(05-08-2010 04:29 PM)EnterSandman Wrote:  My God, can you imagine a conference that looked like this.

Eastern Athletic Conference

North

Boston College
Connecticut
Notre Dame
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Syracuse

South

Cincinnati
Florida State
Louisville
Maryland
Miami (FL)
South Florida
West Virginia

I just died and went heaven.

If this isn't some April Fools Type joke then I'm ECSTATIC. Good god this would be amazing! An eastern conference for the east! I'd also want to see us try and get approval for a uni-division setup with the top two teams meeting in the championship game. Then you can do a 9 game conference schedule with 5 permanent rivals and 4 rotating amongst the other 8 every two years. Better of course would be the impossible to get 10 game schedule with 7 permanent rivals and 3 rotating amongst the other 6 every two years.

Edit: My first guess was right, dang.

(05-09-2010 07:26 AM)animus Wrote:  Funny thing is the main reason why the token Ohio St fan had the idea to have a thread like this was to fool Dennis Dodd, and other pundits that seem to be reading these boards. Not saying they do, either.

I don't think they read these boards specifically. I was just thinking about how rumors spread really. I didn't flesh it out in that post as it was just kind of a passing thought, but my whole thought was that if we talked long enough about something that seemed somewhat possible, even if we started the thread by saying this is completely bogus and just a what if scenario, it would spread to other boards and the facts would change to it being in the works rather than just speculation.

Example: We could speculate on a scenario, maybe a scenario where Maryland is now the Big Ten top choice and they only want to go to 12. We start a topic by saying this is only speculation and not even a rumor, but talk about how this would effect the Big Ten (divisions), Big East (maybe Boston College is more open to coming back), ACC (who do they replace them with), whether the PAC-10 and Big 12 would form an alliance still, etc. We talk about that for 2 or 3 pages and then it spreads to other message boards and at some point it starts getting reported as something that is really going on rather than just idle speculation from this board. From there, it starts spreading quickly and is being talked about enough that newspapers start to talk about it and then ESPN. I don't know if that would happen, but my guess is that it has happened just like that in the past though many times.

Think about the Texas rumors from earlier. Frank made an excellent analysis of why they would be interested in the Big Ten and vice versa. That's all it took and the message spread around like wildfire to conference and team message boards all over the place without any evidence that the Big Ten was actually going to consider that route. Eventually newspapers reported talks and it made it to ESPN. While the Big Ten probably informally talked to Texas at some point, we still don't know for sure that they did and even if they did, we don't know if the newspapers reports actually came from those discussions or were just bogus and just happened to guess right. Texas could have easily made it clear they aren't interested 5 years ago and the conference may not have even approached them this time, but because of the way the internet works, the rumors could have easily spread anyway.

Villecard...its who I've been getting updates from and passing on to you.....won't be at softball tuesday, so by next tuesday it could be old news :)

(05-09-2010 12:36 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(05-09-2010 07:26 AM)animus Wrote:  Funny thing is the main reason why the token Ohio St fan had the idea to have a thread like this was to fool Dennis Dodd, and other pundits that seem to be reading these boards. Not saying they do, either.

I don't think they read these boards specifically. I was just thinking about how rumors spread really. I didn't flesh it out in that post as it was just kind of a passing thought, but my whole thought was that if we talked long enough about something that seemed somewhat possible, even if we started the thread by saying this is completely bogus and just a what if scenario, it would spread to other boards and the facts would change to it being in the works rather than just speculation.

Example: We could speculate on a scenario, maybe a scenario where Maryland is now the Big Ten top choice and they only want to go to 12. We start a topic by saying this is only speculation and not even a rumor, but talk about how this would effect the Big Ten (divisions), Big East (maybe Boston College is more open to coming back), ACC (who do they replace them with), whether the PAC-10 and Big 12 would form an alliance still, etc. We talk about that for 2 or 3 pages and then it spreads to other message boards and at some point it starts getting reported as something that is really going on rather than just idle speculation from this board. From there, it starts spreading quickly and is being talked about enough that newspapers start to talk about it and then ESPN. I don't know if that would happen, but my guess is that it has happened just like that in the past though many times.

