Auburn football: 3 conference jumps that make most sense

As Auburn football’s conference continues to monopolize college football, the conversation of realignment is one that just won’t go away. Not when two of the nation’s proudest fanbases and the two pillar programs of the Big 12 leave a crumbled conference foundation in their wake.

The Oklahoma and Texas SEC switches will be game-changing for the sport moving forward. It’s inevitable that there will be more steps taken to maximize revenue and realign the conferences to have more apropos names.

The Big 12–a team that previously had ten conferences–is down to eight and is rumored to be folding into the Pac-12. With the Midwest and West Coast possibly converging, it could make sense to shuffle the deck and also send teams from the Big Ten (who themselves are deceitful with the name “Big Ten”), ACC, and the Group of Five elsewhere.

The SEC will remain untouched because no one is going to leave this conference. It’s too well-oiled a machine to do anything but add to.

But these teams could be prime candidates to leave their current situation and start anew:

Nebraska heads to the Big-Pac-12

We don’t know what the combined Big 12-Pac-12 venture is going to be, so we’ll use the “Big-Pac-12” as a transitional name (much like the Washington Football Team was) for the yet-to-be-named entity.

The idea of a Nebraska-Big 12 return was a polarizing one before whispers of a super conference were brought up by Jake “Jboy” Crain. Many see an escape from the Big Ten–a conference they own a losing in record since realignment in 2014–as a good follow-up move to the OU/UT defections.

Fans in Lincoln, Nebraska being conference rivals with coastal cities like Los Angeles would make for one hell of a juxtaposition. I still like this possibility for the Huskers even with the merger rumors.