The conference realignment of 2024 changed the softball world, destroying dynasties and strengthening others in the process. The softball world has been fractured as a whole, from the loss of the Pac-12 powerhouse and the corresponding rise of SEC softball.

Loss of the Pac-12

The softball world used to fear Pac 12 schools. Before the 2024 WCWS matchup versus UCLA, Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy said it used to be a huge deal to go onto a Pac-12 softball field and bring home a victory, but now that the conferences have changed, the prestige is gone.

“But the Pac-12, that was what you played for,” Murphy said. “We want to beat the Pac-12. The first time we came, we had to go to Arizona State. We had never beaten a Pac-12 school. It was the year 2000. We got sent to Arizona State, Hall of Fame Coach Linda Wells. Gosh, here we go again. We broke through that door and it was the biggest thing in the world for little Alabama to go to a Pac-12 school and beat them twice on their field. That was a huge deal.”

He also said that the realigned conferences put the remaining Pac-12 schools in a tough spot in trying to remain a Power 5 conference, which will eventually become known as the Power 4 conferences. Within the realignment, Stanford and Cal went to the ACC, which causes the schools to travel farther just for conference competition, and with playing three game series, that leaves the athletes struggling academically due to more missed classes.

Stanford is known for their academic prowess, but in recent years has been taking a step forward in the softball world. However, since athletes are now traveling across the country for routine competition, they’re seeing a downward trend in competition on the recruiting and competitive fronts.

NiJaree Canady, played at Stanford for two seasons before transferring to Texas Tech of the Big 12. Canady signed the first million-dollar softball NIL deal in her transfer to Texas Tech, where she led the Red Raiders to the WCWS Championship Series.

"My goal every year is to win the Women's College World Series, so that's my goal right now," Canady told ESPN after transferring. "I think there's a good young core coming in and a lot of good players from [University of] Louisiana. They're all studs, and they looked really good. To be able to compete in the Big 12 ... I think that will be fun."

Canady was the most dominant pitcher in 2025, posting a 1.11 ERA while dragging Texas Tech on a deep playoff run.

The Pac-12 was still running the sport in the years leading up to the conference realignment, with several deep postseason runs. In 2023, 3 of the 5 WCWS teams were members of the Pac-12. Stanford, Washington and Utah represented the Pac-12. In 2025, however, UCLA and Oregon were the only two former PAC-12 schools to make the WCWS, and no current PAC-12 team represented the current conference.

In 2024, when the realignment began, the SEC saw a notable increase in the strength of its schedule. The addition of Oklahoma and Texas made the SEC twice as difficult to conquer, and since these schools left the Big 12, it opened up spots for Pac-12 schools to move to the Big 12.

Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah went to the Big 12, and USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington went to the Big 10. The only remaining Pac-12 teams in the conference is Oregon State and Washington State.

End of Historic Softball Dynasties.

The Pac-12's decline brought down several dynasties in the process. Former Pac-12 teams Oregon and UCLA fell to the wayside in 2025, with sub-15 placement in the Strength of Schedule/RPI.

Oregon was 47, and UCLA was 17, and both have placed between 10 and 20 spots higher in ranking in the two previous seasons. While both teams advanced to the WCWS in 2025, they were eliminated by SEC teams.

In addition to the fall of Pac-12 dynasties, other conferences had taken a hit as well. Oklahoma State fell to the wayside after Oklahoma and Texas left the Big 12.

Oklahoma State’s main attraction to the top of the softball ladder was the in-state rivalry between Oklahoma and OSU.

In 2022, OSU faced Oklahoma in the Big 12 Conference Tournament final and took home the title of Big 12 Tournament Champion. The contest took eight innings to complete, and it was only Oklahoma’s second loss of the season.

In 2023 and 2024, the Pokes advanced to the WCWS again, which put them making it to the World Series in five consecutive seasons; however, since then, OSU has left the top conversations in the softball world.

In 2025, OSU finished the season over .500, but fell in the regional round to Arkansas. Having such polarizing finishes to the season in just year one of realignment shows how hard it has hit the teams that didn’t change conferences.

“For a lot of us, this year feels like a roller coaster, and I think we’re a lot closer than we think, but we’re all expecting perfection out of ourselves, and at this level, it’s not realistic,” OSU pitcher Ruby Meylan said after the 2025 selection show.

OSU wasn’t the only team affected by Oklahoma and Texas leaving the Big 12. The SEC was building a name for itself in the softball world, and it was already made stronger by the mere appearance of these two powerhouses.

Rise of the SEC

The SEC had been building itself for several years leading up to the conference realignment. In the five WCWS before realignment, no more than two SEC schools have made it each year, and only one year did none of the SEC schools compete in the WCWS tournament.

In each of those seasons, the SEC had no less than 12 of the 13 members represent the conference in the postseason.

It was already a tough schedule to play in the SEC with how many talented teams were in the conference, and since the SEC realignment simply added Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC was looking to be extremely dominant.

This is exactly what happened in 2025. In the four seasons, Oklahoma lost 15 total games. In 2025 alone, the Sooners lost nine games, proving the new SEC competition proved to be the tougher conference.

The Sooners won the 2023 National Championship, defeating Florida State University in a two game sweep.

