College Super Conference Realignment Theories

College athletics, but most dramatically college football, could possibly be turned on its own head...and soon. Texas A&M University is pulling the Missouri card this time around and initiating this insanity. The anxiety that the conferences I remember for the most part (Big 8 wasn't all that exciting) could be gone or irrevocably changed is eating at a lot of people's insides so I thought I'd do my part to throw out my "expert" opinion.

Thanks to hours of me watching ESPN, listening to college football sports talk radio, reading articles online and wargaming potential scenarios in my own head and on paper has made me an "expert" with "knowledgeable sources" (*cough ESPN reporting is a joke) on the subject matter. So...in English, I'm bored, love college football, and like every other Joe College Football Fan out there, has an idea how it could all play out. Let's roll the dice and see.

Personally, if it all goes to hell in a hand basket, I wouldn't mind seeing Iowa State stay with our Big XII North rivals (Kansas, Kansas State, and Missouri) and move into the Big Ten, now known as the Big 16. Not likely, but I wouldn't mind it cause we'd still have Iowa and Nebraska to duke it out with annually. More likely that the Big Ten would go after schools like Notre Dame, Rutgers, Pitt, and Syracuse to open bigger TV markets for their network.

The PAC-12 ought to go after Utah State or Brigham Young University to create an intrastate rival for Utah and then take Air Force or Colorado State for Colorado. Hell, they could even steal Nevada and UNLV to control the entire region.

The SEC will pounce at TAMU, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Clemson/Louisville/Virginia Tech. Then the Big East, Big XII, Mountain West and ACC will have been stripped of teams and begin feeding off of each other and Conference USA, Western Athletic Conference and the Sunbelt Conference. What happens from there is anyone's guess, but those scenarios seem reasonable to me.

Whatever remains of the WAC and MWC could merge into one, the remains of the Big East would be swallowed up by the ACC, the Sunbelt and C-USA would be stripped for new members to the Big XII and the remainder becomes a new Southern/Gulf Regional Conference. Question though...do Army and Navy stay out of all of this or do they offer to be part of the new ACC?

Lots of speculation and no real end in sight to the craziness that could unveil itself at anytime. Today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or even a year after that? I don't know, the "experts" on ESPN don't know, but the university athletic directors and conference commissioners probably have a better idea than the general public. So we will just have to wait and continue to play games with our minds and restlessly wait for the new face of college athletic conferences to show itself.