(05-21-2023 11:57 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:38 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:03 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Swarbrick a respected man in the College Football World tells you he thinks everyone will be oriented around two spheres, the SEC and the Big 10.

The board meets those remarks with a good deal of denial.

The Nebraska president tells us that more expansion is coming within a couple of years.

The board meets those remarks with some speculation and some denial.

People are weary of change, but that's not going to stop it.

Texas and Oklahoma moved, USC and UCLA moved, people were shocked and then went right back into denial that indeed, sweeping changes were coming.

If the Big 10 and SEC held some top-secret high-level discussions and decided to divide the rest of the PAC 12 and ACC up so that each would have 24 schools, I promise you it wouldn't look like anything we would want. Compromise would have to be involved in that process and nobody would be 100% satisfied with a compromise decision reached by agreement of 32 presidents and 2 commissioners. Even if the compromise was done among just the two commissioners it would not be as fan friendly as most would want.

Let me make this clear, I am not denying that it is quite possible such a compromise has been struck, I'm just stating that it is likely something to which I might say, "Yeah I would have taken those 3, but who in the hell picked the other 5?"

And all of it presupposes that the other schools are ready to move.

And what is really, really strange here is that I firmly believe this is true. Normally I'd say it is one thing for us to believe the SEC and Big 10 just divided out and agreed upon who goes where, but it is wholly another to say "and all the schools will go along."

Maybe California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington just needed to know that there was no way they were remaining in control before they committed, because the slow play of the PAC 12 contract seems to have been a factor in which FOX and ESPN passivity was the persuading factor of the reality of the situation. Because, concomitantly with that little drama the Magnificent 7 suddenly arise, and it is far more obvious to me that those 7 had some assurances before they hung their bacon out in public to defy the survival of a conference if radical changes to the finances weren't forthcoming, finances which had to be practical or an immediate way of making a difference.

Now the remarks by Carter alluding to Alberts, and tossing out yet another Super 2 projection, should be taken with the gravity of the concept that made them.

Are we going to continue to deny that the ACC GOR could be rendered moot as a deterrent to such a move. Are we going to continue to pretend that there isn't a hidden honeypot to pay for it, or desire to do it, or a necessity to consolidate beyond athletics?

This is that moment when you are standing at the beach and all the water gets sucked back a mile into the ocean. Are you going to stand there and gawk at the sight and say, "Golly, I've never seen that before, I want to get some shots with my cell phone!" Or, are you going to run like hell for the highest ground you can find because your brain, like that of all the intelligent animals around you, yells danger!

I've stated that the only reason giants move is because they are tall enough to see something that scares them on the horizon. Texas, Oklahoma, UCLA, USC are four such giants. You'd have to be completely obtuse not to grasp the significance of those 4 moving and in doing so abandoning structures they helped to build.

Well now you have some big names inside the industry of College sports and College academia telling you what they see coming, it's just about here, and we are still talking P5?

I believe what I see happening around me and it's coming, likely by 2025, and much of it has little to do with football, and a lot to do with other things happening within our environment of population, its trends, finances, its projections, and the move to the SEC and Big 10 is the higher ground for surviving the tsunami of change rolling our way.

Put up your cell phones and haul ass! Your mental absorption of events has most of you paralyzed. It's real and the signs have been with us for some time now. I think the prevailing attitudes among college presidents and ADs isn't SEC or Big 10, but rather is their room in the lifeboat for me? Two of the three lifeboats will be those massive inflatable totally enclosed buoy like modern survival boats, and the other will be open air and will have oars. But all will be looking for one of the three. And I don't think those jumping on last will care which boat they are in.

I've thought that the Big 10 and SEC would make particular selections in gamesmanship to get this done. That may be in error. Now I think the networks are looking at markets and reach and branding and what they are willing to pay to have, and the conferences will have a little input, but mostly the structure will decide for us. So, what the final alignment looks like might be a good game for the board to play out and I'm sure we will make our best guesses, but I'm not counting on anyone being totally happy with the outcome, especially if it comes more from networks more than from presidents and commissioners.

I thought Kansas was a stretch and Colorado was a fanciful idea to spur discussion, I could have a coyote ugly moment the day things are settled!

Okay, so what do you want to happen?

If the Big 10 does indeed take Oregon, Washington, California and Stanford and they insist on 4 to the East. I would like for them to have Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Duke, and Miami. I would like to see Virginia Tech, Virginia, North Carolina North Carolina State, Clemson and Florida State in the SEC and for the SEC to add Kansas, and I suppose Colorado to the West. I don't want the SEC to extend into Utah or Arizona. Nothing against those schools, but Colorado is a bridge too far. I like Colorado only in as much as they complete an interesting region with Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas A&M. To get to Arizona you have to jump New Mexico and you might as well look at Texas Tech to get there. If you take Texas Tech you are back into a debate about Oklahoma State, and if you do that you can forget about Kansas because Kansas State becomes a debate.

The SEC is built on rivalries. Missouri needs Kansas. Oklahoma has Texas. Colorado like Missouri is a state of 6 million dominated by one school and is in a different time zone for marketing purposes. It's also a nice vacation state and with Kansas it would be contiguous.

If you take Virginia and Virginia Tech, North Carolina and N.C. State those additions have their in state rival and a chief out of state rival. Add Clemson and Florida State and South Carolina and Florida have their rivals in house.

If you wind up with two leagues of 24 having rivals where you play them annually will be doubly important. Basketball has enough games in a season to pull off having a rival outside of the conference. Football does not.

