It is not so simple for the Big 12 to grab SDSU to "block" the PAC. remember, the Big 12 has to have the media partners on board and their newest contract threw water on adding any more G5s.

(01-30-2023 11:42 AM)Aztecgolfer Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 09:43 AM)shizzle787 Wrote:  I honestly can't figure out if they are going to expand or not. I think it is 50/50. SDSU and SMU are likely the favorites but who knows? Also, I notice no talk of Gonzaga at all? Does that mean the Big 12 has that all but wrapped up or Washington, Cal, Stanford, etc. don't want them.

I've read that Washington and Washington St. would veto a Gonzaga invite.

They probably would, but due to the rarity of having non-football members of a conference (the only team that currently meets that criteria is Wichita State, and when the Big East was a whole conference like that it fell apart), I’m not sure if anybody in the PAC wants to add Gonzaga.

(01-30-2023 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yes, absolutely. SDSU is tied with Oregon State and higher than Washington State in the US News rankings. Considering the Pac-12's other options and how critical Southern California is to the league, my educated guess is that's going to be academically acceptable. UNLV is definitely much lower than everyone else (#285 compared to Wazzu's #212 ranking).

Is that evidence that SDSU belongs in the PAC or evidence that OSU and WSU don’t?

It’s not like any of the 4C4 are huge value adds to the conference, but nobody seems willing to address the issue that we have market redundancy in a region (PNW) that is not valuable to the remainder of the conference and that fills the TV content with more Pacific Time Zone games.

I wouldn’t support divisionless expansion. If the PAC wants to add SDSU and some Texas school, put them in a South division with the 4C4 and lower our exposure to the PNW.

Also, if the PAC wants to add SDSU, the compromise that would make Cal/Furd presidents happy is to add SDSU and UCSD plus Rice FB only.

People don’t seem to see the difference in academic prestige for a low enrollment selective undergrad institution with minimal research (SMU) versus graduate/research oriented institutions. The PAC presidents do not care about SMU’s USNWR ranking.

They do care that SMU is ARWU 701-800! SDSU is 501-600.
Rice is 101-150 (same tier as AZ, ASU, UU). And UCSD is #21.

The way you sell SDSU is with UCSD and Rice.

(01-30-2023 11:17 AM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 09:43 AM)shizzle787 Wrote:  I honestly can't figure out if they are going to expand or not. I think it is 50/50. SDSU and SMU are likely the favorites but who knows? Also, I notice no talk of Gonzaga at all? Does that mean the Big 12 has that all but wrapped up or Washington, Cal, Stanford, etc. don't want them.

I have to think any expansion will need to have whatever media partners pushing for more inventory. I could see that debate going either way.

"We need X number of games and you don't have enough"
OR
"We're only interested in nationally airing X number of games and adding more simply means lower revenue streaming additions"

That makes the decision real quick lol.

I suspect the Pac12 moving on as a 10 team league is more likely than any expansion at all.

(01-30-2023 11:47 AM)otown Wrote:  It is not so simple for the Big 12 to grab SDSU to "block" the PAC. remember, the Big 12 has to have the media partners on board and their newest contract threw water on adding any more G5s.

It can't be SDSU alone.

It needs to be Arizona and SDSU. Big 12 needs to poach to make the deal worth it for the Remaining 8 members.

(01-30-2023 11:53 AM)jrj84105 Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yes, absolutely. SDSU is tied with Oregon State and higher than Washington State in the US News rankings. Considering the Pac-12's other options and how critical Southern California is to the league, my educated guess is that's going to be academically acceptable. UNLV is definitely much lower than everyone else (#285 compared to Wazzu's #212 ranking).

Is that evidence that SDSU belongs in the PAC or evidence that OSU and WSU don’t?

It’s not like any of the 4C4 are huge value adds to the conference, but nobody seems willing to address the issue that we have market redundancy in a region (PNW) that is not valuable to the remainder of the conference and that fills the TV content with more Pacific Time Zone games.

I wouldn’t support divisionless expansion. If the PAC wants to add SDSU and some Texas school, put them in a South division with the 4C4 and lower our exposure to the PNW.

