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Greg McElroy offers a history lesson about teams winning in new conferences
By Keith Farner
Published:
Greg McElroy took the opportunity to examine the “relative success” of teams moving to new conferences as 2024 presents a significant shift with USC and UCLA moving to the Big Ten, and Oklahoma and Texas headed to the SEC.
McElroy on his “Always College Football” recalled Penn State’s move to the Big Ten in 1992, and noted the Nittany Lions have 10 finishes in the top 10 since then.
“While they went undefeated in 1994, they really haven’t been close to winning a national championship since,” McElroy said. “… I remember them having great performances in BCS bowl games, but isn’t the goal if you’re a team and a program that had traditionally been in the mix for national championships, isn’t the goal to continue that tradition? Unfortunately for Penn State since they’ve joined the Big Ten, those opportunities have been few and far between.”
While McElroy is optimistic about Penn State in 2023, he questioned how close it is to Michigan and Ohio State.
As for Miami, McElroy pointed out the Hurricanes have one 10-win season since they moved to the ACC in 2004.
“We know what they were prior to joining the ACC,” he said. “They were a fixture in the BCS, they were constantly in the run for national championships there in the early 2000s. … But man, where are the Miami teams of 2000, 2001, 2002 et cetera. They are a long and distant memory.”
McElroy then raised Nebraska as one of the more “infamous” examples of a team that has fallen on hard times. The Cornhuskers have one 10-win season since they joined the Big Ten.
“Now we’re looking at a Nebraska team that since leaving the Big 12, they’ve actually struggled to be consistent whatsoever,” McElroy said, and referred to the fact that Nebraska is on its 4th full-time head coach. And that begged the question about whether Nebraska would ever get back to national prominence.
McElroy also pointed out again that he believes the Huskers made the “perfect hire” in Matt Rhule.
Keith Farner has written about college football for newspapers and web sites since 2005.