I don't recall anyone pointing this out before, but the expansion of the P5 conferences this past decade opened up room in the G5 conferences for programs to move up.

It was a domino effect.

Example:

Maryland leaves ACC for Big Ten. ACC replaces with Big East school Louisville. Big East (soon to be American) replaces with C-USA school ECU. C-USA replaces with Sun Belt school Sun Belt school MTSU. Sun Belt replaces with FCS move-up Georgia Southern.

Another example: Utah leaves MW for Pac-12. MW replaces with WAC schools Nevada. WAC replaces with FCS move-uo Texas State.

Another: West Virginia leaves Big East for Big 12. Big East replaces with C-USA school UCF. C-USA replaces with Sun Belt school with FCS move-up Georgia State.

Nine of the 11 move-ups from FCS to FBS this past decade were to the Sun Belt or C-USA. The exceptions were UMass and Liberty. Most of those nine are the domino effect result of the Pac-12 growing by two, the Big Ten growing by three, the ACC growing by three, the SEC growing by two, and the Big East-turned AAC growing in football by 4, from 8 to 12.

None of this is new information. I realize that. But my point is that P5 conferences consciously grew larger. There's no way they did not know that the conferences they took schools from would not seek replacements and ultimately result in G5 leagues having to take FCS move-ups. They knew that would happen.

This is why I do not buy the notion that P5 conferences have a problem with there being more and more FBS schools. They merely want to keep them at bay. As a matter of fact, the more FBS schools there are, the less they have to pay G5's for guarantees. Simple supply and demand.

(04-14-2020 01:08 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  This is why I do not buy the notion that P5 conferences have a problem with there being more and more FBS schools. They merely want to keep them at bay. ...

Note that they could dislike the call-ups even as their own actions in pursuit of their individual self-interest led them to support the raids that led to the call-ups as a side effect ...

... but I don't actually think there is anything against the call-ups, they just want to make sure there aren't new non-power BBall conferences created as a result, so they don't lose any at-large spots in the tourney.

In theory for me there's 6 spots left in the P5 if the standard P5 conference goes to 14. I assume the G5 eventually go to 12 per conference. The only independent school I see joining a conference is New Mexico State. Football only UConn isn't really a good invite. Liberty may be invited if they pull a Hawaii and pay the conference a set price for a set number of years.

(04-14-2020 01:08 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  I don't recall anyone pointing this out before, but the expansion of the P5 conferences this past decade opened up room in the G5 conferences for programs to move up.

It was a domino effect.

Example:

Maryland leaves ACC for Big Ten. ACC replaces with Big East school Louisville. Big East (soon to be American) replaces with C-USA school ECU. C-USA replaces with Sun Belt school Sun Belt school MTSU. Sun Belt replaces with FCS move-up Georgia Southern.

Another example: Utah leaves MW for Pac-12. MW replaces with WAC schools Nevada. WAC replaces with FCS move-uo Texas State.

Another: West Virginia leaves Big East for Big 12. Big East replaces with C-USA school UCF. C-USA replaces with Sun Belt school with FCS move-up Georgia State.

Nine of the 11 move-ups from FCS to FBS this past decade were to the Sun Belt or C-USA. The exceptions were UMass and Liberty. Most of those nine are the domino effect result of the Pac-12 growing by two, the Big Ten growing by three, the ACC growing by three, the SEC growing by two, and the Big East-turned AAC growing in football by 4, from 8 to 12.

None of this is new information. I realize that. But my point is that P5 conferences consciously grew larger. There's no way they did not know that the conferences they took schools from would not seek replacements and ultimately result in G5 leagues having to take FCS move-ups. They knew that would happen.

This is why I do not buy the notion that P5 conferences have a problem with there being more and more FBS schools. They merely want to keep them at bay. As a matter of fact, the more FBS schools there are, the less they have to pay G5's for guarantees. Simple supply and demand.

It was the dragged out expansion by the AAC that lead to all the FCS moveups. If they and CUSA had moved quicker, the Sun Belt would be gone for football.

