(09-02-2020 10:16 AM)Thiefery Wrote:  

(09-02-2020 04:23 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(08-30-2020 12:08 PM)schmolik Wrote:  All of this discussion is assuming Vanderbilt leaves the SEC and that's a huge assumption.

No I actually think Vanderbilt will stay in the SEC.

"It's much more likely your will see three stronger ESPN conferences, tied up for an extended period of time

Texas, Texas Tech, TCU, Baylor, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, OSU, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State.

West Virginia, Louisville, Kentucky, Tenn, Vandy, LSU, A&M, Ole Miss, MSU, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, S. Carolina, Georgia

Notre Dame, BC, Cuse, Pitt, UVa, VT, Carolina, Duke, NCSU, Wake, Clemson, GT, FSU, Miami."

Wouldn't WV stick with the Big 12 for #12 or are they a packaged deal to the SEC for Ark and MIzzu?

Notre Dame gets the ACC back to an even number (14).
West Virginia gets the SEC back to 14 also.

The Big 12 is at 11 (which would work much better as an odd number than 13) and leaves a spot open for the hopeful return of Nebraska or even Colorado.

(08-31-2020 04:43 PM)XLance Wrote:  I'm not sure the ACC would even take Penn State. They really aren't a cultural fit at all...

X, you are a valuable poster, but you need to stop with these realignment schemes. You keep trying to give Louisville away, and you keep denying the value of schools like Penn State and WVU to the ACC. Those things are not in harmony with reality.

The ACC of 2020 is not your Daddy's conference, to paraphrase a tv commercial. The days of UNC/UVA/Duke getting exactly what they want all the time are over. The addition of Miami, VT, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame didn't just strengthen the league - it also added 7 votes which are not beholden to UNC (and with the possible exception of VT, not to UVA either).

In the current ACC, the football-first schools will always have a majority of votes and it only takes Wake and NC State to give a 3/4 super-majority. UNC/UVA/Duke can't block anything by themselves any more.

What's more, these 7 new schools all saw what happened to the Big East and don't want to see the same thing happen to the ACC. When a sensible man has been through one divorce, he doesn't want to do that again. The ACC will not be looking to jettison any national brands, nor will it turn down the opportunity to add new ones.

The ACC needs more national brands. You'd do well to focus on how they can add more of them, rather than how to get back to a world that doesn't exist any more and never will again, to be honest.

(09-04-2020 08:02 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(08-31-2020 04:43 PM)XLance Wrote:  I'm not sure the ACC would even take Penn State. They really aren't a cultural fit at all...

X, you are a valuable poster, but you need to stop with these realignment schemes. You keep trying to give Louisville away, and you keep denying the value of schools like Penn State and WVU to the ACC. Those things are not in harmony with reality.

The ACC of 2020 is not your Daddy's conference, to paraphrase a tv commercial. The days of UNC/UVA/Duke getting exactly what they want all the time are over. The addition of Miami, VT, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame didn't just strengthen the league - it also added 7 votes which are not beholden to UNC (and with the possible exception of VT, not to UVA either).

In the current ACC, the football-first schools will always have a majority of votes and it only takes Wake and NC State to give a 3/4 super-majority. UNC/UVA/Duke can't block anything by themselves any more.

What's more, these 7 new schools all saw what happened to the Big East and don't want to see the same thing happen to the ACC. When a sensible man has been through one divorce, he doesn't want to do that again. The ACC will not be looking to jettison any national brands, nor will it turn down the opportunity to add new ones.

The ACC needs more national brands. You'd do well to focus on how they can add more of them, rather than how to get back to a world that doesn't exist any more and never will again, to be honest.

Penn State, massive earner with a large dedicated fan base and with a stadium that ups the ACC's piss poor attendance figures. Louisville, a school that is consistently a top 3 earner in the ACC and sometimes the top earner, is a consistent sports contender in Baseball, Basketball, and Football. West Virginia is another Louisville. Put the Eers in the ACC and they are top 5 in earnings.

I'll give it to you straight Hokie Mark. If you replaced North Carolina and Virginia with Notre Dame and Penn State nobody other than Duke, who would then be compliant, would even miss them. The ACC is the only conference in the P5 where two schools who aren't the earnings leaders and are not the leading sports contenders call the shots. And that has held the ACC back for years. Without them your scheduling issues would be resolved. The most profitable schools would play each other more often. The divisions would be realigned (if divisions remained a requirement), and likely the good ole boy officiating garbage would get serious attention. And I would think that a rather democratic approach to all conference matters would be in the offing and disputes would not have to be settled in North Carolina courts only and the Raycom / Swofford business would never have happened, and the deal of 2010 would have netted you much more money and a conference network well before it did.

An ACC led by Notre Dame, Penn State, Clemson, and Florida State would be competitive with the Big 10 and SEC. But the focus would change from what I call Buffy and Jody sports designed to appease wealthy white upper class parents and the Capital One Cup nonsense, to revenue sports. And when that happens the fan bases among the masses in Virginia and North Carolina who didn't go to either flagship will get tuned in to ACC sports. The small public Ivy business is nothing more than egotistical nonsense and turns off a large part of the people who otherwise would support your sports.