If it goes nuclear like you predict, I hope Duke joins the SEC and Syracuse or Pitt ends up in the Big Ten instead. Carolina-Duke is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. I have to think the SEC would recognize that and bite the bullet.

One of the state of North Carolina's "issues" is you have three public schools with decent sized football followings, and two private schools—one with a national fanbase in hoops and another with a strong regional presence. I think you need at least three NC schools to own the state; think of Duke as a bonus.

Football stadiums:

Carolina - 50.5k (reduced from ~60k)
State - ~57k
ECU - 51k

(05-21-2023 12:06 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:57 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:38 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:03 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Swarbrick a respected man in the College Football World tells you he thinks everyone will be oriented around two spheres, the SEC and the Big 10.

The board meets those remarks with a good deal of denial.

The Nebraska president tells us that more expansion is coming within a couple of years.

The board meets those remarks with some speculation and some denial.

People are weary of change, but that's not going to stop it.

Texas and Oklahoma moved, USC and UCLA moved, people were shocked and then went right back into denial that indeed, sweeping changes were coming.

If the Big 10 and SEC held some top-secret high-level discussions and decided to divide the rest of the PAC 12 and ACC up so that each would have 24 schools, I promise you it wouldn't look like anything we would want. Compromise would have to be involved in that process and nobody would be 100% satisfied with a compromise decision reached by agreement of 32 presidents and 2 commissioners. Even if the compromise was done among just the two commissioners it would not be as fan friendly as most would want.

Let me make this clear, I am not denying that it is quite possible such a compromise has been struck, I'm just stating that it is likely something to which I might say, "Yeah I would have taken those 3, but who in the hell picked the other 5?"

And all of it presupposes that the other schools are ready to move.

And what is really, really strange here is that I firmly believe this is true. Normally I'd say it is one thing for us to believe the SEC and Big 10 just divided out and agreed upon who goes where, but it is wholly another to say "and all the schools will go along."

Maybe California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington just needed to know that there was no way they were remaining in control before they committed, because the slow play of the PAC 12 contract seems to have been a factor in which FOX and ESPN passivity was the persuading factor of the reality of the situation. Because, concomitantly with that little drama the Magnificent 7 suddenly arise, and it is far more obvious to me that those 7 had some assurances before they hung their bacon out in public to defy the survival of a conference if radical changes to the finances weren't forthcoming, finances which had to be practical or an immediate way of making a difference.

Now the remarks by Carter alluding to Alberts, and tossing out yet another Super 2 projection, should be taken with the gravity of the concept that made them.

Are we going to continue to deny that the ACC GOR could be rendered moot as a deterrent to such a move. Are we going to continue to pretend that there isn't a hidden honeypot to pay for it, or desire to do it, or a necessity to consolidate beyond athletics?

This is that moment when you are standing at the beach and all the water gets sucked back a mile into the ocean. Are you going to stand there and gawk at the sight and say, "Golly, I've never seen that before, I want to get some shots with my cell phone!" Or, are you going to run like hell for the highest ground you can find because your brain, like that of all the intelligent animals around you, yells danger!

I've stated that the only reason giants move is because they are tall enough to see something that scares them on the horizon. Texas, Oklahoma, UCLA, USC are four such giants. You'd have to be completely obtuse not to grasp the significance of those 4 moving and in doing so abandoning structures they helped to build.

Well now you have some big names inside the industry of College sports and College academia telling you what they see coming, it's just about here, and we are still talking P5?

I believe what I see happening around me and it's coming, likely by 2025, and much of it has little to do with football, and a lot to do with other things happening within our environment of population, its trends, finances, its projections, and the move to the SEC and Big 10 is the higher ground for surviving the tsunami of change rolling our way.

Put up your cell phones and haul ass! Your mental absorption of events has most of you paralyzed. It's real and the signs have been with us for some time now. I think the prevailing attitudes among college presidents and ADs isn't SEC or Big 10, but rather is their room in the lifeboat for me? Two of the three lifeboats will be those massive inflatable totally enclosed buoy like modern survival boats, and the other will be open air and will have oars. But all will be looking for one of the three. And I don't think those jumping on last will care which boat they are in.

I've thought that the Big 10 and SEC would make particular selections in gamesmanship to get this done. That may be in error. Now I think the networks are looking at markets and reach and branding and what they are willing to pay to have, and the conferences will have a little input, but mostly the structure will decide for us. So, what the final alignment looks like might be a good game for the board to play out and I'm sure we will make our best guesses, but I'm not counting on anyone being totally happy with the outcome, especially if it comes more from networks more than from presidents and commissioners.

I thought Kansas was a stretch and Colorado was a fanciful idea to spur discussion, I could have a coyote ugly moment the day things are settled!

Okay, so what do you want to happen?

If the Big 10 does indeed take Oregon, Washington, California and Stanford and they insist on 4 to the East. I would like for them to have Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Duke, and Miami. I would like to see Virginia Tech, Virginia, North Carolina North Carolina State, Clemson and Florida State in the SEC and for the SEC to add Kansas, and I suppose Colorado to the West. I don't want the SEC to extend into Utah or Arizona. Nothing against those schools, but Colorado is a bridge too far. I like Colorado only in as much as they complete an interesting region with Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas A&M. To get to Arizona you have to jump New Mexico and you might as well look at Texas Tech to get there. If you take Texas Tech you are back into a debate about Oklahoma State, and if you do that you can forget about Kansas because Kansas State becomes a debate.