Texas St. would be independent after the WAC folded. Arkansas St. and ULL would probably be CUSA instead of ODU and UNCC. Coastal Carolina, Georgia St., Georgia Southern and Appalachian St. would probably still be FCS. Troy and USA would be independent and ULM would probably have given it up and moved back to FCS.

Bullet is spot on. Had realignment among the P5 occurred more rapidly and the process not been so drawn out the most recent wave of expansion might not have occurred.

In the WAC, Idaho and NMSU would have been the only two left and unable to rebuild.

The MAC would have seen no need to accommodate UMass’s transition.

With C-USA getting cut down to 5 schools: UTEP, Rice, USM, UAB, and Marshall you’re probably just looking at a merger with the SBC.

If a moratorium had been in place while the 2010-2013 alignment occurred, there’d be almost a dozen schools still in FCS.

(04-14-2020 01:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Bullet is spot on. Had realignment among the P5 occurred more rapidly and the process not been so drawn out the most recent wave of expansion might not have occurred.

In the WAC, Idaho and NMSU would have been the only two left and unable to rebuild.

The MAC would have seen no need to accommodate UMass’s transition.

With C-USA getting cut down to 5 schools: UTEP, Rice, USM, UAB, and Marshall you’re probably just looking at a merger with the SBC.

If a moratorium had been in place while the 2010-2013 alignment occurred, there’d be almost a dozen schools still in FCS.

The reason P5 realignment hasn't moved faster is because there are 3 obstructionists to the process: Texas, Notre Dame, and North Carolina and if you could add a 4th it would be Stanford. Of the four I understand N.D.'s position and Stanford's, I suppose I understand the other two as well.

Notre Dame wants to keep independence. Therefore it prefers to lend its weight to hopefully keep a weaker conference that can provide them bowl slots from getting raided to death. The Big East worked for a bit and now it's the ACC.

Stanford's motives are academic in nature and they prevented the Texa-homa deal in part due to academic snobbery. And while willing to take Texas they weren't as accommodating to their friends. Otherwise the Big 12 would be kaput and a P4 would have already ended the discussion about how many at large bids in a playoff which here to fore has failed to produce more than 3 worthy teams on any given year. So why in the hell would we want to add more?

North Carolina and Texas both want to keep fiefdoms together. With 4 North Carolina schools in the 14 team ACC field and with Virginia voting with them most of the time they that core of 5 dominates the rest not so much by what they can decide but by what they can stop.

In Texas's case they just want as much of a Texas centered conference as they can keep. So what were in the two weakest conferences (Big 12 in footprint and ACC in competitiveness) in 2010 have now seen Texas keep a lock on 3rd of the P5 while the PAC and ACC claw to stay out of the cellar.

So we have a stalemate where a conference that doesn't dominate either of the regions it is in (Northeast and Southeast) and produces low revenue is propped up by Notre Dame and a conference too small to remain viable is actually doing well with 2 top 7 revenue producers anchoring their lineup. Meanwhile Stanford's move in self interest in 2010 against the Texa-homa deal has essentially left them with nobody to expand with and in a static position near the bottom of media revenue due to lack of content and lack of West Coast interest and no East Coast exposure.

If either the ACC or Big 12 had been picked apart it would be over.

That's why the next round will be so interesting. It's the last shot at big money for some in Big 12 not named Texas and the last shot for the football first schools of the ACC. I feel that the disparity in revenue is going to cause something to go "pop".

We'll see where things stand when we do finally have a P4 and then the proliferation of FCS schools moving up won't matter because we'll likely have the formation of an upper tier.

If conferences get much bigger it will be by effectively operating as a league collectively bargaining on the behalf of its membership conferences. If we accept that this is all driven by fan interest then at the end of the day you circle around back to the hard reality that fans want to play a highly regional schedule where most of the high priority highly relevant games are easy driving distance. Those games are also the most lucrative and well attended regardless of how anybody is doing that year. At some point the hunt for more dollars will have to reconnect with this reality.

