by Joey Lavoie ’14

Is Division I football bound to just become one big conference of 119 schools with the latest NCAA conference realignments? It sure seems so.

There are currently 12 conferences with numbers of members ranging from four to 13. The conference with the most teams isn’t even one of the “big six” conferences in the NCAA. No, that honor is held by the Mid-American conference (MAC). The big six conferences in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) are the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), the Big East, the Big 12, the Big 10, the Pacific 12 Conference (PAC 12) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). All these conferences have storied histories, major rivalries and traditions amongst their colleges, but the recent realignment is ruining these conferences’ legacies.

And for what? Money, of course. Most BCS conferences have their own television networks, as well as lucrative television deals with major networks. These deals are worth tens of millions of dollars per year and a school potentially can make more money in the SEC than in the Big East, for example. Those television networks, such as the Big Ten Network, feed universities money based on the games and information that they make available to the public. There used to be rivalries such as Texas vs. Texas A&M, but now due to Texas A&M’s departure from the Big 12, this rivalry will not be able to continue because of the competitive SEC schedule where every week is already a primetime matchup. Another huge rivalry that recently ended is Oklahoma vs. Nebraska. For decades, these universities met annually, with some of the games essentially deciding who played for the National Championship. But now, Nebraska has fled The Big 12 (which now has ten teams) for the Big Ten (which now has 12 teams). When Syracuse University, the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University depart from the Big East, it will cost these colleges five million dollars and they will have to wait four years to be allowed to leave the conference. These universities will lose money in the present but will gain all that money back, and more, after their change in conferences make it worthwhile from an economics standpoint.

The Big East will lose three of their original eight members. This news caused the Big East to invite six less athletically talented colleges to join their conference: the United States Naval Academy, Boise State University, the University of Central Florida, the University of Houston, the Air Force Academy and Southern Methodist University.

This is a great opportunity for all these schools to join a BCS conference, but what happens to all the rivalries that they will have to leave back in their old conferences? Could this be the end of the Commander and Chief trophy? With Air Force and Navy joining the Big East, what will happen to Army? It would be absolutely depressing to see the Army-Navy and Army-Air Force rivalries come to an end after all these years of exciting contests.

Clearly all this movement of teams from one conference to another hurts what was left of the amazing tradition in college football. This world may revolve around money, but in order to make that money there are costs. It is a shame that colleges have sacrificed a century of tradition in the greedy pursuit to make a buck. So much for tradition…