COLLEGE FOOTBALL'S MANY CHANGES

COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S MANY CHANGES

By Troy Derengowski

The 2012 college football season will kick off at the end of August and the landscape has a new look.  Conference realignment is one of the top stories going into this season with schools like Missouri and Texas A&M moving to the new look SEC.   Many fans are going to need a map to figure out where all of the changes have taken place.   Location means nothing anymore when it comes to joining a new conference.  For example, Missouri and Texas A&M playing in the Southeastern Conference?   West Virginia now plays in the Big 12?    Those are the extreme cases. 

Pittsburgh and Syracuse will be leaving the Big East for the ACC in 2014, Temple will return to the Big East in football, taking West Virginia’s place.  The Big East will add Boise State, San Diego State, Houston, Memphis, SMU and Central Florida in 2013 and Navy in 2015.   Has anyone noticed most of those schools are nowhere close to the East?   So the Big East will look nothing like the Big East we have been watching for years.   The Western Athletic Conference may soon be extinct in football.  Hawaii, Fresno State and Nevada are moving to the Mountain West Conference this fall and in 2013, Utah State and San Jose State will also join the MWC and Louisiana Tech will go to Conference USA.

Texas-San Antonio will play in the WAC this season but will move to Conference USA in 2013.  Texas State will play one season in the WAC and then depart to the Sun Belt next year.  With all of those departures, Idaho and New Mexico State have very uncertain futures.    Confused yet?   Welcome to the new age of college football.