If asked on a college entrance exam where San Diego is located geographically in the United States, most could answer that without much trouble.

Well, except for maybe those running college football conferences these days.

They’d fail. Miserably. They’d end up enrolling at McDonalds University.

The embattled Big East announced the addition of several schools to its conference Tuesday, and many of them are about as far away from the East as you can get.

San Diego State will join the Big

East. Well, I guess to those living in Maui, San Diego is “east.” See, it’s all a matter of perspective.The Big East also is adding SMU (not in the east), Boise State (definitely not in the east) and Houston (nope, not the east).It will add Navy, Air Force and the University of Central Florida, so the conference isn’t completely geographically challenged.Of course, nothing about the Conference Shuffle makes sense.Obviously, conference names will need to be altered.The Big East will have two schools, Connecticut and San Diego State, roughly 3,000 miles apart.Call it the Continental Conference.I’m sure that Huskie-Aztec rivalry will take off in no time. Nothing whips up a good backyard brawl like 3,000 miles of American landscape between you.Then you have the curious case of the Big Ten and the Big 12.As it is now, the Big Ten has 12 teams and the Big 12 has 10.Huh?So, we’ve already failed geography, now we’re getting a big ol’ fat F-minus in math.Two-for-two. McDonalds is looking better and better. Would you like fries with that conference championship?This lunacy is being caused by the thing that generally causes most bouts of insanity: money.Money. Money. Money.Once one domino fell and university presidents, boosters — and anyone else with a hand in a cookie jar — discovered how much more dough could be made by abandoning a conference’s ship faster than Jack Sparrow, more and more followed.What is left is a mess.Conferences with long traditions are being stripped while others are adding so many teams that schools with long rivalries may not play each other for years.It’s maddening.And it’s the sign of the times.I used to be a huge college football fan. Now, I can barely stand it.Between coaches switching jobs like Lady Gaga hair color, between player misconduct and NCAA violations, college football at the highest level has become one big mess.University presidents and athletic directors say it is still all about the student-athlete, but that statement is about as false as saying San Diego is in the east.