And another point if I may. The posters on this forum who are constantly saying that we should return to 12 school conferences (or less) and that 16 or 18 or 20 will never work are mostly alums of North Carolina and Texas the two schools who have enough other state schools dependent upon them to control the necessary votes to block any action any other school may raise if it is something they themselves do not desire.

If Notre Dame came all in and the ACC could add West Virginia, Penn State, and take Maryland back I would think for the sake of stability and earnings that everyone would jump on that potentiality. The reason that will never be stated that UNC and UVa would be against it along with Duke and likely Wake Forest is loss of control. In an 18 member conference it takes 12 votes to pass something (which they would have) and 6 votes to stop it (which they wouldn't have). Therein lies the real objection to expansion by these folks.

Does anyone have a real issue with the Big East? They are a basketball conference. Everyone's happy. The ACC is the undisputed best men's basketball conference in the country most seasons (in 2020 North Carolina had a rare down year but Duke and North Carolina are top ten teams most seasons). Why is it so important to most of CSNBBS that they are inferior in football or that they don't want West Virginia in their conference or that North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots? If the Big East can be a basketball first conference, why can't the ACC (who is better than the Big East in it)? Because they want to play football at the FBS level they have to put football first? Why? They're never going to match the SEC. Why not be the center of attention every March instead? Instead of adding West Virginia and still being #3 in football, why not add Villanova and be the undisputed #1 in basketball and make the Big East irrelevant (and add a top academic school and the Philadelphia market)? There is more than one collegiate sport last time I checked. Notre Dame can be an ACC member in all sports but football, why can't Villanova? North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots in the ACC? Coach K has won 5 national championships and Roy Williams has won 3. Maybe they should be. They essentially are the standard the entire sport of men's basketball is measured against. Is Clemson? Ask Alabama.

(09-04-2020 01:26 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Does anyone have a real issue with the Big East? They are a basketball conference. Everyone's happy. The ACC is the undisputed best men's basketball conference in the country most seasons (in 2020 North Carolina had a rare down year but Duke and North Carolina are top ten teams most seasons). Why is it so important to most of CSNBBS that they are inferior in football or that they don't want West Virginia in their conference or that North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots? If the Big East can be a basketball first conference, why can't the ACC (who is better than the Big East in it)? Because they want to play football at the FBS level they have to put football first? Why? They're never going to match the SEC. Why not be the center of attention every March instead? Instead of adding West Virginia and still being #3 in football, why not add Villanova and be the undisputed #1 in basketball and make the Big East irrelevant (and add a top academic school and the Philadelphia market)? There is more than one collegiate sport last time I checked. Notre Dame can be an ACC member in all sports but football, why can't Villanova? North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots in the ACC? Coach K has won 5 national championships and Roy Williams has won 3. Maybe they should be. They essentially are the standard the entire sport of men's basketball is measured against. Is Clemson? Ask Alabama.

Because we all saw what happened to the Big East. Being the best basketball conference gets you nothing the way the system is stacked.

(09-04-2020 01:26 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Does anyone have a real issue with the Big East? They are a basketball conference. Everyone's happy. The ACC is the undisputed best men's basketball conference in the country most seasons (in 2020 North Carolina had a rare down year but Duke and North Carolina are top ten teams most seasons). Why is it so important to most of CSNBBS that they are inferior in football or that they don't want West Virginia in their conference or that North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots? If the Big East can be a basketball first conference, why can't the ACC (who is better than the Big East in it)? Because they want to play football at the FBS level they have to put football first? Why? They're never going to match the SEC. Why not be the center of attention every March instead? Instead of adding West Virginia and still being #3 in football, why not add Villanova and be the undisputed #1 in basketball and make the Big East irrelevant (and add a top academic school and the Philadelphia market)? There is more than one collegiate sport last time I checked. Notre Dame can be an ACC member in all sports but football, why can't Villanova? North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots in the ACC? Coach K has won 5 national championships and Roy Williams has won 3. Maybe they should be. They essentially are the standard the entire sport of men's basketball is measured against. Is Clemson? Ask Alabama.

The Big 12 and Big 10 are frequently the best basketball conference. ACC just has more "kings."

(09-04-2020 04:52 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 01:26 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Does anyone have a real issue with the Big East? They are a basketball conference. Everyone's happy. The ACC is the undisputed best men's basketball conference in the country most seasons (in 2020 North Carolina had a rare down year but Duke and North Carolina are top ten teams most seasons). Why is it so important to most of CSNBBS that they are inferior in football or that they don't want West Virginia in their conference or that North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots? If the Big East can be a basketball first conference, why can't the ACC (who is better than the Big East in it)? Because they want to play football at the FBS level they have to put football first? Why? They're never going to match the SEC. Why not be the center of attention every March instead? Instead of adding West Virginia and still being #3 in football, why not add Villanova and be the undisputed #1 in basketball and make the Big East irrelevant (and add a top academic school and the Philadelphia market)? There is more than one collegiate sport last time I checked. Notre Dame can be an ACC member in all sports but football, why can't Villanova? North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots in the ACC? Coach K has won 5 national championships and Roy Williams has won 3. Maybe they should be. They essentially are the standard the entire sport of men's basketball is measured against. Is Clemson? Ask Alabama.

The Big 12 and Big 10 are frequently the best basketball conference. ACC just has more "kings."

Big 12 basketball? You mean Kansas and the Nine Dwarfs?

