(08-08-2017 07:54 AM)XLance Wrote:  The more I look at this:
Dennis Dodd @dennisdoddcbs
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3m
More and more administrators telling me really hard to go beyond 14. We may have reached peak expansion, super conferences.

Dennis Dodd
Dennis Dodd @dennisdoddcbs
·
5m
"If you go much beyond where we are, it's more like an association," Delany on further expansion. Hearing this more and more.


the more i'm beginning to think that the B1G, SEC and ACC are done.
The PAC only needs to add the two things they need most. Windows for the rest of the country to see PAC football and basketball. That could be accomplished with Kansas and Oklahoma to get the PAC to 14 members.
Texas would become the "new Notre Dame" with a partial football deal with somebody (PAC/SEC/B1G....most likely the PAC which would include Oklahoma as a permanent) and their other sports in the western division of the American. Which would include two schools in Kansas (Wichita State, Kansas State) , two in Oklahoma (Oklahoma State, Tulsa) , 5 in Texas (Houston, SMU, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU). The other side of the American would include Iowa State, Tulane, UConn, Temple. East Carolina, UCF, USF, Memphis and Cincinnati).

This way we end up with 4 X 14 and two Prima Donnas and one really good league of 18 (which is the best of the rest).
Playoffs could be expanded to 6, one spot for the American and 1 at large to go with the 4 champions of the P4.

This like a lot of scenarios is pure speculation in an effort to find something workable to bring things to a close. But I find this one very realistic in that it evens the playing field between the P4, parks Texas in a place that they will be happy, and gives the PAC the two things they need with eastern audiences (access to the west and blue-bloods in both sports to lend credibility to eastern viewers).

While true that moving to larger and larger conferences creates more of an "association" than a conference:

1) 16 is actually easier to schedule either in pods (3-2-2-2) or as a 7-2 set up, or any other number of ways to help keep rivalries.

2) Conferences won't stop expanding until expansion no longer makes financial sense. The SEC gaining OK or Texas would bring in more money, and open up the possibility of conference semi's. That's an easy motivation for expansion.