(07-26-2021 01:23 PM)OhioBoilermaker Wrote:  How the **** have we gone from "Two schools are moving from the Big XII to the SEC" to "the B1G is going to become a 21/24 team league"?

Normal discussion board speculative flights of fancy. While in the real world all factors end up getting taken into account, when writing a blog post it is easy to just treat every factor you don't want to take into account as "no influence" which is tremendously liberating compared to In Real Life.

Quote: The B1G will not expand (until 2030-something at the earliest), and the PAC will pick up at most two schools. Plenty of dominos to fantasize over in G5 and below.

And the problem for the PAC is always the divisional alignment implications of any pair of adds, given that the California schools all want to play each other, and two locked cross overs for two pairs of schools really binds cross division scheduling.

Finding (1) schools that add value on a per-school basis, (2) are not seen as slumming it academically and (3) make divisional sense is just not easy, which is why the PAC-12 is the PAC-12, and not the PAC-14. Obviously if you simply elect to ignore one or two of those issues ... well, see the first part of the response, above.

Not B1G enough.

B1G already has 14 schools.

Add the 9 AAUs from the PAC: USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona

Then take the five ACC AAU schools: Pitt, GT, UNC, UVA, Duke

You have a 28 team conference with 4 divisions of 7.

I don’t know where the Colorado stuff is coming from, seeing as though the Buffs sought the PAC out. There are more attractive PAC schools, imo, including that malcontent, Arizona. Or, Washington. To me, if you want Colorado, just name any PAC school at that point. They’re all tied to wanting to be nearer to CA.

If I’m the B1G, and I kinda like Kansas, I’d worry more that Kansas might get poached by the PAC because of any relationships KU had with Colorado. And that the PAC had Kansas as a PAC-16 contingency plan. I’d say PAC needs them more, anyway, even if a cultural misfit.

If it is all about the AAU lobbying group for federal research grants, by all means, the BIG take SUNY-Buffalo. It is a great location for the BIG.

Understand the above comment has sarcasm, and Buffalo's other resources don't need to be critiqued again.

B1G should respond with KU and Mizzou.

(07-26-2021 02:48 PM)b2b Wrote:  B1G should respond with KU and Mizzou.

This probably makes the most sense. I'm sure the SEC would let Mizzou go without penalty as well. If they did that, then they could bring in Oklahoma State along with Texas and OU. Between OU, OSU, Texas, and A&M you've now locked down Oklahoma and Texas along with virtually every media market outside of West Texas.

The B1G could then counter with KU and Mizzou, putting the lockdown on the St Louis and KC media markets. It's a net win for both conferences. Both gain substantial markets and solidify their footprints. The B1G can keep it's nose up high by saying they added 2 new AAU Universities while the SEC can show off their new shiny toys in OU and Texas. Oklahoma State for Missouri is probably an even swap anyways.

Texas Tech goes to the PAC and. Texas politics gets them a guaranteed game vs A&M and Texas on a every other year home and home they will be happy.

WVU to the ACC

TCU and Baylor to the AAC which locks them into that 6th AQ playoff spot making both program annual playoff contenders.

K State and Iowa State are in mega trouble though. The good news is that as fans we gain back.some old rivalry games that the sport has missed. KU/Mizzou, Texas/A&M, Texas/Arkansas, WVU/Pitt, WVU/Va Tech, etc. We lose some old Big 8 games but none of those were really that nationally or even regionally relevant.

I’ve been mulling it over, and I don’t see West Coast adds as a solution. You’d have to add too many schools and the end product is a delusion of the shares for existing members so here’s my
Proposal:

Sit back and wait.

Let’s wait and see if the SEC does anything else. Let’s see if anyone in the ACC (Florida St and Clemson?) get desperate and try to break the GOR.

Right now ND is negotiating with the advantage. If the ACC starts to lose their biggest football brands then the Big 10 has the advantage.

Also, internally, the Big 10 needs to decide which, if any, non-AAU programs they’d be willing to take in order to maintain a competitive and financial parity with the SEC. Ex. Is it worth it to go down and grab ACC schools outside of the AAU?

There’s something else I’d like to point out to everyone talking about the next move for the Big 10:

UVA, UNC, and Kansas all put fewer butts in seats than Purdue

Let that sink in before we tout them as programs that merit Big 10 inclusion solely on their own merits.

(07-26-2021 06:21 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  There’s something else I’d like to point out to everyone talking about the next move for the Big 10:

UVA, UNC, and Kansas all put fewer butts in seats than Purdue

Let that sink in before we tout them as programs that merit Big 10 inclusion solely on their own merits.

Yeah but what about eyeballs on TV?

