Conference expansion earthquakes often have aftershocks

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IOWA CITY - Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez admits to knowing nothing about the Big Ten Conference's potential expansion. But his expansion awareness level is much higher today than it was seven years ago.

Rodriguez formerly coached at Big East school West Virginia. In 2003 the Big East was left for dead when the Atlantic Coast Conference raided it for football powerhouses Miami and Virginia Tech, along with Boston College. The move nearly kept the Big East from an automatic spot in the Bowl Championship Series. It also caught Rodriguez by surprise.

“That kind of came out of the dark,” Rodriguez said last week at the Big Ten's spring meetings in Chicago. “I was a little blindsided on that. I think it caught a few institutions off guard.

“I think institutionally it taught a few lessons that, ‘Hey we better prepared for that the next time.'”

In all, 24 schools shifted affiliations that year, directly affecting nine conferences. The Big East implemented a “loyalty clause” among its eight football schools, demanding they pay a $5 million exit fee and give the conference 27 months notice before leaving the league. That was part of a wave of realignment to hit college sports in 2004-2005.

ACC expansion triggered the 2005 expansion wave, and the Big Ten could do the same in recent months. Last December, Big Ten officials announced they would study expansion in a 12-to-18-month time frame. That has left other league officials considering potential fallout and ways to counter a Big Ten raid.

“Given the success we've experienced over the past decade, we are comfortable in the position in which we find ourselves,” Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive told The Birmingham News. “Having said that, if there's going to be a significant shift in the conference paradigm, the SEC will be strategic and thoughtful in order to maintain its position as one of the nation's premiere conferences.”

At his league meetings two weeks ago, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany told reporters a football title game is not his motivation for expansion. He handed out fact sheets and spoke about his dealings with expansion both with the Big Ten and as the Ohio Valley Conference. The Big Ten accepted Penn State in 1990 but was rebuffed by Notre Dame in 1999.

“We've been pretty conservative,” Delany said. “We think Penn State was a great addition, and we think Notre Dame was an appropriate exploration at the time. Most of you know we spent a lot of time and energy trying to develop the Big Ten Network and after that was concluded, it was a good time to study expansion. And it also seemed to us, given the way expansion has been covered, the expansiveness of it and the narratives associated with it, it was important to us that we needed to be transparent about that study.

“For me, expansion is not new. I had 10 years of experience with it. I've watched other conferences expand. There's been over 250 moves in the last 20 years and 71 in Division I-A.”

In last 20 years the Western Athletic Conference ballooned to 16 schools in 1995 then exploded in half four years later, creating the Mountain West Conference. The once-powerful Southwest Conference disintegrated when Arkansas left for the SEC, and Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor joined the Big Eight to comprise the Big 12.

All of those moves begot other switches. The remaining Southwest Conference teams left for low-profile conferences, with TCU switching leagues three times since 1996. After the ACC grabbed Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, the Big East added Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida from Conference USA. Then, Conference USA snagged two schools from the Mid-American Conference and four from the WAC. The WAC then added three more schools.

Many worry if the Big Ten adds more than one school - and possibly as many as five - it could set off another earthquake that could crush the Big East and Big 12 conferences. Delany recognized those possibilities but said he's more concerned about the Big Ten's future than any ripple effect to college sports.

“These things have effects on other people and to say that they don't would not be honest,” Delany said. “But it's also true this is not the first serious expansion that has occurred in the last quarter-century. It needs to be put in that context.”