Also, if the PAC wants to add SDSU, the compromise that would make Cal/Furd presidents happy is to add SDSU and UCSD plus Rice FB only.

People don’t seem to see the difference in academic prestige for a low enrollment selective undergrad institution with minimal research (SMU) versus graduate/research oriented institutions. The PAC presidents do not care about SMU’s USNWR ranking.

They do care that SMU is ARWU 701-800! SDSU is 501-600.
Rice is 101-150 (same tier as AZ, ASU, UU). And UCSD is #21.

The way you sell SDSU is with UCSD and Rice.

I've forgotten more academic rankings than most people have ever learned.

My point in conference realignment is that it's all a balance and each conference has different needs.

From a pure academic perspective, yes, Rice and UCSD are the best options.

However, the Pac-12 still wants to make athletic money here (or at least not totally tank their money).

This is not the Pac-12 of 7 months ago when they still had USC/UCLA. A school like SMU wouldn't have been acceptable to them 7 months ago, but their membership just changed dramatically.

To say that the Pac-12 doesn't care about SMU's undergrad rankings is just flat out wrong in the context of *today's* Pac-12. For SMU in the context of the Pac-12's position today, it needs to be seen as a "good school". The need to be seen as a "research powerhouse" might have been required 7 months ago, but that's not the case now because, ultimately, the Pac-12 still needs to make athletic money with expansion here and there aren't any research powerhouses in the West that are going to make them more athletic money.

I believe that SMU would honestly balance out the Stanford/Cal/Washington consternation about SDSU's academic standing more than the other way around. I've been saying from virtually the day that the Pac-12 lost USC/UCLA that SDSU and SMU were the most likely additions to the Pac-12. Wilner has been consistently saying it over the past few months, too. This isn't exactly crazy talk here.

(01-30-2023 11:53 AM)jrj84105 Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yes, absolutely. SDSU is tied with Oregon State and higher than Washington State in the US News rankings. Considering the Pac-12's other options and how critical Southern California is to the league, my educated guess is that's going to be academically acceptable. UNLV is definitely much lower than everyone else (#285 compared to Wazzu's #212 ranking).

Is that evidence that SDSU belongs in the PAC or evidence that OSU and WSU don’t?

It’s not like any of the 4C4 are huge value adds to the conference, but nobody seems willing to address the issue that we have market redundancy in a region (PNW) that is not valuable to the remainder of the conference and that fills the TV content with more Pacific Time Zone games.

I wouldn’t support divisionless expansion. If the PAC wants to add SDSU and some Texas school, put them in a South division with the 4C4 and lower our exposure to the PNW.

Also, if the PAC wants to add SDSU, the compromise that would make Cal/Furd presidents happy is to add SDSU and UCSD plus Rice FB only.

People don’t seem to see the difference in academic prestige for a low enrollment selective undergrad institution with minimal research (SMU) versus graduate/research oriented institutions. The PAC presidents do not care about SMU’s USNWR ranking.

They do care that SMU is ARWU 701-800! SDSU is 501-600.
Rice is 101-150 (same tier as AZ, ASU, UU). And UCSD is #21.

The way you sell SDSU is with UCSD and Rice.

UCSD is a fine academic institution and had some success athletically at the D2 level. But, they are not PAC worthy at this point athletically nor do you need two schools from San Diego in the PAC.

(01-30-2023 11:53 AM)jrj84105 Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yes, absolutely. SDSU is tied with Oregon State and higher than Washington State in the US News rankings. Considering the Pac-12's other options and how critical Southern California is to the league, my educated guess is that's going to be academically acceptable. UNLV is definitely much lower than everyone else (#285 compared to Wazzu's #212 ranking).

Is that evidence that SDSU belongs in the PAC or evidence that OSU and WSU don’t?

It’s not like any of the 4C4 are huge value adds to the conference, but nobody seems willing to address the issue that we have market redundancy in a region (PNW) that is not valuable to the remainder of the conference and that fills the TV content with more Pacific Time Zone games.

I wouldn’t support divisionless expansion. If the PAC wants to add SDSU and some Texas school, put them in a South division with the 4C4 and lower our exposure to the PNW.

