Happy college football realignment day, plus the Supreme Court case that started it all

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Welcome to the SEC, Texas and Oklahoma! Welcome to the ACC, SMU, Stanford and Cal! This round of realignment has been nearly 40 years in the making (more on that later). First, let’s recap.

New-Look Conferences

SEC, ACC moves take effect

Three years after announcing their move from the Big 12 to the SEC, Texas and Oklahoma officially joined their new conference today. They are among the first of 15 total FBS schools that will start changing conferences this summer.

Here’s a look at the other moves to watch, with an updated team count per conference for the 2024 football season:

Big Ten (18 teams): Adding USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington from the Pac-12.
Big 12 (16 teams): Losing Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC; adding Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the Pac-12.
ACC (17 teams): Adding SMU from AAC, plus Cal and Stanford from the Pac-12.
Pac-12 (two teams): Losing USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten; losing Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah to the Big 12; losing Cal and Stanford to the ACC. Oregon State and Washington State remain as the “Pac-2.”
AAC (14 teams): Losing SMU to the ACC; adding Army from independence as football-only.
Conference USA (10 teams): Adding Kennesaw State from FCS Big South.

Three FBS conferences — the MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt — survived this round of realignment unscathed. Read more about this summer’s realignment moves from Chris Vannini today.

How the NCAA Lost Control

Supreme Court case that changed it all

Imagine walking into your college lecture and your professor says, “I’m the guy who screwed up college football.”

Best. Lecture. Ever.

That’s the reality for Andy Coats, who teaches antitrust law at Oklahoma. Nearly 40 years ago, Coats was one of the lead lawyers on a case brought forth by Oklahoma and Georgia that challenged the NCAA’s stranglehold on television rights (the NCAA previously controlled television programming for college sports, doing everything from determining which games were televised to sharing revenue equally among all member schools). The eventual ruling in favor of the schools eliminated the NCAA’s control over conference TV rights, in turn taking away its control over college football itself.

Now, the chase for TV money is part of nearly every decision in college athletics. Seth Emerson details the full story today, and I brought him in to answer a few questions about his reporting.

As mentioned in your story, by losing this case, the NCAA essentially lost control of college football. Why was the NCAA so difficult to stand up to before this?

It held so much more power. The one-school, one-vote policy meant the big football brands were usually outvoted on issues important to them. And Walter Byers had been in charge of the NCAA since 1952 and wielded enormous power. The NCAA name meant more back then. This case was one of the first shots across the bow.

What’s one detail you learned while reporting that surprised you?

If I had to pick one detail — and there were many — it’s that so few games were on television that many stadiums didn’t even have lights. (Because they would play all their games in the afternoon for better attendance.)

Toward the end of your story, TV exec Kevin O’Malley argues college football would have become a lucrative property regardless of this court case because of the effects of cable TV. Do you agree? What would have been the biggest difference if the NCAA won?

O’Malley makes a persuasive case. And it just shows that if the NCAA had compromised, or let the CFA do its own deal with NBC, then it could’ve kept everyone happy, the NCAA would have retained power over college football, and a lot of this realignment probably wouldn’t have happened.

EA Sports Athletes

Plus, top 25 update

Shoutout to Bowling Green for giving us a sneak peek at its EA Sports College Football 25 roster on social media. Plus, can we take a minute to appreciate how real these look?

And in case you missed it, EA released its top 25 power rankings on Friday. Here are the top five, followed by my quick review of the rankings:

Georgia
Ohio State
Oregon
Alabama
Texas

Biggest snub: Where is Missouri? I cannot believe the Tigers were left out of EA’s power rankings. Quarterback Brady Cook and receivers Luther Burden III and Theo Wease are all back from last year’s breakthrough team. The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel ranked Missouri 12th in his preseason rankings.

Most overrated: Colorado at No. 16 is a case study in itself, and although it’s an optimistic ranking for the Buffs, we already spent time criticizing their offensive and defensive rankings last week. Instead, let’s look at Clemson here, which is ranked sixth according to EA. The Tigers have talent and return QB Cade Klubnik, who will need to make improvements, but a top-10 evaluation feels way too high.

Read The Athletic’s full analysis here.

Quick Snaps

Utah announced this morning that defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley will succeed Kyle Whittingham as head coach whenever Whittingham, 64, decides to retire. Scalley previously was named the head coach in waiting, but that title was rescinded in 2020 when an external investigation revealed he sent a text message with a racial slur.

Who are the X-factor players on each Big Ten team in the new 18-team format? Listen to the discussion on the Until Saturday podcast or read it here.

Penn State added commitments from nine players in June. Nittany Lions writer Audrey Snyder recaps the busy recruiting month for James Franklin and company.

Nationally, more than 480 players committed to the 70 Power 4 schools in June. Manny Navarro updates Kalen DeBoer’s statement, Texas’ surge and more from the recruiting trail.

You can buy tickets to every college football game here.

(Top photo: Bryan Terry / USA Today).