Auburn football: Imagining “Power Three” super conferences

A college football apocalypse is upon us, and in truth, Auburn football joins polarizing fanbases Georgia, Alabama, and SEC newcomers Oklahoma and Texas as part of the Evil Empire conference.

Taking the Big 12’s most historically relevant franchises away and effectively destroying the conference is some pretty bad guy behavior.

So is winning 64% of the National Championships since the Tigers were led to the promised land by the legend Cam Newton. Auburn football’s surprise rise to the top in 2010 will forever be one of the most storied seasons of all time and kicked off an era of dominance from the state and the conference at large.

The SEC’s vaunting ambitions could have them going far beyond the southeast–even beyond the Sooner State and the Lone Star’s star city, Austin–and forming a super conference.

Yesterday, news broke that there could be a super conference even sooner forming in the western half of the United States. The Pac-12 and what’s left of the Big 12 could merge, making the first mega-conference in college football.

It’s hard not to see the possibility there’s more than just smoke in Jack McGuire of Barstool’s blazing scoop that major powers from the ACC and Big Ten could get in on the SEC revenue.

Assuming those two things happen, there’d have to be some third conference with the Big Ten leftovers and the ACC that forms to match up. Fly War Eagle is imagining this new “Power Three” setup:

Auburn football is in the big leagues

Texas and Oklahoma leading to the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, Florida State, and Clemson all joining the SEC would make 7/26/21 a historic day to be commemorated in the halls of the Hoover headquarters of the conference. Even as is, it is a landmark date in history.

A super SEC has been imagined, having been all summed up in McGuire’s tweet. Whether or not the Big Ten loses its biggest legacy rivalry and two producers of some of the greatest NFL players of all time is the biggest fact up for debate, but it’s clear that the SEC isn’t done.

College football could well put Auburn football and the Plains (the #8 revenue-producing college town in the country) in the middle of historic clashes with potential future rivals.

It’s never been a better time to be in the SEC.

The Pac-12 gets Big 12(‘s remains)

SEC analyst Jake Jboy Crain put out some goosebump-raising scuttlebutt about the Big 12 and Pac-12 potentially merging:

Kansas’ exclusion is shocking considering their basketball contributions. Ditto for Texas Tech. They’ll find a home, though. The programs have become too embedded into the fabric of the community to be left out in the cold.

In their place, former Big 12 member Nebraska could make its way west to clear up the clutter on the eastern half of the country. Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota could also make sense given the current size of the ACC and their placement on the map. This setup would effectively end much of the Big Ten’s lineage. OSU and UM arguably did 90% of that already if Jack McGuire is a soothsayer.

The full conference could look like this:

USC, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Washington, Washington State, Colorado, Utah, Stanford, Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Baylor, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Iowa State, West Virginia, Nebraska, and TCU.

Would it make sense even kind of geographically? Absolutely not. Morgantown, West Virginia, and Los Angeles are typically not thought of as sports rival cities.

Remember, though, this is a world where Auburn football potentially heads up to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Anything goes in the college football New World Order, brother.

The ACC and Big Ten take what’s left

This would be another weakened conference picking up the pieces after the SEC hypothetically takes the top two programs from the ACC and Big Ten just as they did to the Big 12. The difference here is that neither conference would be operating near full strength, while the Pac-12 will remain intact for their merger with the best of the rest of the Big 12.

What could help is the integration of Notre Dame. They flirted with the ACC in 2020 already and are a member in basketball, so a full-time move might be needed to spruce up the northeast’s Power Three representative conference.

Obviously, Kansas and Texas Tech would be there for the taking too. Yes, this could potentially mean silly matchups like the Syracuse Orange going to Lubbock, Texas. Have we not gone over we are far past that yet?

That gives us a conference that shapes out as such:

Notre Dame, Duke, UNC, Syracuse, Louisville, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, Boston College, Pitt, Miami, Wake Forest, Penn State, Texas Tech, Kansas, Michigan State, Maryland, Purdue, Northwestern, Rutgers, Indiana, and Illinois.

That would make 23 teams, opening up an extra spot for a Group of Five school to occupy. Cincinnati and UCF play for the final spot. Who says no?

The SEC would have the least amount of teams in the conference, making their games just mean more.

What a future we are headed toward no matter how it all shakes out.