College football is already several weeks into its new Power 4 era. But this weekend is when the impact of conference realignment—the good, the bad, and the ugly—will be felt the most yet.

Four debut conference matchups in particular highlight the sport’s wild, cash-driven new reality.

In the expanded 17-team ACC, Stanford is making the roughly 2,400-mile flight from Northern California to upstate New York for its inaugural conference matchup against Syracuse on Friday night. On Saturday, Cal will visit Florida State after flying more than 2,200 miles across the country for its first ACC game.

And that’s just the beginning for the ACC’s two new West Coast members. Stanford travels cross-country again to Clemson next weekend, and plays at NC State on Nov. 2. Cal has road games at Pitt and Wake Forest this fall, too.

But while taxing travel schedules show the dark side of conference realignment, the shifting landscape is also giving fans and networks some can’t-miss conference matchups like never before.

On Saturday afternoon, No. 11 USC will play its first matchup in the 18-team Big Ten at No. 18 Michigan. CBS gets the game broadcast as one of three companies (alongside Fox and NBC) paying the conference roughly $1 billion annually for the remainder of the decade.

That night, No. 6 Tennessee will visit No. 15 Oklahoma in the 16-team SEC. Disney (ABC/ESPN) is the benefactor as the conference’s sole media partner, beginning this year, at a cost of $710 million annually.

Coast to Coast

With intraconference schedules beginning in earnest, the madness of realignment will be at play all season.

Rutgers is a particularly interesting case of cross-country contests in the expanded Big Ten. The Scarlet Knights welcome Washington to New Jersey next weekend, and in October, host UCLA before traveling to USC six days later for an 11 p.m. ET kickoff the following Friday night.

In the SEC, Georgia will make just its second visit to Texas on Oct. 19, setting up to potentially be the game of the season. The Longhorns just leapfrogged the Bulldogs as the No. 1–ranked team, and Arch Manning is likely to keep filling in while starting quarterback Quinn Ewers is injured. ABC/ESPN will be hoping both teams are still undefeated, as Texas’s 31–12 victory at Michigan is the most-watched game so far this year with 9.35 million viewers on Fox.

The future of Florida State and Clemson in the ACC has been the biggest remaining question surrounding the latest wave of conference realignment. But there could be some unexpected progress in discussions between the schools and the conference. 

Amid lawsuits among the three parties, the ACC is now said to be exploring a new revenue distribution model that could lead to the schools changing their mind on exploring exits, according to Yahoo Sports. Conference leaders have reviewed a plan to create a separate pot of revenue to be divided based on media value metrics. 

Last year, the ACC approved a plan to financially reward schools for better on-field performance. But further changes to how the ACC doles out its cash could give programs with a larger following like FSU and Clemson more money no matter how much they win.

Best of the Rest

Beyond the ACC’s future, plenty of unknowns remain around how the Pac-12’s rebuild will affect the Group of 5 conferences. 

The Pac-12’s addition of Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State, and Fresno State will not only impact the Mountain West, but also have a domino effect across the country. The Pac-12 still needs to add at least two more schools by 2026 to maintain its FBS status, and the Mountain West will want to add to its eight remaining programs, and make sure they don’t exit, too.

Of the 134 current FBS schools, 67 are in Power 4 conferences, and Notre Dame is an independent. That leaves 66 schools to fit into the new “Group of 6,” if you will, assuming the Pac-12 lives on alongside the American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West, and Sun Belt. (UConn and UMass are currently independent in football, too.)

Musical Chairs

There are new reports and rumors seemingly every day, but it’s undeniable that nearly every school and conference are at least exploring all their options.

AAC members Memphis and Tulane are said to be the next top targets for the Pac-12, according to The Athletic. Also under consideration are Mountain West schools Air Force and UNLV. Lower on the list is the AAC’s UTSA, North Texas, and South Florida, and the Sun Belt’s Texas State.

However, Air Force is also said to be a serious target of the AAC, per ESPN. That would put the academy in the same conference as its military academy counterparts Army and Navy.

New Mexico State would make geographical sense for the Mountain West, which already includes New Mexico. And FCS programs like North Dakota State, Sacramento State, and Tarleton State (Texas), potentially looking to make the jump to FBS, could be options for multiple conferences looking to add members.