Over the last few weeks, there have been numerous stories and rumors of conference expansion in college football. All the talk has now become reality.
The Pac-10 announced today that the Colorado Buffaloes have agreed to join the conference, leaving the Big 12. The rest of the dominoes will likely begin to fall now and it could signal the end of the Big 12.
The Nebraska Cornhuskers also appear set to leave the Big 12. Numerous sites are reporting that the Cornhuskers will announce their intentions to join the Big Ten Conference on Friday or Saturday.
ESPN is reporting that Texas and Texas A&M will meet today to discuss their future and a possible move to the Pac-10. If they leave, Baylor and Texas Tech have expressed their desire to follow their Big 12 counterparts.
The move by Colorado puts the Pac-10 at eleven teams, one short of the twelve that are required to stage a conference championship game. The game would bring more money to the conference, but it appears that the Pac-10 may not be in favor of such a game.
Most rumors have the Pac-10 extending invites to Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, bringing the total numbers of teams to 16. That would create two eight-team divisions and a possible championship game. Or the conference could forgo the game and lobby for two automatic BCS bids, as some have suggested.
The Mountain West Conference has explored inviting Boise State from the WAC but this appears to be on hold for now. It appears the MWC may be playing and wait-and-see approach like most of the other conferences, including the mighty SEC.
Stay tuned as this could be a wild summer of conference expansion and reorganization. But keep in mind that most moves probably won’t take effect until the start of the 2012 season.
As for FBSchedules.com, we will continue to list teams as members of their current conference until the off-season preceding their move. Many of our team pages and schedules will have to be renamed because the site is organized by conference. If you notice any issues in the future, please contact us.
The future schedules and future non-conference opponents of each team will also change drastically. We will do our best to update as new information becomes available.
What do you think about the conference expansion and the possible demise of the Big 12? Do we really need super-conferences? How many teams are enough for one conference? Discuss these issues in the comments below.