| 11 May 2010
The talk of the town around NCAA fans these days is the expansion possibilities of the Big Ten. I'll continue calling it the Big Ten because I don't need to act like the millions of other lame people who think the joke is still funny to refer to it as the Big Eleven. Congratulations you know there are eleven teams and not ten.
Everyone doesn't seem to have a problem with the Big Ten expanding, but they do have a problem with the repercussions that be caused from it. We've heard of the Big East getting dismantled. Teams from the Big 12 moving to the Big Ten and that conference having to grab new teams. Basically once the Big Ten is done figuring out who wants to come and who they are going to take, then the rest of the conferences can start rebuilding, reloading, or collapsing entirely. Don't blame it on the Big Ten, blame it on the BCS.
Would we really be in this predicament if the BCS never started? Conferences now have to expand to have enough teams for conference championships because a team will be overlooked if they play one less game. Without the BCS, things would've stayed the same; we would've had the Big Ten Champion playing the Pac 10 Champion in the Rose Bowl every year and everyone would've been happy right? Wrong. For all the hate that the BCS deservingly receives, the one thing it has done right is caused the whole landscape of college football for the change, and it seems like it will be for the better.
Not to say that teams weren't focused on the National Championship before the BCS, but now the entire focus is on the national title. Winning your conference and making it to the BCS is a great accomplishment, but if you're not in that title game then your season could feel incomplete. We never had that before. Expansion could cause NCAA football to have more focus on each separate conference instead of individual teams. If we do end up with the super power conferences of 16 teams that it seems like we're going to then this causes many more important conference games throughout the season and very important end of season conference championships. Of course this would all be much better if we had a tournament style post season.
I like where the expansion of college football is headed, but the one problem with all of this is NCAA basketball. Many people have brought it up, but few have elaborated on the fact that the movement amongst teams to different conferences in football also has a major impact on basketball. There are traditions and rivalries that are instilled in both separate sports that need to be maintained and some drastic changes by either of the sports will cause the demise of the other sports rivalries and traditions.
There's a simple solution to this problem. The NCAA should have separate conferences for football and separate conferences for basketball.
Do we really care if Syracuse and UConn play football in the Big Ten and then play basketball in the Big East? Would we really be upset if Duke and UNC were in the ACC in basketball and then Duke wasn't even part of one of the super conferences in football?
The NCAA already has separate conferences for Division I hockey. Notre Dame is independent in football and plays in the Big East in basketball and Georgetown plays Big East basketball and doesn't even have a D1 football team. There are already many instances where similar situations take place, just now if they follow my lead then it will be more severe, but better for both games overall.
I say expand the conferences and expand our mind sight at the same time. College football and college basketball are great, but both could be even better by creating the best possible conferences in each individual sport.
I'm all for maintaining the current rivalries and traditions that are in place, but I'm also for seeing new traditions and rivalries be created.
