Sports Illustrated Ranks Virginia’s Conference Value

Conference realignment has taken over the college football world this summer. In response to the SEC acquiring Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 beginning in 2025, the Big Ten made a move to bring in USC and UCLA from the Pac-12 starting in 2024. 

Although both conferences are supposedly content to stick at 16 teams with their respective new members, it is likely that college football, and therefore, college athletics, is headed towards having two massive superconferences. Whether a school makes it into one of those all-powerful superconferences when the dust settles will essentially determine if that school’s athletic department will survive the new age of collegiate athletics.