Notre Dame could hold key to future conference shake-ups

For a minute there last spring, the college football landscape was on the brink of cataclysmic change. But two linchpins held sway against utter conference chaos - Notre Dame and Texas.

When Texas chose to resist the overtures of the Pac-10 in favor of keeping the Big 12 together (albeit with 10 members in 2011), it headed off a doomsday scenario in which longtime conferences might have splintered and given rise to four 16-team superconferences. Now, the focus shifts to Notre Dame, the apple of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany's eye.

All indications are that the Irish want to remain a football independent and preserve their unique place in the college game while continuing as a member of the Big East for all other sports. But Delany has said the Big Ten, which grows to 12 in 2011 with the addition of Nebraska, will revisit the expansion issue in December. If he goes after Rutgers and, say, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, it might destroy the Big East and force Notre Dame to get on board as the 16th member.

"The Big Ten comes back to Notre Dame and the idea of backing them into a corner,'' one college television industry insider told Newsday. "It could happen.''

If it does, the dominoes could start tumbling again. But for one more uneasy college football season, the status quo will prevail. However, it will be pockmarked by games between schools that essentially are in the process of getting a divorce from each other.

The most notable example takes place Oct. 16 when Texas visits Lincoln, Neb. In announcing the Cornhuskers' departure for the Big Ten this past spring, University of Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman said he asked the Big 12 schools if they would commit to assigning all their media rights to the league. "Texas would not do that,'' Perlman said.

So the Huskers left for the Big Ten, where schools share equally in a pie that produces annual slices worth $20 million each and growing with the Big Ten Network. Texas' decision to stay in the Big 12 resulted in a promise of more TV revenue from ESPN and Fox, but the Longhorns, Oklahoma and Texas A&M get to keep a disproportionate share by agreement with the rest of the Big 12.

New Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville said the inequity poses a threat to future conference solidarity. Ultimately, it's all about securing top TV dollars to continue funding big-time athletics and big-time coaching salaries.

The problem is you can't put a price on conference tradition, which is why it's increasingly treated as a worthless commodity. The result, as we have begun to see, is hybrid leagues and a trend toward separating the haves from the have-nots.

So far, the scorecard includes these moves for 2011:

Big 12: Loses two members, Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado to the Pac-10.

Western Athletic Conference: Loses three members to the Mountain West, Boise State, Fresno State and Nevada.

Mountain West: Adds three WAC teams but loses Utah to the Pac-10.

After losing Utah, the Mountain West was threatened with the possibility of BYU going independent in football and joining the WAC for all other sports in an attempt to create its own TV network patterned after Notre Dame but on a smaller scale. The MWC, which already had plucked Boise State from the WAC, responded by adding two more WAC members, reducing that conference to six schools, in an attempt to prevent BYU from leaving. But the Cougars might exit, anyway.

Similarly, if the Big Ten chose to gut the Big East's football league, causing remaining Big East members to go elsewhere, it could ruin the league as a place for Notre Dame to compete in basketball and other sports. At that point, a free-for-all would ensue.

The Big East could add football schools Memphis, East Carolina and Central Florida, all from Conference USA. But it just as easily might go after schools in the Big 12 or Atlantic Coast Conference. By the same token, it is vulnerable to raids by the ACC and Southeastern Conference.

By this time next year, we should know more about the future of college football. Of the six leagues with automatic bids in the Bowl Championship Series, the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-10 are best positioned to expand and survive. The Big 12 is most likely to collapse.

That leaves the Big East and ACC to fight it out for survival as the fourth superconference, although the 11-team Mountain West, which is close to obtaining a BCS bid, could get in the mix by adding five Big 12 schools (Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri).

Until then, Notre Dame's most ardent fans are in the Big East, pulling for the Irish to remain independent in football and hold the line for conference survival.