Holgorsen

Time, tide and formation. But certainly not conference alignments in the ever-foggy world of college athletics.

There are conferences that display their muscle with television contracts for their football teams. There are conferences without much monetary clout at all. And there are too many conferences constantly scrambling to stay even remotely important.

Maybe it’s not quite a maelstrom of changes and movements, but keeping track of the latest “news” in the Sun Belt, Conference USA, Big 10, Pac 12 and SEC takes the mind and memory of Einstein or a budding student in search of their doctorate.

Let’s see now: Houston, Cincinnati, Brigham Young and Central Florida will be joining West Virginia and nine more schools in the Big 12, which has 10 schools now and in a short time will have 12 because Texas and Oklahoma will be scuttling off to the SEC and its gargantuan reservoir of television money.

Stagg

Marshall will be in a short parade line along with Old Dominion, Southern Mississippi and James Madison to join the Sun Belt Conference. Not for the 2022 season, but soon.

Conference USA has flagged Liberty, Jacksonville State, Sam Houston and New Mexico State as its newest members.

Moving into the Big 10 and its wintry football conditions in November/December in the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Iowa will be the sun-splashed student-athletes from both UCLA and Southern California.

Not even Amos Alonzo Stagg or Knute Rockne believe the flurry of “conference-changing” is over.

Where will Notre Dame land, or will it stay as a football independent? And then there are Clemson, North Carolina, Florida State, Pittsburgh, Miami, Oregon, Washington and N.C. State, all with their own beauty in the eye of conference beholders.

Rockne

Television contract money is the pot at the end of any rainbow.

And those rainbows appear in almost any state in the country.

Maybe Marshall and James Madison become a valued geographical rivalry. Maybe every fan salivates waiting for the fall Saturday when West Virginia hosts Dana Holgorsen and his Houston Cougar football team.

It will take more than a ouija board or tarot cards to figure out where the next dominoes will fall.

If you are a successful speculator in the Dow Jones or AMEX or with bitcoin currency, forget the Power Ball or Lotto jackpots and hustle yourself off to the headquarters of whatever agency or organization that will be heading college sports and give it a heads-up on what is coming next.

Speculation.