Think about the Texas rumors from earlier. Frank made an excellent analysis of why they would be interested in the Big Ten and vice versa. That's all it took and the message spread around like wildfire to conference and team message boards all over the place without any evidence that the Big Ten was actually going to consider that route. Eventually newspapers reported talks and it made it to ESPN. While the Big Ten probably informally talked to Texas at some point, we still don't know for sure that they did and even if they did, we don't know if the newspapers reports actually came from those discussions or were just bogus and just happened to guess right. Texas could have easily made it clear they aren't interested 5 years ago and the conference may not have even approached them this time, but because of the way the internet works, the rumors could have easily spread anyway.

I'll be honest... This false rumor I made up made it to atleast 3 boards yesterday... Loiusville, Memphis, and WVU... I think if I CardinalJim didn't expose the rumor, it could've spread a little further until it was finally found out that I was having some Saturday fun.... Gotta give Jim some credit for reading around... If it smells like BS, its most likely BS.

(05-09-2010 08:59 PM)animus Wrote:  

(05-09-2010 12:36 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(05-09-2010 07:26 AM)animus Wrote:  Funny thing is the main reason why the token Ohio St fan had the idea to have a thread like this was to fool Dennis Dodd, and other pundits that seem to be reading these boards. Not saying they do, either.

I don't think they read these boards specifically. I was just thinking about how rumors spread really. I didn't flesh it out in that post as it was just kind of a passing thought, but my whole thought was that if we talked long enough about something that seemed somewhat possible, even if we started the thread by saying this is completely bogus and just a what if scenario, it would spread to other boards and the facts would change to it being in the works rather than just speculation.

Example: We could speculate on a scenario, maybe a scenario where Maryland is now the Big Ten top choice and they only want to go to 12. We start a topic by saying this is only speculation and not even a rumor, but talk about how this would effect the Big Ten (divisions), Big East (maybe Boston College is more open to coming back), ACC (who do they replace them with), whether the PAC-10 and Big 12 would form an alliance still, etc. We talk about that for 2 or 3 pages and then it spreads to other message boards and at some point it starts getting reported as something that is really going on rather than just idle speculation from this board. From there, it starts spreading quickly and is being talked about enough that newspapers start to talk about it and then ESPN. I don't know if that would happen, but my guess is that it has happened just like that in the past though many times.

Think about the Texas rumors from earlier. Frank made an excellent analysis of why they would be interested in the Big Ten and vice versa. That's all it took and the message spread around like wildfire to conference and team message boards all over the place without any evidence that the Big Ten was actually going to consider that route. Eventually newspapers reported talks and it made it to ESPN. While the Big Ten probably informally talked to Texas at some point, we still don't know for sure that they did and even if they did, we don't know if the newspapers reports actually came from those discussions or were just bogus and just happened to guess right. Texas could have easily made it clear they aren't interested 5 years ago and the conference may not have even approached them this time, but because of the way the internet works, the rumors could have easily spread anyway.

I'll be honest... This false rumor I made up made it to atleast 3 boards yesterday... Loiusville, Memphis, and WVU... I think if I CardinalJim didn't expose the rumor, it could've spread a little further until it was finally found out that I was having some Saturday fun.... Gotta give Jim some credit for reading around... If it smells like BS, its most likely BS.

I was glad that the little bit that I contributed to your experiment also got picked up (the PSU and ND angle). Definitely saw some chapped asses over the weekend when it was exposed. I couldn't resist when I read late Friday that you were cooking this rumor up. Too bad it got squashed by killjoy Jim....

Impressive guys. I have to admit that I thought this one was a little too far fetched, given the state of things, to spread much at all, but I obviously was mistaken (and who knows if it's done even yet). Makes me question even more the 16 team Big Ten scenario just when I had finally started to put a little stock in the rumors.