College Football Relegation - 2008

This is the fourth entry in my series on relegation in college football (for all you completionists out there).

Miami won a national championship in 2001. They won another in 2002, only for the refs to steal it from them and award it to Ohio State. Following the 2003 season, Miami set a record with 6 first round draft picks. In 2004, Miami played in a BCS bowl. In 2005, Miami was ranked #3 in the nation with 2 games left to play.

Now it is 2008 and they are in the middle of a heated race with Louisiana-Lafayette for the Sun Belt title.

Life comes at you fast.

Let's start with the relegations:

ACC - Hawaii

Big East - UCF

Big 10 - Indiana

Big 12 - Texas A&M

PAC 10 - Fresno State

SEC - Mississippi State

Texas A&M was a shockingly bad 97th in F/+ under Mike Sherman. That is AGGRESSIVELY bad. So bad that Miami beat them.

Meanwhile, Mississippi State makes it 4 for 4 for the state of Mississippi. Tulsa continues to roll in the SEC, while Central Michigan and Air Force stay up in the Big 10. A few really bad  teams that told death "not today": Louisville, Michigan and UCLA.

As for the promotions:

Conference USA: Ole Miss

MAC - Buffalo

Mountain West - Utah

WAC - Stanford

Aaaaaannnnnddddd....

Sun Belt - Miami

Hooray! Si se puede!! 

At-large: Rice (also in the mix: Nevada, East Carolina, Ball State)

This was the strongest promotion class yet. Miami, Ole Miss and Stanford are major programs, and Utah was knocking on the door for 2 years before finally breaking through.

Miami actually came up pretty easily out of the Sun Belt (the fact I even have to type that is sad), and Ole Miss convincingly won Conference USA as a borderline Top 10 program in F/+ while playing in the SEC.

On the the other hand, Buffalo is a true minnow of a program, and Rice...despite running a fun offense during this era...barely got in to the at-large tournament over intra-city rival Houston, a bigger program that would have been much more appealing to the big boys during their next round of rights negotiations.

In the expansion draft the SEC grabs Ole Miss, the PAC 10 is excited to reel Stanford back in...and then the Big 12 pulls off another coup, taking Miami in front of the conferences that might make more sense in terms of geography or institutional fit.

This now positions the Big 12 as a league with marquee name programs in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Miami, as well as a footprint in the Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Denver, St. Louis and Miami markets. Not a bad position to be in...

Once again just missing out on the team they really wanted, the Big 10 grabs Utah and begins to expand west. The Big East, with no big fish left, opts for a private school in a major market and grabs Rice...kind of a homeless man's Miami. And the ACC, once again left to hold the bag, is left with Buffalo, a big state school with mediocre academics in a declining market outside of their geographic footprint. It's like they wanted Syracuse, but the store was sold out, so they bought Buffalo on discount instead, only they did it at gunpoint.