SEC Expansion: League TV Network Coming, Virginia Tech Rumors Return

That report from earlier in the week about North Carolina having a Big Ten offer, which came from a source with a track record on the subject? It gets juicier, for those who like juicy things:

Now that Notre Dame’s sort of off the conference realignment table, by way of joining-but-not-really-joining the ACC, it would appear that the Tar Heels have taken over as the program with the longest line of suitors, based on reports at least. And it would make sense.

Update: Weaver says his quote was “misrepresented” and that “there’s nothing happening.”

Also, from earlier in the day:

I really like the relationship between the SEC and the Big 12 right now. They’re partnered up for what’s already one of the two biggest bowl games (despite the game not even existing yet), yet the SEC takes the Big 12’s teams and the Big 12 is out here saying it still got the better end of the deal. It’s a marriage made strong by stacks and stacks and stacks of dollar bills, the finest solvent yet.

From Dennis Dodd, Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby comments on the quality of each conference’s recent additions [emphasis added]:

Yes, the below video appeared on Texas A&M’s official YouTube page on Monday and good lord in heaven I would be willing to bet you’ve never seen anything more lackluster or poorly thought out in all your days.

As of Monday night, the video had 221 “dislikes” against just 36 “likes” and the only thing I can figure is that all of the people that appear in the video and their moms clicked “like” as soon as it was posted.

TCU was left for dead more than a decade ago by longtime state rivals when the Big 12 formed from the Big 8 and the remains of the SWC. Since then, they’ve gone 1-10 in the WAC before catching momentum, escaped to Conference USA, battled into the Mountain West and briefly the Big East, won 10 games nine times since 2000 and even won a dadgum Rose Bowl. And as of midnight, they’re officially right back at the power table again, officially members of the Big 12.

Here’s the rundown of everything that happened at midnight:

My goodness, the Big 12 is taking this new bowl partnership thing with the SEC pretty seriously. The above is an actual item being sold by the Big 12’s official online store, as is the following (ht to Rock M Nation for both):

With the Big 12 looking to be the only conference that supports the SEC’s preference to allow non-conference champions into college football’s playoff, battle lines have been drawn, and we’ll spend the next two weeks hearing about how the whole thing might work out. With the SEC’s spring meetings concluding, the conference is set to make their official proposal:

Machen also said he believes the conference will proceed with the 6-1-1 scheduling model, which will keep each member tied with a cross-divisional football rival. Also, on the issue of potential SEC expansion (which would include Virginia Tech, if you’re into rumors):

It’s the Big 12’s turn to send out important suits to offer up quotes for dissection, but we can all go ahead and put away cutting instruments when it comes to these remarks by Texas AD DeLoss Dodds (this was in addition to listing “five strong conferences” that presumably doesn’t include the Big East, pointing out the Rose Bowl isn’t as conference-friendly as the Champions Bowl, and other general shop-wrecking), because these here are sharp enough:

The best part: the SEC and Big 12 are officially buddies now. Texas likes to position itself as above the A&M rivalry, but when its AD is cool with tearing down a business partner just to take a shot at the Aggies? You can’t quit A&M, Horns. Accept it.

As Stewart Mandel tweeted Tuesday afternoon, an alien deposited on Earth in the middle of the summer would conclude that college football is just a bunch of results-free meetings that never stop happening in Florida. This week’s edition is the SEC’s turn, making this week of meetings that produce nothing an especially important week of meetings that produce nothing.

However, noteworthy figures are making noteworthy proclamations. Among them, Les Miles maybe spills the Big 12’s beans (just giving Chuck Neinas more work to do) and Gary Pinkel reveals Arkansas and Mizzou as cross-division rivals, confirming a Texas A&M-South Carolina pairing.

The SEC’s newly swollen 14-team membership forced the conference to tweak its time-honored football schedules for the 2012 season. On Saturday, the league confirmed for the first time that it will likely stay with the new “6-1-1” scheduling model into 2012 and beyond.

Larry Templeton, an SEC official and head of the league’s “transition committee,” told the Birmingham News that the format for conference games going forward appears to be the 6-1-1 model, which has every SEC team playing its six divisional opponents, a permanent rival from the other divisional, and one rotating opponent from the other division each year.

Better late than never for that kind of idea, yes?

The ACC won’t be able to get the SEC’s or Big Ten’s champ, of course, as those teams will be committed to the Rose Bowl and this new Big 12 venture, respectively, in the event that they miss the playoffs. The Big East remains available. Winner gets to play its basketball tournament in Madison Square Garden, maybe?

With college football playoff details coming later this summer, likely by early July, we know conference realignment moves are on hold for the time being. Once the 2014 playoff system comes out, the free-for-all is back on, with the renewed possibility of Notre Dame easing into the Big 12 as its NBC deal runs out, upping the stakes even more.

