RE: Great Talk About B12 Expanison from Chip Brown
The invites of Rutgers to the Big 10, Boston College to the ACC, Colorado to the PAC 12, examples abound of schools being invited for reasons other than earning it on the field. The Big 12 commissioner has been pretty clear that strength of football program at the current moment will have relatively little to do with it. If your school is doing well at this moment in time in football, naturally you want to believe with all your might that because of this you will get the invite. Sports media types also believe it ought to be this way, and therefore immediately apply it as their primary arbiter of who ought to be the leaders in this race. Football coaches and athletics administrators too.
Despite all of this noise, I think my Tulane Greenies have a great shot. Sports Illustrated's lead journalist reporting on this process agrees, as do others with close connections to Bowlsby, and others relatively close to the presidents of OU and UT (based on reports from sources at Tulane close to our leadership).
Relatively speaking, none of our programs has elevated to be a head and shoulders choice in football. Your school's academic profile, and its geographic distance (and associated travel cost for multiple sports) are going to be huge.
Academic profile is going to make things really tough for Memphis, regardless of FedEx support. As others have noted, they make it impossible for Boise St. to get in; this is the Big 12, not a desparate MWC we're talking about.
Geographic distance is going to make things really tough for UConn and BYU. Cincinnati would have the same problem, but West Virginia is likely lobbying hard for them and their geographic proximity. If they get in, I don't think there is any way UCF also gets in. They're not going to stretch the conference that far geographically. The Big 12 knows inviting W. Virginia was not a wise move, geographically it is a nightmare for them.
Colorado St. has a great shot, a natural replacement for Colorado / Nebraska for the northern Big 12 teams. Solid academics.
Houston checks all of the boxes that I think are really important, they are the best geographic fit, their academics are solid. They are a 5th Texas team, but if the conference goes to 14, I don't think it's as big a deal for there to be 5 Texas teams. Schools in Oklahoma and Kansas need the geographic proximity of Texas almost as much as the existing Texas schools.
Tulane is by far the most attractive candidate academically. It isn't close. Geographically it is a natural progression for the Big 12. The school has invested over $110m in facilities the past 3 years. The board, the president and the new AD are doing all the right things to demonstrate commitment to athletics. Our AD was the successor to Bowlsby at Northern Iowa, they couldn't have a closer relationship.
I think it winds up Cincinnati, Colorado St, Houston and Tulane. Just my opinion. The SEC didn't venture very far geographically, nor the ACC. There are reasons for that.
|
/
Great Talk About B12 Expanison from Chip Brown