(09-04-2020 05:02 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 04:52 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 01:26 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Does anyone have a real issue with the Big East? They are a basketball conference. Everyone's happy. The ACC is the undisputed best men's basketball conference in the country most seasons (in 2020 North Carolina had a rare down year but Duke and North Carolina are top ten teams most seasons). Why is it so important to most of CSNBBS that they are inferior in football or that they don't want West Virginia in their conference or that North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots? If the Big East can be a basketball first conference, why can't the ACC (who is better than the Big East in it)? Because they want to play football at the FBS level they have to put football first? Why? They're never going to match the SEC. Why not be the center of attention every March instead? Instead of adding West Virginia and still being #3 in football, why not add Villanova and be the undisputed #1 in basketball and make the Big East irrelevant (and add a top academic school and the Philadelphia market)? There is more than one collegiate sport last time I checked. Notre Dame can be an ACC member in all sports but football, why can't Villanova? North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots in the ACC? Coach K has won 5 national championships and Roy Williams has won 3. Maybe they should be. They essentially are the standard the entire sport of men's basketball is measured against. Is Clemson? Ask Alabama.

The Big 12 and Big 10 are frequently the best basketball conference. ACC just has more "kings."

Big 12 basketball? You mean Kansas and the Nine Dwarfs?

Look at the computer rankings.
There are no off nights in the Big 12.

Sagarin last 5 years:
Big 12 has been 3, 1, 1, 1, 1
Big 10 has been 1, 2, 5, 4,4
Big East has been 2, 5, 3, 3, 3
SEC has been 5, 4, 4, 5, 6
ACC has been 4, 3, 2, 2,2

(09-04-2020 08:14 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 05:02 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 04:52 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 01:26 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Does anyone have a real issue with the Big East? They are a basketball conference. Everyone's happy. The ACC is the undisputed best men's basketball conference in the country most seasons (in 2020 North Carolina had a rare down year but Duke and North Carolina are top ten teams most seasons). Why is it so important to most of CSNBBS that they are inferior in football or that they don't want West Virginia in their conference or that North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots? If the Big East can be a basketball first conference, why can't the ACC (who is better than the Big East in it)? Because they want to play football at the FBS level they have to put football first? Why? They're never going to match the SEC. Why not be the center of attention every March instead? Instead of adding West Virginia and still being #3 in football, why not add Villanova and be the undisputed #1 in basketball and make the Big East irrelevant (and add a top academic school and the Philadelphia market)? There is more than one collegiate sport last time I checked. Notre Dame can be an ACC member in all sports but football, why can't Villanova? North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots in the ACC? Coach K has won 5 national championships and Roy Williams has won 3. Maybe they should be. They essentially are the standard the entire sport of men's basketball is measured against. Is Clemson? Ask Alabama.

The Big 12 and Big 10 are frequently the best basketball conference. ACC just has more "kings."

Big 12 basketball? You mean Kansas and the Nine Dwarfs?

Look at the computer rankings.
There are no off nights in the Big 12.

Sagarin last 5 years:
Big 12 has been 3, 1, 1, 1, 1
Big 10 has been 1, 2, 5, 4,4
Big East has been 2, 5, 3, 3, 3
SEC has been 5, 4, 4, 5, 6
ACC has been 4, 3, 2, 2,2

Look at their tournament performance.

2010-19:

ACC 130 wins, Big Ten 101, SEC 79, Big 12 78. Kentucky has 31 of the SEC's 79 wins and Kansas has 24 of the Big 12's 78 wins. The next best team in the Big 12 over the 2010's is a tie between West Virginia and Baylor with 11 wins each. Those two would be tied with Ohio State for 5th in the Big Ten and 6th in the ACC.

The Big 12 can perform in the regular season (not really since Kansas won the regular season 14 straight years) but come tournament time they all choke (so does the SEC outside of Lexington and Gainesville).

(09-04-2020 08:02 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(08-31-2020 04:43 PM)XLance Wrote:  I'm not sure the ACC would even take Penn State. They really aren't a cultural fit at all...

X, you are a valuable poster, but you need to stop with these realignment schemes. You keep trying to give Louisville away, and you keep denying the value of schools like Penn State and WVU to the ACC. Those things are not in harmony with reality.

The ACC of 2020 is not your Daddy's conference, to paraphrase a tv commercial. The days of UNC/UVA/Duke getting exactly what they want all the time are over. The addition of Miami, VT, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame didn't just strengthen the league - it also added 7 votes which are not beholden to UNC (and with the possible exception of VT, not to UVA either).

In the current ACC, the football-first schools will always have a majority of votes and it only takes Wake and NC State to give a 3/4 super-majority. UNC/UVA/Duke can't block anything by themselves any more.

What's more, these 7 new schools all saw what happened to the Big East and don't want to see the same thing happen to the ACC. When a sensible man has been through one divorce, he doesn't want to do that again. The ACC will not be looking to jettison any national brands, nor will it turn down the opportunity to add new ones.

The ACC needs more national brands. You'd do well to focus on how they can add more of them, rather than how to get back to a world that doesn't exist any more and never will again, to be honest.

Mark, first I didn't know a subscription to groupthink was required to post here, but if you need me to..........

