West Virginia has settled its lawsuit with the Big East and will join the Big 12 in July.To this I have one very important question.

Why?

I know full well why WVU wanted to leave the Big East. It is a floundering conference that is pitiful in most sports.

I know why the Big 12 is reaching out to new teams; Missouri and Texas A&M left for the SEC.

I get all of that.

My question is why the Big 12 would stoop so low as to take West Virginia. What do they offer other than a decent basketball team and football team, and I mean decent. Neither team has won a championship for as long as I can remember.

WVU will have an inflated travel budget now, and the Big 12 will have another football member that does not in the least resemble or match up with one of their traditional teams.

Texas A&M is a good fit in the SEC. The Southeastern Conference is all about football — and baseball, but that’s another article —, and A&M matches up well with SEC-style programs.

The odd-man out is Missouri. They are a decent fit in basketball, but their football team doesn’t even remotely resemble a SEC team other than the Florida Gators of the Steve Spurrier era.

The Mountain West and Conference USA are merging to combine teams since both entities were losing members.

I say why not, let the little tykes have fun. The honest truth is that neither of these conferences matter much in athletics, and that’s what I’m most concerned with.

I once had a magazine article that listed each of the 120 major college football programs and what conference each was in.

I had to white out Miami and Virginia Tech when they left the Big East for the ACC. That was the only major change of my childhood.

If I had that article now, it would be completely useless.

Apparently this decade is the time these schools decided to sever old ties and make a bunch of odd decisions.

If a school is in a football conference that is not an automatic qualifier, I do not want to hear about its undefeated season and why they deserve any hype, or far be it a shot at the national championship.

I have said and will always say a team that plays a real schedule will always deserve a shot at a championship over a school that plays other non-AQ opponents.

If you think I’m talking about  Boise State, I am.

J.R. Tidwell is sports editor for The Franklin County Times. He can be reached at (256) 332-1881, ext. 31.