College football fans, like it or not, national realignment is coming

College football is a sport based on tradition, long-standing rivalries, and passionate, generational fan support – and the keepers of the sport have shown that they care absolutely nothing about any of that.

Get ready college football fans. If you thought the conference realignments in 2011 and 2014 were world-shaking, what we’re likely to see in the next two years will alter the course of the sport forever.

It’s already been made clear by college athletic directors and conference commissioners that preserving tradition, considering the needs of fans and players, and even geographic proximity as it pertains to a conference’s location means less than an early-December bowl game.

They want that big payday.

Chase the money.

Hunt it down, capture it, and hoard it. Consequences to the game be damned.

The latest in the saga of “we don’t care” comes from the Big XII, and two of its founding members, Texas and Oklahoma, who now want to join the ranks of the SEC and cash in on the big bucks rolling in from the conference paydays and ESPN’s television rights.

The two western powerhouses officially announced their intention to leave the Big XII today, per CBS.

Hey Sooners and Longhorns, there seems to be some confusion. Just because you say “y’all” doesn’t mean you’re part of the southeast.

The move by these two college football giants — when and if it happens — is going to trigger a chain reaction the likes of which fans have never seen, and the ripple effects may force more than one program in the nation to drop from FBS to FCS level leagues or to give up football altogether.

But hey, they’re all about helping the players, right?

The sad part is, Texas and Oklahoma both have enough money and power to fix the Big XII and turn it into the competitive conference it once was before defections and realignment, but they’d rather take the path of least resistance and just cash in for themselves, leaving behind a scrapheap of a conference scrambling to recover.

What’s surprising is how SEC commissioner Greg Sankey couldn’t see how the toxic culture of Texas and their “me first” attitude is, to a large degree, what crippled the Big XII. Why he’d want that as part of the one conference in the nation that truly looks and behaves like a family is unfathomable.

ALSO READ: 5 Teams the SEC should consider before OU, UT

Perhaps Oklahoma simply seems to think since they end up losing to the SEC in the playoffs every year anyway they may as well join the conference, in a bizarre twist on the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” cliche.

College football fans will be hurt by what’s coming, not just the Big XII

When you start talking about a seismic shift in the entire college football landscape, it becomes clear that more than just the survival of a single conference is at stake. College football fans have a lot to lose by a nationwide realignment.

It starts with thwarting the ability of fans to travel to away games when the distance is just too great for the average fan.

Just ask West Virginia fans how often they get to travel to the southwest for games to see their Mountaineers play.

Georgia has one of the most well-traveled fanbases in the nation. They regularly pack SEC stadiums as the visiting team, and — for special events such as bowl games or one-off trips to places like Notre Dame — they don’t mind digging deeper into their pockets for a trip.

But if you think for one minute Georgia fans are going to want to make regular trips to Austin or Norman, you’re probably wrong. The same goes for Florida or South Carolina fans. It’s just too far and too expensive to make that kind of trek.

Most SEC fans would have to travel over 1,000 miles to see their teams play in Austin or Norman. Right now only a handful need to travel that distance when heading to Columbia, Missouri (another Big XII defector).

Fan engagement and excitement are crucial in college football. A shift as big as what’s certainly to come won’t help that cause at all.

College football superconferences? Yeah, they’re coming.

The idea of conferences based on regionality was good. Teams closely located within certain locales not only compete on the gridiron but also when it comes to recruiting. Some of the greatest rivalries in college football were born out of the regional conference model.

Slowly that model has been chipped away, and with the pending move by two of the biggest brands in the nation, the sweeping aftereffects will decimate that model.

Rather than a Power-5 and a bunch of also-ran conferences (which, admittedly has its drawbacks), fans should prepare themselves for superconferences that are built on rewarding the premier teams while punishing the bottom-feeders.

The SEC is on its way to becoming the first conference of that type, and if they were to woo maybe Clemson and Florida State to join the fold (which those talks are rumored to already be happening), they would become an 18-team powerhouse containing ten or more of the biggest names in all the sport.

Think about that. Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU, Auburn, FSU, and Florida all in one league.

Any thoughts teams like Mississippi State or Arkansas had about building something in the image of one of those teams would become a pipe dream. They’d never be able to compete in terms of recruiting players or top coaches.

In addition to toppling the balance of power within and around the conferences, these mega-über-super leagues would also all but eliminate out-of-conference games. No longer would teams have room on their schedules to play traditional rivals not residing in their league, and FCS matchups would become a thing of the past (as would some of their programs without the money provided by those games).

The SEC’s move to this mega-model would then force the hands of other Power-5 conferences to follow suit. Mergers between conferences such as the Pac-12 and Big XII, or the Big Ten and ACC would have to happen to keep the entire college football playoff from residing out of one conference.

Who benefits from a new college football landscape?

While we know the fans will be hurt by changes such as those outlined above, and most players will reap no real benefit other than more time away from campus due to travel requirements, the question is, who will benefit?

The answer is; the people who already financially benefit the most from running the sport of college football. The university presidents, the athletic directors, the head coaches, and the conference commissioners. All these people stand to make a lot of money by increasing the annual payday for the teams in their conference.

Oh, and ESPN. Can’t forget them. Having huge superconferences will only strengthen their already ironclad grip on college football television rights. They’ll rake in the dollars nicely without even having to really change much of what they’re doing, just charging more for it.

Not that any of that will be divvied up to the people doing the grunt work…you know…the players?

Make no mistake. These looming changes are all about the money. It has nothing to do with bettering the sport or appeasing the fans who so passionately support it. It’s going to be windfalls for the haves, and all the gruel you can eat for the have-nots.

So get ready, fans. It’s coming. It’s all coming, like it or not. The wheels are in motion, the pay raises are already being counted, and the upgraded yachts have been preordered.

There’s a new college football party coming, and we’re all simply listed as plus-ones with a BYO.