Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Conference realignment in college football seems to be the stuff of nightmares for many in the media. Here at the AS360 football picks blog, we love it. We welcome it. Shoot, we’d tune in every week if it were a prime-time soap.

And it is actually a lot like watching Dallas. (And we don’t mean the Cowboys. That’s a serial noir all unto itself.) We mean the old prime-time soap opera featuring the Ewing clan. Now, that was must-see TV. Dunt duh, dunt duh, dunt duh dun dun dun dun dun du…(OK, give me your best guess how to spell out the tune to the theme song in comments, because obviously I need help.)

Anyway, we don’t need to rehash “Who Shot J.R.?” We’ve got our own fascinating plotline playing out across the CFB landscape. Missouri may be the SEC's 14th team. It may not. Does it have the nine votes necessary among SEC school presidents to get “shown” an invitation? Does its administration even truly want the SEC? Will Mizzou ever stop gazing longingly across the bar at the Big 10? Will it climb into the back seat with the SEC only to call out Jim Delany’s name in the throes of passion?

Meanwhile, TCU appears to be Texas A&M’s replacement in the Big 12. (How ironic it is that the “Big Insert-Number-Here” loses one team whose go-to line is “Gig ‘Em” and replaces it with a team called the Frogs. Just sayin’.)

Anyway, the Frogs are Gary (Patterson) Ewing, shunned by the family (UT), seeking their lot out (Mountain) West, only to be asked to return when the family needs them. And boy, does the family need them. (OK, the Mountain West may be a stretch analogy for Knots Landing, which was an automatic qualifier of a show if ever there was one. I feel no shame in proclaiming it, folks. But I digress.)

Point is, we’re enjoying all this, or should be. Bring on the super-conference format. Eight divisions of eight teams operating under four “umbrellas”…Folks, this is the only way we’re gonna get a real playoff. And the eight divisions under the four “superleagues” would essentially function as their own regional conferences. Besides, does Florida Atlantic really need to be in the same administrative division as Florida?

Which brings us back to the Big XII. If Mizzou stays put, does the league that won’t die stand pat as well, or does it strike while the landscape's hot and bring in Louisville and West Virginia to get back to 12 and a championship game? And what about the Big 10? Surely – SURELY – it’s not content with Nebraska. Our money’s on Jim Delany realizing his New York dream and bringing in Rutgers…and then others…eventually.

Levi Wolters, Arkansas Business Publishing Group colleague and this week’s guest picker, agrees that 16-team superleagues are coming and that it’s a good thing. Levi is from Kansas and a former sportswriter, so he lends a unique Big XII perspective. (He’s also a big KU fan who graduated from K-State. Go figure.)

Levi thinks Mizzou ultimately is SEC-bound, and good riddance, he says:

“I really think Mizzou wants the Big Ten to look its way, but Jim Delany seems adamant that conference is happy at 12 teams, at least for next year. So I don’t think that’s going to happen. The SEC seems like the most likely landing spot. Either way, it’s going to be next to impossible for Mizzou to flip back around and try to make up with the rest of the Big 12 after saying Tuesday it would explore other options. And remember, it was Missouri that started this whole conference realignment discussion back in 2009. Yeah, they need to go.”

Levi was pretty certain the Big XII was doomed until Gary Ewing, er, TCU, showed up at South Fork. Still, he thinks the league’s future is uncertain.

“Even with the addition of TCU, I think the Big 12 is still in a weird place. Let’s assume – and I think this is a safe assumption – the Big 12 is still looking for replacement parts to get to 12 teams. Anything less than 12 and you still don’t have a conference championship game and, in my opinion, you’re still susceptible to being plucked if and when the SEC, Big Ten and Pac 12 decide to go to 16. I think it would be great if the Big 12 leaders saw the light, took the reins and decided to be the first to 16.”