Oklahoma football: OU/Texas 1st domino in latest conference swap shop

The Big 12 Conference was the first of the power conferences to have schools switch sides and allegiance in favor of another conference. Four football schools left the Big 12 over a two-year span in 2011 and ’12 and Oklahoma football rattled its sabers and was threatening to do the same.

Now, over a decade later, as teams enter preseason training camp in preparation for the 2023 season, the musical chairs game known as conference realignment is exploding all over again and has Pac-12 teams scrambling like roaches.

Friday was a seismic news day in the Pac-12 and in college sports. Early in the day, it was announced that Oregon and Washington would be joining the Big Ten following in the footsteps of fellow Pac-12 teams USC and UCLA, which made the same move last summer.

Not to be left out, Arizona on Friday was accepted into the Big 12, and later in the day the Big 12 announced that Arizona State and Utah would also be joining the conference a year from now. A week ago, Colorado, a previous member of the Big 12, was accepted into the conference.

That leaves what was the Pac-8-10 and-12 with just four remaining teams (California, Stanford, Washington State and Oregon State) and, in just a few words, finished as one of college football’s power conferences.

Early on during the initial phase of conference realignment, Oklahoma, Texas and a couple other Big 12 schools were in preliminary talks with the Pac-12 Conference about a potential partnership. At that time, Nebraska and Colorado followed by Missouri and Texas A&M had already laid their cards on the table and it appeared very likely that the Big 12 was in danger of dissolution.

As it turned out, the Sooners and Longhorns decided to cool their jets and give a reconfigured 10-member Big 12 a go and throw their full support behind it. That was back in 2011-12.

Nothing changed for the next eight years, but then the COVID-19 pandemic spread like wildfire throughout the country, pumping the brakes on sports and society as we know them. Coming out on the other side of the pandemic, reports began surfacing that Oklahoma and Texas were in serious talks with SEC officials about joining that power football conference.

Around this time in 2021, the SEC officially invited the Big 12’s two biggest brand names to join that conference. The rest is history, which will be officially acted out beginning in July of 2024.

Circling back to the Pac-12, it now appears fortuitous that the Sooners talks with the Pac-12 a decade ago broke down. In less than 24 hours on Friday, the Pac-12 went from 10 members down to just four. By far, the last 24 hours will go down as the worst day in the 13-year history of the league in its present form. Former iterations of what is now the Pac-12 Conference date back to 1915.

It now appears that what was five power conferences in college football will shortly be reduced to four, and it might not stop there. Ironically, it was not that many years ago, that the Big 12 appeared to be in serious jeopardy of holding together.

The latest conference realignment moves bring into question whether the Atlantic Coast Conference will be able to stand the heat. Because it now appears that the SEC and Big Ten are on solid ground for the future, and the Big 12, through the foresight and hard work of former conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby and current commissioner Brett Yormark doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

What has transpired over the past 12 months represents the biggest moves yet in this era of conference realignment, and I’m pretty sure there is more dust to settle going forward.

What is certain, however, is that college sports as we once knew it, and college football in particular, will never be what is once was. The landscape has changed forever, all in the name of progress.