The SEC is built on rivalries. Missouri needs Kansas. Oklahoma has Texas. Colorado like Missouri is a state of 6 million dominated by one school and is in a different time zone for marketing purposes. It's also a nice vacation state and with Kansas it would be contiguous.

If you take Virginia and Virginia Tech, North Carolina and N.C. State those additions have their in state rival and a chief out of state rival. Add Clemson and Florida State and South Carolina and Florida have their rivals in house.

If you wind up with two leagues of 24 having rivals where you play them annually will be doubly important. Basketball has enough games in a season to pull off having a rival outside of the conference. Football does not.

If it goes nuclear like you predict, I hope Duke joins the SEC and Syracuse or Pitt ends up in the Big Ten instead. Carolina-Duke is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. I have to think the SEC would recognize that and bite the bullet.

One of the state of North Carolina's "issues" is you have three public schools with decent sized football followings, and two private schools—one with a national fanbase in hoops and another with a strong regional presence. I think you need at least three NC schools to own the state; think of Duke as a bonus.

Football stadiums:

Carolina - 50.5k (reduced from ~60k)
State - ~57k
ECU - 51k

I don't disagree with your position. I don't think the SEC would disagree with your position. I do believe that any corporately reasoned and market driven division screws all of that up for all of us.

As to what I would want? The six ACC schools I listed, plus Duke and Kansas. And should a SEC school withdraw then add Georgia Tech. I would prefer to see the Big 10 take all 9 of the PAC 12 AAU schools and Notre Dame. Why? I firmly believe where we are headed with regard to fuel sustainability that local travel for regional divisions is indicated and would be more beneficial in many ways besides just less expense.

Would love if Nebraska and Oklahoma shared a conference, but I do like the fluid landscape of realignment. Definitely a ‘bigger is better’ person when it comes to conference size.

Now this is a fun thread.

I'll dream a bit, with help from what's being reported right now, by actual journalists:

1. The Big 12 doesn't attract anyone from the Pac-12. They add Memphis and UNLV to get to 14 schools.
2. The Pac-12 expands more than they initially thought, with SDSU, SMU, Tulane, and Rice to get to 14 schools.
3. The ACC is stuck at 14 schools until the 2030s

This leaves an 10-school AAC lineup: 5 old members (Temple, Navy, ECU, USF, Tulsa) and 5 new ones (UNCC, FAU, UAB, UTSA, North Texas). The AAC's TV deal would plummet, probably close to what the SBC has now (reportedly $2M, according to JMU and ODU reporters).

I don't think many (if any) Sun Belt schools would jump to the AAC in that scenario, given a similar payout. The AAC would be too thin and spread out. Heck, maybe a school like ECU considers jumping the other way in that scenario.


Why not push for App in the AAC? I feel our fan interest would decline a tad if we left Marshall, Georgia Southern, James Madison, Coastal Carolina for Temple, FAU, USF, and UAB.

(05-21-2023 11:29 AM)zibby Wrote:  I want something resembling the Big East Football Conference to re-form.

Specifically, I would love to see this be that conference (all sports, not just football):

Penn State
Pitt
West Virginia
Maryland
Rutgers
Syracuse
Boston College
Louisville
Cincinnati

College football become a true competition determined on the field.

The P2 take who they want and move on because the revenue divide is to great. In time that will effect all sports fielded by schools.

The G8 will be the better for it in time! Their own CFP and never scheduling P2 schools.

This is purely fantasy, but here is the alignment I would like to see:

ACC:
Duke
UNC
NC State
Wake
Maryland
Virginia
Clemson
Georgia Tech

Big East:
Syracuse (BE football)
UConn (BE football)
Pitt (BE football)
BC (BE football)
Nova
Georgetown
Seton Hall
Providence
St. John's
Navy (BE football-only)

SEC:
Alabama
Auburn
LSU
Vandy
Kentucky
Florida
Georgia
Tennessee
Ole Miss
Miss State

Big 10:
Northwestern
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Indiana
Purdue
Michigan State
Ohio State
Michigan

Big 8:
Colorado
Nebraska
Missouri
Oklahoma
Kansas
Kansas State
Iowa State
Oklahoma State

SWC:
Texas
Arkansas
A&M
Tech
Baylor
Houston
SMU
TCU
Rice

Pac-8:
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State
Cal
Stanford
USC
UCLA

4 Corners Conference:
Arizona
Arizona State
Utah
BYU
Utah State
UNLV
Nevada
New Mexico
New Mexico State
UTEP

MW:
SDSU
Fresno State
Hawaii
Boise State
Idaho
San Jose State
Wyoming
Boise State
Colorado State
Air Force

A-10:
Penn State
Florida State
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Miami
South Carolina
UCF
USF
Temple
UMass

C-USA:
Memphis (BE football)
Cincinnati (BE football)
Louisville (BE football)
Xavier
Notre Dame (independent football)
DePaul
Butler
Creighton
Marquette

SoCon:
ECU
Tulane
Southern Miss
Marshall
La Tech
Appalachian State
Louisiana
Charlotte
UAB

Independent:
Army (Patriot League)

I’d like for all five of the P5 conferences to stick around to something similar to the way they are now. I grew up watching the ACC and would be upset if a lot of the schools left for mega conferences as it just wouldn’t be the same. I think that 16 schools would be the limit for what I’d want to see.

(05-21-2023 12:20 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  Now this is a fun thread.

