Ohio State Football: Evaluating the changing College Football landscape

The Ohio State football team is using its power to influence the changing college football landscape for the better. Let’s evaluate the changes and the road ahead toward the future.

The last two years have seen significant changes to the college football landscape that will continue to morph the sport forever. Last July, the NIL Bill was passed, allowing student-athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness.

A few months later, conference expansion got underway as the SEC announced the acquisitions of Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 to form the first “super conference” in the sport. Following the SEC’s move, the country awaited the Big Ten, which holds the largest TV media rights deal, to counter.

Last week, the Big Ten made their chess move by adding USC and UCLA. The move was not solely based on athletics, though, as the Big Ten prides itself on its premier academic research institutions. Still, in a unanimous vote, the presidents and chancellors of the Big Ten schools voted and approved the two western schools academically and athletically.

As we look at conference expansion in the sport, the academic part is an essential piece of the equation for the Big Ten. For this reason, I believe the Big Ten will not make any other moves to expand without Notre Dame, the biggest pawn left on the board.

Oregon and Washington are two other western schools rumored to join the primarily midwestern conference, but I would pump the brakes on those high hopes for now.

Logistically, college football and the NFL differ in their overall landscape as the NFL is far more national than regional. In comparison, college football is more regional than national. Using the two lenses in college football explains why some are apprehensive of conference expansion, primarily when leagues like the PAC-12 or Big 12 are rumored to be dissolved.

It appears the Big 12 will survive the changes, as there have been reports of talks between six PAC-12 schools potentially joining. Furthermore, if the PAC-12 loses its schools to other conferences, will the big west coast media markets even miss it?

Now that USC and UCLA are a part of the Big Ten, that becomes a real question. Economically speaking, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Seattle, and Denver are all large markets with professional sports teams as the primaries in their city.

I have lived outside of Columbus, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — both located in the Big Ten’s footprint. But the regions cannot be further from the other in their approach to the sport of football. In Columbus, everything is bleeding Scarlet and Gray, and Ohio State football is a religion. The same is true in the South in places like Tuscaloosa, Baton Rouge, Auburn, and Athens.

However, in Philadelphia, even when Penn State is ranked inside the Top 5, the Nittany Lions are still an afterthought to the professional Philadelphia Eagles. Saturdays carry little to no weight on the East Coast compared to the Midwest, where your day is planned around the three-and-a-half-hour game or spent in front of the TV watching matchups all day long.

The impacts of NIL and conference realignment will shape the sport for years to come, but the most prominent effects will be felt in recruiting and the school’s grant of rights packages. Schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan, LSU, Oklahoma, etc., do not have universities in major professional markets, yet they are national recruiters with a presence across the world.

At the same time, schools like Texas, USC, Texas A&M, Miami, and Georgia have elite talent beds in their backyards and access to major economies to fuel NIL deals and restore their former prominence in the sport.

In my opinion, the already top-heavy sport of college football will continue on its journey of expansion and transition, resulting in about 15 major recruiting forces and around 25 other teams able to field formidable rosters to compete each year.