July 15, 2023

As media rights money continues to drive realignment in college football, will a power five school be kicked out of their conference?

The idea that a team should be kicked out of a conference has been discussed by many CFB fans sitting around, talking smart at the bar, but it has never been taken very seriously at a national level. 

Earlier this summer Joel Klatt, a media member I highly respect, gave the idea legs, and then many others piled on the “what if?” bandwagon. The thinking is this: the bigger brands will have separated themselves so far from their conference brethren that they will no longer be interested in splitting revenue with teams that don’t carry their weight.

I will go conference by conference through the P5 and lay out possible candidates that could be told to pack their bags in the next 5 to 50 years, and how seriously we should take the possibility.

Big Ten – One obvious choice

Possibilities:

Rutgers

Northwestern

Maryland

Northwestern has been floated as a possibility, mostly from a competitive standpoint But NW is a founding member of the conference and an academic powerhouse in a conference that values academics.

The answer is …