I'll dream a bit, with help from what's being reported right now, by actual journalists:

1. The Big 12 doesn't attract anyone from the Pac-12. They add Memphis and UNLV to get to 14 schools.
2. The Pac-12 expands more than they initially thought, with SDSU, SMU, Tulane, and Rice to get to 14 schools.
3. The ACC is stuck at 14 schools until the 2030s

This leaves an 10-school AAC lineup: 5 old members (Temple, Navy, ECU, USF, Tulsa) and 5 new ones (UNCC, FAU, UAB, UTSA, North Texas). The AAC's TV deal would plummet, probably close to what the SBC has now (reportedly $2M, according to JMU and ODU reporters).

I don't think many (if any) Sun Belt schools would jump to the AAC in that scenario, given a similar payout. The AAC would be too thin and spread out. Heck, maybe a school like ECU considers jumping the other way in that scenario.


Why not push for App in the AAC? I feel our fan interest would decline a tad if we left Marshall, Georgia Southern, James Madison, Coastal Carolina for Temple, FAU, USF, and UAB.

If SMU, Tulane, Rice and Memphis were to leave the AAC (as in your hypothetical, Yosef), there is a very solid chance that Temple, Navy and Wichita would all say, "That's it. We're gone." And each would have a reasonably appealing exit plan option.

I'm not sure what the remaining eight AAC members (ECU, USF, FAU, Charlotte, UAB, Tulsa, UTSA and UNT) would do at that point. I suppose the league could attempt to lure members from C-USA — as I doubt any Belt programs would be interested.

(05-21-2023 12:46 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  This is purely fantasy, but here is the alignment I would like to see:

ACC:
Duke
UNC
NC State
Wake
Maryland
Virginia
Clemson
Georgia Tech

Big East:
Syracuse (BE football)
UConn (BE football)
Pitt (BE football)
BC (BE football)
Nova
Georgetown
Seton Hall
Providence
St. John's
Navy (BE football-only)

SEC:
Alabama
Auburn
LSU
Vandy
Kentucky
Florida
Georgia
Tennessee
Ole Miss
Miss State

Big 10:
Northwestern
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Indiana
Purdue
Michigan State
Ohio State
Michigan

Big 8:
Colorado
Nebraska
Missouri
Oklahoma
Kansas
Kansas State
Iowa State
Oklahoma State

SWC:
Texas
Arkansas
A&M
Tech
Baylor
Houston
SMU
TCU
Rice

Pac-8:
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State
Cal
Stanford
USC
UCLA

4 Corners Conference:
Arizona
Arizona State
Utah
BYU
Utah State
UNLV
Nevada
New Mexico
New Mexico State
UTEP

MW:
SDSU
Fresno State
Hawaii
Boise State
Idaho
San Jose State
Wyoming
Boise State
Colorado State
Air Force

A-10:
Penn State
Florida State
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Miami
South Carolina
UCF
USF
Temple
UMass

C-USA:
Memphis (BE football)
Cincinnati (BE football)
Louisville (BE football)
Xavier
Notre Dame (independent football)
DePaul
Butler
Creighton
Marquette

SoCon:
ECU
Tulane
Southern Miss
Marshall
La Tech
Appalachian State
Louisiana
Charlotte
UAB

Independent:
Army (Patriot League)

This actually looks rather appealing in many respects. Well done, shizzle.

(05-21-2023 12:06 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:57 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:38 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:03 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Swarbrick a respected man in the College Football World tells you he thinks everyone will be oriented around two spheres, the SEC and the Big 10.

The board meets those remarks with a good deal of denial.

The Nebraska president tells us that more expansion is coming within a couple of years.

The board meets those remarks with some speculation and some denial.

People are weary of change, but that's not going to stop it.

Texas and Oklahoma moved, USC and UCLA moved, people were shocked and then went right back into denial that indeed, sweeping changes were coming.

If the Big 10 and SEC held some top-secret high-level discussions and decided to divide the rest of the PAC 12 and ACC up so that each would have 24 schools, I promise you it wouldn't look like anything we would want. Compromise would have to be involved in that process and nobody would be 100% satisfied with a compromise decision reached by agreement of 32 presidents and 2 commissioners. Even if the compromise was done among just the two commissioners it would not be as fan friendly as most would want.

Let me make this clear, I am not denying that it is quite possible such a compromise has been struck, I'm just stating that it is likely something to which I might say, "Yeah I would have taken those 3, but who in the hell picked the other 5?"

And all of it presupposes that the other schools are ready to move.

And what is really, really strange here is that I firmly believe this is true. Normally I'd say it is one thing for us to believe the SEC and Big 10 just divided out and agreed upon who goes where, but it is wholly another to say "and all the schools will go along."

Maybe California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington just needed to know that there was no way they were remaining in control before they committed, because the slow play of the PAC 12 contract seems to have been a factor in which FOX and ESPN passivity was the persuading factor of the reality of the situation. Because, concomitantly with that little drama the Magnificent 7 suddenly arise, and it is far more obvious to me that those 7 had some assurances before they hung their bacon out in public to defy the survival of a conference if radical changes to the finances weren't forthcoming, finances which had to be practical or an immediate way of making a difference.

Now the remarks by Carter alluding to Alberts, and tossing out yet another Super 2 projection, should be taken with the gravity of the concept that made them.

Are we going to continue to deny that the ACC GOR could be rendered moot as a deterrent to such a move. Are we going to continue to pretend that there isn't a hidden honeypot to pay for it, or desire to do it, or a necessity to consolidate beyond athletics?

