The shift happened in fits and starts last time. First Colorado decided to hop to the (then) Pac-10 from the Big 12. Then, one day later in 2010, Nebraska pledged to the Big Ten beginning in 2011. Utah accepted an invitation to the Pac-10 less than a week later. In 2011, Texas A&M and Missouri decided to jump to the SEC and less than a year after that, they were in it. In the months in between, the conferences decided to scrap the BCS and create a playoff. Then West Virginia and TCU backfilled the Big 12. In 2013, Syracuse and Pittsburgh joined the ACC. Finally, in 2014 — just as Louisville hopped into the ACC — the College Football Playoff started.
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It was a lot, but it felt disjointed. It felt as if the change would never end.
Now that Oklahoma, Texas and the Big 12 have proven that rational people can come to a rational conclusion, the next huge set of changes will land mostly at once. Oklahoma and Texas will start SEC play — and the SEC will introduce a new scheduling format — in 2024. UCLA and USC will start Big Ten play — and the Big Ten will introduce a new scheduling format — in 2024. The Big 12 will begin play with the lineup that it hopes will be together for a long time in 2024.
𝗢𝗞𝗟𝗔𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗔 𝘅 𝗦𝗘𝗖
𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰#BoomerSooner pic.twitter.com/vTCLL0VJjC— Oklahoma Sooners (@OU_Athletics) February 10, 2023
The biggest change? The 2024 season will end in a 12-team College Football Playoff instead of four teams. That change has informed some of the other ones, and it probably will affect some still yet to come (which likely also will take effect in 2024).
In less than 19 months, college football will feel like an entirely new sport. This will sadden some people and excite others. But it’s important to note that the sport has evolved fairly constantly since the status quo defenders were complaining about the legalization of the forward pass back in 1906.
So what happens now? There remain some loose ends to be tied up in these next 18-plus months, and some of them need to get cinched fairly quickly.
Note that I didn’t mention a new or settled lineup beginning play in the Pac-12 in 2024. That still seems the most likely outcome, but the league needs to agree to a new media rights deal that would begin with the 2024 football season. The deadline isn’t looming quite yet; remember, the details of the Big Ten deal that begins this July weren’t finalized until August 2022. But the Big 12 already has jumped the line and agreed to a new deal beginning in 2025 with ESPN and Fox. The Big 12 also hasn’t been shy about its desire to welcome current Pac-12 members should they choose something different.
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Since UCLA and USC’s exit announcement last year, none of the current Pac-12 members have publicly expressed a desire to go elsewhere. Privately, some of them certainly would like to follow UCLA and USC to the Big Ten. But with former Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren headed to run the Chicago Bears, the biggest proponent of further westward expansion for that league is gone. Now the remaining Pac-12 members must hope that commissioner George Kliavkoff can negotiate a deal that will put them in the same financial neighborhood as Big 12 and ACC schools. The Big Ten and SEC are out of reach.
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Kliavkoff appears to have initially overestimated how much broadcasters are willing to pay. First-year Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark came with a more realistic number, and his league secured its deal. That made it easier to welcome BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF this year and easier to strike a deal with Oklahoma and Texas that has those schools leaving behind a total of $100 million that they would have received from the league. That money will get distributed among the remaining members.
Kliavkoff now must make a deal that almost certainly will have a streaming component. The question is how big? Will there also be a linear network in the mix? ESPN still needs games to broadcast in the 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT window on Saturdays — and likely some Friday games in a similar time slot. But ESPN also would want a handful of premium games to broadcast in its 3:30 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET windows. Losing those premium games to ESPN might cut the amount a streamer such as Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV might be willing to pay.
Kliavkoff’s Wednesday visit to SMU certainly appeared to be a getting-to-know-you session for a potential future member. SMU and San Diego State appear to be the best candidates should the Pac-12 decide to expand. And if the league is planning to do business with one or more streamers, adding schools makes sense. Streamers desire quantity as well as quality. While linear networks such as ESPN and Fox are limited by time slots and channels, streamers are not. They want to give people as many reasons to subscribe as possible.
If the Big 12 wants to put pressure on the Four Corners schools in the Pac-12 (Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah), it could suggest that a move to that league would allow ESPN to fill that needed time slot, and the revenue from additional inventory probably would be enough to give those schools more than they stand to make from the Pac-12 deal. And if those schools broke away, Oregon and Washington probably would need to find a new home as well.
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But again, none of those schools seems to actually want to leave. Plus, the ability to win the new Pac-12 — and most likely make the 12-team CFP — on a regular basis seems a solid reason to stay for several schools. So unless the money is considerably more, staying in the Pac-12 seems the most likely outcome.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten and SEC need to finalize new scheduling models. (The ACC, which has no membership changes, will unveil its new scheduling model this season. Teams will continue to play eight conference games, but divisions will be scrapped. Instead, teams will have three fixed annual opponents, and the other 10 members will rotate through twice every four years.) The Big Ten already plays nine conference games. The SEC is seriously considering adding a ninth.
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The most common-sense method of scheduling a 16-team league with nine games is to have three fixed opponents and then rotate the remaining 12 teams through the remaining six spots twice every four years. The SEC still hasn’t ruled out remaining at eight conference games and having only one fixed opponent per team, but it needs to put that notion to pasture quickly. The push to stay at eight is led by perennial also-rans that want that extra non-conference slot to schedule for bowl eligibility.
Let’s put this as plainly as possible: If you have Texas and Texas A&M in your league and don’t have them play football annually, you are stupid. If you hijack the league schedule for almost 20 years to ensure Alabama and Tennessee play every season and then stop playing that series annually just when it’s getting fun again, you are stupid. If you stop playing the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry (Auburn-Georgia) annually so Mississippi State can schedule another easy win, you are stupid.
So now that we’ve settled why the SEC should go to nine conference games, it’s time to argue about each team’s three fixed opponents. (But that’s another column for another day.) Note that I never said “permanent” opponents. While some rivalries should never change, the Big Ten and SEC should reserve the right to switch fixed opponents in order to freshen up the matchups or cash in on occasional opponents who have developed budding rivalries.
Between new members and new formats, some of the games created by the changes in the Big Ten and SEC should be blockbusters.
We’re going to see Texas play Texas A&M again. The Longhorns’ arrival also finally means Arkansas has a conference opponent it actually hates. We’re going to see USC against the likes of Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. Big Ten teams will head to the Rose Bowl — for regular-season matchups against UCLA. Oklahoma will be visiting Alabama and Tennessee and getting visits from LSU and Georgia. Fun old SEC matchups such as Auburn-Florida will happen twice every four years instead of twice every 12.
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In the Big 12, we’ll see a league where the new members should be able to get up to competitive speed quickly and where most of the old members should frequently be in the conference title race — and thus the race for a CFP berth — deep into the season.
The Pac-12 might have some new blood. Plus, who knows what fun Deion Sanders will have coaching in the league?
By all means, let’s enjoy the 2023 season. If it’s anything like the 2022 season, it’ll feel like it went by far too quickly.
But once this season is done, we’ll only be a few months away. The dawn of the next version of college football will be here much sooner than we think.
(Photo of Texas Longhorns mascot Bevo XV: Aaron E. Martinez / American-Statesman via USA Today Network)
