It’s Time for the Return of the Southwest Conference

Bryan Robertson

As the 2013 college football season starts to wind down, fans are not even thinking about the most dreaded word in the sport. Not those infamous letters BCS, but realignment. College football fans are tired of hearing talk of which school has accepted an invite from a big time conference. While I think that realignment has gone too far at times, I think the resurrection of a notable conference would help college football.

Enter the rebirth of the Southwest Conference. The conference dissolved in 1996 which led to the birth of the conference that replaced it, the Big 12 Conference. The conference had some of the biggest teams in college football, including Texas, SMU, and Arkansas. Arkansas left the SWC for the greener pastures of the Southeastern Conference in 1992, joining South Carolina in the process.

A few short years later, four of the larger schools in the Southwest Conference merged with the then Big Eight Conference, which included the likes of Nebraska and Oklahoma, to create the present-day Big 12 Conference.

Recently, many of the Big 12 that started the conference in the mid-1990s left for other conferences. Nebraska, a perennial football powerhouse, was the first to leave the conference for the Big Ten. Colorado, a team that did not have very much success in the conference, left for the Pac-12 Conference. Missouri and Texas A&M joined the SEC shortly after that. The conference was left with only eight members and started sending out invitations to other schools to join the conference. Eventually, Texas Christian University, a school that originally accepted an invite to the Big East Conference, joined the Big 12 along with West Virginia, which left the Big East.

In the next few years, realignment among conferences will take place. The Big Ten will be adding Maryland of the Atlantic Coast Conference and Rutgers of the American Athletic Conference in 2014. Some of the smaller conferences, such as Conference USA, will be swapping members with each other.

The Southwest Conference should return for the sake of the Big 12 and for one reason. A conference championship game for football. When the Big 12 was left with ten schools, they were, and still are, unable to have a conference championship game because the NCAA only allows conferences that have at least 12 schools to have one. The SEC was the first to have one after Arkansas and South Carolina joined in the early-1990s.

Another reason for the return of the SWC would be for the teams that want to be in the conversation for the selection of the BCS bowl games, like the Big 12’s  current automatic bid to the Fiesta Bowl.

If the Southwest Conference is to be formed in either this offseason or next offseason, here is the structure that they should be in:

North Division

Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, SMU, and TCU

South Division

Baylor, Houston, Louisiana Tech, Texas, Texas Tech, Rice

Some of you will be questioning the inclusion of Louisiana Tech and Rice. The reason for the inclusion of Rice is because they were originally part of the old Southwest Conference. Louisiana Tech’s inclusion would help the conference when in comes to television coverage, as the school would be able to pull in the New Orleans market.

Now, that will leave some schools without a conference. Iowa State and West Virginia could join the Big Ten, mainly due to the geographic locations of those schools, and Iowa State will be with its natural rival, Iowa. That will leave the Big Ten with 16 schools. The AAC and C-USA will lose membership of their respective conferences, but they can easily fill those spots with other schools who want to move up into a better conference.

The upside to the rebirth of the conference is that the powerhouse teams can stay together and play each other every year, such as Oklahoma-Texas, Houston-Rice, Kansas-Kansas State, etc. The downside to this is basketball. Kansas has historically been the best school within this group to be good in the sport year-in and year-out. While Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas State, and Houston have produced NBA All-Stars, they do not have the sustained success in college basketball as Kansas.

When in comes to the conference title game, it should be at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The reason for this is the location of the stadium in relation to the schools in the conference.

The return of the Southwest Conference would bring old memories of how good the conference was during its heyday, including those ugly memories that probably led to the demise of the original conference. The current Big 12 cannot hold a conference game, but this new SWC can. If those schools want one, this is the way to do it.

Thanks to Austin Stanley of “A to Z Sports” on 94.9 Game 2 Nashville for the discussion & idea for this blog post.