This is that moment when you are standing at the beach and all the water gets sucked back a mile into the ocean. Are you going to stand there and gawk at the sight and say, "Golly, I've never seen that before, I want to get some shots with my cell phone!" Or, are you going to run like hell for the highest ground you can find because your brain, like that of all the intelligent animals around you, yells danger!

I've stated that the only reason giants move is because they are tall enough to see something that scares them on the horizon. Texas, Oklahoma, UCLA, USC are four such giants. You'd have to be completely obtuse not to grasp the significance of those 4 moving and in doing so abandoning structures they helped to build.

Well now you have some big names inside the industry of College sports and College academia telling you what they see coming, it's just about here, and we are still talking P5?

I believe what I see happening around me and it's coming, likely by 2025, and much of it has little to do with football, and a lot to do with other things happening within our environment of population, its trends, finances, its projections, and the move to the SEC and Big 10 is the higher ground for surviving the tsunami of change rolling our way.

Put up your cell phones and haul ass! Your mental absorption of events has most of you paralyzed. It's real and the signs have been with us for some time now. I think the prevailing attitudes among college presidents and ADs isn't SEC or Big 10, but rather is their room in the lifeboat for me? Two of the three lifeboats will be those massive inflatable totally enclosed buoy like modern survival boats, and the other will be open air and will have oars. But all will be looking for one of the three. And I don't think those jumping on last will care which boat they are in.

I've thought that the Big 10 and SEC would make particular selections in gamesmanship to get this done. That may be in error. Now I think the networks are looking at markets and reach and branding and what they are willing to pay to have, and the conferences will have a little input, but mostly the structure will decide for us. So, what the final alignment looks like might be a good game for the board to play out and I'm sure we will make our best guesses, but I'm not counting on anyone being totally happy with the outcome, especially if it comes more from networks more than from presidents and commissioners.

I thought Kansas was a stretch and Colorado was a fanciful idea to spur discussion, I could have a coyote ugly moment the day things are settled!

Okay, so what do you want to happen?

If the Big 10 does indeed take Oregon, Washington, California and Stanford and they insist on 4 to the East. I would like for them to have Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Duke, and Miami. I would like to see Virginia Tech, Virginia, North Carolina North Carolina State, Clemson and Florida State in the SEC and for the SEC to add Kansas, and I suppose Colorado to the West. I don't want the SEC to extend into Utah or Arizona. Nothing against those schools, but Colorado is a bridge too far. I like Colorado only in as much as they complete an interesting region with Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas A&M. To get to Arizona you have to jump New Mexico and you might as well look at Texas Tech to get there. If you take Texas Tech you are back into a debate about Oklahoma State, and if you do that you can forget about Kansas because Kansas State becomes a debate.

The SEC is built on rivalries. Missouri needs Kansas. Oklahoma has Texas. Colorado like Missouri is a state of 6 million dominated by one school and is in a different time zone for marketing purposes. It's also a nice vacation state and with Kansas it would be contiguous.

If you take Virginia and Virginia Tech, North Carolina and N.C. State those additions have their in state rival and a chief out of state rival. Add Clemson and Florida State and South Carolina and Florida have their rivals in house.

If you wind up with two leagues of 24 having rivals where you play them annually will be doubly important. Basketball has enough games in a season to pull off having a rival outside of the conference. Football does not.

If it goes nuclear like you predict, I hope Duke joins the SEC and Syracuse or Pitt ends up in the Big Ten instead. Carolina-Duke is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. I have to think the SEC would recognize that and bite the bullet.

One of the state of North Carolina's "issues" is you have three public schools with decent sized football followings, and two private schools—one with a national fanbase in hoops and another with a strong regional presence. I think you need at least three NC schools to own the state; think of Duke as a bonus.

Football stadiums:

Carolina - 50.5k (reduced from ~60k)
State - ~57k
ECU - 51k

,

I'm starting to think if the B1G goes to 24 that they should take Pitt. It doesn't offer any market (or rather offers half of the Pbgh market, aside from cable subs already delivered by PSU), but those are becoming less important w/ chord cutting. Academically/culturally it's a perfect fit, and I'd imagine a yearly game w/ PSU would capture at least around 5m eyeballs (even if mostly in Pa). And while Pitt usually only fills the stadium for PSU/WVU/UND visitors, OSU definitely would travel well enough to fill it and even Michigan isn't too far away to substantially boost Pitt home game attendance.

U OF O (Oregon) joins the B1G with UW

If the 4Cs stay, expand Pac with SDSU & SMU. If not, OrST & WSU to Big XII.

FSU joins the SEC with Clem & VT.

Memphis joins Big XII.

Montevallo and IUP go D1.

What I want to see (and is ultimately best for the sport, in some form)

Big 10: Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa
SEC: Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Mississppi State, LSU
Pac 10: USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, Arizona, Arizona State
ACC: Virginia, Virginia Tech, UNC, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest, South Carolina, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State
Big East: Penn State, Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College, Maryland, West Virginia, Miami, Rutgers
Southwest: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, Arkansas, Houston, TCU, SMU
Big 8: Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Colorado

That's 7 Power Leagues with 64 teams, and then to top off the lesser leagues:

WAC: Colorado State, Air Force, New Mexico, Hawaii, Wyoming, Utah, BYU, San Diego State, Fresno State, Boise State
American: Louisville, Cincinnati, Southern Miss, UAB, East Carolina, Temple, UCF, USF, Memphis, Tulane

That puts us at 84 between 9 leagues. No conference championship games, full round robins in every conference (aka REAL champions), and teams playing in their own region and against rivals is key. The way the sport was meant to be before all these silly coast to coast super conferences came to be.

