It has already been a few years since the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners shocked the college football world with the announcement they would be leaving the Big 12 for the SEC in 2025.
While the move was a no-brainer for them and the conference, the rest of college football has seemingly been in a state of panic since. The Big Ten answered by adding USC and UCLA, the Big 12 was able to add four Group of Five schools right after, but the Pac-12 sat around. This eventually led to eight more departures from the conference, and now the Power 5 has dropped to a Power 4.
Based on a recent post from 247Sports' Josh Pate, we may not be stopping at four either.
The college football insider took to the app formerly known as Twitter on Monday and added to the speculation that there will be more conference expansion. This has been a common talking point over the past couple of weeks in large part due to Florida State's ongoing lawsuit with the ACC.
The Seminoles are looking for a way out of the conference, and if/when they do find a way out they will not be alone. This will open up the floodgates for the SEC and Big Ten, who are the two biggest powers in college football to have their pick of the litter. Something Pate discussed in a recent post, expressing that they are each looking to expand further.
He also thinks that based on what happens with their expansion will affect the layout of the College Football Playoff.
"One or both will restructure into 4 divisions & look to construct internal conference title mechanisms that either ARE part of the CFP (I.E conference semi finals + conference title games) or will produce a conference champ to compete in a CFP possibly reduced in size," Pate wrote on X.
Pate also emphasized that the two powers would not approve of a playoff that diminished their regular season product.
Despite Pate's belief, both the SEC and Big Ten had said they weren't interested in expanding further but as we all know, money talks in college football. It is however worth noting that reports back in December revealed that SEC programs weren't too high on adding Florida State, Miami, or Clemson.
There hasn't been much chatter as to which programs would join which conference, but what we do know is the results of Florida State's lawsuit put something into motion depending on the outcome.
The Longhorns and Sooners officially begin SEC competition next year.
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