BYU Football: 10 most likely conference realignments

6 – Independence Everywhere

Let’s be honest, Independence can be done correctly. Just look at BYU, Notre Dame, Army and even Liberty who has just recently joined the party.

With Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC, maybe more teams just say “forget it” and decide to leave conferences and go the Independent route. This would likely start within the SEC with schools like Vanderbilt or Kentucky who realize that football success just got even harder.

If this became the “cool thing” to do, watch for teams like Nebraska in the Big 10 to do the same along with Iowa State, TCU and Oklahoma State who no longer have a conference to go to.

Perhaps enough of these Independent teams would decide to join in a conference with BYU and Liberty (I don’t see Notre Dame going this way). Or perhaps, these Independent teams would remain Independent and depend on revenue coming through private streaming, social media and ad revenue. Let’s be honest, BYU vs Nebraska or Oklahoma State vs Notre Dame every few years would draw great crowds.

Likelihood of happening: Unlikely

Teams in P5’s have way too much pride. Unless it was their only option, I don’t see any team going Independent without being forced to. If a few teams did it though, I could see it happening, especially if the SEC expanded to 20 and the bottom dwellers got tired of going 1-7 in conference every year.