Been working on an analysis of conference realignment and how it impacts college football performance.
From 2004 (Miami, VT) to 2014 (Rutgers, MD, L'ville) - 15 schools have changed from 1 'power' conference to another.
I looked at their overall and conference records for the time period post the move to the same period of time pre-move.
Of those 15 schools, only 1 - Texas A&M, has won significantly more games since the move 11.3 percentage points overall and 6.2 percentage points in conference games.
8 of the 15 schools have seen their overall and/or conference winning percentages drop by more than 10 percentage points.
The other 6 programs have seen smaller changes (mostly slightly negative)
IMO alot of it simply has to do with how you compare financially in your new conference to your old one. Even with the new TV money, MD and Rutgers have the 2 lowest athletic revenues in the B1G. Neb is 9th out of 14.
If you move to a new conference - in many ways you are handicapped by being farther behind the better programs in revenue than your previous conference. If GT was to move from the ACC to B1G and get a full share (which is not likely given recent conference move outcomes) then GT would go from being around $11M/yr below the avg revenue in their conference to around $27M/yr below the avg revenue in their conference and be roughly $125M below the highest revenue team compared to $55M now.
Note the one school to win significantly more games, Texas A&M, is one of the richer programs in the country - 7th largest revenue. It was uniquely suited to making a move - few other programs really are.
FWIW, here are the changes in winning percentages for the 15 programs.
Team (overall winning percentage - new, old, change), (conference winning percentage - new, old, change)
Rutgers (32.8%, 63.0%, -30.3%), (18.2%, 48.6%, -30.4%)
Miami (59.2%, 83.1%, -23.9%,), (55.3%, 86.7%, -31.5%)
TCU (60.5%, 79.3%, -18.8%), (54.6%, 79.8%, -25.2%)
Neb (50.3%, 68.5%, -18.1%), (45.0%, 62.5%, -17.5%)
WVU (54.7%, 69.5%, -14.8%), (49.5%, 68.7%, -19.1%)
Col (33.8%, 48.4%, -14.7%), (25.0%, 48.1%, -23.1%)
L'ville (57.1%, 67.7%, -10.6%), (53.7%, 61.1%, -7.5%)
Utah (64.2%, 70.9%, -6.7%), (57.5%, 69.4%, -11.9%)
Pitt (55.3%, 58.0%, -2.7%), (55.6%, 59.2%, -3.7%)
Missou (56.7%, 58.7%, -2.0%), (48.0%, 50.5%, -2.6%)
Maryland (44.4%, 46.3%, -1.9%), (32.1%, 37.5%, -5.4%)
BC (52.3%, 52.9%, -0.6%), (44.2%, 49.5%, -5.3%)
VT (63.8%, 63.5%, +0.3%), (64.6%, 68.7%, -4.1%)
Syracuse (41.8%, 38.3%, +3.4%), (31.1%, 28.9%, +2.2%)
Texas A&M (64.7%, 53.4%, +11.3%), (53.6%, 47.4%, +6.2%)
None of this means that if one of the P2 come calling you should automatically turn them down, it does mean you really need to think about what you want your sports programs accomplishing and what your goals are. If your goals are to maximize football wins than it is likely not a good move. The odds are significant you are going to win fewer games in the new conference.
If it is to increase revenue than it is a good move, but you are playing in a new neighborhood where your new neighbors are spending way more than you are compared to your old neighborhood.