Major college football explodes as you watch (fixed)

That’s all she wrote, folks. Major college football, as you knew it from about 1996-2009, is over. The Big XII is done. All that’s left is the finalization of moves from outside the conference and what ends up as some truly bizarre scheduling in the 2012 season. Today, early movements in conference realignment went into overdrive.

Perhaps you heard that the Big Ten and Nebraska are now getting together. Conventional wisdom had previously held that Missouri would go, too, putting seven in the imagined Big Ten West and six in the Big Ten East. Add, say, Iowa State and Pitt and, oh, Rutgers, and you have a 16-team league. Word now is that Missouri and the Big Ten isn’t happening. Iowa State (and Kansas, too) are left in the cold. Any other expansion from the conference is also up in the air.

[Ed. note: Apparently we deleted a whole portion relating to the Pac-10 before publishing on the evening of June 11. Oops.]

Right now, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado are joining the Pac-10. That’s 15, brother. There’s got to be one more in the mix to balance the divisions.

Think it’s Texas A&M? Former Aggies player, coach and national championship-winning Alabama coach Gene Stallings, who is a regent, is reportedly pushing hard for A&M to be the seventh team in the SEC West. Stories coming out have it that A&M has been given a 72-hour deadline to decide if it’s going to make the Pac-10 move. If you can predict what will happen there, you’re a better person than we are.

More word out today is that Miami and Virginia Tech have not been in talks with the SEC, which means that if A&M joins, the best chances for an addition to the SEC East fall to Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Louisville. If A&M does join, the SEC will likely end expansion at 14 teams. We really doubt there’s any desire to add Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, SMU or TCU to the West. Each of these teams haven’t been that good, consistently, for a while, or bring money to the conference. Except for TCU, which, while small, has the DFW market to bustle in.

Yet, there’s another problem with the Great Gallopin’ Horny Toads. They’re in the Mountain West, with Utah. And another major move happened, with Boise State leaving the WAC for the MWC. As it is, TCU can stick where it is and do well, especially if the MWC absorbs the Big XII leftovers.

All of the above isn’t even considering rumors that Conference USA will help finish off the Big East as a football conference. Or that if the SEC goes take a team or two from the ACC, that the ACC will go back and take a few more from the Big East.

Ain’t the off-season fun?