Welcome back, sports fans, to the initial College Football GCR post of the 2025-26 season. This pre-season, we’ll look at a conference-by-conference look from the weakest average schedule (as calculated by the GCR based on last year’s official ranking and results) to the most challenged average schedule. We start in a few days with the 25th (and easiest) schedule, but a few things before we get underway.
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First, my lovely and talented daughter, JoJo, will be taking some of the preseason posts for me as my wife and I will be out of the country for a bit. If she really likes it (and who wouldn’t), she is welcome to handle more preseason, and in-season posts as well. One of things we are going to look into is a podcast about college sports that would be a lot of fun (assuming the old man half of the equation can figure out the technology). Expect a post every 4 days or so as we get through all 25 conferences between this post and the first G’s Expectation for Week 0 games posted on August 22. That means there are just 105 days until the season kicks off!
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That brings us to the title topic and the relatively small number of conference realignments for the 2025-26 season. First, we have just a single new FCS team in Rio Grande (formally University of Texas Rio Grande Valley or UTRGV in some abbreviations) who will join the Southland Conference. They’ve been undefeated since 1950 when they played their last football game and had to build an entire team for the past few years to get ready. The Vaqueros hired a local high school coach to kick them off. We had a single move within the FCS league with the Richmond Spiders leaving the Coastal (formerly Colonial) Athletic Conference (CAA) to join the Patriot League. The CAA lost another team as well with the Delaware Blue Hens, along with the Missouri Valley Football Conference’s Missouri St Bears, promoting themselves to the FBS by joining Conference USA. C-USA was demolished a few seasons ago with 9 teams leaving after 2022 or 2023. They’ve built themselves back up by adding the likes of Jacksonville St (FCS), Kennesaw St (FCS), Liberty (Independent), New Mexico St (Independent), and Sam Houston (FCS), along with the Blue Hens and Bears, in a way that provided a path for promotion for teams while making the conference more competitive than it was before. Speaking of Independents, there are only 2 FBS Indies this year (Notre Dame, UCONN) because the UMASS Minutemen joined the MAC for this season. And that’s it: just 5 changes.
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Looking into the future, there are plenty of opportunities for good FCS schools to step up to the FBS (more money, bigger opponents, etc.). And the Pac 12 still has just 2 teams, Oregon St and Washington St. The AAC said they are not going to add West Coast teams so that leaves the Mountain West (MWC). They have an arrangement, like last season, to play multiple MWC games this year. Some teams from that conference have committed to switching to the Pac 12, but others have recommitted to the MWC. Depending on a number of other scenarios, either or both conferences could fall below (or fail to raise themselves up to) the required 8 teams for FBS conferences. Another possible scenario is that the 2 P12 schools just join the MWC – the easiest path. However this turns out, the GCR will be monitoring. So, in short, no, conference realignment is not over, but it appears to be slowing. This last few years (2021-present) all started because Texas and Oklahoma announced they would join the SEC. Another major coup from a major conference could trigger a whole new round. Florida St (and/or Clemson) deciding to leave the ACC (through massive payout or lawsuit) could trigger a new set of deals as well. We’ll keep our eyes on the weather, as it were, and let you know when we do.
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That’s it for today. On behalf of JoJo, welcome back to college football and we’ll see you again in a few days. Please share the link or the page with others. The GCR is free to read and share, without ads, as always – all we ask is for help spreading the viewership. Thank you for your patronage and for reading. G and JoJo
