West Virginia Director of Athletics Wren Baker (right) hugs Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark at the Big 12 Men’s Basketball Championships.
MORGANTOWN – Getting word in the last day that seven current members of the Atlantic Coast Conference have met with their lawyers to begin investigating the potential to break away from the conference had to be seen in of the West Virginia athletic department as if he were a driver stuck in a mass traffic jam with nowhere to go who suddenly found someone sitting in the seat next to him, clearing the way for him to move into the HOV lane with an open road ahead.
Whether that will come to something no one knows yet, although the way things are going in college sports these days, the only certainty is uncertainty and as soon as the words “that will never happen” leave your mouth whatever it is happened happened
So when a story is written that Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia and Virginia Tech have all begun to consider leaving the ACC, it appears that there is a good chance they can improve West Virginia’s standing before the Mountaineers.
Now, those conversations are no doubt taking place without much thought of WVU among the other schools, as it’s possible SEC membership for Clemson, Florida State and Miami front and center and possible jumps from Carolina of the North and Virginia in the Big Ten.
But one could easily see Virginia Tech making a move to the Big 12, perhaps along with North Carolina State, making life much more comfortable in the new Big 12 for WVU than it has been, suddenly in an Eastern wing of the ever-expanding conference. with Cincinnati and Central Florida.
Would Louisville stay in the ACC without the other seven schools or enjoy more of a relationship in a conference with WVU, Cincinnati and Virginia Tech, a conference that would almost certainly be more of a powerhouse in football than an ACC without Clemson ? , Florida State and Miami?
Who knows what else would be unleashed if such a defection came to the ACC. Couldn’t Pitt, who, with Syracuse, would rather jump to the Big Ten, not be courted by a bigger, stronger Big 12 if the Big Ten wasn’t willing to embrace them?
The Big 12 has been interested in expanding west to have a coast-to-coast footprint, after rumors it was talking to Utah, Arizona, Arizona State and Colorado, but none would expand to the east while giving him even more. richer and stronger geographic control over the nation?
Big 12 Commissioner Bret Yormark appears to be proactive in making the future exciting for his conference and there may not be a better time for creativity combined with a power play to allow the 12 big keep pace with the SEC and Big Ten. who are trying to become the dominant and dominant powers within college sports.
It doesn’t look like anyone can match the SEC with Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Clemson, Florida State, LSU, Auburn and Miami as members, but that’s not really a change in the power structure.
If the Big 12 could somehow land Miami, which isn’t locked into the top spot in the SEC should the ACC fall apart, and Louisville to go with Virginia Tech and NC State, you’d have a solid lineup of schools with a track record of success in both football and basketball.
If you could wave a magic wand, you’d like to see the Power 5 conferences break away from the NCAA entirely and take over top-level college sports and split their teams into regionally balanced, competitively balanced conferences, but The logistics of this and its effect on media rights probably present too great a barrier to climb.
And while they’re at it, it’s time to drop the pretense that college sports and professional sports are different, because really, the only thing that separates them in the modern world is ivy-covered campus walls.
The mission of a college is to prepare students for life ahead and that is increasingly evident than life in athletics as a player, coach, agent, member of the media, advertising icon…anything that should become an educational specialty in schools within the Power 5 conferences to prepare those entering this profession to be prepared for the life they have chosen to pursue.
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