Circling back to the OP: That's due the NCAA's arbitrary 12-team restriction for championship games. Now that the 12-team requirement is gone, I think you'll see downward pressure on conference size again. If you can still hold a conference title game at 9 teams, that's probably the optimum number. Note that superconferences or leagues or whatever you want to call behemoth conferences have divisions that effectively act as conferences as we think of them as fans: scheduling and who you're gonna have to beat to win hardware.

If I’m correct, right now there is a pseudo-moratorium in place: no new FBS schools unless someone invites you (or you have Liberty’s lawyers).

Any chance that becomes a total moratorium?

Wasn’t there a total moratorium between when WKU came up and when USA did?

(04-14-2020 02:51 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  If conferences get much bigger it will be by effectively operating as a league collectively bargaining on the behalf of its membership conferences. If we accept that this is all driven by fan interest then at the end of the day you circle around back to the hard reality that fans want to play a highly regional schedule where most of the high priority highly relevant games are easy driving distance. Those games are also the most lucrative and well attended regardless of how anybody is doing that year. At some point the hunt for more dollars will have to reconnect with this reality.

After the virus this will only be multiplied exponentially as a driving desire for regionality. A private car is more acceptable than a bus or aircraft.

(04-14-2020 01:55 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-14-2020 01:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Bullet is spot on. Had realignment among the P5 occurred more rapidly and the process not been so drawn out the most recent wave of expansion might not have occurred.

In the WAC, Idaho and NMSU would have been the only two left and unable to rebuild.

The MAC would have seen no need to accommodate UMass’s transition.

With C-USA getting cut down to 5 schools: UTEP, Rice, USM, UAB, and Marshall you’re probably just looking at a merger with the SBC.

If a moratorium had been in place while the 2010-2013 alignment occurred, there’d be almost a dozen schools still in FCS.

The reason P5 realignment hasn't moved faster is because there are 3 obstructionists to the process: Texas, Notre Dame, and North Carolina and if you could add a 4th it would be Stanford. Of the four I understand N.D.'s position and Stanford's, I suppose I understand the other two as well.

Notre Dame wants to keep independence. Therefore it prefers to lend its weight to hopefully keep a weaker conference that can provide them bowl slots from getting raided to death. The Big East worked for a bit and now it's the ACC.

Stanford's motives are academic in nature and they prevented the Texa-homa deal in part due to academic snobbery. And while willing to take Texas they weren't as accommodating to their friends. Otherwise the Big 12 would be kaput and a P4 would have already ended the discussion about how many at large bids in a playoff which here to fore has failed to produce more than 3 worthy teams on any given year. So why in the hell would we want to add more?

North Carolina and Texas both want to keep fiefdoms together. With 4 North Carolina schools in the 14 team ACC field and with Virginia voting with them most of the time they that core of 5 dominates the rest not so much by what they can decide but by what they can stop.

In Texas's case they just want as much of a Texas centered conference as they can keep. So what were in the two weakest conferences (Big 12 in footprint and ACC in competitiveness) in 2010 have now seen Texas keep a lock on 3rd of the P5 while the PAC and ACC claw to stay out of the cellar.

So we have a stalemate where a conference that doesn't dominate either of the regions it is in (Northeast and Southeast) and produces low revenue is propped up by Notre Dame and a conference too small to remain viable is actually doing well with 2 top 7 revenue producers anchoring their lineup. Meanwhile Stanford's move in self interest in 2010 against the Texa-homa deal has essentially left them with nobody to expand with and in a static position near the bottom of media revenue due to lack of content and lack of West Coast interest and no East Coast exposure.

If either the ACC or Big 12 had been picked apart it would be over.

That's why the next round will be so interesting. It's the last shot at big money for some in Big 12 not named Texas and the last shot for the football first schools of the ACC. I feel that the disparity in revenue is going to cause something to go "pop".

We'll see where things stand when we do finally have a P4 and then the proliferation of FCS schools moving up won't matter because we'll likely have the formation of an upper tier.

