Conference realignment: The Big 12 is about to get aggressive

There is no Big 12-Pac-12 merger in the works any longer after both sides decided not to align in conference realignment. Given the recent Notre Dame rumors, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

This, to Fly War Eagle, is a sign that the Big 12 is about to get aggressive in conference realignment. The Fighting Irish may be the tip of the iceberg. The barebones of the Pac-12 could be next.

Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington were already reportedly targeted by the Big 12 before, and an official announcement feels like an imminent domino given the departures of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten.

Whenever the next shoe drops, several more seem sure to follow.

Where the SEC goes next in the conference realignment merry-go-round

When the music stops in the next conference realignment musical chairs, the SEC feels likely to strike. Acquiring Texas and Oklahoma feel like the beginning of the floodgates opening further for the country’s dominant conference.

Sure, the Notre Dame door appears to be closing due to contractual demands from NBC, but the Big 12’s pursuit of the Fighting Irish feels like a natural parallel takeover to the Big Ten’s Los Angeles adds and the SEC’s ‘super league‘ status.

Greg Sankey wants to ‘keeps the SEC in contiguous states, which supports a reasonable geography among like-minded universities.’ He believes in the conference’s ‘collective strength.’ You certainly can’t rule out teams like Clemson and Florida State, who already have in-state rivalries with SEC schools and the best odds of accepting a conference realignment invite, but talks of Michigan and Ohio State from a year ago are officially dead via that edict.

We’ve reached the point of the Power Five consolidating into a Power Three, with the ACC’s uneconomical structure being the next to go after the Pac-12’s demise is official.