https://twitter.com/GSwaim/status/1186715503894642688

VERY interesting rumors circulating at #Big12 Media Days about #SunDevils and #BearDown dumping the #Pac12 for the Central Time Zone games for more national exposure. Stay tuned for much more conference realignment as we get closer to TV renegotiations.

Arizona is also dumping the pacific for the central in the nhl next year.

Oh this guy again. The Dud of WVU twin brother .

I don’t believe it. Arizona and Arizona State will not dump their California connection for Texas exposure. Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri have a better chance of going back to the Big XII than the Arizona schools dumping the Pac-12. Neither one is happening.

(10-23-2019 12:05 AM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  I don’t believe it. Arizona and Arizona State will not dump their California connection for Texas exposure. Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri have a better chance of going back to the Big XII than the Arizona schools dumping the Pac-12. Neither one is happening.

I agree they would want to keep a connection to California. But that could be achieved by USC coming along with them.

Of course it's a stretch but I don't think this is completely out of the realm of possibility. It would put the three Pac 12 schools into a stronger football conference with larger per-member cash distributions. And if the Big 12 could somehow find a way to offload geographic outlier WVU, the travel impact of the move for the Arizona schools would basically be a wash, as demonstrated below.

Distance from Tucson to:
Seattle, WA 1219 miles
Corvallis, OR 1079 miles
Pullman, WA 1055 miles
Eugene, OR 1047 miles
Berkeley, CA 748 miles
Palo Alto, CA 728 miles
Denver, CO 617 miles
Salt Lake City, UT 592 miles
Los Angeles, CA 439 miles
TOTAL 7524 miles

Distance from Tucson to:
Ames, IA 1168 miles
Lawrence, KS 998 miles
Manhattan, KS 939 miles
Stillwater, OK 839 miles
Waco, TX 812 miles
Norman, OK 804 miles
Fort Worth, TX 795 miles
Austin, TX 793 miles
Lubbock, TX 537 miles
TOTAL 7685 miles

The travel impact on USC would be a little greater, but I think trading conference rivalries with UCLA and Oregon for conference rivalries with Oklahoma and Texas would be pretty appealing to the Trojans.

He’s the one circulating the rumors. Come clean, Swaim.

I believe the PAC is fragile right now, but it’s fixable. The repair solution? Big XII schools who move on from that conference.

I also think something works itself out between the B1G and PAC. Let time and different personalities work out the kinks of scheduling football commitments. Too many schools were game for this in the PAC to let it die. You simply can’t force the PAC schools to move fast, and the B1G overreached.

I do believe there are some unhappy schools in the PAC, and the Zona’s are low-hanging fruit. We’ve never really gotten real “shots fired” from them at their source pains. Some cheap shots at the conference, but, let’s be real...if they’re really done with this, let them take shots at the California schools where the PAC universe revolves.

The problem with Swaim is that he predicted Louisville to the ACC before anybody else (including most UofL fans) thought it was even possible. I still think he was just doing it for the views, since he reported it before Maryland bolted for the B1G. But still, that taught me not to discount anything too quickly or too completely.

Well, AZ fits the culture of the Big 12 better than the PAC 12.

The way California has been acting lately would give me pause with the ties with Cali.

I don't think it moves the needle too much. The only thing it would do is weaken a competitor by a significant margin, but UCF USF wouldn't be much of a downgrade over a ASU AU combo because there is more room for growth in Fla than in Zona.

For the kill shot, you have to grab a California pair like a USC and UCLA. Not gonna happen. I don't think the P5 wants one conference to get too powerful or way ahead. SEC is already there but the B1G still balances things out somewhat. At some point, balance is good, otherwise college football succumbs to even more regional bias. SEC/B1G raiding Texas, or Big 12 raiding Cali would tip the scales too far.

This will never happen.

(10-23-2019 05:26 AM)TuckerGnat Wrote:  The problem with Swaim is that he predicted Louisville to the ACC before anybody else (including most UofL fans) thought it was even possible. I still think he was just doing it for the views, since he reported it before Maryland bolted for the B1G. But still, that taught me not to discount anything too quickly or too completely.

