July Marks a New Beginning for the SEC and Perhaps the Beginning of the End of normal?
As the clock hit midnight College Sports have officially changed forever, especially the South Eastern Conference. July 1st is the official day that the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners join the SEC while in a month USC, Washington, Oregon, and UCLA will join the Big Ten.
College Sports have now started its movement from the Power Five to the Power Four but, really its truly now a Power Two. The SEC and the Big Ten are loaded with more talent than the Big 12 and the ACC and more change is likely on the horizon.
The 12 team college football playoff will lead to plenty of jockeying between teams as programs like Florida State, Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, and Miami will likely look to join the stronger conferences for a better chance at vying for the College Football Playoff. This has already started as Florida State and Clemson are looking to leave the Conference in an issue that is currently playing out in court.
The team with the biggest incentive to finally join a conference is Notre Dame as the Conference Champions of the new "Power Four" will get a bye in the College Football Playoff, meaning Notre Dame could finish the season as the top-ranked team but miss out on a bye.
The question now becomes, with all this change across College Sports what's next and where does this all end? As teams look to flock to the SEC and to the Big 10, will we end up with only two conferences similar to the NFL?
The bigger question is how long the schools continue to adhere to the NCAA's governance. Every time a school takes the NCAA to court, the organization continues to lose credibility. As College Football and College Basketball continue to bring in more revenue than every other sport the programs may want to pivot especially after this new television deal.
On the Field product is now better but, off the field will be a headache
The conference realignment has brought us a ton of positives as we'll get incredible on-the-field matchups more often and on a yearly basis. It has also brought us the twelve-team playoff which fans have clamored about for years especially after Florida State was shockingly left out of the Playoff. The downside is now what we'll see over the next few years off the field as programs will continue their pushes and lawsuits to move to a new conference. These next few years will result in a ton of change to what we've known college sports to be and we're not sure how this will all shake out.