If everything is going to be driven by TV money and regional rivalries are deprioritized, then I think you're on the right track. I'd prefer to see a promotion/relegation premier league for college football: the "premier league" could be a separate annual entity of the top-10 teams each season where they get to leave two open schedule slots for historic rivals. Teams 8-10 get "relegated" at the end of the season for teams 11-13. Winning a New Years 6 bowl guarantees your inclusion into the "premier league" for the next season, regardless of end-of-season polls. This would allow the big boys to play in their super league while the historic, regional conferences stay intact and have a chance of sending new teams to the "premier league" each year.
Once again, the world would be a lot better if I was in charge. I think it also opens up wiggle room for other sports. The UMD-UVA rivalry in lacrosse and baseball is really big. But because of football UMD moved. There's already schools that play all their sports in one conference and football in another (Fordham and Richmond play in the Atlantic-10 for everything except football because not all A10 schools offer it).
It's funny to see how smoothly the USC/UCLA move has gone. Rumors one afternoon; announced later in the day; move date already announced and takes place 2 years later. As opposed to the TX/OU "who knows when we'll leave?" mess.
Well both groups are saying they’ll leave once their current tv deals are up. Big 12’s is just further out speculating they’d try to get out earlier. But think this also confirms previous posts about the PAC in general. The overall reaction by the media, conference members and A&M was much bigger (and def more entertaining).
Right - but that's the difference. UT/OU got into a b****fest with the B12, there's tons of animosity, etc. There was no particular plan in place, so they are just winging it and figuring it out as they go. USC/UCLA waited until there was a clean break and as a result have no drama. The vote by the B10 was also the same day and unanimous. In UT/OU's case, there was controversy; A&M b****ed publicly about it; there was questions about how the vote would go; etc. At this point, if you're the B12 and Pac12, the smartest decision might be just to merge and form a monster mega-conference covering the western half of the US, instead of waiting to slowly bleed out.
They may be classified as such internally if I understand. Even before NIL, scholarship athletes (at least at UGA) got a small stipend. Similar to being a TA as a grad student
To be fair, there's no rival school in the B1G that stands to lose as much as A&M did with Texas joining the SEC. A&M basically had exclusive Texas recruiting rights within the conference and didn't want to share them. USC and UCLA aren't encroaching on Michigan or Ohio in the same way.
Yeah - but the move apparently caught A&M by surprise. That's all I'm talking about - how smoothly the B10 move was handled. Everything was done quietly behind the scenes before anything leaked / got announced.
Oh there is no doubt that A&M was deliberately kept in the dark. Smart move given the temper tantrum they threw when it got leaked. Personally I don’t think the move was that much of a “mess” rather than a bunch of people publicly b****ing. It being leaked during media days didn’t help either.
My $0.02 best moves- Big 12 - There’s no incentive to take Oregon State and Washington State who are Pac 12 bottom feeders (unless the state institutions are tied together). Add Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah and become the Big 16. Pac 12 - Adding Boise State and San Diego State to get back to 12 is futile if the Big Ten and Big 12 are going to poach your best schools. The TV money is gone. Big Ten - Can’t leave USC and UCLA on an island in the long term. Add Oregon and Washington, and if Notre Dame commits, Stanford to have an even 20. Mountain West - Poach the remaining Pac 12 who get left out - Cal, Oregon State, and Washington State. I don’t believe the Pac 12 will be able to retain its “power” status and seat at the big boy table, The Power 5 will become 4 in the next playoffs.
A&M would veto Texas out of spite and vice versa. I’m glad better heads prevailed. It makes so much sense for Texas and OU to join the SEC and for Texans there’s nothing better than Thanksgiving football.
Who knows what information is real at this point. I'm skeptical W/O don't both end up in the big 10. They just fit the MO of the conference too well. However, I'm unsure as to their value and if adding them would mean every big 10 team taking less money which is probably a non-starter.
I wouldn't count the pac 12 out yet. If the new conference head actually does understand modern media and if is currently in an exclusive negotiation window with Fox/ESPN before moving on to the Tech platforms then he might be able to take his best shot on raiding the big 12. Unsure what number big 12 teams would have to see to consider leaving. I would guess the value add from the pac 12 would mean expanding the market reach east. My guess is TCU, TT, Ok St, Kansas and maybe Kansas St but that might not be adding much. The point is he is going to have a list of teams relatively soon that he could add to the conference to maximize its value. It's possible it's a number high enough that sitting big 12 teams feel ok not holding out to see how much the next big 12 deal will be.
