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It all came about so quickly.

A relatively slow Thursday afternoon news cycle was turned on it's head when a report surfaced from the Pac-12 Hotline's Jon Wilner revealing USC & UCLA's plans to leave the conference for the Big Ten.

The accumulation of subsequent news and reactions that followed in the coming hours serve as confirmation that the move is the latest and largest shift to signal a new era and completely reimagined landscape of college athletics. Now, the once Midwest-rooted conference will stretch from coast to coast and occupy five of the seven largest metropolitan markets in America.

But it goes deeper than just adding schools to a conference. The decision to add two universities over 1500 miles from the current western-most campus in the Big Ten is one that is not made on the basis of practicality or travel logistics.

Instead, more than ever, it reflects the budding parallels that exist between college sports and the next level.

Exactly one year on from the birth of the NIL era in college sports, albeit not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, the idea of college athletes getting compensated for their performance and what they bring to their campuses both on & off the playing field is pretty commonplace. In conjunction, coaches are being paid more to keep these young athletes in check and lead them to success in their respective sports. Now, teams will be traveling cross-country to compete in conference matchups on a regular basis.

Sound familiar yet?

For as long as it's been around, one of the primary purposes of college sports has been to serve as the stepping stone to the professional game. With the revenue generated and the growing interest garnered as each year passes, college sports are becoming a business all their own. Starting in 2024, the Big Ten's model will be the closest resemblance of professional sports that exists at the college level.

Of course, much of the focus from the move will be centered around football and basketball. However, it's important to remember that the migration from one conference to another affects all school-sponsored sports.

So, not only does the move mean mid-October conference games in the Rose Bowl or USC and Rutgers tipping off at 10:30ET on a balmy Southern California Tuesday night, but it includes an increased presence in sports from softball and baseball to swim and dive and everything in between. Thus, those potential aforementioned logistical issues become more prevalent and have to be addressed.

Are college student-athletes at a point in their lives where they can balance a class-load, practice, recovery, and constant cross-country travel all at the same time? Should fans be more elated that their favorite teams and alma maters will be playing in more high-profile matchups against high-profile opponents, or should they be upset about the increased travel costs they'll have to shell out in order to see them? Will travel costs force schools to make tough decisions about non-revenue sports that otherwise would've been unaffected in their original situations?

Only time will tell as to whether the answers to these questions will be found and if the outcomes will be as positive as desired. That's not to say that all outcomes are negative, though. If the Big Ten is able to achieve what they believe to be adequate results, then this may be looked back upon as the domino that started it all.

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren and company would want to be prepared for all scenarios should this really be the first successful domino to fall, and could already be looking ahead to their next move. As quickly as the news broke of USC & UCLA's addition to the conference, Wilner reported from a source that the Big Ten may not be done yet.

While nothing is confirmed as of yet, would you be able to blame the conference for not wanting to stop if this works?

With the SEC's addition of Texas and Oklahoma last summer, the four other "Power 5" conferences were seemingly left out to dry. Less than a month later, the Big Ten, ACC, and Pac-12 formed "The Alliance" as a rebuttal, but to this day, no one really understood what that meant. Other than the Big 12 replacing the Longhorns and Sooners with four of the stronger non Power-5 schools, no one really had an answer for the SEC. Rumors swirled for the better part of a year about the SEC becoming the untouchable giant in college sports, and most signs pointed that direction.

Fast forward to present day, and you could probably assume that whatever that 'alliance' was is dead now, as the Big Ten is in the box seat to challenge the SEC as the main competitor to the idea of mega-conferences.

Athletically, the Trojans and Bruins add 243 national championships' worth of heritage to an already impressive layout of programs. Academically, USC & UCLA become the 14th and 15th AAU schools in the Big Ten, a prestigious academic distinction that has always been high on the list for membership to the conference (Nebraska was an AAU when originally admitted to the Big Ten, but no longer is.)

As far as markets go, for the SEC's Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, the Big Ten now counters with Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Case in point, the Big Ten knows what they're getting in their two newest members.

So, if you've worked your way into a golden opportunity, do you stop at 16 schools? If you're at 16, what's 18? 20? 22? So on and so on, you get the point.

Obviously, Warren and the Big Ten hold the ticket to whether or not they would want to admit schools to the conference. Holding that leverage, prospective schools would need to move the needle not just athletically and academically, but ultimately, financially. That's not to say there aren't potential candidates, though.

Unless the Pac-12 can come up with an offer another school simply cannot refuse, it's a very real possibility that the remaining ten teams in the conference divert elsewhere. Having already lost two of their bigger brands, the Big 12 sits in an interesting spot where they have already doubled down on their commitment to holding firm while still being under threat to lose more members. Then there's the ACC, which has somehow stayed out of all the chaos surrounding realignment so far.

Oregon? Stanford? Notre Dame? Kansas? Iowa State? Pitt? Virginia? UNC? Duke? As far fetched as they may seem, the possibilities are virtually endless. Should the current plans for expansion be a success, extending further could be even more beneficial for recruiting prowess, exposure, and relevancy. Any idea of realignment that felt too illogical at first could now be on the table and should be considered.

Because before today, no one could have imagined that the Big Ten would poach two of the west coast's biggest brands. But, here we are. This is the new landscape of college sports. Buckle up, because chances are, things are just getting started.

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