(12-30-2016 12:17 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote: The ONLY way Oklahoma State ever joins the SEC, in my opinion, is if OU is already headed to another conference. If the SEC has a choice, they take OU, hands down. I don't see them - or any other power conference - ever taking both.
The ideal football combo would be Texas + OU.
There are other interesting combos, such as
OU + Kansas
Texas + West Virginia
Even Texas + Texas Tech
"Only" is a strong word here HM. No doubt if Texas showed interest we would. I think if the SEC offered both OU and OSU it would cause Texas to seriously evaluate what they wanted to do. Most of their significant and historical rivalries would be in the SEC if OU & OSU started moving toward acceptance (Arkansas, Oklahoma, A&M). Throw in a potential rivalry with L.S.U. and Ole Miss both of which Texas has scheduled in the past and O.S.U. and Missouri that they are accustomed to playing and they would have an awful lot to think about.
To me the question would be, "Is the offer to both OU and OSU an initial offer designed to prompt offers to either Texas and Kansas or Texas and Texas Tech?"
Geographically speaking three six team divisions with a ten game conference schedule would also solve many geographical issues in the SEC and would make a niche that Texas would be amenable toward.
Arkansas, (Kansas or Texas Tech), Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas
That makes for one heckuva division while leaving this:
Alabama, Auburn, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt.
Obviously that wouldn't solve much with the East, but that's where everything else being suggested right now comes into play.
Remember "autonomy" has been granted and with expansion both the Big 10 and SEC (as encouraged by the networks) could get behind the use of autonomy to permit each conference to structure itself as it sees fit. This certainly would suit what the ACC was requesting a year or so ago. If those three are for it, it wouldn't matter what the PAC thought, although I imagine they would like that control as well.
Also, the concept of having the G5 become a G4 and structure their own playoff (a good idea for them I think) would indicate a stronger push for more "P" games which with expansion could come out of the new conference structures. For instance if we moved toward having 10 conference games it would allow for a larger expansion of our present conference structures and still permit the accommodation of our threatened rivalries.
Using the SEC divisional structure I just laid out we could play our 5 divisional games. Rotate 2 each from each of the other divisions and keep one permanent rival as we do now. And that is assuming we even keep divisions. We may well move toward playing a core of a few games and rotating everyone else.
Now I've said all of that to suggest this. If we move to a P4, particularly if that were to be a champs only move for the CFP, then athletic departments will be less fearful of that extra loss to another power school, since they would no longer be playing the beauty pageant game and each school would control its own destiny on field. Balancing the schedules within the conference would become the new game, not finding three gimme wins on each schedule to get more bowl revenue at the end of the season (which has led to the crappy bowl games we have today and which has been used to relegate G5 schools further down the pay scale).
So, my previous post about offering OU and OSU stands for a few reasons. First if the Big 12 has the only available product, and it sure looks that way, taking two of the top 4 revenue producers who just happen to give you a higher % of a large market isn't illogical. Second, who else could we take if say Kansas decides to go Big 10? WVU is a fine school but they don't pay their way into the SEC at 40 plus million a year in TV revenue and they are not the national brand that OU is. Third do you really believe that the SEC would leave a top 7 revenue producing national brand on the table because we didn't want to take the best choice in the Big 12 outside of Kansas and Texas? Fourth, it might be that we are up to something bigger, at the behest of the Mouse.
People seem to forget from time to time that the networks are also in a struggle to acquire the product they deem worthy. So do you think that ESPN would simply let the SEC refuse OSU with OU so that OU feels compelled to go either to the PAC where ESPN/FOX merely leases product and owns zero percentage of its rights, or to the Big 10 where FOX would likely garner two of the top 3 brands from the Big 12 and possibly gain a viable lure for Texas as well?
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Rumor: OK/OK State to SEC?