The league is having “serious” talks with six Pac-12 schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington — and is determined to move quickly, sources told The Athletic. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, hired just last week, has been described as “super aggressive” by one source and has the backing of the Big 12 presidents and chancellors to pursue the addition of Pac-12 members. It’s unclear just how quickly the Big 12 could get a deal done on its expansion efforts, but those sources expressed optimism that Yormark can pull it off. CBS Sports first reported the Big 12 was in discussions about adding multiple Pac-12 schools. The aspirations of Oregon and Washington are more difficult to predict right now. For both, it likely makes sense to keep their options open and hold out for the possibility of joining the Big Ten or SEC. The Big 12 would take those first four, but an effort to bring in all six is certainly worth attempting. … One option that is worth exploring, the source said, is some sort of partnership between the Pac-12 and the ACC. (Just don’t call it an “alliance,” please.) Both leagues need a boost, because they’re both about to fall way behind the SEC and Big Ten in terms of annual revenue. The ACC is stuck in a media rights deal that essentially depreciates in value and doesn’t expire until 2036 — would a deal with the Pac-12 allow the ACC to renegotiate such a (bad) deal? It’s a question that administrators across the country are asking. … A former Pac-12 administrator put it in simple terms Tuesday: Oregon and Washington trump anything that the Big 12 can offer. That’s worth remembering in all of this, as the Big 12 and its new, uninhibited commissioner look to punch first and annex a portion of what’s left of the Pac-12. While it’s unclear what the Ducks and Huskies may do — and what real options they have at the moment — it is safe to say that those two programs, more than anyone else, have control over the fate of the Pac-12 right now. … What will Notre Dame do? And, perhaps as importantly, what will North Carolina do? Don’t underestimate the power of the Tar Heels in all of this. While things have been relatively quiet in ACC country since the UCLA and USC news last week, UNC remains the biggest prize not named Notre Dame. It is a national brand — what other school has a shade of blue named after it? — with a sterling academic reputation. And it is the flagship school of the nation’s 10th-biggest state in terms of population — one that happens to be the biggest remaining state that is not currently in the Big Ten or SEC footprint. Either of the “Power Two” conferences can make legitimate cases for why it should add UNC. Its former chancellor (Carol Folt) is now the president of USC, the newest member of the Big Ten, which used to be run by a former Tar Heels point guard named Jim Delany. The SEC, meanwhile, could view the potential addition of the school as the perfect response to the Big Ten’s move last week, while also doing little to upset the current league membership. The assumption has long been that if schools were able to leave the ACC — that conference’s grant of rights remains a thorny issue — and the SEC was interested in further expansion, the obvious candidates would be Clemson and Florida State, which have combined to win six football national titles since 1981 and three since 2013. But North Carolina is held in high regard in certain quarters of the SEC. So is Virginia, which on its face would seem a better fit for the Big Ten. UVA is the flagship university in the next-largest state that contains neither a Big Ten nor SEC school. And that could make it valuable to both leagues. If a package deal were required to convince North Carolina to spurn the Big Ten (where it would fit quite well), then perhaps the SEC could try to add a mix of brand power, football success and academic prestige while also filling in its region’s map. Adding all four would bring the SEC’s future membership to 20, which would have sounded absurd a year ago. But nothing seems absurd now.
If I'm a PAC program not named Washington or Oregon, you have to be thinking that you don't want to be left holding the bag once those two leave (and they will leave). When change is inevitable, it's best to undertake it, rather than have it undertake you. If Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State strike first and pre-emptively leave for the Big 12, that lets a lot of air out of Oregon/Washington's balloon... as those two will be left in a conference of 6 trying to stay afloat by backfilling with MWC teams and dangling on the line waiting for Notre Dame to make up their mind. The cynic in me says that Notre Dame will decline the B1G invite and everything will end here, and then next offseason we go through the same song and dance again until finally the OU/UW exodus happens and the PAC for all intents and purposes ceases to exist as a power conference. The game theory behind all of this is fascinating. In the absence of a central governing authority, the conferences are effectively self-selecting into tiers/divisions based on revenue. The SEC/B1G may as well have their own title game between them and call it good, while the two conferences that survive out of the ACC/PAC/B12 group may end up with their own. Then you have the AAC/CUSA/MWC/MAC/Sunbelt off in their own world too.
The only reason I think Notre Dame might finally give in is that they might be frozen out of any future Playoff seeding if they remain independent. If every other school is consolidating into super conferences, they can just create their own new Playoff and tell Notre Dame that unaffiliated schools aren't allowed to participate. Notre Dame wants to compete for national championships, not play Mountain West schools in meaningless bowl games.
