This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/nointro-225 on 2024-03-24 20:01:34.
A few nights ago, I found myself looking at the Wikipedia page for the D-2 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (like normal people do). When I got to a section labeled “Role in Division I conference realignment,” it sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to find this decade old Sports Illustrated article that had a broken link on the wiki page.
So what happened? A brief summary:
Since 1960, the 14-member PSAC had held a conference championship game with the winners of its two divisions. However, this required all teams to leave the last week of the season open, just in case they had to play in the championship. To get around this problem, a request was drafted up that would allow for a conference to hold a championship game that would be exempt from the regular season game limit. The original draft stated that a conference must have 14 teams to do this. Soon after, however, the 12-team CIAA became interested in the proposal and wanted to co-sponsor the proposal. As such, the member requirement was dropped to 12 teams.
The proposal was passed by all divisions in early 1987 without much notice. That same year, Division 2 expanded its playoff to 16 teams, and so the PSAC never even implemented this new rule as it was afraid to ruin its chances of a playoff bid with the extra game. The rule was forgotten about until the SEC was looking to expand in the early 90s, and today you could argue that this one simple rule had become a major factor in the increase of conference realignment.
So let’s say in an alternate timeline, the CIAA never knows about this proposal, and the requirement for a conference championship game remains at 14 teams. Does this change realignment in any noticeable way? Does the SEC pursue even more expansion in the 90s? Does the Big 12 pick up BYU and New Mexico in the late 90s as was rumored, or are 2 more SWC schools added? Does this affect the ACC’s plans in the 2000s, and speed up the death of the Big East? I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this, I just wanted to shed some light on this piece of football history that I had never looked much into.