Being left out as a child can hurt your feelings. In college football, being left out can cost you millions of dollars. The ongoing conversation of college conference realignment could leave USF on the outside, looking in.
Last week, Notre Dame announced that all their athletics, except for football, will bolt from the Big East to become the 15th member the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Fighting Irish will follow Syracuse and Pittsburgh, who will jump over next season.
This is part of a long-standing trend of schools leaving the Big East for the ACC. In the past 10 years, the Big East has lost marquee programs like Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College to the ACC. West Virginia left this season for the Big 12 Conference.
This has forced the Big East to add multiple schools in a given year more than once. USF was part of the first successful wave of additions that also included Cincinnati and Connecticut. The choices are slimmer this time around, with programs like Houston, Navy, Central Florida and a Boise State program on the decline.
This degrading quality of competition compared to other conferences is perhaps the Big East’s biggest problem. Making things worse are rumors that the ACC will try to add a 16th school, possibly from the Big East.
UConn and Rutgers are the popular choices for this 16th spot. Losing either of those schools would be near disastrous. UConn has premier men’s and women’s basketball programs. Losing Rutgers would mean losing the most popular school in New Jersey.
It’s not the performance on the field that drives college sports anymore; it’s the money. USF would be an attractive option for any conference, being the only major school in west central Florida—an area that has over four million people.
Unless something changes or the school gets more aggressive, USF could find itself one of the top teams in a Big East that’s just a shadow of its former self.