Back in the day, when the ACC was a 9 team conference and realignment was being discussed, I was very much in favor of "straight line" expansion (as it was called way back then). You know the three schools that were in a straight line to form a western barrier (VT, WVU and Pitt). At the time these three were the best football adds the ACC could make. The other theory centered around the recommendation the ESPN consultants made to Swofford which included Miami, BC and Syracuse. Of course these were television moves with Miami for glam, BC for market and Syracuse to lure in the old Big East fans.
Johnny should have listened to me instead of some stupid consultants!!
In my mind that would have been a great 12 team league, but the TV people had other ideas. West Virginia lost a lot of it's appeal to the ACC when Maryland left. West Virginia had basically no history with any ACC schools except Maryland and UVa. They just happen to be the odd man out and with the emphasis on market......well we already have a school in the Pittsburgh market.
What we now know is that the ACC and Miami had already been talking and they were a lock to come in which then favored the consultants plan.
Mark, even back then if this were still "my daddy's" ACC, expansion would have been paused after Miami was invited ( because that's is the scenario that was being supported by Duke and Carolina at the time.......a Miami only expansion).
Had we gone VT, WVU, and Pitt, then the addition of Penn State and Miami not only would have made sense to go to 14 but would have been a good stopping point.
Since expansion/realignment got screwed up....blame it on Virginia Tech, Marye Anne Fox or any other number of factors we have been adjusting on the fly and we don't have the flexibility we had. Penn State would have been much more available before Rutgers and Maryland, and West Virginia more appealing to the ACC before Maryland left for the B1G (and not such a negative for Notre Dame before the Irish's trip there in 2000).

More national brands just don't grow on trees. If you are still hoping the Big 12 will explode.....well that would make three that would be "out there": Texas, Oklahoma and Notre Dame. If the Big 12 survives (which it looks like it might) that leaves only the Irish (and I believe they have already signed on the dotted line. There are no other national brands without stealing one from somebody else and until our dollars get bigger, which I think they will, your can't lure one from another conference without outrageous travel.
I guess I will have to continue to to see things that are not in harmony with reality as you perceive it to be.

(09-05-2020 12:48 PM)XLance Wrote:  Mark, first I didn't know a subscription to groupthink was required to post here, but if you need me to..........

Back in the day, when the ACC was a 9 team conference and realignment was being discussed, I was very much in favor of "straight line" expansion (as it was called way back then). You know the three schools that were in a straight line to form a western barrier (VT, WVU and Pitt). At the time these three were the best football adds the ACC could make. The other theory centered around the recommendation the ESPN consultants made to Swofford which included Miami, BC and Syracuse. Of course these were television moves with Miami for glam, BC for market and Syracuse to lure in the old Big East fans.
Johnny should have listened to me instead of some stupid consultants!!
In my mind that would have been a great 12 team league, but the TV people had other ideas. West Virginia lost a lot of it's appeal to the ACC when Maryland left. West Virginia had basically no history with any ACC schools except Maryland and UVa. They just happen to be the odd man out and with the emphasis on market......well we already have a school in the Pittsburgh market.
What we now know is that the ACC and Miami had already been talking and they were a lock to come in which then favored the consultants plan.
Mark, even back then if this were still "my daddy's" ACC, expansion would have been paused after Miami was invited ( because that's is the scenario that was being supported by Duke and Carolina at the time.......a Miami only expansion).
Had we gone VT, WVU, and Pitt, then the addition of Penn State and Miami not only would have made sense to go to 14 but would have been a good stopping point.
Since expansion/realignment got screwed up....blame it on Virginia Tech, Marye Anne Fox or any other number of factors we have been adjusting on the fly and we don't have the flexibility we had. Penn State would have been much more available before Rutgers and Maryland, and West Virginia more appealing to the ACC before Maryland left for the B1G (and not such a negative for Notre Dame before the Irish's trip there in 2000).

More national brands just don't grow on trees. If you are still hoping the Big 12 will explode.....well that would make three that would be "out there": Texas, Oklahoma and Notre Dame. If the Big 12 survives (which it looks like it might) that leaves only the Irish (and I believe they have already signed on the dotted line. There are no other national brands without stealing one from somebody else and until our dollars get bigger, which I think they will, your can't lure one from another conference without outrageous travel.
I guess I will have to continue to to see things that are not in harmony with reality as you perceive it to be.

Is it "groupthink" to say I wish you would stop trying to give away a valuable member of the conference (Louisville)? I also detect some DBU-level backpedalling on Penn State and West Virginia...

Look, FWIW, I do wish the ACC had taken your advice way back when and added VT, WVU, Pitt, Penn State and Miami to get to 14 - although I think they would've had to add them all at once to keep the element of surprise.

Essentially it's what the ACC has now except for Maryland instead of Louisville, and Penn State and WVU instead of Syracuse and Boston College. Nothing against UL, SU or BC, but yours would've been an awesome football conference!

(09-04-2020 12:51 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 08:02 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(08-31-2020 04:43 PM)XLance Wrote:  I'm not sure the ACC would even take Penn State. They really aren't a cultural fit at all...

X, you are a valuable poster, but you need to stop with these realignment schemes. You keep trying to give Louisville away, and you keep denying the value of schools like Penn State and WVU to the ACC. Those things are not in harmony with reality.

The ACC of 2020 is not your Daddy's conference, to paraphrase a tv commercial. The days of UNC/UVA/Duke getting exactly what they want all the time are over. The addition of Miami, VT, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame didn't just strengthen the league - it also added 7 votes which are not beholden to UNC (and with the possible exception of VT, not to UVA either).

