Every major college football realignment move to know ahead of the 2024 season

The college football landscape will be looking extremely different in 2024

The college football landscape has been completely flipped upside down, and for added measure, spun around a few times following all of the conference realignment.

There are West Coast teams that will now be making trips to New Jersey or Miami, and there is also no longer a Power conference out West. Now, the majority of the crazy moves that happened were since the now-former Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff fumbled the process every step of the way. He was unable to get a media rights deal, and failed to expand with a handful of programs practically begging to join.

While we are still a ways away from the season actually starting, here is a refresher as to which conferences added or lost teams. It is also worth noting that the American will be welcoming seven new programs. 

---

SEC

Matt Bush-USA TODAY Sports

New Additions: Texas and Oklahoma

They got the ball rolling on this wave of realignment back when Texas and Oklahoma dropped the bomb on the sport that they were leaving the Big 12. They are now home to even more of the biggest brands in college football, and could be poised to add more prominent programs should schools from the ACC bolt.

Big Ten

Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen via Imagn Content Services, LLC

New Additions: USC, UCLA, Oregon Washington 

USC and UCLA were the next big realignment move, as they pulled the rug out from under the Pac-12. There were reports that USC sabotaged the Pac-12's initial expansion attempt when the Big 12 schools were initially worried about their future, and then out of nowhere, they left. Oregon and Washington hung around a bit longer, but left the Pac-12 after their inability to assemble a media rights deal.

Big 12

BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

New Additions: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State 

All four of these programs hung around in the Pac-12 until it was evident the conference was unable to get a deal done. Colorado was the first one to jump in the second wave of Pac-12 departures, which started the domino effect.

ACC

Scott Taetsch-USA TODAY Sports

New Additions: Cal, SMU, Stanford

The final Power 4 conference to get into the mix, the ACC teams were quite torn on adding these three schools. It took some campaigning by Notre Dame, a program going against the grain of the conference to vote them in, and it took all the way up to the first week of the season. It is an interesting fit, but the conference has figured out a way to maximize travel the best they can. It also required Stanford and Cal to take pay cuts, while SMU is joining for free.