Well you figured it was just a matter of time before all of the realignment talk started heating up again. As it turns out, the ACC is trying its hardest to lose its best football programs in order to maintain its status as a "premiere basketball conference." Apparently they didn't get the memo about the Big East.
Anyway, this time around the move looks like a massive one with Florida State and Clemson coming to the Big 12. And from everything I have heard, this deal is all but signed. Unless the ACC decides to stop giving the boys on Tobacco Road reach-arounds, I'd say Big 12 fans could start planning trips down south starting in 2013.
But is this where it all stops? Will the Big 12 be content with the correct amount of teams to fit its title? Don't be so sure.
More after the jump.
The SEC currently has fourteen teams and fifty two sister wives. The Big 12 added West Virginia so that gets us twelve sister wives closer to our new official rivals but there is still work to be done. Now the question becomes is the Big 12 willing to go to fourteen teams? Or perhaps even sixteen?There is only one deciding factor. Money.
What's in it for the Big 12? How much more will a TV network offer the conference by adding two to four more teams? That all depends on the attractiveness of the teams being added now doesn't it? And that's where this all gets interesting.
Here's my list of candidates: Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Louisville, BYU, and yes...Notre Dame.
Now I don't think Notre Dame would join right off the bat. I think there would have to be a thirteenth and fourteenth team first. But if this goes down that path and the new Big 12 consists of Florida State, Clemson, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech or Louisville, I could definitely see Notre Dame finally giving in and joining the conference. The money being thrown their way would be absurd with the new television deal (not to mention the third party tier rights that the Big 12 grants their schools).
In any case, adding any combination of those schools would be incredibly lucrative for a television network that wants to package a huge conference. The Big 12 knows this and will properly use it as a bargaining chip for both the network deal and to land these prospective universities. In all actuality, the prospective schools may be the ones asking to be invited to such a prosperous home. What a turn of events for a conference that was seemingly a sinking ship no more than a year ago.
The bottom line is that things are about to get crazy....again. So stay tuned, kids. Oh, and Texas--we know you don't want this all to happen but in a sick and twisted way, you caused it...so play nice and deal with it.