I'm sure I've forgotten SOMEBODY somewhat important here, but of the top of my head these seemed like the 84 most important teams (plus ND, Army, and Navy who would much prefer independence).



Other fantasy idea....scrap all the conferences. Full on independence and let teams do as they want. Most would still play teams they're familiar with, but maybe it would encourage more new matchups we've never or rarely seen.

(05-21-2023 01:05 PM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 12:06 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:57 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:38 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:03 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Swarbrick a respected man in the College Football World tells you he thinks everyone will be oriented around two spheres, the SEC and the Big 10.

The board meets those remarks with a good deal of denial.

The Nebraska president tells us that more expansion is coming within a couple of years.

The board meets those remarks with some speculation and some denial.

People are weary of change, but that's not going to stop it.

Texas and Oklahoma moved, USC and UCLA moved, people were shocked and then went right back into denial that indeed, sweeping changes were coming.

If the Big 10 and SEC held some top-secret high-level discussions and decided to divide the rest of the PAC 12 and ACC up so that each would have 24 schools, I promise you it wouldn't look like anything we would want. Compromise would have to be involved in that process and nobody would be 100% satisfied with a compromise decision reached by agreement of 32 presidents and 2 commissioners. Even if the compromise was done among just the two commissioners it would not be as fan friendly as most would want.

Let me make this clear, I am not denying that it is quite possible such a compromise has been struck, I'm just stating that it is likely something to which I might say, "Yeah I would have taken those 3, but who in the hell picked the other 5?"

And all of it presupposes that the other schools are ready to move.

And what is really, really strange here is that I firmly believe this is true. Normally I'd say it is one thing for us to believe the SEC and Big 10 just divided out and agreed upon who goes where, but it is wholly another to say "and all the schools will go along."

Maybe California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington just needed to know that there was no way they were remaining in control before they committed, because the slow play of the PAC 12 contract seems to have been a factor in which FOX and ESPN passivity was the persuading factor of the reality of the situation. Because, concomitantly with that little drama the Magnificent 7 suddenly arise, and it is far more obvious to me that those 7 had some assurances before they hung their bacon out in public to defy the survival of a conference if radical changes to the finances weren't forthcoming, finances which had to be practical or an immediate way of making a difference.

Now the remarks by Carter alluding to Alberts, and tossing out yet another Super 2 projection, should be taken with the gravity of the concept that made them.

Are we going to continue to deny that the ACC GOR could be rendered moot as a deterrent to such a move. Are we going to continue to pretend that there isn't a hidden honeypot to pay for it, or desire to do it, or a necessity to consolidate beyond athletics?

This is that moment when you are standing at the beach and all the water gets sucked back a mile into the ocean. Are you going to stand there and gawk at the sight and say, "Golly, I've never seen that before, I want to get some shots with my cell phone!" Or, are you going to run like hell for the highest ground you can find because your brain, like that of all the intelligent animals around you, yells danger!

I've stated that the only reason giants move is because they are tall enough to see something that scares them on the horizon. Texas, Oklahoma, UCLA, USC are four such giants. You'd have to be completely obtuse not to grasp the significance of those 4 moving and in doing so abandoning structures they helped to build.

Well now you have some big names inside the industry of College sports and College academia telling you what they see coming, it's just about here, and we are still talking P5?

I believe what I see happening around me and it's coming, likely by 2025, and much of it has little to do with football, and a lot to do with other things happening within our environment of population, its trends, finances, its projections, and the move to the SEC and Big 10 is the higher ground for surviving the tsunami of change rolling our way.

Put up your cell phones and haul ass! Your mental absorption of events has most of you paralyzed. It's real and the signs have been with us for some time now. I think the prevailing attitudes among college presidents and ADs isn't SEC or Big 10, but rather is their room in the lifeboat for me? Two of the three lifeboats will be those massive inflatable totally enclosed buoy like modern survival boats, and the other will be open air and will have oars. But all will be looking for one of the three. And I don't think those jumping on last will care which boat they are in.

I've thought that the Big 10 and SEC would make particular selections in gamesmanship to get this done. That may be in error. Now I think the networks are looking at markets and reach and branding and what they are willing to pay to have, and the conferences will have a little input, but mostly the structure will decide for us. So, what the final alignment looks like might be a good game for the board to play out and I'm sure we will make our best guesses, but I'm not counting on anyone being totally happy with the outcome, especially if it comes more from networks more than from presidents and commissioners.

I thought Kansas was a stretch and Colorado was a fanciful idea to spur discussion, I could have a coyote ugly moment the day things are settled!

Okay, so what do you want to happen?

If the Big 10 does indeed take Oregon, Washington, California and Stanford and they insist on 4 to the East. I would like for them to have Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Duke, and Miami. I would like to see Virginia Tech, Virginia, North Carolina North Carolina State, Clemson and Florida State in the SEC and for the SEC to add Kansas, and I suppose Colorado to the West. I don't want the SEC to extend into Utah or Arizona. Nothing against those schools, but Colorado is a bridge too far. I like Colorado only in as much as they complete an interesting region with Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas A&M. To get to Arizona you have to jump New Mexico and you might as well look at Texas Tech to get there. If you take Texas Tech you are back into a debate about Oklahoma State, and if you do that you can forget about Kansas because Kansas State becomes a debate.

