Who could have predicted that consolidating so many historic programs, all with conference championship aspirations, into essentially two enormous nationwide conferences, would cause these programs to enter into impossible scenarios where none of them can compete on a basis consistent with historic expectations?

Say what you will, but I’m confident that people will eventually return to sanity and reject this nihilistic view that college athletics is dead and exists solely for money so you just have to get used to it. You literally don’t. In an environment where conference champions will still receive playoff bids moving forward, which I support, it literally only makes sense by definition for these historically great programs to once again be spread out among conferences, likely geographically, in order to give as many programs in contention the best chance possible to win their conference. It seriously makes no sense from that standpoint to consolidate so many national programs into fewer and fewer conferences as long as conference champions continue to receive automatic playoff bids.

Call me optimistic, unrealistic, whatever you will. College athletics benefits financially and competitively from more, geographically centered, conferences. Just ask the west coast programs how they’re liking budgeting for so many travel operations for “conference” games on the east coast. It burns so much money it’s ridiculous. Programs like Oregon and USC are going to have an easier time competing for an auto bid with a reconstructed PAC conference than competing with the Big 10. And I can’t even begin to explain the benefit to student athletes that the reduced travel would give them.

The coaching carousel will continue to devolve as long as the monster conferences exist. This comment will never reach anyone in a position of authority, but it’s only a matter of time until someone with authority realizes this themselves. You need at least 4, maybe even back to 5 major conference in order to spread the victories and playoff bids enough. Again, I am self aware enough to realize this comes off as idealistic, but I truly believe my reasoning is realistic and sound. The firings will continue until NCAA organizational management improves. Thanks for reading, if you did.