Todd Golden: TODD AARON Safe for now, how long will IU, Purdue stay realignment-proof?

Jul. 7—The news that USC and UCLA would be joining the Big 10 came to me last Thursday as I sat in a Pittsburgh restaurant having a late lunch. I'm like most in that it certainly caught me off-guard.

I chose my words carefully there. It did catch me off-guard, but I was not surprised, and there's a distinction. The machinations of college athletics' money-hungry power brokers are never surprising — the manner of how they go about it often can be.

While USC and UCLA celebrate their "wins" in the conference realignment chess match, those of us who appreciate the width and breadth of college sports feel bad for the losers.

There has never been a time where schools like Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford, etc., were not part of a "major" college conference, but in college realignment Game Of Thrones? Sentiment is for losers and red weddings are celebrated. There may be some survivors among the Pac-12's left-behinds, but they won't all escape unscathed.

Imagine being an athletic director, university president, or more to the point, an athletic department fundraiser, in Corvallis, Ore. or Pullman, Wash., where Oregon State and Washington State are located? Through no fault of their own, they are suddenly on the wrong end of an apocalyptic nightmare.

Meanwhile, here in the Midwest, fans of Big Ten schools, puff out their chests. It is nice to be the poachers and not the poached. Fans at Indiana, Purdue, et al, breathe easy in the knowledge that they are among the select. The Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences are the popular kids.

However, how long will the Big Ten's entire membership remain secure in that cool club?

The not-so-subtle tell in the Big Ten's West Coast power move was just how far the powers-that-be will go to maintain their money train. Big Ten to the West Coast? For that matter, the Big Ten to both coasts? Once unthinkable, but there's no end to how far schools will follow the money.

From where that lucre flows? ESPN and Fox dream of world domination in terms of television ratings. Once you pull the pin in terms of grinding the traditions of college athletics into dust, where does it stop? Deep down, we know the answer. It never stops.

While fans, like me, try to come up with dorky solutions to keeping traditional big schools like Kansas, West Virginia or Cal in the big tent, the power brokers laugh at such small-time sentiment.

Think big! Think national! Think of the sweep of a coast-to-coast super conference! TV viewers will forget all about middle-of-nowhere Iowa State when they can watch USC-Georgia on a regular basis. These lucrative visions likely dance around like sugar plums in the heads of TV executives and college presidents alike.

If you believe that there will someday be a national super-conference, where does that leave Indiana and Purdue? The harsh truth? They are not as far from the nightmare scenario currently being stared down in Pac-12 college towns as you might think.

First? Football drives all of this. TV executives don't care how many national championship banners you have hung up representing any other sport. Stanford won the National Directors Cup every year from 1995-2019 and has won at least one national title every year since 1977 and they're currently on the outside of realignment looking in.

Football is where the big money is. Football is why conference realignment is happening in the first place. Football will be why future moves are made.

Let's say the networks and the major football-playing schools wanted to form a 20-team super-conference in the future. Why tolerate the chaff when you can have the wheat? Don't laugh. One week ago, no one would have considered the implosion of the Pac-12 an imminent threat.

A super-conference would grab for the national brands, naturally. Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, USC and UCLA from the Big Ten at a minimum.

Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU, Florida and Georgia from the SEC at a minimum. Notre Dame would be in.

Very likely that Florida State, Miami and Clemson would be included from the ACC. After that? TV market realities would make some schools in geographically-desirable areas more attractive than others regardless of their tradition or lack thereof in terms of filling the rest of a super conference.

This scenario is not good if you're Indiana or Purdue because they have virtually nothing going for them in the factors that would create a super-conference. If you were compiling a 20-team, national super conference, based on football? Neither would likely make the cut or even come close.

The Hoosiers have passionate support, but they also are the worst major conference football school in winning percentage all-time. IU football does not move the needle outside of Indiana's borders. Purdue has better football tradition, but it's also not a national power. Football-wise? Purdue is likely third in interest in its own state.

Neither brings an important TV market. Indianapolis is decent-sized, but hardly one that is considered must-have by national TV execs and having two Big Ten schools in the state splits it in half. Even so? Broadcasters would claim, with quite a bit of justification, that Notre Dame football brings the Indy market to them anyway without IU or Purdue.

So if college athletics continues to evolve in the manner of consolidating the power schools together, and every move made in the 21st Century has gone in that direction, I wouldn't feel so secure about the future that Indiana and Purdue might be facing among the elite.

I'm not suggesting that this nightmare scenario for either school will happen overnight or even in the next decade. If it does happen? These moves take time. There will be detours. There will be political pressure. There will be unforeseen economic factors that either speed up or slow down the process.

However, I'd be very surprised, especially once the ACC's Grant of Rights expires in the 2030s, if the movers and shakers in the highest echelons of college athletics can resist the lure of the big money and the pressure from TV networks to form a national super-conference once and for all. The Big Ten proved last week that nothing is sacred. Why would the obliteration of college conferences as we've known them be any different?

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that someone reading this in the future has a good laugh at my expense at the alarmist tone. If you're reading this in 2037 and none of this came to pass? Have a drink on me.

After all, the Hoosiers and Boilermakers are winning realignment at present. The future seems bright and obscenely rich for the traditional Big Ten schools. However, this might be twilight, not a new day to come. The greed that drives all of this is ravenous.

I don't see a bright future for Indiana and Purdue if the insatiable, dollar-driven realignment trend continues as it has ... and why wouldn't it? I see a world where they struggle to maintain status — a fight in which they don't control the cards and a battle that might be futile in the final balance anyway.

The hard truth is that Indiana and Purdue are much closer to Oregon State and Washington State than they are to USC and UCLA in terms of national network interest and as football brands.

There could come a realignment day where Bloomington and West Lafayette are spoken in the same funereal breath that Corvallis and Pullman are whispered in right now as fallen major college towns.

Unfortunately, the whispers of regret are always shouted down because money doesn't just talk, it yells ... and those with the most to gain always listen.

Todd Golden is sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at (812) 231-4272 or todd.golden@tribstar.com. Follow Golden on Twitter at @TribStarTodd.