The financial security that comes with a tougher conference also means fewer trips to New Year's bowls.
News broke in December that West Virginia considered firing Dana Holgorsen, despite the Mountaineers having an entirely reasonable season.
The advanced stats projected WVU to win six to eight games, and Vegas set a line indicating seven wins were more likely than eight. West Virginia went 7-5 and had to face Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor and TCU in a row before three of those teams were decimated by quarterback injuries.
By leaving the Big East for the Big 12 in 2012, West Virginia gained program certainty during a tumultuous time in college football.
But it came at a price: Losses. In its first four Big 12 seasons, West Virginia is winning conference games at a .417 clip. In its final four in the Big East, it won .833.
The main reason West Virginia is winning conference games half as often isn't the quality of WVU's teams, but the massive upgrade in competition.
But the Mountaineers aren't alone.
I examined the 10 teams to jump up to Power 5 leagues over the last decade or so. The Big East was a BCS league, but began losing so many members that its status felt tenuous. It evolved into the American, a current non-power.
Seven saw their winning percentages drop significantly, on the whole by an average of -.220 in a comparison between time in new league and the equivalent time in the former.
That's effectively the difference between going 23-9 and 16-16 over four-year conference schedules, or between contending annually and contending every few years.
There are many factors that contribute to a team losing games, but this shows a clear increase in challenge, one that might be undervalued by athletic directors who want the bigger revenue offered by bigger leagues, but also don't want their coaches losing more games.
Conferences like to add teams that are peaking.
Looking at the data, one thing I realized is that teams who jump up are typically doing better than usual. That seems obvious, since conferences are not looking to add sinking programs, but it's partly about recent production vs. long-term quality.
That means the chance these teams improve on the field as a result of a coach or administrative change is far outweighed by the chance they screw up the next hire. Miami, for instance, went from Butch Davis to Larry Coker with Davis' recruits, to Randy Shannon to Al Golden.
Teams entering the ACC in 2004 or 2005 (Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College) sure had it sweet. Florida State was captained by a rapidly declining Bobby Bowden, and Clemson did not have its act together. While Miami made some questionable coaching hires, this further allowed Virginia Tech (.792) and Boston College (.650) to flourish at what now seem like unsustainable clips.
Pitt, which joined a stronger ACC, seems to be a notable exception to all of the above. Yes, the Panthers have seen their conference winning percentage fall, but it's a slight fall, and can largely be attributed to the fact that Pitt's coaching situation was a mess from 2010-12, during which it had four head coaches.
But patience can be rewarded.
TCU and Utah show some teams can rise to their new levels of competition. While the Horned Frogs and Utes have a ton more losses in their new leagues than they did over a similar period in the Mountain West, they have turned things around. TCU started out Big 12 play 6-12 but is since 15-3 with a Peach Bowl win, while Utah began 9-18 in the Pac-12, but is since 11-7 with a big win at Oregon. Neither made a head coaching change or other similar drastic move.
In WVU's case, Holgorsen should return almost his entire offense in 2016 and appears to have a decent defensive coaching staff.
Athletic directors who make hasty changes after upgrading competition do so at their own peril. Learning a new league is tough, and there might be something to the idea that it can take a bit to understand personnel and tendencies of the other league members. Coaches who have been in a league for a while have an advantage in that they know at least a bit about much of the personnel on other teams, having evaluated them as recruits.
Oh, and it definitely takes time to realize any recruiting bump associated from making the jump to a more prestigious conference, if one is to be had.