The number of power conferences in college football officially dropped from five to four as we enter the 2024 season after the latest round of realignment led to the demise of the Pac-12, a conference that had existed in some form since 1915.
In the power leagues that remain, massive questions loom as the 2024 season represents the beginning of a new era in the sport. Blue-bloods like Texas (to the SEC) and USC (to the Big Ten) have ventured off from their traditional homes to the wealthiest and most powerful conferences in search of increased revenue and a clearer path to the College Football Playoff, which expanded from four teams to 12 this season.
As the 2024 season commences, here’s one burning question each power conference is facing.
ACC: Which team is going to surprise us?
While the ACC hasn’t faced the same fate as the Pac-12 — for now — its outlook is now the murkiest of the four remaining leagues. Its two biggest brands, Florida State and Clemson, have made their intentions to jump ship very clear. It’s hard to imagine the conference survives another round of television deal negotiations, at least in its current form.
But when you disregard the league’s cloudy future in the long term, it sort of feels like it’s business as usual for the ACC in 2024, aside from two underwhelming and confusing additions in Stanford and Cal, as well as a potentially intriguing one in SMU.
FSU and the Tigers, which combined account for 12 of the last 13 ACC titles, seem like the most obvious contenders once again despite losing quite a bit of production in the offseason. Miami looks like it has the roster to break through in Year 3 under Mario Cristobal, but beyond that, there’s very little clarity.
Still, someone is inevitably going to surprise us in this league — the only question is who.
Will it be a Virginia Tech team that finished 7-6 in a solid Year 2 for Brent Pry and found a potential star at quarterback in Kyren Drones? How about a quietly consistent NC State team that returns a receiver who starred as a true freshman in Kevin Concepcion while adding an experienced and potentially fun transfer quarterback in Grayson McCall?
Only time will tell if the Mustangs can compete in a power conference, but they return quite a bit from an 11-win team in 2023. Last season’s conference runner-up, Louisville, had one of the best defenses in the country last fall and upgraded at quarterback with veteran Tyler Shough, who has struggled with injuries in his career but has impressed when healthy.
No one looks like a clear national title contender in this conference right now, and that could open the door for one of these teams to be a dark horse.
Big 12: Can the league avoid cannibalizing itself?
As bad as things looked when the Longhorns and Sooners departed for the SEC, the Big 12 actually made out relatively OK, at least compared to its non-SEC and Big Ten counterparts.
This conference is geographically coherent (for the most part) and is arguably the deepest in the nation in 2024 with a hefty middle class. Five teams are ranked in the preseason AP Top 25, but only one — Utah — sits inside the top 15.
Therein lies the (potential) problem for this league. There are, at the very least, five teams you could make a credible case for winning the Big 12 this season. But these quality teams cannibalizing each other in an extremely deep league seems like a real possibility. And that’s not good news when it comes to a College Football Playoff format in which the deck is already stacked in favor of the two more influential leagues.
If someone is going to convincingly win this league, Utah does feel like a safe bet. Despite an offense hamstrung by injuries all year, it still finished with eight wins in 2023 and should bounce back nicely with quarterback Cam Rising and tight end Brant Kuithe finally healthy.
Fellow newcomer Arizona dealt with a late coaching change and subsequent portal losses, but it retained some of its most important pieces. Oklahoma State and Kansas State look like the best-poised incumbent teams to compete, and even a Kansas or Iowa State feels like it’s just a few breaks away from being in that mix.
You get the picture. These are all good teams, but if all of them finish with three or more losses, at-large spots will be hard to come by.
Big Ten: What happens to the have-nots?
After outflanking the SEC on its latest television contract, this is now the richest conference in the country. It’s also the largest and most geographically widespread, sitting at 18 teams with a footprint that spans from coast to coast.
And while the league expanding both its strength and reach is no doubt a boon for the programs like Ohio State and Oregon that sit atop this Frankenstein’s monster of a conference, that doesn’t mean it benefits everyone in the Big Ten equally.
Not only did the conference just add four teams overnight, but it also added ones that are all likely to finish in or near the top half more often than not. For teams that have occupied this league’s cellar — think Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers and the like — this likely means getting buried even further and an already narrow path to competing all but closing off.
Though the elimination of divisions is certainly welcome news for the Hoosiers and Scarlet Knights, which now avoid annual games against the Buckeyes, Wolverines and Nittany Lions, the same isn’t true for a team like the Boilermakers, which at least previously had a workable path to Indianapolis through the comparably weak Big Ten West. Not so much anymore.
The teams in the Big Ten’s lower class would certainly rather be here than elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean these changes are set to benefit them just because they’re a part of the club.
SEC: How big of a power vacuum does Nick Saban leave behind?
As if there wasn’t already enough change in a league adding two of the biggest brands in the country while eliminating a division structure that has existed largely unchanged since 1992, Nick Saban retired in January.
The legendary Alabama coach is rightly considered the greatest college coach of all time, and he somehow managed to maintain a decade-plus stranglehold on the SEC during its best-ever stretch as a league.
Now that he’s gone, who is poised to take his place? Kirby Smart, Saban’s protege, and Georgia are the obvious answer. The ‘Dawgs won back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022 and likely would have won a third last fall if not for a loss to the Crimson Tide and Saban in his final SEC championship game.
But it’s boring to assume Georgia will step into this conference’s Alabama role for the next 15-plus years, and it may also be an unsafe assumption. Texas appears ready to hit the ground running, and from a recruiting and resources perspective, the Longhorns can go toe-to-toe with anyone in the SEC and around the country.
And while Kalen DeBoer finds himself in the unenviable position of following up Saban, there’s no reason to think a dropoff is preordained for the Tide, who have continued to recruit at an elite level under the new staff.
Just looking at this season, the SEC has nine ranked teams entering the year. Seven of them rank inside the top 15 and four are in the top 10. Not only is this league getting five teams in the CFP within the realm of possibility, but it may even be probable.
Nick Saban has had an indescribable impact on this league. Four of its current head coaches are former Saban assistants, and even more have been fired over the years. All of these coaches were hired with the hope of replicating the Alabama formula elsewhere.
So far, no one has succeeded quite like the man himself. But without his shadow cast across the league, will parity be the order of the day? Or will the next dynasty assert itself in 2024 in the wake of his departure?
