The conference supremacy race is on in college football. Nebraska, Tech’s venerable 1991 Citrus Bowl foe was the first NCAA Div-1 team since the ACC, Big East and Conference USA made minor shake-ups in 2004, to switch conferences. It was only natural that their rivals and (depending on who you ask) 1990 Co-National Champion Colorado switched alliances as well. Both former big-12 schools left to pursue greener pastures in the Big-10 and Pac-10 respectively. In my opinion the best conference adjustment thus far has been the addition of Boise State to the Mountain West Conference. It gives BYU, TCU and Uah, the undisputed powers in the conference, another quality opponent for the BCS computers and legitimizes the Mountain West’s claim for an automatic BCS bowl bid. All of this has only wetted the SEC’s appetite for more fire power and the rumor mill is circulating a Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State invite to create a mega-conference.

With that speculation aside, let’s focus on more important speculation. What does this mean for the Jackets? The Jackets seem unlikely to join or in that case be invited to the SEC, given the history of the school and the conference. A second notion is to dip into the Big East again with West Virginia and Cincinnati as prime candidates. This would be favorable since Syracuse was a candidate in 2004 along with BC, Virginia Tech and Miami, so the thoughts of a Big East – ACC mega-merger have been percolating for a few years. Another reason the Big East scenario looks more likely has to do with the SEC toying with the idea of raiding the ACC of Miami, FSU, Clemson, and Virginia Tech if it doesn’t get its way with the powers of the Big-12. Tech’s future opponents could then include West Virginia, Cincinnati, Pitt, and South Florida. Not to mention the possibility of Louisville, Syracuse and Rutgers.

The conference arms race in college football has its launch pad in South Bend, Indiana. All of the shuffling and realigning and speculation is a direct result of Notre Dame refusing to join a conference. If Notre Dame would have simply made the, what would seem like obvious, decision to join the Big-10, it would have solved several fringe issues with college football. 1) It would have given the Big-10, which actually has eleven teams, a twelfth member, making the conference eligible for a championship game. A fact that always comes up in the discussion of national title contenders and how much of a factor the thirteenth game of the season has for teams with a conference title game. 2) It would affiliate the school with a conference and put an end t0 individual contract negotiation. Part of the reason conference expansion has become a hot topic has to do with television rights and ratings in bigger markets. The Big-10 formed its own network, the SEC partnered with ESPN to provide its own network of programming last year and all of this was an attempt to achieve the level of proliferation Notre Dame receives with their contract with NBC. A Big East – ACC merger would bring in the coveted NYC market, the number one entertainment market in the nation. 3) It would have helped the case for finally getting a playoff system in D-1 college football. Notre Dame has an agreement with the NCAA and the BCS that gives them an automatic BCS bid if they win nine games in a season. The rules for BCS eligibility are winning a conference championship or being ranked in the top 12-15 (the last few spots have changed over the years) of the BCS poll, unless you’re Notre Dame. This has always caused a problem with proposed playoff situations because when a bracket style format is in place how could you legitimately award a spot in an eight team playoff to a team that didn’t play a championship game and had possibly a three-loss season?

Whether the tectonic plates of college football shift this season or not, several things will always remain the same no matter what initials are printed on the field.

Someone in the SEC will be overrated and then cry about not being “taken seriously.”

Notre Dame will under achieve.

Boise State will play one meaningful game.

and THWG.

III,