I agree with your assessment. Those schools looking for their own self interests had a very significant role in the last expansion. They slowed down what could have been one massive realignment in 2010 rather than dragging it out over 3 years.

With less time to make adjustments as everything was falling apart around them. The survivors of the WAC, C-USA, and SBC might have made much different decisions. Look at Marshall—do you stick with UAB, USM, Rice, UTEP or does SBC have some pull to them? There’s also going back to the MAC.

(04-14-2020 04:18 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(04-14-2020 01:55 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-14-2020 01:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Bullet is spot on. Had realignment among the P5 occurred more rapidly and the process not been so drawn out the most recent wave of expansion might not have occurred.

In the WAC, Idaho and NMSU would have been the only two left and unable to rebuild.

The MAC would have seen no need to accommodate UMass’s transition.

With C-USA getting cut down to 5 schools: UTEP, Rice, USM, UAB, and Marshall you’re probably just looking at a merger with the SBC.

If a moratorium had been in place while the 2010-2013 alignment occurred, there’d be almost a dozen schools still in FCS.

The reason P5 realignment hasn't moved faster is because there are 3 obstructionists to the process: Texas, Notre Dame, and North Carolina and if you could add a 4th it would be Stanford. Of the four I understand N.D.'s position and Stanford's, I suppose I understand the other two as well.

Notre Dame wants to keep independence. Therefore it prefers to lend its weight to hopefully keep a weaker conference that can provide them bowl slots from getting raided to death. The Big East worked for a bit and now it's the ACC.

Stanford's motives are academic in nature and they prevented the Texa-homa deal in part due to academic snobbery. And while willing to take Texas they weren't as accommodating to their friends. Otherwise the Big 12 would be kaput and a P4 would have already ended the discussion about how many at large bids in a playoff which here to fore has failed to produce more than 3 worthy teams on any given year. So why in the hell would we want to add more?

North Carolina and Texas both want to keep fiefdoms together. With 4 North Carolina schools in the 14 team ACC field and with Virginia voting with them most of the time they that core of 5 dominates the rest not so much by what they can decide but by what they can stop.

In Texas's case they just want as much of a Texas centered conference as they can keep. So what were in the two weakest conferences (Big 12 in footprint and ACC in competitiveness) in 2010 have now seen Texas keep a lock on 3rd of the P5 while the PAC and ACC claw to stay out of the cellar.

So we have a stalemate where a conference that doesn't dominate either of the regions it is in (Northeast and Southeast) and produces low revenue is propped up by Notre Dame and a conference too small to remain viable is actually doing well with 2 top 7 revenue producers anchoring their lineup. Meanwhile Stanford's move in self interest in 2010 against the Texa-homa deal has essentially left them with nobody to expand with and in a static position near the bottom of media revenue due to lack of content and lack of West Coast interest and no East Coast exposure.

If either the ACC or Big 12 had been picked apart it would be over.

That's why the next round will be so interesting. It's the last shot at big money for some in Big 12 not named Texas and the last shot for the football first schools of the ACC. I feel that the disparity in revenue is going to cause something to go "pop".

We'll see where things stand when we do finally have a P4 and then the proliferation of FCS schools moving up won't matter because we'll likely have the formation of an upper tier.

I agree with your assessment. Those schools looking for their own self interests had a very significant role in the last expansion. They slowed down what could have been one massive realignment in 2010 rather than dragging it out over 3 years.

With less time to make adjustments as everything was falling apart around them. The survivors of the WAC, C-USA, and SBC might have made much different decisions. Look at Marshall—do you stick with UAB, USM, Rice, UTEP or does SBC have some pull to them? There’s also going back to the MAC.

If you want to know where the pressure is look at where those 4 stand.

Notre Dame is associated with the least paid conference until this past year. Stanford and the PAC are struggling because they never got carriage help, or help with realignment targets. Texas has been lassoed in with the LHN and North Carolina has what they wanted but without pay or security to go with it.

So because they wouldn't play ball fully with ESPN or another network all of them are in precarious situations.

