Daily Blog •January 20, 2014

Conference Re-alignment has been the talk of the college football world for the last couple of years and it looks like it has no end in sight. Even for someone like me who routinely works 100 hours a week during football and magazine seasons, it can be tough keeping up on who will be playing where in the future.

As of today, here are what the college conferences will look like for 2014.

2014 Conference Realignment

2013 College Football Conferences (Tms in Yellow are moving)
ACC BIG 12 BIG TEN PAC-12 SEC
 • ATLANTIC Baylor  • EAST  • NORTH  • EAST
Boston College Iowa St Indiana California Florida
Clemson Kansas Maryland Oregon Georgia
Florida St Kansas St Michigan Oregon St Kentucky
Louisville Oklahoma Michigan St Stanford Missouri
NC State Oklahoma St Ohio St Washington South Carolina
Syracuse TCU Penn St Washington St Tennessee
Wake Forest Texas Rutgers  • SOUTH Vanderbilt
 • COASTAL Texas Tech  • WEST Arizona  • WEST
Duke West Virginia Illinois Arizona St Alabama
Georgia Tech   Iowa Colorado Arkansas
Miami, Fl   Minnesota UCLA Auburn
North Carolina   Nebraska USC LSU
Pittsburgh   Northwestern Utah Mississippi
Virginia   Purdue   Mississippi St
Virginia Tech   Wisconsin   Texas A&M
         
AMERICAN ATHLETIC CUSA MOUNTAIN WEST MAC SUN BELT
Cincinnati  • EAST  • MOUNTAIN  • EAST Appalachian St
Connecticut FAU Air Force Akron Arkansas St
East Carolina Florida Int'l Boise St Bowling Green Georgia Southern
Houston Marshall Colorado St Buffalo Georgia St
Memphis Middle Tenn New Mexico Kent St Idaho
SMU Old Dominion Utah St Miami, Oh New Mexico St
Temple WKU Wyoming Ohio South Alabama
Tulane  • WEST  • WEST UMass Texas St
Tulsa Louisiana Tech Fresno St  • WEST Troy
UCF North Texas Hawaii Ball St UL-L
USF Rice Nevada Central Michigan ULM
  UTEP San Diego St Eastern Michigan  
  UTSA San Jose St Northern Illinois INDEPENDENTS
  Southern Miss UNLV Toledo Army
  UAB   Western Michigan BYU
        Navy
        Notre Dame

Notes:

- With the additions of Appalachian St and Georgia Southern, there will now be a record 128 teams playing FBS football in 2014, which could mean more pages in Phil Steele’s 2014 College Football Preview!

- A total of 12 teams will be either jumping up to the FBS level or playing in a new conference in 2014.

- Six conferences counting the Independents will be affected with next year’s conference realignment.

- Louisville replaces Maryland in the ACC, which arguably makes the conference stronger.

-With the additions of Maryland and Rutgers, the Big 10 officially got rid of the “Leaders” and “Legends” labels and divided them up into East and West divisions. Clearly the East with Michigan, Michigan St, Ohio St and Penn St looks like the much stronger division.

- The American lost Louisville and added in East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa. They will add in Navy in 2015 and have divisions. The conference this year looks eerily similar to what CUSA was about 10 years ago as 9 of the 11 teams were part of CUSA at some point in the last 10 years.

- CUSA loses 3 members and adds in Old Dominion and WKU and will have uneven divisions in 2014.

- There will be only four independents in 2014 with Idaho and New Mexico St jumping to the Sun Belt and Old Dominion will head to CUSA. Navy moves to the American Athletic in 2015 bringing the Independents down to just 3.

Make sure you are checking out the Team Pages on Phil Steele.com where we have all the teams in there 2014 order which will start getting you prepped for the 2014 season, which will be here before we know it.