Conference realignment: The SEC won’t stop at just 16 teams

With the SEC expanding in another conference realignment, it’s foolish to think it’s going to stop there. 

Oklahoma and Texas confirmed recently what most college football fans knew already — that the Sooners and Longhorns formally intend to petition the SEC for membership by 2025 at the latest.

If the move goes through any time soon, expect Florida State and Clemson to be packing their bags for the conference, too.

There are plenty of arguments against this move by the Seminoles and the Tigers. There are hefty media rights contracts, academic considerations, the idea of sharing the state with another SEC team, regional rivalries that stretch back decades or even a century, and the disruption of college football’s balance of power.

The latest conference realignment news of OU and Texas’ intent to join the SEC are just the beginning of a power move by the league.

None of these reasons matter, however. If Clemson feels that its long-term, financial interests are better protected in the SEC, Dabo Swinney and the Tigers are already secretly petitioning the SEC for membership right now.

Much has been said about the impacts and sudden changes to hit the college football world, which is now dictating entire athletic programs at universities. New unrestricted free agency for student-athletes (just like it’s been for coaches) and the tantalizing prospects of significant name, image, and likeness cash has now made conference realignment moves more focused on money and future financial sources of revenue.

The COVID-19 impact on budgets last year is a part of this, but it only exacerbated long-existing tensions.

OU and Texas will be great additions to SEC football, no doubt. It will be must-see TV to see Lincoln Riley and the Sooners head to Bryant-Denny Stadium on a fall afternoon or to see Bevo tangle back up with the 12th Man. Missouri and Texas A&M (and Arkansas, in Texas’ case) get old conference foes back, while Florida and Georgia could make in-conference road trips at some point to Norman.

Just don’t expect this move to be an isolated one-off. The deliberate dissolution of another “Autonomy Five” conference will have far-reaching ramifications.

It’s the Big 12 whose existence is threatened today, and it could be your favorite team’s conference tomorrow. Very few will shed tears for the fate of N.C. State and Pittsburgh when the ACC’s best teams depart for greener pastures.

Given the reasons for OU and Texas to make the jump to the SEC, there’s no compelling argument for Clemson to remain in the ACC. University leaders in Clemson, S.C. and Tallahassee, Fla. won’t want to see their universities fall behind.

In some sense, it could mean that the Big Ten adds the four prize gems of the ailing Pac-12: probably Oregon, Washington, USC, and UCLA.

It could also mean that the cream of the crop of college football will all flock to the SEC, a move that could be further catalyzed by the Tigers make the easy geographic transition to the league. Maybe the SEC wants Florida State, and maybe they don’t — they could also (or instead) add Miami (Fla.) and North Carolina, whose football teams have performed better as of late.

Independent of a debate on whether it’s good, inevitable, and/or bad for the game, we are rapidly heading to a college football model the ill-fated European soccer “Super League” that was so vehemently opposed by many fans.

The difference is, a grassroots movement across the pond caught the attention of leaders from the world’s biggest soccer clubs and stopped them in their tracks. The league could still happen, of course, but that’s beyond the point.

We’re not there quite yet, but college football is about to have its own SEC-powered “Super League,” an exclusive club of the wealthiest and prestigious football programs. And it might lose the SEC moniker, too, because who truly considers Mississippi State to be on par with Oklahoma, Clemson, and Georgia?

A seemingly simple addition of OU and Texas to the SEC will only be the beginning of a furious new round of conference dominoes.