Clark: This realignment will blow up college football as we know it
There's a scene early on in "Jurassic Park" (the 1993 version!) where the old dinosaur guy is telling his special guests on the island how his team of scientists was able to recreate real, living dinosaurs to roam the earth again. I don't remember exactly how they did it; I think it was by using mosquitoes frozen in tree sap that still had T-Rex DNA in them ... or some such nonsense. Who can remember?
Anyway, it's not important. But there is a line Jeff Goldblum says to the old dinosaur guy that always resonated with me: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."
And that's exactly how I feel about this latest earthquake to hit college football.
Yes, ESPN and the SEC have to be ecstatic that Oklahoma and Texas are leaving the Big 12 and are likely heading to the Land Where it Means More. But they've been so busy maneuvering behind the scenes in recent months, seeing if they could make this happen, that they never bothered asking themselves if they should.
*** Don't miss our exclusive FSU football coverage. 30-day Free Trial***
The SEC is already the dominant force in the sport. It has the most marketable programs, the best TV deal, the largest fan bases and produces at least a dozen first-round picks every year. Now, that conference has decided to go and poach two of the most storied programs in the country to add to the arsenal it already has.
It would be like if the Warriors had gone out in 2016 and signed Durant AND LeBron.
I know Texas doesn't win much of anything these days -- and hasn't in quite some time -- but no one can argue about the value of its brand and the revenue it brings in on an annual basis. It is a huge fish. And now instead of swimming in a pond, it's going to be let loose in the Pacific Ocean with a bunch of other huge fish.
These two programs, as we will soon see, are the only real reasons the Big 12 was still a thing. And now the SEC is going to swallow them up, looking to become even bigger and badder, while an entire conference essentially gets wiped out.
Which leaves the rest of us asking one main question: Why?
How is this, in any way, good for the sport? The future of the sport?
I know the SEC is cool with it. More prestige. More money. More. More. More. That's what college athletics is about these days anyway.
The real problem here is the other power broker in all this: ESPN.
Of course, the network would love to take Texas and Oklahoma away from FOX, to deal a death blow to its rival. But at what cost? To talk MORE about the SEC? And alienate more of your fans across the country, who are going from casual to non-existent as one conference continues its transformation to the all-powerful, nobody-else-matters-but-us league?
And if you think ESPN was an innocent bystander while these talks between Oklahoma and Texas and the SEC were going on, then you probably think O.J. was innocent, too (man, another timely reference from Clark. He's really going after the younger demo!).
What bothers me most about the current climate in college football is that ESPN has TV deals with every conference left. But instead of being like the NFL, where all 30 teams get the same revenue from the television contracts, ESPN has decided to give more to some conferences and less to others, creating an unlevel playing field where most teams can't afford to hire 100 quality control assistants and pay all of their assistants a million dollars a year.
And then we have the talking heads at ESPN telling us that if the rest of the country wants to be revered like the SEC, then they need to catch up. But how are teams in the ACC supposed to do that when they literally make $20 million a year less than Vanderbilt!?!
The Big Ten and the SEC make so much more money than the rest of the country that you could legitimately refer to them as the Power 2. The Big Ten brought in $782 million in 2020, according to a recent article in USA Today. The SEC, of course, was well over $700 million as well.
Meanwhile, the Pac-12 brought in $530.2 million, the ACC took home $455.4 million and the Big 12 $439 million.
This would be like if teams in the NFC East and South were all given 20 percent more revenue from the TV contracts than the rest of the NFL. More revenue to pay for the best coaches, best players, best facilities, etc. The playing field would tilt toward to those two divisions, don't you think? And hey, maybe the Falcons could finally get that Super Bowl we've all been dreaming about!
But no, that would never happen in the NFL. Because the NFL has a commissioner whose job it is to care about the common good of the league. Everything is even. Or at least as close to even as possible. That's what makes the NFL so successful, in my opinion. You can go into a season and have absolutely no idea who is going to be a Super Bowl team and who will be picking No. 4 in the draft.
