Congratulations America. You’re about to experience another prolonged and agonizing realignment of college athletic conferences. UCLA and Southern California have recently lunged to the Big Ten, effective in 2024. The next question how does that affect the University of Louisville?
The rumor is the all mighty Southeastern Conference is ready to swell by four teams making it a super conference of 20. My guess is the SEC wants Florida State, Clemson and North Carolina. The other team would be a toss up between North Carolina State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and maybe UofL.
I don’t know what Wildcat fans think about this. But I’m sure I’ll hear plenty in the coming months. I’m really interested to hear how Louisville Athletic Director Josh Heird feels about all this, as well as Mitch Barnhart over in Lexington.
I’m astonished that any college athletic director or administrator would want such large conferences. Travel in the Big Ten would be a nightmare. The SEC is a little more compact. But it is still expensive.
Don’t tell me these men and women are student athletes. On a Tuesday night in mid January, Indiana will playing at UCLA in Los Angeles at 10 p.m. (EST). Game ends Indiana gets home about 6 a.m. the next day. Sure these players are more than ready for an 8 a.m. class. It’s called television money. Money runs the country and TV runs college sports.
Going to take a while to shake out and will likely be another black eye for college athletics. Too much greed and tunnel vision, too little common sense on college campuses.