The dominos of conference realignment have begun to fall.

As of 9/18/11 the ACC officially added both Syracuse and Pittsburgh, making the ACC a fourteen team Conference, which will compete with the soon-to-be other power four conferences.

Presumably, the power four conferences will include: The Pac-12, the SEC, the Big Ten, and the ACC.

The question remains.  Is this good for collegiate athletics.

Let’s look at the pros and cons

Pros

With four major conferences there will be a greater emphasis on creating a playoff for college football.

Not only would this be giving the fans what they want, it would also be the best possible thing for college football.

My personal preference of how I would like to see a playoff done is to have it be a sixteen team playoff, with the top two teams from each major conference getting automatic bids into the playoff. This would leave eight spots for at-large teams, which would come from any conference in college football, creating a level of fairness for the teams like TCU who will not be in the power four conferences.

This also raises a question: what will happen to the other bowl games?

The answer is simple.  There will still be the regular slate of bowl games.  Just with a slight adjustment to the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl.  These sites would still be visited, just after the tournament got to the quarter final rounds.  The previous games in the tournament would be held at the schools themselves.  Home field advantage being determined by seeding based upon regular season success.  Not only would a playoff be great the quality of football, but it would be great financially for college football.

Furthermore, the passion surrounding collegiate athletics will sky rocket.

With more big school together there will be the possibility for more rivalries between schools that would not normally have rivalries.

Cons

The schools not in the major four conferences would suffer greatly.  These schools are already at a disadvantage because of a lack of funding that the big school poses.  The disadvantage would only perpetuate itself with the creation of conference networks that will inevitably be created.

The morals of collegiate sports will be called into question. The question that becomes posed is this: did the conferences realign because they felt it was for the betterment of collegiate sports or was it because the big schools wanted to make more money?

The cynical answer to this question is of course they realigned because of the money.

Who doesn’t want more money?

It just doesn’t seem fair to leave the smaller school left out in the cold to die as the big schools are in mansions, sitting next to fires with hounds at their feet.

As the realignment continues I feel that instead of the focus being on how great the big four conferences will be, it should be on what is being done to maintain competitive balance with the smaller conferences and the big four.