How? What if SEC and Big 10 money doubling the ACC payouts does destabilize Clemson and Florida State and other football first schools? How secure then is North Carolina in their fiefdom? How secure is Notre Dame without a host for bowl tie ins? How secure is Stanford in what has turned into the most dysfunctional of all of the P5 conferences?

Texas is secure because they already earn 20 million more than North Carolina, knows they'll have their pick of conferences, and realizes that ESPN will account for the LHN if they join an ESPN conference. Meanwhile Notre Dame could again become the Flying Dutchman as they leave another sinking ship in search of a new life line to independence. But North Carolina and Stanford's options are much bleaker in a conference not in part of their creation.

My point being that nothing has really worked out for any of them other than Texas but hey when you are annually the highest revenue earner you make your own luck.

(04-14-2020 03:00 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Circling back to the OP: That's due the NCAA's arbitrary 12-team restriction for championship games. Now that the 12-team requirement is gone, I think you'll see downward pressure on conference size again. If you can still hold a conference title game at 9 teams, that's probably the optimum number. Note that superconferences or leagues or whatever you want to call behemoth conferences have divisions that effectively act as conferences as we think of them as fans: scheduling and who you're gonna have to beat to win hardware.

12 is still optimum. With the cutting of sports, you need more than 9 to have a conference in the minor sports.

(04-15-2020 11:19 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(04-14-2020 03:00 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Circling back to the OP: That's due the NCAA's arbitrary 12-team restriction for championship games. Now that the 12-team requirement is gone, I think you'll see downward pressure on conference size again. If you can still hold a conference title game at 9 teams, that's probably the optimum number. Note that superconferences or leagues or whatever you want to call behemoth conferences have divisions that effectively act as conferences as we think of them as fans: scheduling and who you're gonna have to beat to win hardware.

12 is still optimum. With the cutting of sports, you need more than 9 to have a conference in the minor sports.

Conferences already mandate which sports you have to field. There's nothing stopping them from having an exhaustive list.

JRsec,

Where did you hear Stanford blocked Larry Scott's attempt to add Texas and Oklahoma? I know they have been pro Texas for decades. Also their President was not on the executive board when the P-10 attempted to be the P16.

It would not surprise me if they were in the group with UCLA (on the board) who wanted to swap KU in and Oklahoma State out.

But as for blocking, that's absurd. They were fine with Texas Tech and Utah (well in truth Utah has higher AI than the bottom four P12 ... just lack the reputation nationally), and are in a league with Oregon State, Washington State and the Arizona schools who far below what they would like for AI.

This one you need to show some proof, you can't just assert it's true.

(04-15-2020 12:23 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  JRsec,

Where did you hear Stanford blocked Larry Scott's attempt to add Texas and Oklahoma? I know they have been pro Texas for decades. Also their President was not on the executive board when the P-10 attempted to be the P16.

It would not surprise me if they were in the group with UCLA (on the board) who wanted to swap KU in and Oklahoma State out.

But as for blocking, that's absurd. They were fine with Texas Tech and Utah (well in truth Utah has higher AI than the bottom four P12 ... just lack the reputation nationally), and are in a league with Oregon State, Washington State and the Arizona schools who far below what they would like for AI.

This one you need to show some proof, you can't just assert it's true.

It was over Oklahoma State and I didn't say they blocked Texas, I said they didn't want Texa-homa as it was presented, and later when Texas was assuaged with the LHN and just Oklahoma and Oklahoma State expressed interest they too were rejected and if I remember correctly either Boren or the beat writer commented on that one.

(04-15-2020 12:46 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-15-2020 12:23 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  JRsec,

Where did you hear Stanford blocked Larry Scott's attempt to add Texas and Oklahoma? I know they have been pro Texas for decades. Also their President was not on the executive board when the P-10 attempted to be the P16.

It would not surprise me if they were in the group with UCLA (on the board) who wanted to swap KU in and Oklahoma State out.

