(08-20-2016 06:22 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote: (08-20-2016 12:25 PM)vandiver49 Wrote: (08-20-2016 07:03 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: (08-20-2016 05:01 AM)vandiver49 Wrote: (08-19-2016 11:58 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote: I cannot imagine that any school would resent an SEC invite.
Texas, KU and OU would.
I disagree. Texas probably doesn't want to come, I buy that. I think OU and KU would be happy to be here.
You can't always go with what a handful of fans on particular message boards think. We fans tend to be demonstrative with what we think we know when in reality we have little fact to back up our position. The more knowledge on a topic we acquire, we realize that things aren't always so black and white. When you see a fan boy online spout off about "such and such school would never want to associate with those guys" then you can bank on that person not knowing what they're talking about. If nothing else, people with influence don't limit their own options. They're smarter than that. So when you see a leader express a certain position you generally notice it sounds vague, diplomatic, and short of concrete statements. That's by design.
That and regardless of what Boren would prefer or not, a decision that big will come down to what the BMDs and Trustees want. Boren's leadership has an expiration date.
Then let me clarify; some OU fans would be happy in the SEC along with some BMD. I think the admin of the university would consider the move a failure and downgrade. Yes, big cigars have influence along with season tix holders, but ultimately this is a decision is in Boren's hand. And his narrative is that any move would have athletic and academic benefits.
I don't think anybody but delusional Sooners think the SEC is a downgrade academically.
Yeah, I don't see any evidence the administration over there looks down upon the SEC. The only comment I've seen from Boren on the matter was that he was disappointed we didn't also offer Oklahoma State and Texas back in 2011. That would seem to indicate there was interest, but that OU wanted more regional partners before making a move like that. I don't blame them, but that's a far cry from saying "we don't want the SEC."
Unfortunately, there are a lot of fan boys out there that can't differentiate. According to some, OU told the SEC to go pound sand. That's not at all what happened.
For example, A&M and the SEC flirted back in the late 80s/early 90s. They didn't make a move though. We offered them in 2010 from what I understand and they decided to stick it out in the Big 12 and try to make it work. Low and behold they made the move only a year after that.
These things are complicated and there are varied interests involved. Sometimes a school would like to move to a certain league, but the circumstances just don't work out. Sometimes a school moves to a league that it wasn't really gunning for because the circumstances made it a good idea.
If nothing else, these leaders aren't dumb enough to burn bridges by saying "hey, we think you suck." If the SEC was received that way then they wouldn't bother pursuing the school again on grounds of principle. It's one of the reasons I don't believe that UT has ever shut the door in the SEC's face. I don't think the SEC is their first choice, mind you, but if UT didn't have any interest then we would see evidence of that from administrators. The UT admins would have said something to the effect of "we don't feel that SEC membership is in our long term interests." They'd leave it at that. All we see are arrogant posters on message boards voicing their own individual bias. I say that fully aware that I'm an arrogant poster on a message board with bias...lol.
As far as Boren goes, the B1G might be his first choice, I don't know. He's smart enough to know though that B1G membership will not turn OU into an academic powerhouse by association. That sort of progress has to be organic. The CIC is in no way a mechanism to make that happen. Some people don't understand that though. They've heard all the fluff and chest beating online and buy into it. They think going to the B1G will turn OU and by extension the state of Oklahoma into an economic giant. It simply doesn't work that way.
If it did then the B1G wouldn't be worried so much about athletics as they would be concerned with joining up with every academic giant in the country. They don't do that though. They are an athletic conference first and that's why they're interested in OU. The Presidents of the B1G schools are not about to share their most treasured resources with a university that is considered subpar by their standards. They aren't in the business of charity. The CIC is not an organization that elevates schools from one strata into another. It's a cooperative, nothing more. None of that is knock on OU, don't misunderstand. It's just that at the end of the day these athletic associations do actually focus on athletics.
What's best for the state is that their flagships maintain or increase exposure. Whether they do that in the SEC or the PAC is their decision to make, but OU leaving OSU behind won't get the job done.