Wednesday Realignment News: SMU? Seriously?

As the week goes on, we’re seeing bigger and bigger swings - and misses - in the realignment frenzy.

First, San Diego State, which until very recently was desperate to join the PAC-12 - and who would have dreamed that not getting in would become a lucky break? - tried to pull off a Hail Mary that would have picked up what’s left of the PAC-12 as well as some schools from the MWC and AAC.

That didn't happen for a number of reasons. First, the exit fees for the MWC teams would have been quite high. And second, Stanford and Cal are trying to cut a deal with the ACC, so obviously they weren’t ready to jump into some some uncertain future with a nebulous arrangement.

And while the ACC is still undecided about the Bay Area programs, they are also apparently looking at Southern Methodist.

SMU is in Dallas, which would bring a large media market and shorter travel issues, if only somewhat.

We’re sure that the ACC has done multiple studies on realignment and so on, but it’s also not clear that this is a great move.

It would make more sense to go after West Virginia and UConn and to trade malcontent FSU to the SEC for Vanderbilt, which has never made sense in that league.