The landscape of college athletics has been absolutely rocked over the past few weeks.
The once-proud Pac-12 is on the verge of extinction. Meanwhile, significant conferences such as the ACC are faced with many worries and uncertainties, to say the least.
Speaking to the Lincoln Journal Star, Nebraska Athletics Director Trev Alberts shared his perspective on the future of conference realignment.
“History is unkind to conferences that have not had the courage to expand,” Alberts warned, emphasizing that he believes the current turmoil is far from over. “I don’t believe it’s done. It’s never been done.”
“It’s more likely than not that there will be continued periods of angst. I believe that the next go-around – that’s my basic conclusion – will be far more disruptive than anything we’re currently engaged in. We need to prepare ourselves mentally for that.”
Nebraska AD Trev Alberts tells @Amie_Just there will be more expansion. “History is unkind to conferences that have not had the courage to expand. I don’t believe it’s done. It’s never been done. It’s more likely than not that there will be continued periods of angst. I believe…
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 13, 2023
Strong words by Albert…
With the Pac-12 left with just four teams, attention now turns to the west coast as potential dominos await their fall.
Speculation looms over whether the Pac-12 will opt to bolster its ranks with new additions or potentially merge with another conference, such as the Mountain West.
In the absence of such moves, the fate of California, Oregon State, Stanford, and Washington State remains uncertain, potentially leading to further expansion discussions.
Meanwhile, the Atlantic Coast Conference finds itself under pressure to elevate its standing among the major power conferences.
Plans to expand by including Cal and Stanford have faced resistance, with Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina, and NC State all voting against the expansion for varying reasons.
Florida State University has been particularly vocal about the challenges facing the ACC and its implications for their competitive standing.
FSU President Richard McCullough highlighted the dilemma by stating: “FSU helps to drive value and would drive value for any partner, but we have spent a year trying to understand how we might fix the issue.”
“There are no easy fixes to this problem.. I would say that my current assessment of the situation, after very deep analysis, is that I believe that FSU will have to at some point consider very seriously leaving the ACC unless there were a radical change to the revenue distribution.”
As speculations continue to swirl, the possibility of a conference expansion “Armageddon” remains on the table.
With Alberts predicting forthcoming chaos, the exact timeline of these developments remains shrouded in uncertainty.
Needless to say, we are entering truly unchartered times in college athletics – and where this whole thing goes next is anyone’s guess.
What are your thoughts on these wild times of conference realignment?
What do you think ends up happening to the four remaining Pac-12 schools?
What about the disgruntled ACC schools – Florida State, Clemson, Miami, etc?
How does this whole thing end?