In the current ACC, the football-first schools will always have a majority of votes and it only takes Wake and NC State to give a 3/4 super-majority. UNC/UVA/Duke can't block anything by themselves any more.

What's more, these 7 new schools all saw what happened to the Big East and don't want to see the same thing happen to the ACC. When a sensible man has been through one divorce, he doesn't want to do that again. The ACC will not be looking to jettison any national brands, nor will it turn down the opportunity to add new ones.

The ACC needs more national brands. You'd do well to focus on how they can add more of them, rather than how to get back to a world that doesn't exist any more and never will again, to be honest.

Penn State, massive earner with a large dedicated fan base and with a stadium that ups the ACC's piss poor attendance figures. Louisville, a school that is consistently a top 3 earner in the ACC and sometimes the top earner, is a consistent sports contender in Baseball, Basketball, and Football. West Virginia is another Louisville. Put the Eers in the ACC and they are top 5 in earnings.

I'll give it to you straight Hokie Mark. If you replaced North Carolina and Virginia with Notre Dame and Penn State nobody other than Duke, who would then be compliant, would even miss them. The ACC is the only conference in the P5 where two schools who aren't the earnings leaders and are not the leading sports contenders call the shots. And that has held the ACC back for years. Without them your scheduling issues would be resolved. The most profitable schools would play each other more often. The divisions would be realigned (if divisions remained a requirement), and likely the good ole boy officiating garbage would get serious attention. And I would think that a rather democratic approach to all conference matters would be in the offing and disputes would not have to be settled in North Carolina courts only and the Raycom / Swofford business would never have happened, and the deal of 2010 would have netted you much more money and a conference network well before it did.

An ACC led by Notre Dame, Penn State, Clemson, and Florida State would be competitive with the Big 10 and SEC. But the focus would change from what I call Buffy and Jody sports designed to appease wealthy white upper class parents and the Capital One Cup nonsense, to revenue sports. And when that happens the fan bases among the masses in Virginia and North Carolina who didn't go to either flagship will get tuned in to ACC sports. The small public Ivy business is nothing more than egotistical nonsense and turns off a large part of the people who otherwise would support your sports.

And another point if I may. The posters on this forum who are constantly saying that we should return to 12 school conferences (or less) and that 16 or 18 or 20 will never work are mostly alums of North Carolina and Texas the two schools who have enough other state schools dependent upon them to control the necessary votes to block any action any other school may raise if it is something they themselves do not desire.

If Notre Dame came all in and the ACC could add West Virginia, Penn State, and take Maryland back I would think for the sake of stability and earnings that everyone would jump on that potentiality. The reason that will never be stated that UNC and UVa would be against it along with Duke and likely Wake Forest is loss of control. In an 18 member conference it takes 12 votes to pass something (which they would have) and 6 votes to stop it (which they wouldn't have). Therein lies the real objection to expansion by these folks.

I'm not exactly sure what your criteria of sports contenders is but my school is 4 rows ahead of yours.

(09-04-2020 08:36 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 08:14 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 05:02 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 04:52 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 01:26 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Does anyone have a real issue with the Big East? They are a basketball conference. Everyone's happy. The ACC is the undisputed best men's basketball conference in the country most seasons (in 2020 North Carolina had a rare down year but Duke and North Carolina are top ten teams most seasons). Why is it so important to most of CSNBBS that they are inferior in football or that they don't want West Virginia in their conference or that North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots? If the Big East can be a basketball first conference, why can't the ACC (who is better than the Big East in it)? Because they want to play football at the FBS level they have to put football first? Why? They're never going to match the SEC. Why not be the center of attention every March instead? Instead of adding West Virginia and still being #3 in football, why not add Villanova and be the undisputed #1 in basketball and make the Big East irrelevant (and add a top academic school and the Philadelphia market)? There is more than one collegiate sport last time I checked. Notre Dame can be an ACC member in all sports but football, why can't Villanova? North Carolina and Duke are calling the shots in the ACC? Coach K has won 5 national championships and Roy Williams has won 3. Maybe they should be. They essentially are the standard the entire sport of men's basketball is measured against. Is Clemson? Ask Alabama.

The Big 12 and Big 10 are frequently the best basketball conference. ACC just has more "kings."

Big 12 basketball? You mean Kansas and the Nine Dwarfs?

Look at the computer rankings.
There are no off nights in the Big 12.

Sagarin last 5 years:
Big 12 has been 3, 1, 1, 1, 1
Big 10 has been 1, 2, 5, 4,4
Big East has been 2, 5, 3, 3, 3
SEC has been 5, 4, 4, 5, 6
ACC has been 4, 3, 2, 2,2

Look at their tournament performance.

2010-19:

ACC 130 wins, Big Ten 101, SEC 79, Big 12 78. Kentucky has 31 of the SEC's 79 wins and Kansas has 24 of the Big 12's 78 wins. The next best team in the Big 12 over the 2010's is a tie between West Virginia and Baylor with 11 wins each. Those two would be tied with Ohio State for 5th in the Big Ten and 6th in the ACC.

The Big 12 can perform in the regular season (not really since Kansas won the regular season 14 straight years) but come tournament time they all choke (so does the SEC outside of Lexington and Gainesville).

