Osler's Razor

As you might remember, last year there was a great deal of angst in Waco over the seemingly imminent break-up of the Big 12 Conference, a debacle which would have left Baylor relegated to a lesser conference of schools like the Conference USA or (worse) the Sun Belt. Fortunately for Baylor, disaster was averted as the Big 12 lost only Colorado (to the Pac-10) and Nebraska (to the Big 10). One result of these moves was that the Big 12 now has 10 members and the Big 10 has... 12. Really. And, for the record, the Pac-10 now has 12 as well.

The resulting status did not remain settled for long, though, as last week it appeared that Texas A & M was set to bolt the Big 12 for the SEC. However, for the time being at least, it appears that the SEC has not actually invited A & M to become a member (a development which inspired some epic fail threads).

Sadly, the Big 10 did not accept my plan for their re-alignment by division.

The rumor is (and has been) that all this movement will eventually lead to four 16-member "super conferences." I think this might be true, and if it is, it means that some leagues and teams are going to be out of the mix.

Right now, there are 6 big conferences with automatic BCS bids (listed here in terms of strength according to commentators other than me): The SEC, the Big 10, the Pac-10, the Big 12, the ACC, and the Big East. It appears that the SEC, Big 10 and Pac-10 have positioned themselves to most easily become three of those four resulting super-conferences. Which raises the question... who would be the fourth surviving conference?

Here are some possibilities:

1) The Big 12 could survive by adding some strong new members. This is not without challenges, though, because it would leave the entire East Coast out of the loop. (It's also not clear who those "strong new members" would be-- after BYU, the list gets pretty thin).

2) The ACC and Big East could combine to form a super-conference. This would leave the Big 12 out in the cold, along with the current members of those leagues who would be jettisoned (good-bye Rutgers! You are bad at sports involving men!).

3) A new conference could be formed between the current members of the ACC/Big East/Big 12. Problematically, this would involve a very odd geographic footprint.

Under any of these scenarios but the first, Baylor would be out of luck. As President Ken Starr has wisely concluded, a strong Big 12 is Baylor's best shot at staying in the big time. Good luck, bears!