Conference realignment is here again for college football. It’s cut-throat stuff and it’s not over. More is coming. Naturally, that got me thinking.

If the Big Ten wanted to make a push into the Deep South and flex all of its corporate media might, then I know the perfect place to hit the SEC closest to home. The TV guys at Fox know it well, too, after launching an entire pro football league from Protective Stadium.

Here’s how the Big Ten cuts an enormous chunk right out of the Heart of Dixie.

The conference that’s at war with the SEC should consider crossing over into enemy lines and dropping a pin right next door to the SEC headquarters. This will sound crazy to longtime college football fans, but sanity went out the window when Texas and Oklahoma left the Big 12 for the SEC and USC and UCLA joined a conference that includes Nebraska, Minnesota, Maryland and Penn State.

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To make a play for the viewership in the city that watches more college football in this country than anywhere else, the Big Ten might want to consider adding UAB to its lineup by hanging a Big Ten conference banner in Birmingham, Alabama. Blazers to the Big Ten? In this new media landscape of college football, it actually makes a lot of sense the more you consider it.

First, there will be instant intrigue for the Big Ten right in the SEC’s backyard. UAB’s new downtown stadium is quite literally across the street from the SEC headquarters.

Make no mistake. It would be like a declaration of war. The SEC is king in Birmingham, but no place in this country is more rabid about college football than the former home of the Iron Bowl. In Birmingham, everyone loves either Alabama or Auburn. Here’s the interesting thing about that dynamic, though. No matter which SEC school a resident of Birmingham supports, the large majority of those college football fans will all say that they love UAB.

It’s the university that saved a city, serves as the largest employer in the state and has a dragon for a mascot. What’s not to love?

UAB is joining the American Athletic Conference this season. It’s a good fit, and UAB will be just fine playing in the AAC with rival Memphis. It’s going to be a fun league. UAB has a tough schedule that includes home games against Louisiana of the Sun Belt and then AAC foes South Florida, Memphis, FAU, and Temple. UAB’s away schedule is even nastier: Georgia (Sept.23), Tulane, UTSA, Navy and North Texas.

I’m looking forward to that schedule and especially a return of UAB’s rivalry with Memphis, the Battle for the Bones (Oct.21). The landscape is changing again, however, just as the AAC is welcoming six new teams from Conference USA. It never hurts to think big.

The Big Ten wants to be a national conference but it lacks a presence in the South. Geographically, Birmingham is right smack dab in the middle of the Southeast. Academically, UAB is on par with schools in the Big Ten. It’s one of the largest medical research institutes in the country and it’s the highest ranked school academically in Alabama. UAB was 160th worldwide among international universities (top eight percent) in the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings of Best Global Universities.

Is UAB a national TV draw? Not currently, but neither are a lot of teams in the Big Ten. Unlike a lot of teams in the Big Ten, UAB can give an aggressive-minded conference access to some of the best recruits in the country. Central Florida is joining the Big 12. UAB has just as much going for it as UCF, and we haven’t even started with basketball and barbecue.

The Big Ten is at 18 teams with the additions of Washington and Oregon, but there is buzz that the Big Ten is already considering another round of expansion. If it wants 20 schools, adding UAB and Florida State would give Fox’s conference a strong presence in the South. Fox is already familiar with Birmingham after running the entire USFL out of the city in 2022. The Birmingham Stallions have won the league two years in a row and adding UAB to the Big Ten could help Fox promote the USFL during the college football season.

There are obvious barriers to UAB football joining a power conference that includes Ohio State, Michigan and USC. For people who know UAB’s history, this might all sound absurd. UAB doesn’t currently have an operating budget to compete in the Big Ten, and in a lot of ways UAB is lucky to even have a football team.

Disruption creates opportunities where people might never consider it, though. UAB football returned from the dead in 2017 and has made a bowl game every single season. Most recently, the Blazers upset BYU in the Independence Bowl. Let’s not pretend like UAB couldn’t compete immediately against some of the teams in the Big Ten.

If this all feels too much like a tinfoil hat even for college football’s sickest of the sick puppies constantly rooting for chaos in a broken system, then just know that various levels of insanity have always surrounded UAB football. Hall of Fame Alabama coach Paul Bryant didn’t want Birmingham to have its own pro football team, never mind the college variety. When UAB football was born, there was a bullseye on the Blazers’ backs from the beginning. It just got weirder and weirder for UAB from there. Remember when Jimbo Fisher wanted to coach the Blazers but was blocked at the last moment? Remember when the UA System Board of Trustees then blocked plans for UAB’s on-campus stadium? Remember when UAB football was killed in 2014 and then resurrected after Birmingham protested in the streets and with their wallets?

I’m predicting big things for UAB in this new landscape of college football whether it’s in a power conference or not. UAB has an incredible story and it has an exciting new coach in Trent Dilfer. He’s bold and he’s a maverick. Sounds like a perfect fit for a renegade program down South. There’s a reason UAB football was held down for years. The reason was opportunity, and big ones now exist for a city with vision.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, hope and rum. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.