(06-17-2022 12:38 AM)Acres Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 10:50 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 10:37 PM)LeeNobody Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 10:12 PM)Tigerblud Wrote:  

(06-16-2022 10:10 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  Will the SEC stop at 16 or expand to 18 or 20?.

They will eventually have FSU and Clemson. Maybe more.

Agreed. The ACC will be raided

Don’t agree.

Leagues don’t expand just for the sake of expanding.

Every expansion raises the bar for the next expansion to simply break even.

The SEC just added the single greatest pair of schools that they could EVER realistically add with Texas and Oklahoma.

This board exists because getting to be the final home of Texas was what caused all of conference realignment from 2010 until now.

I quoted Doctor Strange on the day that the UT/OU to the SEC story broke: “We’re in the END GAME now.”

There’s no one that loves discussing realignment more than me, but power conference realignment (at least for the Big Ten/SEC/ACC/Pac-12) is over unless Notre Dame decides to drop independence. That’s it. It’s over. Even adding FSU, Clemson, UNC and take your pick of anyone else in the ACC combined wouldn’t bring in the value that simply the pair of UT and OU just brought to the SEC. Hence the total paralysis of any movement from the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC over the past year (unlike the 2010-13 timeframe) outside of a non-binding Alliance.

Our realignment talks are going to be focused on the Big 12, G5 and basketball leagues. I have as much vested interest in seeing more big moves from the SEC, Big Ten and other major powers as anyone here, but it’s over. Done. There is NO expansion that’s better than UT and OU alone. NONE. It was a mic drop hammer to power conference realignment.

Getting Texas is the entire end game, NOT the start.

Solid statement. However, if it’s true that the SEC has reached its peak composition, then it’s also true that the conference will not maintain its new status quo. Laws of nature or business for that matter do not allow equilibrium at peak composition. There will be inherent instability that will inevitably arise when such powerhouse schools are pooled together in the same tent. The composition of the SEC is too perfect to work. How many of the current SEC schools were in the old SWC. The SEC, one of the most stable and profitable league, has upset its balance by bringing those two to the fold. The perfect Trojan horses.

Ultimately, as we have seen time and time again, it will start to fray , due to politics, arguments , personal animosity and straight up vindictiveness. Post Saban, Like the old SWC a coalition of the willing will break away to do their own thing.

Getting Texas is not the entire end game. It’s the beginning of the end of the Saban’s SEC.

All conference formation meets the needs of the moment. We only fool ourselves if we believe any of them are monolithic. Even the conference now called the PAC 12 has taken in and lost schools over the years and it is the most geographically isolated. What is true of life is also true of institutions, they grow, decline, and constantly change.

In times of high stress you get consolidation. In times of great opportunity and economic stability you get smaller more tailored and focused groupings. The moves by Texas and Oklahoma and the SEC are smart for the issues they all face. If the SEC grew to 20 in this it would not be surprising, and when, or if, the nation falls back into a time of relative calm and prosperity it would not surprising at all to see 2 conferences split out of it.

I've said here before, when giants move it is because they see what is happening on the horizon sooner, and it is never a good thing because it means the biggest and strongest among us have seen something which scared the hell out of them.

Well buckle up. World and massive regional conflicts have always followed mass migrations of people looking for the basic necessities of life. We have that. Mergers and acquisitions indicate a stress response, or may create stress responses, in business. Well, we have had a lot of that too. Now 2 iconic schools have moved for security. And IMO, that is the key reason they did finally move.

Something really frightening is on the horizon. It's kind of like all of the animals fleeing for the hills when a massive earthquake and tsunami are coming. Nature knows. People are usually blinded by routine and don't even notice the horizon. Maybe we all need to spend less time looking at the glow of the small screen and more time outside studying what's actually happening in the world, like China deploying troops possibly to the Solomon Islands as well as other Island chains. It's eerily reminiscent of moves made by Imperial Japan in the teens and twenties of the 20th century.