AmStat's College Football Apocalypse

Aggie Land's 12th Man will soon be located in the SEC

Take a journey with me...to the not so distant future of college football. We have awaken from a three-year slumber to find ourselves awaiting the kickoff of the 2015 college football season.

While I was sleeping, it seems as if Texas A&M managed to escape from the Big 12 despite being held hostage by the Baylor athletic program during the 2012 season. According to the conveniently placed copy of Phil Steele's 2015 College Football Preview on my nightstand, Oklahoma bolted the Big 12 soon after A&M, and then the falling dominoes began to to pick up steam. Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State followed the Sooners west, joining what Phil Steele is calling the Pacific 16 Conference.

I flipped to the Big Ten section of Phil's preview, relieved to find that the Big Ten was still called the Big Ten...but I couldn't help but notice that the Big Ten was bigger than ever before. I wasn't even potty-trained the last time the Big Ten was limited to ten teams, but it was still shocking to see the likes of Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State listed as members of the conference.

After analyzing these two "new" conferences, two questions came to mind. Where is the Big 12...and wait...does Baylor still play football? OK, three questions. Does Baylor still exist?

Well let's look at the SEC. Surely a tradition rich institutional conglomerate of the south wouldn't stand for such radical changes...right? OK, wrong once again. Add Louisville along with the Aggies? I guess that's not too bad. Georgia Tech? That actually makes perfect sense given the history of their rivalry with Georgia. Florida State? That makes a ton of sense too! The FSU-Miami rivalry isn't really all that good anymore. Besides, can Miami really be anyone's rival since everyone hates them (except for Uncle Luke and the rest of the 2 Live Crew of course). Miami has a rivalry with the rest of the world.

For a second, I thought the SEC had an odd number of teams, but then I noticed that South Carolina is nowhere to be found in the conference preview, giving them an even 14 programs. I'm pretty sure I know exactly where to find the "Ass Kickin' Chickens" though...

Just as I suspected...the ACC. I've never understood what is keeping the Gamecocks and Yellow Jackets from switching places. Both teams are sleeping giants in college football, and hopeless underachievers on the hardwood. Why not let South Carolina play Clemson in the ACC, and let Georgia Tech and Georgia display their clean old fashioned hate in a conference game as well. I'm sure the Jackets would rather play someone like UAB in week four, rather than getting scraped by the Bulldogs to end the regular season nearly every year. The ACC has some new editions as well. UCF, ECU, and former Big East member USF join the party to give the ACC 14 teams as well.

The chain reaction continues, because if USF is in the ACC...who's in the Big East?


Well, for starters, the Villanova Wildcats are playing football with the big boys now. The Wildcats were a perennial power in the FCS, so who needs USF (sarcasm)!? Plus, the Temple Owls have apparently made a return to Big East football. I'm not sure why they ever left in the first place. For the record, I'm definitely making a trip to Philly for the first Temple-Nova Big East football game, apparently they're playing for something called the Liberty Bell Trophy (I made that up, but you can't deny the brilliance of that idea). Buffalo and UMass also moved to the Big East from the fledgling MAC conference. Never thought I would see the day when the MAC was raided by the Big East, but welcome to the 2015 college football season. West Virginia can no longer duck yearly meetings with their athletic program step-brothers from Marshall, the Thundering Herd has joined the 'Neers in the Big East. Maybe The Herd can even rekindle their old Conference USA rivalry with Cincinnati while they're getting acclimated. At the bottom of the page, a special note reminds us that Georgetown will begin playing football in 2016. This opens the door for the inaugural Big East football championship game to be held at Yankees Stadium in 2016 (I made this up too, but how epic would Syracuse-Pitt for the Big East Title be if they played at Yankees Stadium?) The 2015 Big East isn't all that intimidating, but it has teams, and that's more than what can be said about the Big 12. The search party is still out for Baylor by the way. Maybe those live black bears that they keep on campus got out of their cages. Can a few black bears take out an entire campus?

Baylor found a home in the Mountain West

Wait a second...I think I see something...it looks green...with maybe even a bit of gold trim...By golly we found them! It's Baylor! In the Mountain West no less. TCU, Boise State, Hawaii, BYU, Colorado State, San Diego State, Nevada, Fresno State, New Mexico, and UNLV fill out the ten team league. Through all the hubbub over college football realignment, Baylor managed to land on its feet in a conference that is worthy of an automatic BCS bid in football, and a four-NCAA bid league in college basketball.


Honestly, after the initial shock of it all, the college football apocalypse didn't produce the level of Armageddon that I really expected. Only one conference folded, and a replacement power conference emerged in its place. All that lies ahead in college football does in fact look scary, but when the final domino falls in the year 2015...it will be time to simply play the game of football. It's kickoff Saturday three years into the future, and I can't wait until November to see Michigan-Ohio State live on ESPN Virtual Reality.