Search the Community

There has been a lot of talk about Big 12 expansion of late, with many debating which would be the best candidates to join the conference to keep it from falling too far behind the other Power Five conferences. But what if talk of expansion misses the point? What if the next big move in college football realignment is actually consolidation? That's the question that Fox Sports analyst Stewart Mandel posed in a recent column. "The playoff will inevitably expand to at least eight teams, if not more, when the current deal ends, and it will separate completely from the bowl system. Early-round games will be played on campus, just like in the NFL. In turn, our national focus will narrow almost entirely to teams perceived as playoff contenders, which, if we're being honest, comprise fewer than half of the 65 Power 5 schools, and certainly none of the other 63 FBS schools," Mandel wrote. "Sorry, but Wake Forest is no threat to pull a Leicester City anytime soon. Which brings us to consolidation." This would leave local Big 12 schools Baylor, Texas Tech and TCU out in the cold. Baylor and TCU as small, private schools simply do not have the size of fan base to make themselves attractive to this theoretical conference while Tech's on-field success has been well below the expectations. read more: http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/college-sports/collegesports/2016/05/16/national-writer-local-schools-like-tech-baylor-tcu-casualties-college-footballs-next-big-realignment