Super Conferences and Expansion, 21 Years Ago
by CrimsonUte on Sep 13, 2011 12:20 PM MDT
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PrintSaw this old Sports Illustrated article from 1990 linked on Pacific Takes, and it's a fascinating read. These were the days when the Southwest Conference was still a conference, Arkansas hadn't moved to the SEC, the Big 8 was playing in the Orange Bowl, Penn State had just moved to the Big 10, Colorado was flirting with the Pac-10 and the Big East didn't have a football conference. The BCS hadn't even been created yet.
And what was the worry then? A mass scramble of conference realignment, with super conferences that elevated some schools and left others behind. The Big 10's move to 11 schools did trigger some expansion from 8- and 10-team conferences to more 12-team conferences. Most of the independent football programs joined conferences, and some mass realignment left half of the SWC on the outside looking in. The Cotton Bowl lost its status as one of the game's premier bowls, and has never recovered.
How will the upheaval shake out this time around?
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I guess you could say what happened in the early 90s was really Phase 1...
Like you said, in ’90 the Big Ten added Penn State to go to 11, a year later, the SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1991 to balloon to 12 (at the time, the biggest conference in the country) and the Big East formed its football conference by adding Miami, Rutgers, Temple, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Syracuse and Boston College, while the ACC added FSU. A few years later, the SWC fell apart and Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Baylor and the old Big 8 formed the new Big 12.
So there was certainly a huge swing in the 90s where the major conferences, outside the Pac-12, added members. The SEC and Big 8/12 went to 12, the Big East formed and the Big Ten pushed their overall total to 11.
Then things died down and became a bit more stable. Like I said, though, I think this was really phase one and we’re now in phase two. Phase two are the mega-conferences. They didn’t happen over night, clearly, but the 90s expansion frenzy really did get the ball rolling.
In fact, we’ve seen radical adjustments even since the 90s ended. The ACC took Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College from the Big East, while the Big East then replaced those schools with USF, Louisville, Cincinnati and now TCU.
The Pac-10 finally went to 12. The Big Ten finally went to 12. The SEC is now at 13 members, most likely 14.
So we’ve been moving to this point ever since 1991.
It just took 20 years.
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