MADISON, Wis. -- The words "conference realignment" and "feel-good story" are generally considered mutually exclusive entities. In the mad dash to chase television dollars and bolster the status of athletic departments, decisions by schools to switch leagues have ruined historically significant and decades-long football rivalries that fans and teams will never fully recapture.
Texas-Texas A&M? Gone. Kansas-Missouri? Caput. Nebraska-Oklahoma and Pitt-West Virginia, once annual events, will now go more than a decade between meetings and only play sporadically, the stakes far less significant as out-of-conference foes. The list goes on.
There is no denying all the major-conference shuffling has altered the college sports landscape, and not always for the better when it comes to the on-field product.