Daily Blog •January 20, 2014 |
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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.