(07-26-2021 12:41 PM)YNot Wrote:  

(07-26-2021 12:27 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(07-26-2021 11:19 AM)YNot Wrote:  

(07-25-2021 11:57 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  The issue with a 4x6 B1G is divisional alignment. Just looking at a map, one of the four divisions would likely consist of Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Washington and Oregon. I can’t see any of those schools being especially happy with that arrangement.

You can play around with the total school and division count — 3x6, 3x7, 3x8, 4x5, 4x6 — but just about any arrangement creates similar issues. Maybe schools will just put up with the change as the price of being in one of the two premier college football conferences in the country. But these proposals sure bring back memories of the WAC-16 and we all know how well that turned out.

3x7 seems the simplest and least disruptive. Add 7 teams to form a new B1G Pacific division. I would include the four California schools, Oregon, Washington and Colorado in the Pacific Division. That lands 90% of the PAC 12's value, if not more, and Colorado-Nebraska rivalry has value.

A 10-game conference schedule would allow for 6-2-2 scheduling...then, host conference semifinal games in Indianapolis and Vegas with the 3 division winners and a wild card...make the Rose Bowl the CCG, which becomes an expanded CFP fixture.

So Utah would be one of the left-behinds.

I see what you did there.

Naturally.

Not sure who the B1G would leave out in order to get Utah. I guess they could also invite Arizona and Kansas and go to 24 schools in a 4x6 or 3x8 scenario.

Here's the best I could do with the 4x6 lineup.

USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Washington
Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana
Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland

Iowa would be the biggest misfit - you could alleviate this somewhat by stacking the schedules to get them either Wisconsin or Minnesota and one of Ohio State, Michigan or Penn State every year.

But, the bigger problem with 24 schools is playing cross-division conference mates sufficiently often...again, Iowa would be the biggest casualty, with only 2 or 3 annual games to rotate through the 12 other legacy B1G schools.

If you make it 6 4 team divisions they would see their legacy conference mates more frequently. Play your division and one from each of the others for an 8 game schedule. You would see everyone in the conference at least once every 4 years.

(07-26-2021 07:04 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote:  

(07-26-2021 12:41 PM)YNot Wrote:  Here's the best I could do with the 4x6 lineup.

USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Washington
Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana
Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland

Iowa would be the biggest misfit - you could alleviate this somewhat by stacking the schedules to get them either Wisconsin or Minnesota and one of Ohio State, Michigan or Penn State every year.

But, the bigger problem with 24 schools is playing cross-division conference mates sufficiently often...again, Iowa would be the biggest casualty, with only 2 or 3 annual games to rotate through the 12 other legacy B1G schools.

If you make it 6 4 team divisions they would see their legacy conference mates more frequently. Play your division and one from each of the others for an 8 game schedule. You would see everyone in the conference at least once every 4 years.

PACIFIC: Arizona, Utah, USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Washington
UPPER: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois,
EAST: Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland
CENTRAL: Purdue, Indiana, Michigan State, Michigan,
PLAINS: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa

The 16 Midwest teams play 3 in their pods, 4 in a paired pod, 1 cross-pod rival, and 1 Pacific team.
The 8 Pacific teams play a round-robin plus 2 of the 16 Midwest teams.
The 3 divisions of 8 each produce a round-robin champion who, along with a 4th at large, go on to play in two CCGs (one in Indy, the other may be in LV, STL, SoFi, etc). The two winners then play in the Rose Bowl on January 1st.

(07-26-2021 06:44 PM)Owls9878 Wrote:  

(07-26-2021 06:21 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  There’s something else I’d like to point out to everyone talking about the next move for the Big 10:

UVA, UNC, and Kansas all put fewer butts in seats than Purdue

Let that sink in before we tout them as programs that merit Big 10 inclusion solely on their own merits.

Yeah but what about eyeballs on TV?

The number of fans in seats is typically pretty proportional to fan watching.

(07-26-2021 04:17 PM)Shox Wrote:  This probably makes the most sense. I'm sure the SEC would let Mizzou go without penalty as well. If they did that, then they could bring in Oklahoma State along with Texas and OU. Between OU, OSU, Texas, and A&M you've now locked down Oklahoma and Texas along with virtually every media market outside of West Texas.

The B1G could then counter with KU and Mizzou, putting the lockdown on the St Louis and KC media markets. It's a net win for both conferences. Both gain substantial markets and solidify their footprints. The B1G can keep it's nose up high by saying they added 2 new AAU Universities while the SEC can show off their new shiny toys in OU and Texas. Oklahoma State for Missouri is probably an even swap anyways.

Texas Tech goes to the PAC and. Texas politics gets them a guaranteed game vs A&M and Texas on a every other year home and home they will be happy.

WVU to the ACC

TCU and Baylor to the AAC which locks them into that 6th AQ playoff spot making both program annual playoff contenders.

