(01-09-2018 03:58 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-09-2018 03:03 PM)murrdcu Wrote:  

(01-09-2018 02:41 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-09-2018 02:08 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(01-09-2018 01:55 PM)murrdcu Wrote:  Or the B1G follows in the SEC’s footsteps when Sankey met with the SEC AD’s and they worked out plan to improve their abysmal basketball conference to what it’s improved to today.

The B1G already added Nebraska to “fix” the West. If they add just Oklahoma to the west, how can the B1G hope OU won’t dip considerably like NU did?

I'm not quite sure the reasoning behind the addition of Nebraska was to balance the East and West. Nebraska, at the time, had come off several decades of consistent dominance. The B1G also went to the Leaders/Legends format which kind of negates any idea that the idea was always for an East/West format. Also, at the time, a conference needed 12 schools for a CCG.

If I were the B1G during that time period, I would've sent a mass offer to Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. There was a report that the B1G received a package offer from a combination of Iowa St, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M.

Had the B1G gone my way with N/K/M/O/T, they'd look like:

West: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
East: Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, Michigan St, Ohio St, Penn St

Fairly balanced with a bunch of state flagships.

Texas A&M still heads to the SEC. Colorado still heads to the PAC with Utah. Perhaps Oklahoma St goes with Texas A&M instead of Missouri? Who knows. The SEC said a lot by taking Missouri and made the Tigers feel welcomed in a way the B1G was idiotic not to do. It also gave the SEC stronger borders with Oklahoma football and Kansas basketball.

I doubt the SEC would've taken Missouri for the sole sake of spiting the B1G, but sometimes realignment moves are more like chess - you might not make the best move in the world but you're setting yourself up for the win.

Any way you cut this, and let's limit this discussion to the future, it comes down to who takes Oklahoma to kill off the Big 12? While I would love to see the SEC land OU for obvious reasons the simple truth is that Texas really can't remain in a conference where it is the only brand. The face fan revolt and irrelevancy if they do. The SEC's clear objective here is simply to take the majority of the Texas market.

The only way the PAC does it is if they sell a % of the PACN and get ESPN's help in landing a package of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and whoever else it is they want.

The quickest way for the SEC to do it is to offer Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

The Big 10 will make a play for OU with either UT or KU.

But no matter how you cut it this year's playoffs simply reinforced the need to move to a P4 and adjust the CFP to champs only.

Another wild card here is that there is no hard and fast rules that moves have to be to 16. The PAC could offer 8, the Big 10 4, and the SEC 4. The ACC and SEC could work together and take up to 7 with or without having a couple of changes among themselves.

OU and Texas are the two big pieces that can be moved this next window.

Texas is the hardest one to land for the SEC, so to maximize the next round of TV payouts—which will value content over # of new subscription fees—the SEC will need to focus on landing OU. When the SEC sent offers to both Texas A&M and Oklahoma, OU President David Boren didn’t seriously consider it since it left out OU’s rivals Oklahoma State and Texas. So if what Paul Finebaum said at the beginning of this football season that the SEC will add OU and OSU in the near future, the future of the Big 12 will be solely in Texas’ hands; for better or worse.

I think the important part is that the SEC could thrive for a very long time if the we only added two more schools and one was Oklahoma. It really doesn't matter if the second school is O.S.U., T.C.U., W.V.U., T.T.U., I.S.U., or K.U.. In fact the best on field product of those is probably O.S.U..

I am equally sure that the Big 10 is probably reconsidering it's opposition to "champs only" and that the PAC would be among the first to embrace it. The pattern over the last 20 years for the strongest contenders for the BCS & CFP to be Southern in origin is fairly overwhelming. And needless to say if the Big 10 and PAC are willing to push for a "champs only" format it goes without saying that the Big 12 question has to be resolved. I even believe the climate is right for the ACC to be willing to head that route as well.

If that happens the SEC could acquiesce, especially if we got stronger consideration regarding the first move of assimilation of the Big 12 and I would think that ESPN would be just as interested in seeing that happen. It would probably be even easier if the PAC decided to let ESPN handle their network.

How do they work that out?

The PAC has to make their networks profitable compared to the SEC and B1G soon or the PAC Presidents will find ways to close that money gap themselves.

As far as expansion from the B12, the SEC will add the most profitabie combo of schools the TV partners are willing to pay for.