Geography of College Football

College football has been the center of discussion for many in the past few weeks and not just because of the wild finish of the season or the build up to the many great bowl games that will be starting soon. It has been geography which has taken center stage in many of the conversations.

This may not seem strange to those of use who follow the big rivalries of college football each year such as Michigan - Notre Dame, Florida - Florida State, or Texas - Oklahoma which pit close geographies against one another every year in the ultimate battle of bragging rights (Which I am happy to say belongs to FSU this year).

But back to the first question what has happened this year to put geography in the limelight?

Two words: Conference Realignment

Every year smaller schools compete hard for the opportunity to enter the larger conferences which can lead to better recognition, more recruitment, and in some cases an increase in annual money. Congratulations to the University of Central Florida for entering the Big East this year. What has made this year particularly of notice though is that many conferences are adding teams which are well outside of the traditional geographic area for that conference and many of these programs are well established.

This year we have already seen University of Missouri enter the SEC and Boise State enter the Big East. The ACC added both Pittsburgh and Syracuse to its new roster.

The breaking of these traditional geographies have many questioning the names of conferences and if those geographies truly matter any longer. It will take some time to see what if any change occur from these new additions.

Some others are worried about what these additions will do to those long standing rivalries which we have all come to know and love, others believe we will start to see new larger geographic rivalries start to build as teams travel greater distances to take on conference opponents.

Only time will tell if these new geographies will prove to build greater rivalries or push college football conferences too far.

In the meantime click here to view the common census sports package which allows users to choose an area and see the fan breakdown of that area. See if you can spot the lines of these great rivalries and where the borders really lie.