Also, if the PAC wants to add SDSU, the compromise that would make Cal/Furd presidents happy is to add SDSU and UCSD plus Rice FB only.

People don’t seem to see the difference in academic prestige for a low enrollment selective undergrad institution with minimal research (SMU) versus graduate/research oriented institutions. The PAC presidents do not care about SMU’s USNWR ranking.

They do care that SMU is ARWU 701-800! SDSU is 501-600.
Rice is 101-150 (same tier as AZ, ASU, UU). And UCSD is #21.

The way you sell SDSU is with UCSD and Rice.

We'll see. If SMU is announced as the 12th PAC member in a few months, then it's clear the presidents were impressed by SMU's undergraduate rankings and didn't care about a selective private school not prioritizing research.

(01-30-2023 11:17 AM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 09:43 AM)shizzle787 Wrote:  I honestly can't figure out if they are going to expand or not. I think it is 50/50. SDSU and SMU are likely the favorites but who knows? Also, I notice no talk of Gonzaga at all? Does that mean the Big 12 has that all but wrapped up or Washington, Cal, Stanford, etc. don't want them.

I have to think any expansion will need to have whatever media partners pushing for more inventory. I could see that debate going either way.

"We need X number of games and you don't have enough"
OR
"We're only interested in nationally airing X number of games and adding more simply means lower revenue streaming additions"

That makes the decision real quick lol.

I agree that this is the logic of the situation.

What makes me think that the second option is more likely is that the PAC doesn't appear to be moving on backfill.

That, combined with my belief that it is unlikely that a media company would think that adding schools like SMU and SDSU would add value to what the PAC currently has.

But we'll see.

(01-30-2023 12:30 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 11:53 AM)jrj84105 Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yes, absolutely. SDSU is tied with Oregon State and higher than Washington State in the US News rankings. Considering the Pac-12's other options and how critical Southern California is to the league, my educated guess is that's going to be academically acceptable. UNLV is definitely much lower than everyone else (#285 compared to Wazzu's #212 ranking).

Is that evidence that SDSU belongs in the PAC or evidence that OSU and WSU don’t?

It’s not like any of the 4C4 are huge value adds to the conference, but nobody seems willing to address the issue that we have market redundancy in a region (PNW) that is not valuable to the remainder of the conference and that fills the TV content with more Pacific Time Zone games.

I wouldn’t support divisionless expansion. If the PAC wants to add SDSU and some Texas school, put them in a South division with the 4C4 and lower our exposure to the PNW.

Also, if the PAC wants to add SDSU, the compromise that would make Cal/Furd presidents happy is to add SDSU and UCSD plus Rice FB only.

People don’t seem to see the difference in academic prestige for a low enrollment selective undergrad institution with minimal research (SMU) versus graduate/research oriented institutions. The PAC presidents do not care about SMU’s USNWR ranking.

They do care that SMU is ARWU 701-800! SDSU is 501-600.
Rice is 101-150 (same tier as AZ, ASU, UU). And UCSD is #21.

The way you sell SDSU is with UCSD and Rice.

I've forgotten more academic rankings than most people have ever learned.

My point in conference realignment is that it's all a balance and each conference has different needs.

From a pure academic perspective, yes, Rice and UCSD are the best options.

However, the Pac-12 still wants to make athletic money here (or at least not totally tank their money).

This is not the Pac-12 of 7 months ago when they still had USC/UCLA. A school like SMU wouldn't have been acceptable to them 7 months ago, but their membership just changed dramatically.

To say that the Pac-12 doesn't care about SMU's undergrad rankings is just flat out wrong in the context of *today's* Pac-12. For SMU in the context of the Pac-12's position today, it needs to be seen as a "good school". The need to be seen as a "research powerhouse" might have been required 7 months ago, but that's not the case now because, ultimately, the Pac-12 still needs to make athletic money with expansion here and there aren't any research powerhouses in the West that are going to make them more athletic money.

I believe that SMU would honestly balance out the Stanford/Cal/Washington consternation about SDSU's academic standing more than the other way around. I've been saying from virtually the day that the Pac-12 lost USC/UCLA that SDSU and SMU were the most likely additions to the Pac-12. Wilner has been consistently saying it over the past few months, too. This isn't exactly crazy talk here.

