Conference Realignment - By the Numbers

After the recent announcement of USC and UCLA moving to the Big Ten, there's been talk of other Pac-12 teams eventually moving.  But there's also a chorus of "if the Big Ten wanted them, they would have taken them already."  

That got me thinking.

One thing we have noticed over the last couple of decades is that change can be slow and gradual.  Look at the national championship process -- they didn't immediately go to a 12 team playoff.  Instead, it was a series of steps over 30 years (Bowl Alliance to BCS to 4 team CFP to 12 teams).

I believe conference expansion and realignment is very similar in speed.  It's a gradual process, where a conference is not going to add too many teams at once.  Then I remembered that the Big 12 is adding four teams this year alone.

So I thought some more, and realized that there are two types of conferences in realignment.

First are the "power" conferences.  They kick off the realignment process by expansion.

Then you have the "reactive" conferences.  While they could end up with more members at the end of the process than the start, they usually do it from a position of reacting to a move from one of the "power" conferences.

Some conferences have been in both the power and reactive positions when it comes to realignment.  There are two conferences who have always been in the power position - the Big Ten and the SEC.  They have added teams over the past few years without losing any.

In the early 2000s, the ACC was in a power position when they took three teams from the Big East - VT and Miami in 2004, and Boston College in 2005.

That started a trickle down effect as the Big East pulled in several teams from Conference USA, who in turn pulled in teams from other non-AQ or FCS conferences to refill their ranks.  After the ACC's power move, all of the other conferences realigned from a reactive position.

The Big Ten added three teams during the Mega Conference Realignment of 2010-2015, all from the power position.  They took Nebraska from the Big 12 in 2011, and then Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers from the Big East in 2014.

The Pac-10 tried to poach most of the Big 12 to make a superconference in 2010, but only got Colorado to join.  They also pulled Utah up from the non-AQ ranks to even out their numbers, and trigger the name change to the Pac-12.

In two separate positions of power, the SEC has added four total schools from the Big 12 - Missouri and Texas A&M in 2011, and then Texas and Oklahoma in 2024.

The ACC was once again in a power position when they added Pitt and Syracuse from the Big East in 2013, but also in a reactive position when they added Louisville to replace Maryland in 2014.

The Big 12 has spent most of realignment from a reactive position.  They added TCU and WVU in 2012 to maintain their number at 10 teams.  Then with the pending departure of Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12 moved to add BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF.  The Big 12 didn't make a move from the power position until they took Colorado back from the Pac-12, scheduled for 2024.

Most (if not all) moves by Group of 5 conferences were done from a reactive position, as they were refilling their ranks that had been depleted by the expansion of the Power 5 conferences.

What does this mean?

The early driving factor of realignment was the requirement to have 12 teams for a conference championship game.  The ACC only had 9 teams in 2003, hence the addition of 3 teams.  The Big Ten and Pac-10/12 got to that number with their first expansion moves in 2010.  Even though the Big 12 went under that number, they eventually got their championship game back when the NCAA changed their rules and allowed those games for conferences with fewer than 12 teams.

Since that point, expansion and realignment have had more to do with TV money, but the conferences have strived to maintain an even number of teams.

Let's look at the conference additions, year-by-year.

Big Ten:
2011 - Nebraska
2014 - Maryland and Rutgers
2024 - USC and UCLA

SEC:
2011 - Missouri and Texas A&M
2014 - Texas and Oklahoma

ACC:
2004 - Virginia Tech and Miami
2005 - Boston College
2013 - Pitt and Syracuse
2014 - Louisville*

Pac-12:
2011 - Colorado and Utah

Big 12:
2012 - TCU and WVU*
2023 - BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF*
2024 - Colorado

Asterisks indicate moves done from a reactive position.

None of the power moves involved more than 2 teams in a single year.  (Unless you want to count the 2004-2005 ACC expansion as one move.)

There are rumors that the Big 12 is looking to add 1 or 3 more teams since Colorado would be the 13th team.  So while it's likely that the Big 12 might be switching over to a power position, they are still playing catch up in a way, trying to match the number of teams in the SEC and Big Ten.

As mentioned above, the Big Ten and SEC have always expanded from the power position, having not lost any teams in the process.  But they also tend to make the first moves in realignment.  While most of the ACC's moves have technically been from a power position, they have been chasing other numbers -- first they wanted the 12 teams for a championship game, and then they expanded to 14 to match the SEC.

My conclusion

The SEC and Big Ten don't have any obvious goals in expansion -- other than maximizing revenue.  We all thought that 12 was going to be the maximum number of teams in a conference until the SEC went to 14, and later 16.  In many cases, the other conferences have expanded to keep up with that number.

Therefore, I believe the conferences expanding from a "reactive" position will be more likely to add more schools at once than those expanding from a "power" position.

Going back to the beginning of this post -- "if the Big Ten wanted them, they would have taken them already."

The evidence I see is that the Big Ten is very careful about expansion, and they may not want to add more than 2 schools at a time.  So I'm not closing the book on further Big Ten expansion.

As I pointed out at the top, change in college football in gradual.  While I believe we will eventually go from a Power 5 to a Power 2, I think we'll have stops at the Power 4 and Power 3 along the way.