We have a good sense of the general moves still on the board, but if we really are entering the long-prophesied, 64-team reign of the superconference, we might as well start war-gaming. Below, an attempt at the best shape each conference could be in following the next wave, along with the worst that could happen.

Is there an end in sight to college conference realignment? There is not. Of course there isn’t! There are certain milestones just down the road, however, which we can use to help figure out how extensively to stock the bunkers.

Two of them, as Spencer Hall and I discuss in the video below after an exhausting filming of this Friday’s Shutdown Fullback, are this summer’s revelation of college football’s 2014 playoff plan and the point in 2015 at which Notre Dame’s NBC contract expires. If the Irish don’t already have a conference by then (and they could have one by, like, tomorrow), everything could completely change all over again. To the SEC they probably don’t go!

That wouldn’t be a surprise, as the Hokies were believed to be on a short list during last summer’s realignment round that produced moves by Mizzou and Texas A&M. They were also among the teams mentioned during the previous year, which didn’t result in any SEC moves.

In September, Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari listed VPI among three teams he’d like to see added, along with Maryland and Missouri. A month earlier, we attempted to keep track of all the times Virginia Tech was forced to deny SEC rumors, finding at least three times. (It’s at least four now.)

The ACC’s re-upped television deal with ESPN currently projects to average more money per school per year than the SEC’s deal with ESPN and CBS. The ACC makes more money than the SEC! That’s not counting the fact that the SEC’s about to alter its own deals and is apparently building a SEC Network, the Sports Business Journal reports:

That’s big news. We’ll have to wait and see what that looks like.

We talk about conference realignment a lot. Pretty much every day. It’s become the third sport of college football, right after recruiting. But how do we figure out who’s winning it?

Here’s an attempt at assigning a Realignment Value to every school in or close to joining FBS, so we can figure out exactly which conferences are winning (and by how much) and how big the remaining moves are.

Conference realignment! It never ends, but it does offer up waypoints that have even the most diligent college fans losing track of which schools are going where. Thus, with the Mountain West, Sun Belt and Conference USA all making finalized (or reported) moves this week, it’s a fine time to catch up on adjustments both pending and possible, from the independents to the power leagues.

First up, the WAC. Alphabetical order after that. It’s the smallest courtesy we can extend a conference on life support. With only two football schools left for 2013, the WAC’s only FBS option is to convince a slew of FCS schools to take the double risk of jumping up a level and joining the Mountain West’s trough.

The 2012 SEC schedule has been released, but the 2013 schedule is still a bit up in the air as the SEC will need to modify its scheduling procedures in preparation for the additional teams and conference games.

For more information on Clemson and Georgia, visit SB Nation’s Clemson blog Shakin’ The Southland and Georgia blog Dawg Sports. For more on the SEC, visit SB Nation’s SEC blog Team Speed Kills.

Perhaps this is what’s inspired Dabo Swinney to propose spring games between two teams, rather than just a one-squad scrimmage. Clemson and UGA fans think of their series as a deep rivalry even though the two rarely get the chance to meet.

Let Kyle King of Dawg Sports break it down by pointing to what happened to the series the last time the ACC expanded:

That’s Mike Alden, Mizzou athletic director, who like his Texas A&M counterpart is set to get exceedingly richer. Other SEC ADs will only get far richer, not exceedingly richer, as they’re all already exceedingly rich.

The SEC’s TV contracts included language that would allow the conference to re-negotiate in the event of new teams joining up. With those new teams delivering* at least three very big TV markets, the SEC’s set to cash in and show everybody what all this fuss was all about.

This is the offseason, and for college football it is a mercifully drama-free offseason after last year’s realignment saga. That does not mean Dan Rubenstein and Spencer Hall can’t talk about the few things actually brewing in college football, including the renovation of SEC football scheduling for 2013 and beyond.

Temple has returned to the Big East, and college sports have been solved. Every Division I conference is now set, and no more teams will move around for the sake of making more money or for any other reason that’s actually just more money. Let’s assess where we stand while the smoke clears. You’d be amazed how much smoke the MAC and Big East can kick up over Temple football!

Ranked in order from most settled to least settled, here’s the realignment state of each conference:

↵

↵

Now R. Bowen Loftin, president of A&M, tweets with bowtie not whirling:

Good news for fans of schools with rivalries worth keeping -- Alabama-Tennessee, Georgia-Auburn, and LSU-Florida. Now we’ll all just try and wrap our minds around various things such as two schools that may not have ever played each other being declared eternal rivals, the Aggies replacing Texas with Carolina and feeling great about it, and just about the two most distant teams in the conference playing each other every year.

The SEC continues to work through the great scheduling debate of our time, seeking to figure out how to maintain a handful of historic rivalries without pushing to nine conference games, and without making it so teams in opposite divisions never play each other.

It sounds pretty easy!