The first week of college football is in the books, and the games were everything fans of the sport had waited for since January. The slate included thrilling endings, major blowouts, and familiar faces returning for one last year. But these storylines make it easy to overlook that college football is in the midst of another wave of realignment.
On Wednesday, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark alluded to the Big 12 expanding further. Specifically, Yormark stated the league would be interested in entering the Pacific time zone.
“Obviously, going out west is where I would like to go, entering that fourth time zone,” Yormark said.
The Big 12 commissioner also stated what he was looking for when considering expansion.
“A program that has national recognition, one that competes at the highest level in basketball and football, stands for the right things, is a good cultural fit,” Yormark said of ideal fits.
Yormark seems to be inferring that the Big 12 is, at the very least, interested in adding current Pac-12 members. While Oregon and Washington have expressed interest in joining the Big Ten, Arizona and Utah seem to have more of an open mind to joining the Big 12. Colorado and Arizona State could also leave the Pac-12 if ESPN offers the Big 12 a more substantial contract since both conferences are in the middle of negotiating their future media rights deals.
While it is exciting to hear about Yormark’s aggressive strategy with the Big 12’s expansion efforts, this news might not be welcoming to many West Virginia fans. Although Cincinnati is joining the conference next summer, West Virginia is an outlier geographically, and expanding further west would be detrimental to the Mountaineers.
However, if the Big 12’s long-term goal is to expand to 20 teams like the Big Ten and SEC have expressed interest in doing, Pittsburgh and Louisville would strengthen the conference. While these additions would also be ideal for the Mountaineers and their fans, the ACC must renegotiate their current grant of rights before any teams realistically consider leaving the conference. Although the next wave of realignment hinges on current television negotiations, it seems that the Big 12 will be competitive for many years.
Photo by LM Otero / AP Photo
