DO college fans enjoy realignment

After the dust had settled back in 2021 and the Big 12 added four new teams, I thought realignment was over at least for a few more years.

But it seems after only one year I was quite wrong. I would say college fans including myself have quite the fatigue when it comes to conference realignment.

Conference realignment has been around since 1997, but never really changed the landscape of college football as heavily as in 2014 and beyond, when the Big East was dissolved and misplacing many programs.

This Drastic change ended numerous rivalries many being in the Big East. In my eyes, the biggest loss due to conference realignment to college football is the regional rivalries.

Teams that once were all in conferences together and relatively in easy driving distance were all separated, looking back to the big east again the rivalries between Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville all ended once they left for respective conferences.

Even some of the biggest and well know rivalry games are no longer being played, one example being between Nebraska and Oklahoma. Games that drew some of the largest crowds and viewership couldn’t even didn’t survive conference realignment.

One of the most important and loved parts of college football is the regional and local communities and their fun rivalries and games. Most people when they recall their favorite games of the past are almost all rivalry games.

Money is now what drives many of the important decisions regarding college football and for the schools that get left behind it seems there’s no future as more and more conferences dissolve and the college side of the sport seems to die.

It seems as the further along everything goes the closer we get to NFL lite and I think for most fans we love college football because it’s not like the NFL.