While Swaim did predict UofL to join The ACC, his prediction was Louisville would be backfilling for Clemson and Florida State that would jump to The Big 12.

Honestly Swaim predicts so many things, it’s not very hard to claim credit. It’s more of a quantity over quality thing with his predictions.

(10-23-2019 08:55 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(10-23-2019 05:26 AM)TuckerGnat Wrote:  The problem with Swaim is that he predicted Louisville to the ACC before anybody else (including most UofL fans) thought it was even possible. I still think he was just doing it for the views, since he reported it before Maryland bolted for the B1G. But still, that taught me not to discount anything too quickly or too completely.

While Swaim did predict UofL to join The ACC, his prediction was Louisville would be backfilling for Clemson and Florida State that would jump to The Big 12.

Honestly Swaim predicts so many things, it’s not very hard to claim credit. It’s more of a quantity over quality thing with his predictions.

Good point. Most of these guys predict a thousand things, then forever point to the one thing that turned out to be right as evidence of their "credibility".

(10-23-2019 08:55 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(10-23-2019 05:26 AM)TuckerGnat Wrote:  The problem with Swaim is that he predicted Louisville to the ACC before anybody else (including most UofL fans) thought it was even possible. I still think he was just doing it for the views, since he reported it before Maryland bolted for the B1G. But still, that taught me not to discount anything too quickly or too completely.

While Swaim did predict UofL to join The ACC, his prediction was Louisville would be backfilling for Clemson and Florida State that would jump to The Big 12.

Honestly Swaim predicts so many things, it’s not very hard to claim credit. It’s more of a quantity over quality thing with his predictions.

I agree that it truly wasn't possible at the time he predicted it. But I also have to admit that it causes me to be more interested in him than his predictions perhaps warrant.

(10-23-2019 07:19 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Well, AZ fits the culture of the Big 12 better than the PAC 12.

The way California has been acting lately would give me pause with the ties with Cali.

Not really. Maybe Austin. Arizona is highly dependent on being a back-office/distribution center Arizona’s economy is heavily centered west.

If anything, Arizona has more in common with B1G

(10-23-2019 07:19 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Well, AZ fits the culture of the Big 12 better than the PAC 12.

The way California has been acting lately would give me pause with the ties with Cali.

While I agree with you that California has gone nuts, nevertheless, as someone who has spent a lot of time in Phoenix, I can assure you that the identification there is far, far greater with California and the west coast than with Texas.

Texas has a very strong pull in eastern New Mexico, up to about the middle of the state. But once you get to Albuquerque and to the north and the mountains of Ruidoso in the center and south, it's basically gone.

The culture of Tucson (my wife lived there for years, we visit often) is much, much closer to California than Oklahoma.

I predict no one has a clue what is going to happen. I still believe the pay for play will impact things far more than anyone can comprehend at this time.

I’m just thankful we’ll have some possible realignment to talk about the next few years that doesn’t involve The ACC.

I've said this before:

The Big 12 schools may like their money, but they hate their conference.

In contrast, the Pac-12 schools may not like their money, but they love their conference.

Here's the massive difference in long-term risk: the Pac-12 could lose both USC and UCLA (and even a couple of more schools) and it would *still* be clearly a power conference. They are a well-balanced league with multiple flagship and top tier academic schools in major fast-growing markets. In contrast, the Big 12 losing Texas and Oklahoma would kill that league in terms of power status. You could say the same about all of the other power conferences: they could lose their two (or even four) most valuable programs and still retain power status. That definitely cannot be said for the Big 12, which is why that league has zero conference realignment poaching power over the rest of the Power Five.

The Pac-12 is like a well-balanced stock portfolio, whereas the Big 12 has a portfolio that is quite literally driven by the performance of only two stocks. If you're a university president that's looking at a 50-to-100-year decision, the depth of the institutions of the Pac-12 is quite a big deal regardless of any short-term revenue disadvantages. They know better than anyone that Texas and Oklahoma will always be flight risks because they're the conference that almost convinced them to leave to create the Pac-16. It's hard to see why any Pac-12 university president would trust them going forward. Stability means even more than revenue in conference realignment decisions.

So the PAC 12 would become the PAC 10 again.

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