Big 12 has only 10 teams. Without weighting for the year or two of different numbers, the Big 12 is 7.8 wins per school, SEC 5.6, Big 10 7.2 and ACC 8.7.

(09-05-2020 01:11 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(09-05-2020 12:48 PM)XLance Wrote:  Mark, first I didn't know a subscription to groupthink was required to post here, but if you need me to..........

Back in the day, when the ACC was a 9 team conference and realignment was being discussed, I was very much in favor of "straight line" expansion (as it was called way back then). You know the three schools that were in a straight line to form a western barrier (VT, WVU and Pitt). At the time these three were the best football adds the ACC could make. The other theory centered around the recommendation the ESPN consultants made to Swofford which included Miami, BC and Syracuse. Of course these were television moves with Miami for glam, BC for market and Syracuse to lure in the old Big East fans.
Johnny should have listened to me instead of some stupid consultants!!
In my mind that would have been a great 12 team league, but the TV people had other ideas. West Virginia lost a lot of it's appeal to the ACC when Maryland left. West Virginia had basically no history with any ACC schools except Maryland and UVa. They just happen to be the odd man out and with the emphasis on market......well we already have a school in the Pittsburgh market.
What we now know is that the ACC and Miami had already been talking and they were a lock to come in which then favored the consultants plan.
Mark, even back then if this were still "my daddy's" ACC, expansion would have been paused after Miami was invited ( because that's is the scenario that was being supported by Duke and Carolina at the time.......a Miami only expansion).
Had we gone VT, WVU, and Pitt, then the addition of Penn State and Miami not only would have made sense to go to 14 but would have been a good stopping point.
Since expansion/realignment got screwed up....blame it on Virginia Tech, Marye Anne Fox or any other number of factors we have been adjusting on the fly and we don't have the flexibility we had. Penn State would have been much more available before Rutgers and Maryland, and West Virginia more appealing to the ACC before Maryland left for the B1G (and not such a negative for Notre Dame before the Irish's trip there in 2000).

More national brands just don't grow on trees. If you are still hoping the Big 12 will explode.....well that would make three that would be "out there": Texas, Oklahoma and Notre Dame. If the Big 12 survives (which it looks like it might) that leaves only the Irish (and I believe they have already signed on the dotted line. There are no other national brands without stealing one from somebody else and until our dollars get bigger, which I think they will, your can't lure one from another conference without outrageous travel.
I guess I will have to continue to to see things that are not in harmony with reality as you perceive it to be.

Is it "groupthink" to say I wish you would stop trying to give away a valuable member of the conference (Louisville)? I also detect some DBU-level backpedalling on Penn State and West Virginia...

Look, FWIW, I do wish the ACC had taken your advice way back when and added VT, WVU, Pitt, Penn State and Miami to get to 14 - although I think they would've had to add them all at once to keep the element of surprise.

Essentially it's what the ACC has now except for Maryland instead of Louisville, and Penn State and WVU instead of Syracuse and Boston College. Nothing against UL, SU or BC, but yours would've been an awesome football conference!

Mark, at least one foot has to be rooted in reality.
When the B1G added Rutgers after Penn State had whined about Pitt and Rutgers, more than likely you are not ever going to get the Nits to move. And if they ever wanted to all of a sudden Rutgers and Maryland (which hold no value) become a huge burden on the Big Ten. The Big Ten would pull out every stop to keep Penn State in the fold.
And what about West Virginia?
Mark, right now the viewing audiences for the NE are basically split between the B1G and the ACC. In theory, the conference that holds West Virginia could tip the balance of power for an entire region. If the Mountaineers are that valuable, wouldn't you hear something coming from some minor B1G source about adding West Virginia to solidify their hold on the NE and therefore make more money? What you do hear is crickets....no one peep, why is that? Conventional wisdom would suggest that academics be damned, bring on those additional dollars, right?
If West Virginia was valuable to the ACC, the Mountaineers would be just as valuable to the B1G, plus it would completely separate BC and Syracuse from the rest of the conference. Why hasn't that happened if West Virginia is that valuable?
I think we will see Notre Dame come on in and the ACC will settle in as a 15 team league. Then if there is further movement it will be at the request of ESPN, to move some teams around to balance out the ACC, SEC and the Big 12.
Right now Penn State is off the radar and West Virginia is where they are until ESPN decides otherwise. If the Big 12 is to survive the other "national brands" (Texas & Oklahoma) are not available either, and we are absolutely not going to add a team(s) from the west coast.
Re: Louisville: I think Louisville is valuable to the ACC, but they are the absolute outlier (geographically).

(09-05-2020 02:27 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 12:51 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(09-04-2020 08:02 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(08-31-2020 04:43 PM)XLance Wrote:  I'm not sure the ACC would even take Penn State. They really aren't a cultural fit at all...

X, you are a valuable poster, but you need to stop with these realignment schemes. You keep trying to give Louisville away, and you keep denying the value of schools like Penn State and WVU to the ACC. Those things are not in harmony with reality.

The ACC of 2020 is not your Daddy's conference, to paraphrase a tv commercial. The days of UNC/UVA/Duke getting exactly what they want all the time are over. The addition of Miami, VT, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame didn't just strengthen the league - it also added 7 votes which are not beholden to UNC (and with the possible exception of VT, not to UVA either).

