The conference realignment changes have more implications, than the average fan will realize. The changes and future changes being brought forth will change the dynamic of college sports, as we know it.

Recently Syracuse and Pittsburgh, the pillars of the Big East, bolted their old conference for the ACC.

Furthermore, the once powerful Big 12 has been poached to ten teams, and will lose more teams in the future.

Right here, we already lost the most powerful basketball conference in the history of sports, and we lost one of the most powerful football conferences in the nation. It is believed that the Big East and the Big 12 could end because of this.

 If this happens the remaining BCS conferences could become a group of four 16 team super conferences.

First, if this happens the super conferences will diminish rivalries immensely. The Backyard Brawl, known as the Pitt and West Virginia rivalry will be gone due to Pitt leaving the Big East. Furthermore, Texas A&M leaving the Big 12 will end the  Texas Tech and Texas rivalries. There are countless more rivalries at stake, but these are the obvious ones.

Furthermore, with a super conference it will be impossible to play every team in your conference. If this happens how can rivalries even develop or even have the same intensity every year?

These conferences will also make it tough to build a program in a conference with so many strong teams.

If a program is at the basement of a super conference it can be really hard to come back. Furthermore, it will also be harder for the top teams to go undefeated. If we had this super conference format, there really would not be room for out of conference games.

Additionally, the bigger conferences will take away the annual softball games. These are the games that top teams get at the start of the season when they play against easy schools.  Also, a top program from an old conference could become average in the super conference. This team will no longer be a headliner and there will not be much recognition given to them anymore.

However, I think eventually if these super conferences are formed, we can say goodbye to the BCS format everyone hates. It can lead to a college playoff that people have wanted. This is hard to predict, however, because these four super conferences will dictate what goes on along with the television networks.

There are 120 proud schools that make up Division 1. If teams feel left out with the current format, they will feel left out even more once they are denied entrance into the super conference world. The four conferences will ignore many of the 120 schools  today.

In the end, if there is more money to be made, schools will plan accordingly and hop on the next chance to join a super conference. They will disregard their school’s conference traditions and rivalries that have made them who they are. We have already seen this happen so far, so there is no reason it will not happen.

To contact The Ionian’s Christopher Sponn, e-mail him at [email protected]