As we, the college football fans of America, laid our heads down on Saturday night, we were exhausted. Not from the games, mind you. No, our brains were spent after having woken up in a world where Syracuse and Pittsburgh were still in the Big East, but by lunch they had migrated to the Atlantic Coast. As I tried to drift off to sleep, I started running future conference scenarios through my mind. West Virginia to the SEC … Texas to the ACC … Oklahoma to the Pac-10, er, 12, er, 16 … a Big 12 implosion … a Big Ten expansion … raiding parties rumbling toward every conference in between.
But no matter where my mind took me, one thought dominated all others. And it's been there for a while.
What if, going back nearly 30 years, Penn State had gotten what it had originally wanted? What if, in 1982, the Nittany Lions had been allowed to join the Big East? Would that one move have been enough to alter or even avoid altogether the gigantic conference realignment dominoes that started falling a few years later and are still crashing to this day?
To read Ryan McGee's full take on how the conferences could be different today if Penn State had joined the Big East, become an ESPN Insider today.
Ryan McGee | email
ESPN The Magazine, NASCAR- ESPN The Magazine senior writer
- 2-time Sports Emmy winner
- 2010 NMPA Writer of the Year
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Ryan McGee
Ryan McGee is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. While you may know him for his extensive and very popular NASCAR coverage on this site and television, he's also been a constant in the Mag's coverage of college football. Why? Well, to wit:
• He started working in college athletic departments at 16 (Furman, Tennessee). Got his first sideline pass (UNC @ Virginia) when he was 12 and was totally run over by Tar Heels LB Micah Moon.
• His father was a college football official for 36 years (FBS 1981-2009), working 20 bowl games and two national championships.
• Ryan's a member of the FWAA (Football Writers Association of America).
• He's covered college football for ESPN The Magazine for the last five years.
• He's all over college sports -- Ryan authored "The Road To Omaha: Hits, Hopes and History at the College World Series."
Follow Ryan on Twitter: @ESPNMcGee
