This is the second in a series on college football
history. Read the first one here.
Conference realignment has been one of the major stories
in college football since December 2009, when the Big Ten publicly announced
that it was considering expansion. I found the Frank the Tank blog relatively
soon after and enjoyed keeping up with things through his perspective, which
emphasized the College Presidents’ point of view rather than sports fans. The
story seemed to pull in fans and many prominent writers have been overwhelmed
by their readers’ interest in the issue.
I think that conference realignment is an interesting
topic not just because of the regional groupings of schools, the money at stake
or the effect on classic rivalries, but because it is a chance for fantasy
sports to move up a level. No longer are fans just picking players, their
favorite team’s conference is now picking (or defending) top teams to make or
break future power conferences.
Not only do I want to look at who won or lost the most
recent realignment, I want to look at the significantly less important question
of who won or lost previous realignments!
Southeastern
Conference
The SEC started out strong and only got stronger. While
some of the performances very early on were enhanced by teams that subsequently
left – mostly Georgia Tech but also some Tulane – the conference as a whole
stayed strong and recently added several teams with historical strength. Texas
A&M brings one championship, albeit one from the 1930s, and Arkansas and
Missouri had a strong period in the 60s and the three of them would have added
significant value throughout the 60s to 2000.
As I argued a few weeks ago in my CF
101 post, the SEC’s prodigious performance of the past few years was
impressive but not historic. Given the collection of teams they have assembled
they hit their theoretical peak in the early 60s when they would have
collectively pulled in 35% of the value in the AP Poll. If Texas A&M can
use their entrance into the league to return to their levels of the mid-90s –
they drew 3% of the AP Poll value on their own, an average of roughly 13th
in the poll, in that decade – and Missouri can continue their recent run, the
SEC could get back to their previous heights.
Verdict: The
SEC didn’t lose, but they didn’t exactly win. As Frank has argued repeatedly,
this is a move to open up Texas to the recruiting and (especially) viewing footprint of the
SEC with Missouri as a nice consolation prize to fill out the conference. In that respect it is an unequivocal win. On the field it remains to be
seen whether A&M and Mizzou can measure up to an average SEC team.
Big Ten
The Big Ten (or B1G, as it is now marketed) is, as much
as it pains me to admit it since I’m from Ohio, that guy in your fantasy draft
who picks washed up players because he remembers their names. Their new
additions would have greatly increased their value back in the 70s, 80s and
90s, but it’s not clear that they will from now on.
While Penn State has been a fairly strong team since they
joined the conference, the Nittany Lions dropped from 5% at their peak in the
80s en route to two national championships to 2% in the 2000s. Given the sanctions handed down by the NCAA, it looks like Penn State will have problems cracking the top 25 at all. Nebraska looks unlikely to reach the pinnacle of the sport the way they did in
the 90s (6.5% - 5th in the poll) based on their performance since
(1.5% 2000s, 1% 2010s – Both roughly 21st-22nd), but the Huskers are likely to at least give something to the conference on the field.
Verdict: Like
the SEC, the Big Ten didn’t exactly lose. They didn’t open up any major markets
(hello Omaha!) but they brought in a team that commands attention every
Saturday and creates high profile matchups with Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa, Ohio State and Wisconsin (hello TV inventory!).
Big 12
So, this graph is kind of a mess. That is the reason that
Dan Beebe got fired and the reason that Texas has a network of their own. Most
of the recent poaching of teams, other than what the ACC is doing, has come at
the expense of the Big 12. 
First (or second), the Pac-12 swooped in and grabbed
Colorado (and Utah from the MWC) after being rebuffed in their attempt at a
larger raid involving Texas and Oklahoma. Following that (or preceding that),
the Big Ten winked at Nebraska and made them the 12th member of that
conference. After a period of relative
calm, Texas A&M decided they didn’t like the way Texas was doing business
and sought out a berth in the SEC, later bringing Missouri along with them.
When the dust settled, 6 national titles from the conference’s
predecessors had walked out and been replaced with West Virginia and TCU. The
conference’s share of the AP poll stayed relatively static at the level of the
old Big 8. Rather than Oklahoma and Nebraska propping up the league it is
Oklahoma and Texas, otherwise the dynamic is very similar. This is a league
that will likely punch above its weight due to the two top 10 all-time powers
in those two schools – in the 2000s they were numbers 2 and 3 overall – but is
not likely to challenge the top-to-bottom powerhouse of the SEC.
Verdict: I’m
inclined to say the Big 12 is a winner simply because they still exist. There
was a significant period in which it appeared Texas would take their ball and
go… somewhere. The rest of the conference would have been in serious trouble.
West Virginia and TCU may not be Nebraska, Colorado, A&M and Missouri, but
they’ve actually been stronger than any of those four since 2000.
Pac-12 (or -10, or
-8)
The Pac-12 rose from the ashes of the earlier Pacific
Coast Conference, felled by scandal in the late 1950s. Most of the teams
immediately re-formed into what became the Pac-8 with Oregon, Oregon State and
Washington State trickling in a few years behind the core five of Washington,
USC, UCLA, Stanford and Cal. 
The track record of expansion from that base shows some of
the same tendencies as the Big Ten. After Arizona State put in a strong showing
in the 1970s, they joined with Arizona to make it the Pac-10 in 1978. As the
graph shows, the conference’s contemporary performance stayed steady through
the 80s. New additions Colorado and Utah also put up strong numbers that would
have boosted the conference in the 90s and 2000s, respectively, but have dropped
off in the last couple years.