SDSU isn't chopped liver when it comes to academics. Yes, it is a CSU school so it is limited via its charter to what doctoral degrees it can provide. Right now, SDSU offers 19 PhDs (18 co-sponsored) and 4 other doctoral level programs in Audiology, Education and Physical Therapy that are awarded independently. No other CSU comes even close. SDSu offers more than 100 Master's degrees as well. The SDSU Mission Valley campus expansion is focused on expanding its research capabilities with public/private partnerships.

(01-30-2023 11:42 AM)Poster Wrote:  I have a very hard time seeing media partners pushing for expansion. The only slim possibility is if adding teams pushes the PAC over some threshold for “inventory”.

I think you're not looking at it the right kind of sideways.

The TV networks probably don't care about number of teams or total inventory. But let's say that what they want is "Friday night games every week at 7 and 10:30 Eastern." Those are not attractive kickoff times for your home fans. With 24 games over 10 teams, thats half your home games on Friday night for half your schools. With 12 teams, you at least get 4 Saturday home games.

(Or the network wants 12 games, 1 Friday night home game per school)

If the PAC really needed content so badly, then why didn’t they expand to 12 with some random low value MWC schools in the 1990s or oughts?


As it was, they basically ended up adding Colorado (a long time major conference team) just to block out Baylor, and then added Utah (one of the top MWC teams) just because they needed a partner for Colorado. It’s not clear the PAC would have added either Colorado or Utah if they had known tge PAC-16 would fall through.

People act like SMU is athletically a “value add”.

It is not.

It got passed up by the BigXII in favor of TCU and later Houston for a reason.

Adding SMU to “get into Dallas” with it’s 114k living alumni and 44k alumni in DFW and <25k attendance acts like SMU somehow has some relevant value-added cache. Unless you’re view of CFB was shaped prior to the death penalty, SMU hasn’t been a relevant program in your lifetime.

I don’t get it. SMU detracts more from whatever brand the PAC still has than it adds as an above generic commodity schools in Texas.

(01-30-2023 01:33 PM)jrj84105 Wrote:  People act like SMU is athletically a “value add”.

It is not.

It got passed up by the BigXII in favor of TCU and later Houston for a reason.

Adding SMU to “get into Dallas” with it’s 114k living alumni and 44k alumni in DFW and <25k attendance acts like SMU somehow has some relevant value-added cache. Unless you’re view of CFB was shaped prior to the death penalty, SMU hasn’t been a relevant program in your lifetime.

I don’t get it. SMU detracts more from whatever brand the PAC still has than it adds as an above generic commodity schools in Texas.

SDSU is the likely #11. If the Pac-12 wants to add inventory, ease scheduling (compared to 11), and keep 9 conference football games, they need to go to 12 as opposed to 11.

Boise State is not a candidate due to poor academics. Poor academics is the same reason Fresno State has slim to no chance, and UNLV has a similar problem. SMU is the only school left.

(01-30-2023 09:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Yes, absolutely. SDSU is tied with Oregon State and higher than Washington State in the US News rankings. Considering the Pac-12's other options and how critical Southern California is to the league, my educated guess is that's going to be academically acceptable. ...

Yes, this is like a Louisville to the ACC situation much more than the Texas, USC or UCLA moves. "Everything else equal", they'd like a higher status school academically, but having a tolerable school in Southern California seems likely to be of more importance in the end.

As far as SMU, while it languishes down in the 701-800 tier in the STEM-centric Shanghai list, it's in the top 100 Universities in the US in the Times Higher Education / Wall Street Journal rankings, so there are fields of study where it is very well regarded. If the Arizonas and Colorado would like more regular trips to Texas, maybe the tilts the balance between Hawaii (FB-only) & SMU (all-sports).

As far as UNLV being in the mix, I'm not seeing it.

(01-30-2023 01:33 PM)jrj84105 Wrote:  People act like SMU is athletically a “value add”.

It is not.

It got passed up by the BigXII in favor of TCU and later Houston for a reason.

