You see this Pac-12 nonsense they just put out, trying to piece together Mountain West leftovers and call it a conference? That league used to mean something. I remember watching the 1993 Rose Bowl when we beat them and it actually mattered because they had real programs from top to bottom. Now it is Oregon State and Washington State holding a garage sale for whoever wants to join.
This is what happens when you let money and television contracts run the sport instead of tradtion and geography. The SEC was built on rivalries that made sense, teams that shared borders and history. Auburn and Alabama hate each other because they are neighbors, not because some network executive decided it would make good ratings. Now we have Texas and Oklahoma in our league and while I respect the programs, it just does not feel right playing them every year instead of the teams we bled against in the 80s and 90s.
Kirby has done a heck of a job keeping us at the top through all this chaos, but I cannot help wondering what Vince Dooley would think of a landscape where conferences change shape every two years and the Rose Bowl is just another game instead of the crowning achievement it was when we played there in 1981. The sport I grew up loving has become a business first and a game second and I do not see that changing anytime soon.