Texas Football: Why Longhorns, not Irish, are white whale of conference realignment

Texas football has an enviable position in college sports. Here’s why the Longhorns will always be the most sought after catch in conference realignment.

It seems at first glance like the most obvious choice for any conference looking to bolster its ranks is Notre Dame. Aside from their fortuitous ACC side deal, the Fighting Irish are independent. That deal allows them to flesh out their annual schedule with opponents from the ACC without giving up their independent status.

Throw in their historic rivalries against Power Five schools from other leagues, and there are strong potential opponents to take on each season.

The ACC has a strong claim to earning a right of first refusal should the Irish decide to give up their independence. They already have an arrangement that would merely need to be expanded. If not that, what would it take for Notre Dame to join a conference for the first time since they started playing football in South Bend in 1887?

Money talks, and the Big Ten offers lots of it. Add in Notre Dame to the bargaining table and a share of the pot for league TV deals alone would probably outpace what the Irish make on their own. The league also offers geographic contiguity and a convenient way to fit all Notre Dame’s historic rivals on its schedule.

The Big 12 would probably also come calling if they knew the Irish were shopping for conferences. As the unaffiliated powerhouse hovering as the last bastion of an earlier era of independents, Notre Dame is the most convenient team to chase.

There’s a bigger fish to chase, though, than even Notre Dame

While three Power Five conferences might have legitimate reasons to chase Notre Dame, the real white whale in college football realignment talk is always going to be Texas. They were the anchor of the formation of the Big 12. As the Southwest Conference dissolved, Texas was the draw for expanding the Big 12 into the Lone Star State.

After all, former Longhorns athletic director L. Theo Bellmont was the one who set the wheels rolling on the formation of the SWC back in 1914. The conference survived for eight decades, with Texas at the fulcrum all the while even as other teams had their time in the spotlight. But once Arkansas left for the SEC in 1992, it became only a matter of time before the first great poaching enjoyed its own level of chaos.

That led the Big 8 to expand into Texas by picking up Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor. By 2011, though, the Cornhuskers had bolted for the Big Ten after being boxed out of their position of primacy by the Longhorns. Colorado took flight for the expanding Pac-12. Texas A&M and Missouri soon followed suit, leaving for the SEC.

Oklahoma might have a better track record of sustained success on the field. But, just like when Bellmont wrangled together the SWC a century before, the Longhorns still call the shots wherever they are affiliated.

Flux will always cause wandering eyes, even among powerhouses

Texas had already looked toward the Pac-10 once before in the early 1990s when the Razorbacks jumped ship and joined the SEC. They nearly joined the conference again in 2011, when the Pac-10 came looking to form a Pac-16. The proposal would have radically altered the structure of the entire college football map.

Since then it feels as though things have largely settled in for conference realignment. But all it takes is one spark, and a whole new cycle of musical chairs begins again. Whenever conferences shift around and change up their membership, somebody will always get lost in the shuffle. In 1996, it was TCU and SMU and Houston and Rice that fell by the wayside with the death of the SWC.

In the 2011 proposal, Texas and Oklahoma were the crown jewels of the deal. Joining them in the Pac-16 would have been Oklahoma State and Texas Tech along with already-departed Colorado and former Mountain West powerhouse Utah. Those left behind would have included Iowa State, both Kansas schools, Missouri, Texas A&M and Baylor. While the realignment that took place over the past decade have had a major impact on the sport, it would have been nothing compared to a Pac-16 level of realignment.

In that scenario, Texas A&M almost certainly still goes to the SEC, as does Missouri. The Bears, Wildcats, Jayhawks, and Cyclones would have been left trying to pick up the pieces of the obliterated conference. Kansas would land an invitation to a conference like the Big Ten or Big East thanks to its basketball team. In that case, the Mountain West keeps TCU and adds Baylor to saturate the Texas market, while Iowa State might get relegated to Conference USA if they can’t convince the Big East to take them.

The same will happen if Texas ever leaves the Big 12

There is little holding together the Big 12 at this point. While Texas has been on a downswing effectively since the late years of the Mack Brown era, the Longhorns still remain among the highest-valued football programs in all of college football. Oklahoma might have the better track record of sustained success over the league’s history, but the Sooners will always be second fiddle in terms of revenue generation.

The Big 12, just like the SWC, is entirely dependent on Texas for its survival. It has already survived the loss of teams like Texas A&M and Nebraska, historic powerhouses with national draw. It could probably even survive the loss of Oklahoma. Texas, however, holds all the cards and can basically dictate its situation.

And any conference would love to have the Longhorns for their nationwide appeal. In addition to a Pac-12 expansion, the SEC would snap up Texas in a heartbeat over any opposition from College Station. The Big Ten would love to bring in another athletic and academic dynamo like UT-Austin. The ACC could join its southeastern rival in cracking the Texas market.

In the present situation, though, Texas is going to be even harder to convince to leave a position where it already has an advantage over the rest of its league in terms of earnings and bargaining chips. The real question, in the case of the Longhorns, is whether the Big 12 actually survives until its grant of rights ends in 2025.

Texas would bring instant value and geographic logic to any conference.

Like Notre Dame, which offers historic appeal and an expansive fan base. The Fighting Irish, however, offer little in the way of opening recruiting markets. Texas, on the other hand, can provide entry into the Lone Star recruiting market. There is no real comparison between Indiana and Texas when it comes to the player pool for coaches recruiting talent.

The ancillary benefit to every school in whatever league the Longhorns join is the ability to pitch the chance to play back home to recruits from the state.

Not even Notre Dame can do that. While they have historic rivalries with teams like USC and Stanford, they would be an awkward fit geographically with the Pac-12. The SEC also seems like an odd partner given their desire for geographic saturation south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Next: SMQ: A brief history of conference affiliation in college football

Now sitting at 10 teams, the Big 12 is in a precarious position. Lose a few more teams and a shift back down to a Big 8 would probably be enough to set off the next round of realignment. Even if that doesn’t happen, leagues will continue to speculate about whether they can be the one to pull off the steal. Were the Longhorns on the table, every major conference would make its pitch to the Longhorns.