Austin Bishop

Friends and foes can change quickly in the world of college athletics. 

With the addition of sports powerhouses Oklahoma and Texas to the Southeastern Conference, three other major conferences — The Big 10, The Pac 12 and the Atlantic Coast Conference — apparently felt the need to respond.

Those three Power 5 conferences entered into an alliance to work together in the future for the “betterment of the NCAA,” which is actually more about protecting the money pot than anything else.

Among the ways the three schools will be “working together” is through a future scheduling agreement that will have the ACC, Big 10 and Pac 12 teams meeting one another on the football field and in the basketball area for men’s and women’s games. The idea is to produce high-profile non-conference games in order to draw national attention and additional TV dollars.

Not only does the addition of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC increase that conference’s already massive TV footprint, but it causes realignment inside the conference as well. While it is uncertain at this point exactly how that will shake it out, it seems likely that Oklahoma and Texas will be in the Western Division, while Alabama and Auburn head to the Eastern Division.

If the SEC keeps its two-division format, it seems likely that Arkansas, LSU, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Missouri, Texas and Texas A&M will be in the West, while Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt comprise the East.

While we are at it, let’s go ahead and talk future expansion. If you look at the SEC footprint, the most likely place the conference would look to expand would be into North Carolina. That state, and possibly Virginia, are the only logical areas for the conference to move while adding additional viewership. It is unlikely that at this point the SEC would expand into states in which current member institutions reside.

The SEC has shown interest in the University of North Carolina in the past, and a package that included UNC and North Carolina State may be enough for the league to consider expanding. The University of Virginia would also be a possibility. It’s all about more television viewers, which leads to more money.

Would the SEC consider Florida State, Clemson and possibly even Louisville? Certainly, but there may be too much internal opposition to pull off adding any of those three teams. So, the state of North Carolina is likely the next step for the conference if it decides to make one at all.

That being said, let’s look at the most logical response of the SEC and the Big 12 to the alliance of the Pac 12, Big 10 and ACC. If you are the Big 12, you really can’t be picky about your friends, and if you have to have one, it may as well be the bully who just beat you up — that being the SEC.

With the ACC, Big 10, and Pac 12 obviously looking to improve its non-conference football and basketball schedules with “quality opponents,” it may become necessary for the SEC to do the same. One way — and perhaps the easiest — would be to just play more conference games, but only playing yourselves could cause the league some serious perception problems.

Many say the Big 12 would never go into an agreement with the SEC, but money certainly causes strange bedfellows, and this is about money and staying relevant. And while the Big 12 may not provide any huge matchups for the SEC on the football field, it will help the conference add legitimate non-conference games.

The newly expanded Big 12 consists of Baylor, BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech and West Virginia. Of course with the way contracts — especially those involving future football games — are signed deep into he future, it will take a few years for a scheduling agreement to actually take the field. However, it must be worked on now. So despite how it may look and how crazy it may seem, it is highly possible that the SEC and Big 12 will form some type of agreement. That keeps the Big 12 viable and fills out a solid non-conference schedule for the SEC.

But, we shall see. You never know what surprises lurk on the collegiate sports horizon.

Austin Bishop, AKA The Old Sports Dude, has been covering high school, college, amateur and professional sports since 1975. He is currently pastor of Great Commission Assembly of God in Philadelphia. He may be contacted by email at starsportsboss@yahoo.com.