(05-17-2017 09:04 AM)Wolfman Wrote: It does say 5 years ago in the subject.
My guess is the PAC told Oklahoma they could bring OSU if they brought Texas. Huge blow to Oklahoma's ego but they tell Texas they will go to the PAC with or without them. Texas calls their bluff and tells Oklahoma if they leave, Texas will go to the ACC.
Texas had some discussions with the ACC at the time. Serious discussion? Maybe. Maybe not. The ACC had been extremely good about keeping realignment discussions out of the press, yet news of the Texas discussions leaked. Possibly a move by Texas to add weight to their calling of Oklahoma's bluff?
The discussion was led by Deloss Dodds but it was contrary to what Oklahoma was feeling out on their own. Dodds wanted to take Kansas and Oklahoma with them along with N.D. to the ACC. It was why Clay Travis was floating the trial balloon of N.C. State and Virginia Tech to the SEC and why the SEC was discouraged from Oklahoma to go with A&M and encouraged to take Missouri.
Alledgedly (since all things that fail in realignment "never happened") both conferences would have moved to 16 with the 4 brands heading to the ACC to elevate its total status to being an equal to those of the SEC and B1G. The SEC was getting paid off with huge markets for the SECN. The ACCN would have followed in the next year or so after this move. When the deal ultimately was turned down by the ACC that's when Maryland bolted to the Big 10. They wanted the cash infusion the deal was going to bring. When that happened all hell broke loose.
OU signed a T3 with FOX, the SEC was given every effort to land full carriage for the SECN, N.D. seized the opportunity to get an independent deal like they had in the old Big East. Kansas got a perky T3 from ESPN and the GOR's were slapped in place because the networks, ESPN in particular had lost its advantage of surprise in taking the crown jewels of the Big 12 and landing Delany's White Whale. We're talking late 2010 here. A meeting between the SEC and Va Tech at the Greenbriar in W.Virginia sparked the dude's big push that the SEC was after the Eers. Corporate Jet tracking showed the SEC's plane had landed in W.Virginia.
To understand that mess is to understand the leanings in realignment today. The players may be altered slightly but the the key schools in question are still the ones that ESPN will want to use the ACC and SEC to go after. The question is how much leverage do those schools have in soliciting spots for friends.
I think Texas is off the table for the ACC as a full member, and probably as a partial if they can get an offer elsewhere to take other Texas schools with them.
Oklahoma is in play but trying to protect OSU and I'm sure any state's political system would want both of their state supported schools to have an external gravy train somewhere.
Kansas is a great #2 for either OU or Texas. But now FOX is in the mix too and this time they aren't going to be blindsided.
But for all the folks who say networks don't play the game and pull the strings and offer incentives or disincentives think again. They pay us to do what they want done and all the conferences offer in return are loose parameters. E.G. Louisville to the ACC. It's not a move that Tobacco Road might have liked, but it was the best business move the ACC had at hand. Lay it at the feet of Florida State for plausible deniability and voila. IMO you guys have had an upward trajectory ever since making that move, and it is a lesson we'll have to wait and see if the Big 10 was smart enough to learn. Their pursuit of OU seems to indicate that it was.