Are Oklahoma and Texas to blame for college football’s current state?

In the summer of 2021, college football realignment changed forever. When it was leaked by the Houston Chronicle that the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns were moving from the Big 12 to the SEC, it got the ball rolling on a massive round of program movement.

Oregon, Washington, UCLA, and USC mvoved from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten. Cal and Stanford moved from the Pac-12 to the ACC. Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah went from the Pac-12 to the Big 12. The ACC later added SMU from the AAC. The Big 12 poached BYU from the FBS Independent ranks and took Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF from the AAC as well. And that’s just the moves that affected the Power Five (now the Power Four) conferences.

OU and Texas set in motion the demise of the Pac-12 as we knew it and so many other moves on the college athletics landscape. And now, there could be more changes to college football, all potentially a result of the Sooners and Longhorns moving to the SEC in 2024.

USA TODAY Sports staff writer Matt Hayes believes that Oklahoma and Texas’ decision is to blame for the current state of college football. College Football Playoff expansion is on the table once again. The real debate, though, is in the number of automatic bids allocated per conference. The SEC and the Big Ten are reportedly vying for four auto-bids a piece. But the SEC will have to move to a nine-game conference schedule to make that happen.

“Without two of the biggest programs in college football deciding in the summer of 2021 to light the fuse in search of financial stability, none of this happens,” Hayes said. “Not an expanding College Football Playoff postseason minimizing the bowl system. Not the unending thirst for more money — from universities and players. So it should come as no surprise that the final piece to this unique moment in college sports,…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/oklahoma-texas-blame-college-footballs-150049236.html

Author : Sooners Wire

Publish date : 2025-02-22 15:00:00

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