. These three schools – along with Cincinnati –
almost guarantees the AAC will retain a lock on the Group of Five bowl berth in
the New Year’s Six for years to come, provided the desperately needed expanded playoff doesn’t come along first.
The Rodney Dangerfield Duo: BYU/Cincinnati
These two schools exemplify the odd new world that exists in
college football. Both teams had their best years in a while in 2020, and the
dominating storyline for both was the complete lack of respect shown to them by
the playoff committee.
For BYU, the move from the Mountain West to the independence
has led to up’s and down’s, and I still think they’d be better off joining the AAC as a football-only member. Still, the school will play five Pac-12 teams in 2021 as a West Coast version of Notre Dame’s agreement with the ACC. The school
remains good at football, despite the conference merry-go-round.
As for Cincinnati, they are in a very similar spot to where
they were at the tail end of the Big East, with an undefeated team that
couldn’t quite crack the title game. Still, the program has thrived in the AAC.
Thanks to UConn’s demise, they also become the likely next team up if/when
Notre Dame joins the ACC full-time and they need a 16th school.
The Crippling Irrelevance:
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking that
realignment hasn’t been all bad. Well, keep reading.
Colorado
Thanks to the Big 12 divisional set-up, Colorado was a
constant conference title contender. Thanks to the Pac-12 division set-up, it
is not. Despite one strong year in 2016, the program is a complete outlier in
the west coast conference. While Utah is as well, that school benefits from
getting the call-up to the big leagues. Colorado was already there. They play
no rivals on a yearly basis, and the fanbase has seemingly stopped caring about
the program.
Missouri
When Missouri first joined the SEC, it looked like the
program was on the verge of becoming a national player after back-to-back SEC East
titles. But it was fool’s gold, due to the shocking fall of Florida, Georgia,
and Tennessee at the same time. Though the Volunteers remain a disaster,
Florida and Georgia have ascended back to the top of the division and in the
comforts of the Top 10 nationally. Which leaves Missouri to be the definition
of average without any real hope for a breakthrough anytime soon.
Maryland
You could argue Maryland has always been irrelevant in football and I wouldn’t argue too much. There’s a difference now, and that’s
the lack of rivalry games and close road trips. Only Penn State qualifies as a
rival, while the other eight games of the Big Ten schedule are versus teams
that will always seem weird on the crawl in November. “Why is Maryland playing
Indiana?” “Oooh, can’t wait for Maryland to play Minnesota.”
Pittsburgh/Syracuse
I lumped these two teams together because it’s basically the
same story as Maryland, though both schools had much more past successes to get
excited about before switching conferences. Since joining the ACC, neither team
has been a top contender on a consistent basis and play a steady string of
southern teams they have no history with.
West Virginia
In the last decade of the Big East, West Virginia was a national power, playing on New Year’s Day or in a BCS game nearly every year,
led by Heisman contenders such as Pat White and Geno Smith. Since joining the
Big 12, West Virginia is traveling more than any other sports team in the
country – pro or college – and even lost its coach to a non-Power Five school.
There are no rivals. There are no close road trips. It’s a hard sell at West
Virginia now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell down to the “disaster” category
if I did this again in ten years.
Boise State
Technically, Boise State didn’t switch conferences during
the Great Realignment of 2011. But it was supposed to. In fact, Boise’s move to
the Big East and the apathetic ESPN response is how I ended up with my first viral blog post. Ahh, what a different time we lived in back then.
But the college football system prevented them from becoming
the football equivalent of Gonzaga. Despite winning the Fiesta Bowl in 2014,
Boise State hasn’t played in a major bowl since and the AAC now has a firm
headlock on that annual spot.
The Absolute Disasters
And now we hit the four programs that have bottomed out on
the field due to realignment, starting with a trio of old Big East teams…
Rutgers
Rutgers is going to suck in football for the rest of time.
Their brief dalliance with respectability happened a little over a decade ago,
but it feels like another lifetime ago. In 2006 and 2007, big Thursday night
wins by Rutgers were among the defining images of those seasons. Fast forward to
today, and Rutgers exists to get its ass kicked by Ohio State and Penn State,
and Michigan if they ever get their act together again. They have no rivals.
They are in the Big Ten because they’re close to New York City and no other
reason. They will make money hand over fist, but they won’t win many games.
Does it get any worse over the past decade than UConn? They started
the last decade by playing in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day. They ended it
by throwing in the towel on the football program, leaving the AAC to save the
men’s basketball program by retreating to the Big East. The program is now an independent
like UMass, getting big checks in 2021 to get rocked by Clemson and UCF, and
having nothing to play for. It’d be better for all involved if they dropped
down to FCS.
USF
As with UConn and Rutgers, USF became a national story about
15 years ago in the reconfigured Big East. The program provided some of the
best memories in that timeframe, with the road win against Auburn and the home
win against Pat White’s West Virginia in a sold-out NFL stadium on a
Friday night. Their loss as #2 in the country – yes, they were once #2 in the whole
country – to Rutgers was a defining moment in the wild and wacky 2007 season.
Today, USF is awful. They’ve gone through multiple coaches since
the Big East disintegrated and their worst nightmare has come true as “little
brother” UCF has become one of the best football programs in the country. Hope
still remains for USF due to their location, but it’s a long, long road ahead.
Nebraska
I started writing this with Nebraska in mind, as the Cornhuskers
became college football’s biggest joke over the past six months. Starting with
the school threatening to leave the Big Ten to play during a pandemic through
getting its butt kicked during the shortened 2020 season to the final indignity
of actively trying to get out of a game versus Oklahoma next year.
When Nebraska first joined the Big Ten, it was heralded as a
great move for all parties. Personally, I was skeptical at best. At that point,
Nebraska had been irrelevant for 10 years. We are now at 20 years and counting
since Eric Crouch led Nebraska’s last meaningful season. It’s been all downhill
since then. And instead of dealing with Texas and Oklahoma, they ran into a
conference that doesn’t care about them and has been dominating them easily for
years.
Scott Frost was the latest potential savior, and his early
returns suggest another failure. I don’t blame Scott Frost. Nebraska shouldn’t
be in the Big Ten. Like so many other schools, they got their money and all
they have to show for it is losing football games.
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