In the current ACC, the football-first schools will always have a majority of votes and it only takes Wake and NC State to give a 3/4 super-majority. UNC/UVA/Duke can't block anything by themselves any more.

What's more, these 7 new schools all saw what happened to the Big East and don't want to see the same thing happen to the ACC. When a sensible man has been through one divorce, he doesn't want to do that again. The ACC will not be looking to jettison any national brands, nor will it turn down the opportunity to add new ones.

The ACC needs more national brands. You'd do well to focus on how they can add more of them, rather than how to get back to a world that doesn't exist any more and never will again, to be honest.

Penn State, massive earner with a large dedicated fan base and with a stadium that ups the ACC's piss poor attendance figures. Louisville, a school that is consistently a top 3 earner in the ACC and sometimes the top earner, is a consistent sports contender in Baseball, Basketball, and Football. West Virginia is another Louisville. Put the Eers in the ACC and they are top 5 in earnings.

I'll give it to you straight Hokie Mark. If you replaced North Carolina and Virginia with Notre Dame and Penn State nobody other than Duke, who would then be compliant, would even miss them. The ACC is the only conference in the P5 where two schools who aren't the earnings leaders and are not the leading sports contenders call the shots. And that has held the ACC back for years. Without them your scheduling issues would be resolved. The most profitable schools would play each other more often. The divisions would be realigned (if divisions remained a requirement), and likely the good ole boy officiating garbage would get serious attention. And I would think that a rather democratic approach to all conference matters would be in the offing and disputes would not have to be settled in North Carolina courts only and the Raycom / Swofford business would never have happened, and the deal of 2010 would have netted you much more money and a conference network well before it did.

An ACC led by Notre Dame, Penn State, Clemson, and Florida State would be competitive with the Big 10 and SEC. But the focus would change from what I call Buffy and Jody sports designed to appease wealthy white upper class parents and the Capital One Cup nonsense, to revenue sports. And when that happens the fan bases among the masses in Virginia and North Carolina who didn't go to either flagship will get tuned in to ACC sports. The small public Ivy business is nothing more than egotistical nonsense and turns off a large part of the people who otherwise would support your sports.

And another point if I may. The posters on this forum who are constantly saying that we should return to 12 school conferences (or less) and that 16 or 18 or 20 will never work are mostly alums of North Carolina and Texas the two schools who have enough other state schools dependent upon them to control the necessary votes to block any action any other school may raise if it is something they themselves do not desire.

If Notre Dame came all in and the ACC could add West Virginia, Penn State, and take Maryland back I would think for the sake of stability and earnings that everyone would jump on that potentiality. The reason that will never be stated that UNC and UVa would be against it along with Duke and likely Wake Forest is loss of control. In an 18 member conference it takes 12 votes to pass something (which they would have) and 6 votes to stop it (which they wouldn't have). Therein lies the real objection to expansion by these folks.

I'm not exactly sure what your criteria of sports contenders is but my school is 4 rows ahead of yours.

Why is baseball in the Top 4 finishes?

It is a regional sport in college and weakened due to the MLB farm system

Also the NIT tournament was a viable tournament until the early 70s and had many Top 20 teams involved

I just caught the humor:. UT is huge and TAMU is teeny tiny

(09-08-2020 08:33 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(09-05-2020 02:27 PM)XLance Wrote:  

I just caught the humor:. UT is huge and TAMU is teeny tiny

Man, I didn't realize that was Texas A&M down there next to Virginia Tech - and I don't think the Hokies have won any team national championships (outside of the NIT)!

What I see from that graph is that the L.A. schools carry the entire Pac-12. When both are down, the conference takes a hit perception wise. I’ve been saying it multiple times when posters point at Larry Scott. He’s one of the symptoms but not the disease. It all starts and ends with USC football and UCLA basketball.

Also, it reinforces my point on Arizona State. They can do much better but somehow they struggle to take off. They’re in Phoenix, Sun Devil Stadium got a nice remodeling, Wells Fargo Arena is nice and they have good fan support in the fast growing Valley of the Sun. Since joining the Pac-8 in 1978, they’ve only won the conference (1996) and been to a major bowl once (Rose). They rarely were in the conversation in the BCS era and even rival Arizona has made it to a NY6 bowl (Fiesta) in the CFP era even though they lost to Boise State.

(09-08-2020 09:14 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  What I see from that graph is that the L.A. schools carry the entire Pac-12. When both are down, the conference takes a hit perception wise. I’ve been saying it multiple times when posters point at Larry Scott. He’s one of the symptoms but not the disease. It all starts and ends with USC football and UCLA basketball.

Also, it reinforces my point on Arizona State. They can do much better but somehow they struggle to take off. They’re in Phoenix, Sun Devil Stadium got a nice remodeling, Wells Fargo Arena is nice and they have good fan support in the fast growing Valley of the Sun. Since joining the Pac-8 in 1978, they’ve only won the conference (1996) and been to a major bowl once (Rose). They rarely were in the conversation in the BCS era and even rival Arizona has made it to a NY6 bowl (Fiesta) in the CFP era even though they lost to Boise State.

Everything is staring you in the face but you refuse to see it. There isn't enough talent to support the PAC. The demographics are changing. The revenue is last which also impairs the ability to hire top notch coaches. Arizona and Arizona State are two of maybe 5 schools in the whole P5 that are subsidized at 15% or greater.