K State and Iowa State are in mega trouble though. The good news is that as fans we gain back.some old rivalry games that the sport has missed. KU/Mizzou, Texas/A&M, Texas/Arkansas, WVU/Pitt, WVU/Va Tech, etc. We lose some old Big 8 games but none of those were really that nationally or even regionally relevant.

I could see OSU swapping with Mizzou if the SEC feels generous. It’s better politically. Get a Big 4 pod out west in the SEC. Then Arkansas can stay with LSU. Mizzou would take a little less money for the B1G connections.

TTech to the PAC I’m struggling with. It totally messes up the divisions with the PAC 8 out there along the left coast. 14 schools just isn’t possible without messing it up, unless they go Pods model and go to 16.

In that case, TTech, TCU, KSU, ???. I mean, you run out of options. There is no reason to pull the trigger on those schools.

WVU/UC is a potential ACC combo, but not likely unless they lose more schools (assuming B1G/SEC go past 16)

You are left with:

Big 12 East: UC, WVU, USF, UCF, Memphis, Navy
Big 12 West: KSU, TTech, Baylor, TCU, Houston, ISU

Wildcards: BYU, Army (football only), Wichita State (Olympic)

Outside looking in: Temple, Tulsa, Tulane, ECU, SMU

There are back doors for the outsiders if the ACC and PAC12 go past 14 and 12 respectively.

(07-26-2021 08:38 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  I could see OSU swapping with Mizzou if the SEC feels generous. ...

But does the Mizzou President and top echelons of the administration feel the same as some supporters venting spleen on some message boards?

And why does the Big Ten add schools that drag down the value of the Big Ten on a per member basis?

It was surely a brilliant idea to notice that after negotiating "in-conference" and "out-of-conference" carriage fees agreed to by cable oligopolists who don't want to lose serious Big Ten fans to satellite, the conference could boost revenues by picking the pockets of a lot of non Big Ten fans by adding schools ... but that is not the revenue growth opportunity it once was.

Now the revenue growth opportunity is the ability to sell rights to content that people want to watch live so badly that they'll sit through commercials waiting for the next snap of the ball. And that requires people to actually watch the games.

Texas A&M and Mizzou was a package, because the SEC needed to add two school and Texas A&M was valuable enough for multiple reasons to justify taking Mizzou.

Mizzou and Kansas were both on the shelf when the Big Ten took Nebraska, and it was a one school raid rather than a three school raid precisely because the Big Ten was in a position to add just one, and Kansas and Mizzou were not valuable enough to add them as well.

The reason that newspaper articles speculate on the collapse of the Big12 is because speculating on the collapse of the Big12 is good click bait, and newspaper are desperate for any good click bait they can find.

I agree with Bruce. Mizzou won the realignment lottery. While they might make more sense in a Midwestern conference (Missouri is Midwest according to the census), they’ll now have a game in Texas every season and a marquee game vs mighty Oklahoma—possibly during Rivalry Week.

In the Big Ten they’d get Nebraska and possibly doormat Kansas. No Texas recruiting grounds, no perennial top 10’s on a yearly basis. The Wisconsin game doesn’t exactly stir the tailgate like the SEC gamut.

Hypothetical land:

I believe the ACC schools would rather be in some sort of federation with the SEC than the Big 10, but that might not include all of them. In that scenario, I could see Syracuse and Kansas joining the Big Ten and Notre Dame being a partial member. If Notre Dame were to join as a full member, then either Syracuse or Kansas works to be paired with them. You could even bring in all three with Pitt:

Syracuse
Rutgers
Maryland
Penn State
Pitt
Ohio St.
Michigan
Michigan St.
Notre Dame

Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa
Nebraska
Kansas



That said, I think the Big Ten waits for the dust to settle.

They're talking about it more and more. Re: PAC/B1G possibly semi-merging

B1G stays at 14 and waits to see what happens next. Are they having closed door discussions, of course but they just had their shorts pulled down in gym class by the big bad SEC.

Last thing they should do right now is make a crazy half cocked decision about who they add to match the SEC's 16 team conference.

Let things settle down and see how the landscape looks in a few months.

(07-26-2021 10:37 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  https://theathletic.com/2729861/2021/07/...ed_article

I could see Fox, in a long-term attempt to combat the SEC's foothold over college football, attempt to facilitate and arrange a B1G raid on the PAC, which I would also imagine PAC Presidents being open to, as it not only increases and strengthens the academic profile, but would increase revenues via brand associations as well. The Rose Bowl could once again become a traditional B1G/PAC Championship game too.

B1G Pacific
California
Oregon
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Washington

B1G West
Arizona
Colorado
Iowa
Kansas
Nebraska
Utah

B1G Central
Illinois
Indiana
Minnesota
Northwestern
Purdue
Wisconsin

B1G East
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Rutgers

Then, in the 2030's, the B1G can look to acquire Virginia/UNC/Duke/ND as a final foursome to move to 28 teams, while the SEC can add a handful of brands (Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, NC State, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, Louisville) to get to 24.

