WVU was better off decades ago, when conferences were smaller and the landscape was more atomized. When they're one of the first 8 programs in a conference that's suddenly trying to play football, that's one thing. The conference needs opponents to play against, they need content for TV.

But when conferences are already 14-16 teams large, where it may be years in between playing opposite-division teams, when the financial structure of college football the last 30 years has led to an enormous consolidation and concentration of power at the top, adding WVU as a 15th or 17th or higher member is not at all attractive. The fact that people fantasize about kicking out some of the smallest schools in the conference underscores part of my point; the 3 largest conferences already have enough--arguably too many--teams and potential matchups.

The fact of the matter is, there's been exactly 2 times that WVU was a prime target for a conference. One was when the Big East decided to play football instead of only being a conference of tiny private schools that played basketball and so they got to be a "founding member" of football. The other was when the Big 12 had lost 4 teams in 2 years and was desperate for anyone with a pulse to help hem stave off their eventual collapse.