Report: UNC has Big Ten offer, realignment could be coming again

Remember that realignment business that made us all so miserable last November? Well, it may be starting back up again:

Big 10 talk buzzing again. #UVA being mentioned often as likely to join. Georgia Tech still in the mix. #UNC, the big domino, has an offer.

— Jeff Ermann (@insidemdsports) February 19, 2013

That's just one tweet, but it's from someone who was on the Maryland-to-Big-Ten news early, and correctly, so it might be worth giving more than the usual sideways glance at. And, as those that follow realignment will know, rumors of some combination of UNC/Georgia Tech/Virginia/Duke possibly decamping from the ACC to the Big Ten aren't exactly new. I don't think anyone thought conference realignment was done, but if it is true that North Carolina has a hard offer to head to greener pastures, then we may see its return sooner rather than later.

So why does this matter to UConn fans? Because anything that destabilizes the rest of college athletics increases the chance that someone (i.e. the ACC) could come calling to backfill their league and rescue UConn from the hell that the new Big East has become. This isn't a new insight -- Jim Calhoun implied the same thing last week when he said he didn't expect UConn to be in the Big East in a year -- but dispirited UConn fans might find some solace in the news that the realignment process could starting up again.

Of course, there are no guarantees in life and if we've learned one thing it's that realignment is just a regular opportunity for the universe to kick us all in the teeth, so don't be surprised when the next news update has Cincinnati, USF, East Carolina, Tulane and Siena on the ACC's wishlist ahead of UConn.