College football is the exact antithesis of that.
We know EXACTLY who has a chance, a real chance, to win a national title. And it's about 10 to 12 teams total. And most of those are in the South. And most of those are in the Southeastern Conference. Which is about to get even stronger with the addition of two giant football powers.
Leaving the rest of the college football world to wonder if it can compete at all. Or more accurately, if ESPN even wants them to. Because judging by the numbers on those TV deals, it would appear ESPN is perfectly content with being SEC-PN every fall Saturday for the rest of our lives.
For the good of the sport, I sure hope something -- anything -- can be figured out to level the playing field and make this sport more inclusive. Because the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is getting wider than it's ever been. And it's terrible for the sport.
College football is in danger of turning into NASCAR, where only one portion of the country truly cares about it. And that's a sad thought.
I love college football. It's always been my favorite sport. I love the traditions, the history, the fandom, the stadiums, the live mascots. All of it. Even though I grew up in an NFL town (well, sort of, the Falcons barely were an NFL team back then), college football was always my passion.
And the diversity of the sport was always a special draw.
Every year, there would be a couple of great West Coast teams, Oklahoma and Nebraska were always good, the upstarts in Florida were going to challenge for a title, and every Saturday meant something. You paid close attention to those scores on the West Coast because they mattered as much as the ones on the East Coast.
Those days are over. Since USC went on its last great run a decade-and-a-half ago, the West Coast has been a complete non-factor except for an occasional Stanford or Oregon team.
The Big Ten, despite it's endless piles of cash, is basically Ohio State and everyone else.
Seriously, Purdue. What are you doing with the money? Building a rocket ship like Bezos?
The Big 12 is no more.
The SEC is Thanos.
And then there is the ACC.
What to do about this conference? As Ira pointed out in his column a couple of days ago, I think we should all be thankful this cataclysmic event didn't happen on John Swofford's watch. I don't know if Jim Phillips can do much to counter this move by the SEC, but I do know he understands how important it is to the future of the conference to try.
And let's be honest: Unless ESPN takes the remaining four power conferences and decides to divvy up the money evenly (somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.6 to $2.8 billion) to level the playing field, which of course they won't, then the ACC has to figure out something.
The easy answer is also the hardest: Notre Dame.
If the Fighting Irish join the ACC as a full-time member, then that's a game-changer for the conference and college football as a whole.
But, then again, why would Notre Dame join a conference? To help out other schools? We know nobody plays that game. It's every man, every team, every conference for itself! Haven't you been paying attention?!
So, try again.
Maybe the commissioners could implement a rule that says the only way you can earn a berth in the College Football Playoff is if you are a member of a conference. That seems like some real leverage. After all, how is it fair that one team gets to set its own schedule while the rest of the country plays by league rules?
Well, Notre Dame's athletics director, Jack Swarbrick, was on the four-person "committee" that came up with the proposed 12-team playoff format in the first place. Because of course he was. And said leverage seems to lose a little luster with that fact.
So, Notre Dame seems like a longshot at the moment. But hey, nothing wrong with a little hope!
I have no idea how any of this plays out. I truly don't. Maybe there ends up being two giant conferences? Or just one mega-league that breaks away from the NCAA? Or maybe the SEC just wins 20 straight national titles and we all just shrug?
There's no telling where this goes from here.
I think Florida State, because of its prestige, location, tradition, history and passionate fan base, will be one of the lucky ones when all the dominoes finally fall. The Seminoles will get a seat at the table. I just have no idea what that will look like or how long it takes.
I do know that college football is currently in a worse place than it has been at any point in my lifetime.
In the name of progress and profit, they're creating a nightmare.
The velociraptors are now running loose on the island, causing mayhem, opening kitchen doors and terrorizing grandkids, and there doesn't presently seem to be any way to get them back in the cage.
Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @Corey_Clark on Twitter.
----------------------------------------------------
Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans in the Tribal Council