The SEC is built on rivalries. Missouri needs Kansas. Oklahoma has Texas. Colorado like Missouri is a state of 6 million dominated by one school and is in a different time zone for marketing purposes. It's also a nice vacation state and with Kansas it would be contiguous.

If you take Virginia and Virginia Tech, North Carolina and N.C. State those additions have their in state rival and a chief out of state rival. Add Clemson and Florida State and South Carolina and Florida have their rivals in house.

If you wind up with two leagues of 24 having rivals where you play them annually will be doubly important. Basketball has enough games in a season to pull off having a rival outside of the conference. Football does not.

If it goes nuclear like you predict, I hope Duke joins the SEC and Syracuse or Pitt ends up in the Big Ten instead. Carolina-Duke is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. I have to think the SEC would recognize that and bite the bullet.

One of the state of North Carolina's "issues" is you have three public schools with decent sized football followings, and two private schools—one with a national fanbase in hoops and another with a strong regional presence. I think you need at least three NC schools to own the state; think of Duke as a bonus.

Football stadiums:

Carolina - 50.5k (reduced from ~60k)
State - ~57k
ECU - 51k

,

I'm starting to think if the B1G goes to 24 that they should take Pitt. It doesn't offer any market (or rather offers half of the Pbgh market, aside from cable subs already delivered by PSU), but those are becoming less important w/ chord cutting. Academically/culturally it's a perfect fit, and I'd imagine a yearly game w/ PSU would capture at least around 5m eyeballs (even if mostly in Pa). And while Pitt usually only fills the stadium for PSU/WVU/UND visitors, OSU definitely would travel well enough to fill it and even Michigan isn't too far away to substantially boost Pitt home game attendance.

Pitt would absolutely love getting in the Big Ten and has wanted it since around 1950.

I just don't see Penn State and to a lesser extent Ohio State ever allowing it.

What I want is a complete fantasy:

1. Congress gives NCAA or some successor entity a limited anti-truest exemption and passes common-sense NIL and Athlete pay for play rules. They'll still get circumvented, but with the FBI investigating transgressors rather than the NCAA, there'd be a whole lot more respect for Red Lines.
2. NCAA or some successor entity for FBS football passes Transfer limits. If you're the 3rd string punter, you can transfer every week if you like. However, if you take big NIL money from a school or its boosters, they can sign you to a long term contract. If you want to transfer to some other school then you have to negotiate a buyout, just like coaches do. No buyout, no transfer. Your feelings are hurt because you didn't start from day 1 as a true freshman at Alabama? Suck it up and work your butt off so you can start in the future.
3. More than just a P2. I don't think that 40 schools is enough. It doesn't have to be 130, but to reach the entire country we'll probably want at least the 68 that are in the P5 today (plus ND, Army and UConn). I don't really care if it's set up as one League or 2-5 Conferences, as long as it helps to keep CFB strong for the long term.

What would I like?

a.) fbs football to no longer be under the NCAA, and have it's own thing, like Boxing has. And therefore the football media contracts would be separate from all other sports contracts, and conference membership would have nothing to do with fbs conferences/associations/scheduling.

b.) The end of GoRs. And media contracts to have built in provisions to allow for a school leaving a conference, and the subsequent processes for separation and backfill.

c.) And exit fees cannot be more than 2 years revenue disbursement, unless a school leaves prior to staying in for at least 2 years, or leaves earlier than 1 year notice. Each of which to cost another multiple of the exit fee.

d.) The traditionalist in me would also like NCAA conference memberships to return to something like Shizzle's list above. (I might quibble a bit on a few though : )

My wish is that whatever is the endgame with the ACC, PAC, Big 12, and P2, that it get resolved by 2025 rather than sit in a holding patten for the next 6 to 13 years. If a team is ultimately moving to the Big Ten or SEC, then do it now.

Performance-based revenue sharing among all FBS conferences OR football conference to decouple from olympic-sport conferences.

(05-21-2023 01:05 PM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 12:06 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:57 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:38 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-21-2023 11:03 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Swarbrick a respected man in the College Football World tells you he thinks everyone will be oriented around two spheres, the SEC and the Big 10.

The board meets those remarks with a good deal of denial.

The Nebraska president tells us that more expansion is coming within a couple of years.

The board meets those remarks with some speculation and some denial.

People are weary of change, but that's not going to stop it.

Texas and Oklahoma moved, USC and UCLA moved, people were shocked and then went right back into denial that indeed, sweeping changes were coming.

If the Big 10 and SEC held some top-secret high-level discussions and decided to divide the rest of the PAC 12 and ACC up so that each would have 24 schools, I promise you it wouldn't look like anything we would want. Compromise would have to be involved in that process and nobody would be 100% satisfied with a compromise decision reached by agreement of 32 presidents and 2 commissioners. Even if the compromise was done among just the two commissioners it would not be as fan friendly as most would want.

Let me make this clear, I am not denying that it is quite possible such a compromise has been struck, I'm just stating that it is likely something to which I might say, "Yeah I would have taken those 3, but who in the hell picked the other 5?"

And all of it presupposes that the other schools are ready to move.

And what is really, really strange here is that I firmly believe this is true. Normally I'd say it is one thing for us to believe the SEC and Big 10 just divided out and agreed upon who goes where, but it is wholly another to say "and all the schools will go along."

Maybe California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington just needed to know that there was no way they were remaining in control before they committed, because the slow play of the PAC 12 contract seems to have been a factor in which FOX and ESPN passivity was the persuading factor of the reality of the situation. Because, concomitantly with that little drama the Magnificent 7 suddenly arise, and it is far more obvious to me that those 7 had some assurances before they hung their bacon out in public to defy the survival of a conference if radical changes to the finances weren't forthcoming, finances which had to be practical or an immediate way of making a difference.

