The recent speculation on possible future re-alignment, and expansion of the BIG (and perhaps other conferences) to 16 teams each, causes me to wonder how it impacts college football, and whether we'll like the outcome. College basketball, and possibly other sports, can probably more readily absorb an expansion of more teams into conferences with little impact, but I wonder about DIvision I football.

Would there be a loss of conference cohesion/identity?  With 16 teams total, and 8 in each division, then assuming the retention of a 9-game conference schedule (SEC currently only has 8), 7 games presumably would be against divisional opponents, with only 2 against schools form the other division.  That would mean home-and-home games with those teams over a period of 8 years (practically an eternity!). Rather than one conference, it'd be almost like two separate conference joined at the hip, playing frequent OOC games against the other's members (although they'd count in the conference standings), and then having what's effectively a set "bowl game" or first-round playoff game between the two champions. What would "all league" teams mean when selected by coaches or journalists who really haven't seen most players from the other division?

Perhaps that situation could be remedied by increasing the number of conference games to ten, meaning each school would play MOST other schools every other year, and sacrificing our-of-conference games, reducing those to 2/year.  I'm concerned what that might mean to the scheduling of quality OOC games, as the number of open dates is reduced, and (if other conferences simultaneously follow this model for expansion) the number of openings potentially quality opponents might have is also reduced.  I have my doubts that tOSU (or any other team) is going to want go to zero "easy" games (which will always be at home), both because they value some early-season opportunity to "get ready" for league play (or, in the case of the SEC, a late-season "chicken-shit Saturday"), AND because they also value the higher net income they can receive by paying off a team to come play them at home.

And for people who believe four 16-team super-conferences is the solution to selecting teams for the playoffs, cannibalizing the Big Twelve for the other 4 in the Power %, leaving out a couple "unworthy" teams and admitting a couple other teams currently deemed "worthy" of inclusion, and setting up the resultant conference championship games as first-round playoff games, I thing there are likely two negatives.

First, that would make ALL OOC  games irrelevant to making the playoffs. While some may think that would make it more likely that teams schedule quality OOC games, since there is no risk to losing, I fear the opposite would happen. Not having to worry about strength of schedule, schools would be tempted to use their 2-3 open dates as revenue generators.

Second, it would calcify eligibility for the playoffs to membership in the four super-conferences.  We'd never have the drama of wondering if, say, a Tom Herman-led Houston team can crash the party, (or Boise state, or anyone else).  As unlikely as that is NOW, at least it's a possibility which some (including me) consider a positive in college football.

I don't have the answers here, and certainly no influence on how this plays out,  but I see the looming (and perhaps inevitable) league re-alignment/expansion as changing college football dramatically.