And, with that, you have two conferences (B1G and SEC) primarily over two networks (ESPN and FOX), with enough programming to get every Friday night, Saturday morning, afternoon and late evening, all while consolidating the top brands of college football under two banners. In addition, you have two leagues running everything, and really replacing the NCAA as the driving force of collegiate athletics.

Just my .02. I have a feeling that is what we are inevitably trending towards.

If Fox gets involved them I think you might see a PAC-12 / Big-12 merger with them throwing money at Texas and Oklahoma.

Fox could well remake and own football west of the Mississippi. It would be a two step process...

step 1: through a **** load of money to create a PAC 12/Big 12 merge

Create a merged Big 12/PAC-12:

West: USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Arizona
East: Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Tech, TCU, Iowa State, West Virginia

Then you create a remade Big 12 with slightly less dollars but decent:
East: Memphis, Houston, SMU, Baylor, New Mexico, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Colorado State
West: Washington State, Oregon State, Arizona State, BYU, Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, UNLV

Each team plays 7 games in division with one crossover and one rival game.

SMU/TCU
Houston/Texas
Baylor/Tech
Oklahoma/Oklahoma State
Kansas State/Kansas
Colorado/Colorado State
BYU/ Utah
Washington / Washington State
Arizona/ Arizona State
Oregon/ Oregon State
Fresno State / Cal
SDSU / UCLA

Other outside
USC/ Notre Dame
Stanford Notre Dame
West Virginia / Pitt
Memphis /?
Boise/?
New Mexico / UTEP

This model basically guts ESPN West of the Mississippi and makes it hard to cover the 7:00 pm west coast time-slot.

It also gives you an interesting rivalry game almost every week after during the 9 game conference season.
Blood Feud Friday anyone?

The B10 has already shown their game plan: either “Big Splash” performance schools (like Nebraska) or “Big Potential” viewership schools (like Rutgers). As secondary measures, they prefer to be contiguous (but that has not prevented them from looking beyond the footprint before) and they prefer “academic” schools (AAU). Also, from every move in major conference realignment, we know that basketball (with, maybe, the exception of Duke) is not a factor – the revenue is too inconsequential.

I don’t believe the B10 will exceed 16 teams. That seems like the magic number for cohesion. More that that, at least in the short-term, risks revenue and brand dilution, clique formation and dissent. Essentially, it risks “breaking” a conference (like the old WAC) or even the NCAA itself.

What’s off-limits: They will not pursue an SEC team. That would be financially futile and a waste of time. (Anyone who has been to Missouri recently knows that has become SEC territory). And, neither a UC (Cal or UCLA) nor Stanford, is ever leaving the PAC.

We also know that there is one “ideal” school: ND. So, the first move will inevitably be to court ND – full press. Now that the SEC has formed the first true "Super-Conference", ND may be more interested this time around, not wanting to miss landing a seat at the "Super-table" (*especially* if the B10 were to pull, or threaten to pull, 2 schools from the ACC, leaving that Conference diminished).

So, to me, it’s ND +1 or (without ND) +2 from the below.

The remaining valuable conference real-estate:
- GT (Very High value & would likely be interested) ++ HIGH LIKELY TARGET
- UNC (Very High value BUT would not likely be interested) ++ HIGH LIKELY TARGET
- NCST (High value & would likely be interested) ++ HIGH LIKELY (UNC Alternative)
- Duke (Mod-high value BUT would not likely be interested)
- UVA (Mod-high value BUT would not likely be interested) ++ POSSIBLE TARGET
- VT (Mod-high value & would likely be interested) ++ POSSIBLE (UVA Alternative)
- FSU (High value & would likely be interested, BUT may not be a cultural fit) ++ HIGH LIKELY TARGET
- Clemson (High value & may be interested, BUT may not be a cultural fit)
- Colorado (High value & might be interested) ++ POSSIBLE TARGET
- USC (Very High value BUT would not likely be interested) ++ FLYER TARGET BUT ONLY PACKAGED W/ ND

The remain teams of the B12 are at best: Moderate value BUT would defect to the B10 immediately

Ball’s gonna be in the PAC’s court again on an altered B1G-PAC arrangement, and, really, I’m not surprised if this would be the Big Ten’s preferred route again on expansion. The two conferences remain largely intact but have scheduling commitments with each other. The last time this came up, PAC crapped the bed on it, and the Big Ten grabbed Maryland and Rutgers. I suspect they’ll do the same here: give the PAC the right of first refusal, and then expand again in response to not getting the PAC deal done.

B1G’s going to be fine in all of this. PAC otoh…how many times can you overthink something or fall over oneself?