The new college football season went into full swing this past weekend, but things looked a lot different from last year. A plethora of teams joined new conferences, and most of it came from the cessation of the Pac-12.

Last season the Pac-12 featured 12 football teams that all had to find new homes for this season. One of those landing spots was the Big Ten, a conference whose namesake makes even less sense now that there are 18 teams in it. The University of Southern California, UCLA, Washington and Oregon all joined the conference. This was a big move for the Big Ten, as these teams represented the best of the Pac-12 for the most part in football.

The Big 12 was another conference that added four of the former Pac-12 teams. They added Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado. Nice additions to a conference that lost their two biggest powerhouses of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC. While the top might not be as good without those two, the conference could have more balance than we have seen in the past.

The other conference that took in Pac-12 teams is the ACC. Seemingly not a very good fit, being that the ACC is on the Atlantic coast. Stanford and California will have a lot of long trips ahead of them.

The last two teams from the Pac-12 are Washington State and Oregon State, who were unable to make their way into any of the top conferences. They are both playing a Mountain-West schedule this year, which could be detrimental to their programs. They definitely got the short end of the stick compared to their Pac-12 counterparts.

The Pac-12 was the biggest change to this year’s season, but other teams have been moving around conferences as well. With the Pac-12 being eliminated, it now leaves a power four instead of what was called the power five conferences. While these changes are substantial, this could only be the beginning of an even larger shift in conference realignment in the future.