Adding SMU to “get into Dallas” with it’s 114k living alumni and 44k alumni in DFW and <25k attendance acts like SMU somehow has some relevant value-added cache. Unless you’re view of CFB was shaped prior to the death penalty, SMU hasn’t been a relevant program in your lifetime.

I don’t get it. SMU detracts more from whatever brand the PAC still has than it adds as an above generic commodity schools in Texas.

SMU was in the SWC once upon a time, and they play in a big market. That’s basically the gist of it.


Of course, people forget that there’s a reason why the SWC was the very first conference to collapse. Read this 1986 Chicago Tribune article, which was actually written a few months before SMU’s death penalty. Apparently Ohio State and Michigan by themselves had higher attendance than TCU, Houston, SMU and Rice did combined.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-x...story.html


Heck, problems with the SWC were being noted as early as 1974

https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entert...onference/


With the PAC’s terrible tv network, I’m not sure why getting into big markets matters anyway. The PAC Network is barely even available in Pacific Coast states- how do they expect to make the network available in Texas.

(01-30-2023 01:33 PM)jrj84105 Wrote:  People act like SMU is athletically a “value add”.

It is not.

It got passed up by the BigXII in favor of TCU and later Houston for a reason.

Adding SMU to “get into Dallas” with it’s 114k living alumni and 44k alumni in DFW and <25k attendance acts like SMU somehow has some relevant value-added cache. Unless you’re view of CFB was shaped prior to the death penalty, SMU hasn’t been a relevant program in your lifetime.

I don’t get it. SMU detracts more from whatever brand the PAC still has than it adds as an above generic commodity schools in Texas.

Hard to argue much here…

(01-30-2023 01:26 PM)Poster Wrote:  If the PAC really needed content so badly, then why didn’t they expand to 12 with some random low value MWC schools in the 1990s or oughts?


As it was, they basically ended up adding Colorado (a long time major conference team) just to block out Baylor, and then added Utah (one of the top MWC teams) just because they needed a partner for Colorado. It’s not clear the PAC would have added either Colorado or Utah if they had known tge PAC-16 would fall through.

Regarding the bolded…the decision by USC & UCLA to leave the PAC has completely changed the future prospects of the conference. The PAC can no longer be the most academically selective P5 conference. The PAC needs to change its expansion criteria in order to ensure its survival.

It’s not that PAC necessarily needs additional media content, they need additional members to 1) enhance its chances of getting CFP slots, 2) protect the brand programs from having too many games with undesirable game times, and 3) ensure the middle-class programs that the PAC will continue indefinitely (regardless of what the brand programs do). As David Boren (ex President at OU) adroitly said, a 10-member conference is psychologically disadvantaged…expansion helps stabilize the conference.

(01-30-2023 01:26 PM)Poster Wrote:  If the PAC really needed content so badly, then why didn’t they expand to 12 with some random low value MWC schools in the 1990s or oughts?


As it was, they basically ended up adding Colorado (a long time major conference team) just to block out Baylor, and then added Utah (one of the top MWC teams) just because they needed a partner for Colorado. It’s not clear the PAC would have added either Colorado or Utah if they had known tge PAC-16 would fall through.

The PAC was already considering the addition of CU and UU as 11/12 before the PAC16 was even a twinkle in Larry Scott’s eye because the revenue of the CCG made it a no-brainer (back when 12 were required to have a CCG). If the waiver for a CCG with 10 had existed in 2010, I’m not sure the PAC would have gone for CU/UU. The CCG revenue was clearly the impetus to consider expansion.

SMU is academically easily on par with Pac schools.

They will NEVER add Boise St. It's a former community college and has poor academics. Why does that matter? Because, if I'm Cal, Stanford, Washington, Oregon, etc, AAU with high academic standards, I don't want to have to recruit against a school with, um, much easier classes and less rigor. We know a lot of student-athlete school is a joke (see UNC), but at Boise, they don't even have to cheat to give student-athletes easy classes.

Also, Boise is not a prime market for P5.

They would be stupid not to add SMU.

The only other school out there is UNLV, and that only works because Las Vegas in NIL era benefits the Pac 12 as a whole.