(05-28-2013 04:36 PM)DawgNBama Wrote: Whatever happened to the days of conference loyalty? IMO, this is what built conferences like the SEC, Pac 12, the Big Ten, and even the ACC to a degree, and yet, that is not the trend at all. The trend is to stay in your current conference for about 4 years, jump to a more "prestigious" conference stay in that one for about 4 more years, and then jump again to that conference you've always dreamed of joining. I hate that trend with a passion!!! Why don't schools find the conferences they want to join and then just join those conferences and stick with them for the long haul, rather than getting a case of TCU-itis??!!! Why?? It's like we might as well not even have rivalries at all, because nobody knows who's staying and who's leaving. I can understand why some schools deserted their conferences and some of it is justified. Nebraska never really felt like it fit in its conference so it left. Texas A&M pretty much the same story (Even Memphis could fit in here). Both schools gave the Big 12 adequate opportunities to retain them, and the Big 12 failed miserably both times, IMO. Colorado felt that the Big XII was going to implode, so they started looking around, out of fear, and the same could be said for WVU and the Big East. It's schools like TCU and Maryland (Maryland's admin, not all the Terp fans, because some wanted to stay in the ACC) that this is at aimed at, plus those people openly advocating the concept of "feeder" conferences to get schools from FCS. I just want to see more non AQ conferences be like the SEC and continue to be a real threat to bust the AQ party. But instead, it seems like all of non-AQ teams are looking to join AQ conferences rather than try to elevate their own non-AQ conference. And I just don't like it at all.
This raiding of conferences was actually started in the current expansion era by the SEC in 1991 who apparently didn't think that loyalty to other conferences was all that important as long a member was leaving to join the SEC.
SEC - Established by a group of schools breaking away from the Southern Conference in 1932.
- Sewanee left in 1940
- Georgia Tech left in 1964
- Tulane left in 1966
- South Carolina, former ACC member, joined in 1991
- Arkansas was stolen from the Southwest Conference in 1991
- Texas A&M and Missouri were stolen from the Big XII in 2012
Pac 12 - Established as the Pacific Coast Conference in 1915. Fragmented in 1959 and regrouped in 1964 as the Pacific 8.
- Montana left in 1929
- Idaho left in 1959, never to return
- Wahington St left in 1959 and returned in 1963
- Oregon & Oregon St left in 1959 and returned in 1964
- Arizona & Arizona St were stolen from the WAC in 1978
- Colorado was stolen from the Big XII in 2011
- Utah was stolen from the Mountain West in 2011
ACC - Established by a group of schools breaking away from the southern conference in 1953.
- South Carolina left in 1971
- Georgia Tech, former SEC member, was added in 1979
- Miami & VA Tech were stolen from the Big East in 2004
- BC was stolen from the Big East in 2005
Does all of that look like a history of conference loyalty within the conferences you mentioned? The Big Ten is the only one among that group with a history of stability and without a history of raiding other conferences prior to the present expansion period.
I have not listed conference additions who have not yet begun competing with their new conferences.