College sports collapse…
I have read it countless time. You may have too. It is communicated in a variety of ways, but the message boils down to this; when you’re on top and your actions lead you to believe you’re invincible, that’s when you should start to worry.
Unfortunately, university presidents and athletic directors evidently don’t do much reading, or thinking, for that matter as evidenced by the extensive realignment occurring in haste.
The damage will be great. It already is.
Over the weekend, Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh jettisoned the Big East Conference. After decades of rivalries cultivated among generations of students, those suddenly vanish as university presidents initiate shotgun marriages with conferences full of strangers. That’s what isn’t understood in college sports nowadays; that the rivalries built over decades have led us to where we are in collegiate athletics.
The rivalries meant something because teams shared a conference where the outcome of such contests had implications far greater than just a ‘friendly’ as they say in soccer parlance. Now, Syracuse-Georgetown, or Pitt-UConn, has little-to-no ramifications in the college basketball. And football? Forget it.
The system has bent over and over and over, and now, it’s breaking. Shattering is a more apropos word. Contests that people - particularly students and alumni - will soon cease to exist due to “scheduling conflicts”. Will Texas A&M alumni now get all jazzed up to play Vanderbilt on a random Saturday in the Fall? Or LSU? Or Auburn? I doubt it.
The beauty of what transpired over the past few decades - mainly my entire lifetime - is that rivalries among colleges were cultivated, thanks to an explosion in media coverage and generations grew up knowing who to love, who to hate, and why. Now, that’s gone.
Change is good, but only when the fundamentals behind change are solid. One must analyze the ramifications of change before undergoing it. To the detriment of students, athletes, alumni, and fans, the changes altering the landscape of collegiate athletics are not grounded in any objective reasoning.
Instead, it’s being billed as a money grab. Only problem is, universities are counting on the money to be there. What happens if it isn’t? When Texas A&M can’t field a competitive football team because in-state recruits don’t find it glamorous to get their butts kicked every week by Alabama, LSU, Auburn, and Florida, and the fans don’t rally around their wounded program, and national broadcasters no longer find it profitable to show the TAMU vs. Vanderbilt game…then what?
