With rumors of the SEC courting Texas A&M to leave the Big 12, the consequences of such an action are becoming more apparent by the day. Granted the ‘move’ at this moment is all a bunch of talk, with one school president saying this and another school’s AD saying that. However, if such a move were to occur, it has the potential to radically change the conference alignment landscape. Starting from the assumption that Texas A&M will leave for the SEC, this will be about the effects on other conferences.
SEC
The Aggies would join the SEC West division because it obviously makes the most sense. However, the conference would then be an uneven 13 teams and another team would have to join the SEC East to make it all balance out. Clemson has been mentioned as a possible candidate, but the big prize would be Florida State and the most likely to make the move.
Big 12
The conference that’s getting kind of screwed in all of this has already lost Nebraska and Colorado and would be left with 9 teams in this scenario. This would make of getting back to the 12 team alignment even harder, though reports say the current objective would be to get to 10 before anything else.. With Texas seemingly the center of the Big 12 universe, that might affect who is invited.
Houston: Definitely not a choice that will make headlines, but UH is one of the better mid major football programs in the country. Their addition would get the Big 12 back in the Houston market and expand their Texas presence even more.
BYU: I know they just became a football independent with all other sports being in the WCC, but they would be pay attention to the big financial gain they would receive from joining the Big 12. Plus, their basketball program would benefit as well.
Louisville: This addition would allow the conference to expand its reach further east and add a basketball school to compete with Kansas.
ACC
The loss of Florida State would send them into a frenzy, trying to find a replacement school to get back to the 12 game championship alignment. With no high-profile candidates in the South, they will look north and poach from the Big East.
UConn: A program on the rise that would get more so with a move to the ACC. The Huskies would give Boston College a local rival to build upon. Plus, it expands their reach in the New England area.
Syracuse: The ACC explored adding Syracuse back in 2003, but politics got in the way and Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College went instead. The addition of the Orange would give the ACC access to the New York market and possibly NYC as well
Big East
If UConn or Syracuse bolt for the ACC, then the Big East is back to 8 teams, even with the addition next year of TCU. This would further complicate their plans to get to 10 teams, so under this scenario they would likely add 2 teams.
UCF: They were being considered as #10 before this whole thing even started and look to be the first that the Big East approaches. The conference would get further reach into Florida with the Orlando market and give them 2 schools in the state to the ACC’s 1.
Temple & Villanova: Both have already been discussed before and would allow for access to the Philly market. Temple has indicated that they would be willing to join as a football-only member.
So those are the candidates for realignment if Texas A&M decide to join the SEC. It’s basically a giant domino effect that would affect the college football landscape. I haven’t even touched on what the mid majors such as C-USA or MAC would do because that would make it even more convoluted. With all this talk of realignment rekindled after the last round, it has raised the specter that always seem to hang around realignment and it is that of the superconference. Too many hurdles remain in order for the possibility to even start to be discussed.