Looking at the titles won by the conference, it is clear
that the Pac-12 rises and falls with USC. Until one of the other teams in the
conference catches fire the Pac-12 will have trouble cracking their ceiling of
15% poll share and getting up to the 25-30% range with the SEC or even the 20%
range of the Big Ten and Big 12.
Verdict: The
Pac-12 increased their ceiling with Utah and Colorado, two good programs in
fast-growing states, but they didn’t exactly bring on powerhouse brand names.
This is a push on the field that has ancillary benefits: staging a championship
game, staking out adjacent ground on the only side they can (expanding west
would be tricky).
Atlantic Coast
Conference
The ACC is looking for a return to glory from their two
biggest acquisitions. Florida State came through in the 1990s and
single-handedly carried the conference with an astonishing 9% average of the AP
Poll points, akin to averaging 3rd through the whole decade.
Unfortunately for the conference Miami has fallen on hard times since they were
brought in to challenge FSU. The Hurricanes averaged 5% of the AP Poll in the
1990s and 2000s after pulling 7% in the 1980s. So far in the 2010s, however,
the ‘Canes have not been ranked.
The ACC as a whole is clearly underperforming relative to
the collective strength of its component parts. If this group had been together
in the 80s and 90s, they would have been competing with the SEC and Big Ten
(all three reconstructed with the current lineups) for top conference. As it
is, their current lineup has polled at 4% of the AP Poll in 2010-11, leaving
them behind the random bunch of teams headed to the Big East over the next
couple years.
Verdict: Win
win win. If you believe that the teams they brought on can reach anything near
their recent highs they will make the ACC a full peer of the other big four
conferences. If Miami and FSU can peak in the same period they will be every
bit as dominant as the Big 12 with Texas and Oklahoma in the recent past, but
they will have a better supporting cast.
Big East
What better lead-in than that to talk about the island of
misfit teams – the Big East. This is a league that will soon include Boise
State and San Diego State – two teams that were previously members of the Big West. The conference was thrown together
in the early 1990s out of the best remaining independents following Penn
State’s move to the Big Ten and Florida State’s move to the ACC and used as a
stepping stone to the ACC for most of the original membership.
The current lineup (dotted line) bears almost no
resemblance to the contemporary lineup (solid line). Of the teams currently
committed to the Big East, only Rutgers and Temple were in the league at its
inception with Temple taking an eight year hiatus due to general
not-good-at-football-ness and UConn joining late for football. Cincinnati, Louisville
and South Florida are the only others to join before the current, blowout,
round of expansion that will bring Boise State, Houston, Memphis, Navy, San
Diego State, Southern Methodist, Temple and the University of Central Florida.
Fully six of the “new” Big East teams were formerly members of Conference USA –
two of them were brought to that
conference to replace two who left for the Big East in 2005! Basically this
league is a mess held together with Elmer’s Glue and yarn.
For a perspective on how far that glue and yarn has to
stretch, the area formed by the rectangle linking San Diego State, Boise State,
UConn and South Florida is 2.1 million square miles. The area of the 48
contiguous United States is 3.1 million square miles. The Big East covers more
than 2/3 of the area of those 48 states – just think of the television revenue
if they can get everyone to tune in!
Verdict: They
still exist, so that’s something, right? Sorry Big East, you gave all your best
teams to the ACC and plucked the current hot teams to fill the gap. The
conference may survive, but there’s no Miami as an independent right now to
jump in and dominate college football.
Independents
Independents used to be a big thing. At their absolute
peak in the late 80s, independents won four straight titles with three
different teams. As more of a loose affiliation than any real conference,
however, they were bound to be hit hard by conference expansion.
In the early-90s wave of conference realignment several
top teams bolted with Penn State joining the Big Ten, Florida State joining the
ACC and almost all the other teams of note joining the Big East. The scraps
from this realignment found their way to Conference USA and eventually,
ironically, moved on up to form the core of the Big East after that conference
was raided by the ACC.
By the time the latest realignment came around there
weren’t really any independents worthy of poaching. In an odd twist, the
“conference” actually picked up a decent team when BYU decided not to trade up
to the Big 12 but to go from the Mountain West to independence and capitalize
on their national brand.
I would be remiss to move on without discussing that most
classic of independents: Notre Dame. Consider them discussed.
Verdict: Understanding
that they’re not really a conference, the independents gained big by picking up
BYU. The Cougars may not be a national championship contender anytime soon, but
they are likely to be a perennial top-25 team.
Others
(No titles)
“Other” includes a number of conferences such as the WAC,
MWC, Southern, Conference USA, Ivy League, Border, Mountain States and even
more. The peak in the 40s came largely from World War II training facilities
that fielded college-level teams during the war. The peak in the last several
years is driven by TCU, Utah and Boise State. This is unlikely to continue.
Verdict: In
conference realignment, as in many areas of life, bad things tend to roll
downhill. Those teams that demonstrated enough performance in the recent past
have been gobbled up by major conferences (TCU, Utah, Boise State, Houston,
UCF) or gone independent (BYU). Of all the “other” teams that finished in the
top 25 during the 2000s, none polled higher than 0.4% - an average of 24th
for the decade.
Update to
Curriculum
After going with an area graph of conference performance
over time in the last post that was, charitably, difficult to follow, I decided
to put together some better representations of conference performance. Here are
two charts that show conference performance by decade based on either current
or contemporary membership.
The story is the same here as in the earlier post and
above in this one; it just looks better now.
No comments:
Post a Comment