Yes the GDP is fabulous. But the state budget is running 90 billion in the red annually in California and that impacts Cal and UCLA. I gave you rep because it is true that Texas has plenty of money and underachieves. But the difference in UT's revenue and that of USC is substantial.

Take a look at the revenue totals from 2019, at the attendance totals from 2019, and at the ratings totals from 2019. The PAC is 5th for a reason. She ain't what she used to be and is not showing any indication of turning it around.

(09-08-2020 09:20 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(09-08-2020 09:14 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  What I see from that graph is that the L.A. schools carry the entire Pac-12. When both are down, the conference takes a hit perception wise. I’ve been saying it multiple times when posters point at Larry Scott. He’s one of the symptoms but not the disease. It all starts and ends with USC football and UCLA basketball.

Also, it reinforces my point on Arizona State. They can do much better but somehow they struggle to take off. They’re in Phoenix, Sun Devil Stadium got a nice remodeling, Wells Fargo Arena is nice and they have good fan support in the fast growing Valley of the Sun. Since joining the Pac-8 in 1978, they’ve only won the conference (1996) and been to a major bowl once (Rose). They rarely were in the conversation in the BCS era and even rival Arizona has made it to a NY6 bowl (Fiesta) in the CFP era even though they lost to Boise State.

Everything is staring you in the face but you refuse to see it. There isn't enough talent to support the PAC. The demographics are changing. The revenue is last which also impairs the ability to hire top notch coaches. Arizona and Arizona State are two of maybe 5 schools in the whole P5 that are subsidized at 15% or greater.

Yes the GDP is fabulous. But the state budget is running 90 billion in the red annually in California and that impacts Cal and UCLA. I gave you rep because it is true that Texas has plenty of money and underachieves. But the difference in UT's revenue and that of USC is substantial.

Take a look at the revenue totals from 2019, at the attendance totals from 2019, and at the ratings totals from 2019. The PAC is 5th for a reason. She ain't what she used to be and is not showing any indication of turning it around.

I still believe the Pac-12 will be fine. It's not all about money in college sports. Otherwise the University of Texas at Austin would win every championship in football, basketball and baseball. Or their little brother, the poster child of mediocrity, Texas A&M University. USC has the name and location to recruit at a high level. Same with UCLA. Don't confuse making bad hiring decisions with lack of talent. As for Arizona State, last time I checked, Arizona is one of the fastest growing states in the nation (like all Pac-12 states, yes even California grew 7.3% in the 2010's). When California drops from 40 million to 25 million people then I'll be concerned. Until then, it's just the sky is falling and nothing else.

(09-08-2020 10:00 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(09-08-2020 09:20 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(09-08-2020 09:14 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  What I see from that graph is that the L.A. schools carry the entire Pac-12. When both are down, the conference takes a hit perception wise. I’ve been saying it multiple times when posters point at Larry Scott. He’s one of the symptoms but not the disease. It all starts and ends with USC football and UCLA basketball.

Also, it reinforces my point on Arizona State. They can do much better but somehow they struggle to take off. They’re in Phoenix, Sun Devil Stadium got a nice remodeling, Wells Fargo Arena is nice and they have good fan support in the fast growing Valley of the Sun. Since joining the Pac-8 in 1978, they’ve only won the conference (1996) and been to a major bowl once (Rose). They rarely were in the conversation in the BCS era and even rival Arizona has made it to a NY6 bowl (Fiesta) in the CFP era even though they lost to Boise State.

Everything is staring you in the face but you refuse to see it. There isn't enough talent to support the PAC. The demographics are changing. The revenue is last which also impairs the ability to hire top notch coaches. Arizona and Arizona State are two of maybe 5 schools in the whole P5 that are subsidized at 15% or greater.

Yes the GDP is fabulous. But the state budget is running 90 billion in the red annually in California and that impacts Cal and UCLA. I gave you rep because it is true that Texas has plenty of money and underachieves. But the difference in UT's revenue and that of USC is substantial.

Take a look at the revenue totals from 2019, at the attendance totals from 2019, and at the ratings totals from 2019. The PAC is 5th for a reason. She ain't what she used to be and is not showing any indication of turning it around.

I still believe the Pac-12 will be fine. It's not all about money in college sports. Otherwise the University of Texas at Austin would win every championship in football, basketball and baseball. Or their little brother, the poster child of mediocrity, Texas A&M University. USC has the name and location to recruit at a high level. Same with UCLA. Don't confuse making bad hiring decisions with lack of talent. As for Arizona State, last time I checked, Arizona is one of the fastest growing states in the nation (like all Pac-12 states, yes even California grew 7.3% in the 2010's). When California drops from 40 million to 25 million people then I'll be concerned. Until then, it's just the sky is falling and nothing else.

I'm not confusing anything. They are dead last in all statistical categories. Therein lies the underpinning for their standing and lack of performance. Stugray gave you a solid diagnosis demographically. Until those factors change everything else is wishful thinking. And all Texas proves is that it takes more than money. What the PAC is indicating is that they don't have sufficient per school revenue to keep up in a hyper competitive recruiting world in which they are splitting too few 5 star athletes regionally among too many schools. Lack of fan support is not a chicken or the egg problem. It takes broad interest to be successful.