New Football Alignment

 For background see:  https://aftermath2022.blogspot.com/2012/08/football-follies.html

In the "Good Ole Days" (pre-1996), football teams in the western US looked like:

The Big 8 consisted of CU, Nebraska, Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
The Southwest Conference (SWC) consisted of Arkansas, Baylor, Rice, Texas, Texas A&M, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech and Houston.
The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) consisted of BYU, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado State, UTEP, San Diego State, Hawaii, Air Force and Fresno State. 

The Pacific 10 (PAC-10) consisted of Arizona, Arizona State, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Oregon, Oregon State, USC, Stanford, Washington and Washington State.

Many, many changes have occurred since then, but I just want to see how things will look after 2025.

1. The Big 8 became the Big 12 and will have 16 members:  Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU, West Virginia, BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Houston, Colorado, Utah, Arizona State, and Arizona.  Oklahoma and Texas will be joining Southeastern Conference (SEC).  Nebraska is part of the Big 10. Missouri is part of the SEC.

2. The SWC has disappeared.  Baylor, Houston, TCU, and Texas Tech are part of the Big 12. Arkansas joined the SEC. Texas A&M is in the SEC. Rice and SMU are in the AAC.

3. The WAC was succeeded by the Mountain West Conference (MWC) which will have the following 12 members: Air Force Academy, Boise State, Calif State-Fresno, CSU, UN-Reno, UNLV, New Mexico, SDSU, SJSU, Utah State, Wyoming, Hawaii.   In addition, Oregon State and Washington State will probably join, giving this 14.  Changes from the old WAC are: BYU went to the Big 12, Utah went to the Big 12, and UTEP is in Conference USA.

4. The PAC-12 of course is imploding, with Arizona, and Arizona State joining the Big 12, UC Berkeley (renamed to Cal) and Stanford joining the ACC; UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington joining the Big 10, and Oregon State and Washington State probably joining the MWC. 

So which of the 40 or so of the teams originally listed are not part of the new Big 12 or MWC?

To the SEC: Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas A&M.  To the Big 10: Nebraska.  Also UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington.  To the AAC: Rice and SMU.  To Conference USA: UTEP. To the ACC: Cal and Stanford.

I think that is correct, there are 5 additional conferences that teams went to.  The only thing that seems weird to me is that SMU should be in the Big 12, why are they in the AAC?  The Big 12 passed on them, even though the headquarter of the Big 12 is in the DFW area and so is SMU.  Also, why did the Big 12 accept UCF?

Anyways, this is very confusing, but kind of interesting.

Update: After I just posted this, I found out that SMU will be moving from the AAC to the ACC, along with Cal and Stanford.

Update 2: What are the best conferences in College Football?  I think these are the rankings:

1. SEC. 2. Big 10, 3. Big 12,  4. ACC, 5. MWC, 6. AAC. The worst are Sun Belt, Conference USA and Mid-American.

Who are the winners on the original list (they went to a better conference)?  Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington.  Who are the losers (they went to a worse conference)? Rice and UTEP.  Everyone else stayed pretty much the same.