Of their losses in 2025, Oklahoma lost seven games to SEC teams in the regular season, and six of those losses gave the series to the other team. The other two losses came in the postseason, and one of those was to Alabama, marking the third time the Sooners dropped to the Tide during the season.

Before the conferences merged, Oklahoma head coach Patty Gasso said that while she’s grateful for the opportunity to compete in the conference, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

Gasso said on SEC media day. “It’s another level at the SEC and softball is the No. 1 conference in the country. So to be part of that is an honor. But it's also going to be an extreme challenge. And I don't know that anybody can go through the conference undefeated, but you're gonna have to kind of go through and win at least two of three [every weekend].”

In addition to the increase in competition in the SEC, the money-game has worked wonders within the conference. NIL and the market that has been created within SEC softball will be hard to outmatch in the other conferences.

The SEC already runs the money-game in football and baseball, and now that softball has taken a rise in the media, the donors are running to the softball diamond as well.

In December 2025, two LSU softball players signed a deal with Nike. Utility players Jayden Heavener and Tori Edwards signed as a part of the Blue Ribbon Elite NIL initiative, along with eight other LSU athletes across other sports.

Nike rarely signs individual college athletes, and Nike signs college softball players even less. This has become huge for the NIL market in college and SEC softball as a whole.

Rise of a Dynasty

Along with the fall of the Pac-12, several dynasties emerged once the conferences changed. The biggest dynasty that emerged in 2025 was Texas Tech of the Big 12. With former Louisiana Lafayette head coach Gerry Glasco the Red Raiders became an extreme force to be reckoned with.

His number one priority was to get Canady to transfer, and once that was accomplished, the sky was the limit with his former ULL athletes. Five of his former players transferred with them, and they dominated this new conference and made a name for themselves.

Four of the five former Louisiana athletes found themselves in the starting lineup. Outfielder, Mihyia Davis, infielders Lauren Allred and Alexa Langeliers, and catcher Victoria Valdez made the switch from ULL to Texas Tech, and conquered the Big 12 in the process.

The only transfer who wasn’t a routine starter was LPH Chloe Riasetto. Riasetto only started 15 games in 2025, and pitched 98.1 innings. None of this is a drop in the bucket compared to what Canady did in the circle in 2025. Canady threw 240 innings and started 39 games.

Thanks to NIL and the transfer portal, the Red Raiders won their first ever Big 12 regular season and tournament titles and made their first WCWS and WCWS championship series appearances.

It was such a big feat for Texas Tech that it blindsided the softball world in a huge way. After the WCWS win over Oklahoma to end the Sooners' season, Canady said that they weren’t expected to win, and it led to them just playing their game and dominating in the process.

“I think people doubted us, didn’t think we’d get to this point,” Canady said. “I think we just didn’t have any pressure on us, just wanted to go play softball.”

Despite the loss the Red Raiders experienced in the WCWS finals, Glasco and staff jumped right back into the transfer portal and dominated there again for his second year in Lubbock.

Texas Tech picked up seven athletes from the transfer portal, three of whom were All American athletes. The dynasty is destined to grow into the 2026 season and year two of the new conferences.

But throughout conference realignment, there were two teams who remained dominant after the changes were made: Oklahoma and Texas.

The teams left unscathed

With all of the changes that were made in conference realignment, the Sooners and Longhorns grew with the introduction to new challenges. Both teams are historic dynasties in the softball world, and being introduced into the toughest conference in the modern softball world only made the programs stronger.

Despite the rough patch that Oklahoma experienced during SEC play, Oklahoma still won the conference. Despite the nine losses that broke the record of the four years prior, Gasso was still named the SEC Coach of the Year.

Even though Oklahoma didn’t win its fifth straight national championship, the Sooners still made it to the WCWS semifinal matchup, and were named the No. 2 national seed, and they’re going to come back stronger in 2026.

Gasso and staff jumped back into the transfer portal, hard, during the off season picking up two battle tested pitchers. Former LSU pitcher Sydney Berzon headed to tornado alley, and so did former Ole Miss pitcher Miali Guachino.

The team was young in 2025, and with the addition of veteran pitching, the sky is the limit for the 2026 Sooners.

Texas showed few signs of struggle throughout the 2025 season. The Longhorns tied for second in the SEC, and very notably finished the season on top of everyone, winning their first National Championship.

It appears that the SEC did more good than anything else for Texas. Eight of the 12 losses Texas suffered in 2025 were against SEC teams. Five of those losses totaled to two series losses in the toughest conference in the sport.

The consistent battle scars gained during 2025 paid off in the form of a national title, and that’s the sacrifice each SEC team values throughout the regular season.

"We've just gotten better through adversity," Texas pitcher Teagan Kavan said after the WCWS. "Just leaning into each other. From when I got here, the team was really close. But now, I think the team is even closer."

Through all of the messiness that the softball world experienced during conference realignment, the sport has been changed, and it is the new future of the game. Future generations of softball fans will know Texas Tech as the transfer capital of the softball world, and the days of the Pac-12 dominance will be long gone.

The days of watching Oklahoma and UCLA battle it out in the WCWS in a west coast-dominated tournament are gone. The southeast has made it a mission to buy into the next generation of softball, and the SEC will truly mean more than it ever has before.