What will happen if powerful football schools like Oklahoma and Nebraska leave the Big Eight and Arkansas, Texas and Texas A&M do the same in the Southwest Conference?
That's being rumored at the College Football Association convention in Dallas.The answer is a major restructuring of college football throughout the country.
There will be ramifications in Provo. BYU may be forced to consider leaving the Western Athletic Conference.
BYU's loyalty to the WAC is commendable. The Cougars are the conference's flagship school, the WAC's only football team capable of scheduling home-and-home games with powers like Notre Dame, Penn State and UCLA. BYU feels an allegiance to the WAC and doesn't want to be like the Arizona schools, who weakened the conference by bolting to the Pac-10 in the late '70s.
But the Cougars may not have a choice.
The scenario taking place now - which started several months ago when Notre Dame ignored the College Football Association to cut its own (and quite lucrative) television deal with NBC and was followed shortly thereafter by Penn State forgoing its independent status in football and leaving the Atlantic 10 in all other sports to join the Big Ten - is compelling schools to face decisions they may not want to face.
It reminds one of the annual college bowl scenario. Theoretically no formal agreements are supposed to be made until late November. And yet, each year, with money and TV ratings in mind, several bowls jump the gun with their deal-making, creating a chain reaction. Everybody is forced to jump on the premature deal-making bandwagon or get burned. Look what happened to the Holiday Bowl in 1984 when it waited too long to deal and wound up with a fourth-place Big 10 team, 6-5 Michigan, to face the No. 1-rated team in the country, BYU.
BYU may not be able to wait to see how everything shakes out because if it does, it may be left out.
"We like the WAC . . . but if there's going to be a restructuring we've got to be alert," said Paul Thompson, vice president for development and university relations at BYU. One of Thompson's responsibilities is the athletic department.
He noted that San Diego State is making overtures to the Pac-10. If the Aztecs leave the WAC that might have an effect on the WAC tie-in with the Sea World Holiday Bowl since it's played in San Diego.
"It's an anxious time when those things begin to happen," Thompson said.
Because of BYU's location, it doesn't have the option of joining the Big Ten, like Penn State.
What about the Pac-10? Being grouped with USC and UCLA?
"Clearly that would be one option for BYU and it would be quite attractive," Thompson said.
But, he added, "changing conferences is a very complex thing."
In talking to Thompson it becomes clear that BYU wants to be in a position athletically and academically to be attractive should a change become necessary. It doesn't want to have to go hat in hand to a conference pleading to be admitted, but wants to bring some strength to it.
To that end BYU has commissioned former Jazz general manager Dave Checketts to "look at ways to increase revenues for the athletic program," Thompson said.
"It may be there'll be some straws in the wind that affect BYU . . . We think it helps to have a strong program."
The conference, of course, will want BYU to stand pat, realizing that if the Cougars go, the WAC loses a great deal of its national clout. But the TV people are just not interested in the New Mexicos, Colorado States and UTEPs of the world, nor in the Rocky Mountain region in general. Not enough TV sets.
So, for BYU the question is, which comes first, the WAC's interests, or its own? The two have been fairly compatible through the '80s, with basically what has been good for the WAC being good for the Cougars.
And, as long as what's good for the WAC is good for BYU, the relationship should remain intact.
But if the signal is clear that major realignments are only a matter of time, and not a whole lot of it at that, then BYU should start sending out feelers and begin learning the USC and UCLA fight songs.
If the mega or super conferences (that have been talked about for several years) occur, it behooves BYU to be in one of them. Because that's where the exposure and TV revenue will be.
They will not be with the WAC.