Now the remarks by Carter alluding to Alberts, and tossing out yet another Super 2 projection, should be taken with the gravity of the concept that made them.

Are we going to continue to deny that the ACC GOR could be rendered moot as a deterrent to such a move. Are we going to continue to pretend that there isn't a hidden honeypot to pay for it, or desire to do it, or a necessity to consolidate beyond athletics?

This is that moment when you are standing at the beach and all the water gets sucked back a mile into the ocean. Are you going to stand there and gawk at the sight and say, "Golly, I've never seen that before, I want to get some shots with my cell phone!" Or, are you going to run like hell for the highest ground you can find because your brain, like that of all the intelligent animals around you, yells danger!

I've stated that the only reason giants move is because they are tall enough to see something that scares them on the horizon. Texas, Oklahoma, UCLA, USC are four such giants. You'd have to be completely obtuse not to grasp the significance of those 4 moving and in doing so abandoning structures they helped to build.

Well now you have some big names inside the industry of College sports and College academia telling you what they see coming, it's just about here, and we are still talking P5?

I believe what I see happening around me and it's coming, likely by 2025, and much of it has little to do with football, and a lot to do with other things happening within our environment of population, its trends, finances, its projections, and the move to the SEC and Big 10 is the higher ground for surviving the tsunami of change rolling our way.

Put up your cell phones and haul ass! Your mental absorption of events has most of you paralyzed. It's real and the signs have been with us for some time now. I think the prevailing attitudes among college presidents and ADs isn't SEC or Big 10, but rather is their room in the lifeboat for me? Two of the three lifeboats will be those massive inflatable totally enclosed buoy like modern survival boats, and the other will be open air and will have oars. But all will be looking for one of the three. And I don't think those jumping on last will care which boat they are in.

I've thought that the Big 10 and SEC would make particular selections in gamesmanship to get this done. That may be in error. Now I think the networks are looking at markets and reach and branding and what they are willing to pay to have, and the conferences will have a little input, but mostly the structure will decide for us. So, what the final alignment looks like might be a good game for the board to play out and I'm sure we will make our best guesses, but I'm not counting on anyone being totally happy with the outcome, especially if it comes more from networks more than from presidents and commissioners.

I thought Kansas was a stretch and Colorado was a fanciful idea to spur discussion, I could have a coyote ugly moment the day things are settled!

Okay, so what do you want to happen?

If the Big 10 does indeed take Oregon, Washington, California and Stanford and they insist on 4 to the East. I would like for them to have Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Duke, and Miami. I would like to see Virginia Tech, Virginia, North Carolina North Carolina State, Clemson and Florida State in the SEC and for the SEC to add Kansas, and I suppose Colorado to the West. I don't want the SEC to extend into Utah or Arizona. Nothing against those schools, but Colorado is a bridge too far. I like Colorado only in as much as they complete an interesting region with Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas A&M. To get to Arizona you have to jump New Mexico and you might as well look at Texas Tech to get there. If you take Texas Tech you are back into a debate about Oklahoma State, and if you do that you can forget about Kansas because Kansas State becomes a debate.

The SEC is built on rivalries. Missouri needs Kansas. Oklahoma has Texas. Colorado like Missouri is a state of 6 million dominated by one school and is in a different time zone for marketing purposes. It's also a nice vacation state and with Kansas it would be contiguous.

If you take Virginia and Virginia Tech, North Carolina and N.C. State those additions have their in state rival and a chief out of state rival. Add Clemson and Florida State and South Carolina and Florida have their rivals in house.

If you wind up with two leagues of 24 having rivals where you play them annually will be doubly important. Basketball has enough games in a season to pull off having a rival outside of the conference. Football does not.

If it goes nuclear like you predict, I hope Duke joins the SEC and Syracuse or Pitt ends up in the Big Ten instead. Carolina-Duke is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. I have to think the SEC would recognize that and bite the bullet.

One of the state of North Carolina's "issues" is you have three public schools with decent sized football followings, and two private schools—one with a national fanbase in hoops and another with a strong regional presence. I think you need at least three NC schools to own the state; think of Duke as a bonus.

Football stadiums:

Carolina - 50.5k (reduced from ~60k)
State - ~57k
ECU - 51k

,

I'm starting to think if the B1G goes to 24 that they should take Pitt. It doesn't offer any market (or rather offers half of the Pbgh market, aside from cable subs already delivered by PSU), but those are becoming less important w/ chord cutting. Academically/culturally it's a perfect fit, and I'd imagine a yearly game w/ PSU would capture at least around 5m eyeballs (even if mostly in Pa). And while Pitt usually only fills the stadium for PSU/WVU/UND visitors, OSU definitely would travel well enough to fill it and even Michigan isn't too far away to substantially boost Pitt home game attendance.

Whether adding Pitt is a financial success or not, it cannot be argued against the fact that those two are one another’s chief rival and Penn State doesn’t have that symbiotic relationship with any other school.

(05-21-2023 10:26 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  I would like whatever has to happen that results in UTEP & NMSU joining the MWC. That helps the geography of CUSA immensely while benefitting the Miners and Aggies geographically. The fact that it may not be beneficial to the MWC is irrelevant to me.

Idaho and New Mexico State should have been added to the MWC when the WAC collapsed, but pairing New Mexico State with UTEP is a better move.