But as for blocking, that's absurd. They were fine with Texas Tech and Utah (well in truth Utah has higher AI than the bottom four P12 ... just lack the reputation nationally), and are in a league with Oregon State, Washington State and the Arizona schools who far below what they would like for AI.

This one you need to show some proof, you can't just assert it's true.

It was over Oklahoma State and I didn't say they blocked Texas, I said they didn't want Texa-homa as it was presented, and later when Texas was assuaged with the LHN and just Oklahoma and Oklahoma State expressed interest they too were rejected and if I remember correctly either Boren or the beat writer commented on that one.

Just OU and oSu was never going to fly. Texas had to be in the group. Also Boren may not have even been aware of the internal P-10 attempt to swap KU for oSu, as we all only learned about it years later.

Frankly it turned out better for OU to stay put. West Virginia jumped on the B12 in panic and they are now an outlier, when they might have been safer and playing schools (Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech) their fan base really cared about if they waited for the ACC slot to open up which Louisville got. Now they may be in the lurch if OU winds up in the B1G or SEC.

But Texas made a decision to pull out before the P-16 came to consummation anyway.

(04-15-2020 03:07 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(04-15-2020 12:46 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-15-2020 12:23 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  JRsec,

Where did you hear Stanford blocked Larry Scott's attempt to add Texas and Oklahoma? I know they have been pro Texas for decades. Also their President was not on the executive board when the P-10 attempted to be the P16.

It would not surprise me if they were in the group with UCLA (on the board) who wanted to swap KU in and Oklahoma State out.

But as for blocking, that's absurd. They were fine with Texas Tech and Utah (well in truth Utah has higher AI than the bottom four P12 ... just lack the reputation nationally), and are in a league with Oregon State, Washington State and the Arizona schools who far below what they would like for AI.

This one you need to show some proof, you can't just assert it's true.

It was over Oklahoma State and I didn't say they blocked Texas, I said they didn't want Texa-homa as it was presented, and later when Texas was assuaged with the LHN and just Oklahoma and Oklahoma State expressed interest they too were rejected and if I remember correctly either Boren or the beat writer commented on that one.

Just OU and oSu was never going to fly. Texas had to be in the group. Also Boren may not have even been aware of the internal P-10 attempt to swap KU for oSu, as we all only learned about it years later.

Frankly it turned out better for OU to stay put. West Virginia jumped on teh B12 in panic and they are now an outlier, when they might have been safer and playing schools (Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech) their fan base really cared about if they waited for the ACC slot to open up which Louisville got. Now they may be in the lurch if OU winds up in the B1G or SEC.

But Texas made a decision to pull out before the P-16 came to consummation anyway.

Kind of irrelevant as KU was swapped in to replace A&M who wasn't coming.

Let’s trace the origins/paths of all 11 FBS programs that moved up from 2010-2019:

1. USA—not the P5’s fault, they were already a non-fb member of the SBC and already planning to move up

2. UMass—they got into the MAC because the MAC was trying to come to an even 14 after the 2004-2005 ACC-on-BE raid sent Temple to the MAC (the real root of Temple getting kicked out was theat their spot was being taken over by full member UConn).

3. UTSA and Texas St—The PAC 10 took Utah from the MWC, which then led to BYI going Indy; the BE also announced they were taking TCU from the MWC; the MWC then takes Boise St, Hawaii, Nevada, and Fresno St from the WAC; the WAC invites this pair to restock

4. ODU and Charlotte—The Big East lost Pitt and Cuse to to the ACC and WVU to the Big 12; the BE in turn took UCF, Houston, SMU and then a few months later, Memphis from C-USA. C-USA’s rebuild included taking UNT and FIU from SBC; part of C-USA’s rebuild was inviting Charlotte and ODU from FCS.

5. GA St—all of the events described in 4 caused the SBC dip into FCS for GA St

6. GA South and App St—the Big Ten took Rutgers from the BE and Maryland from the ACC; ACC took Louisville from the BE; the BE took ECU and Tulane from C-USA, C-USA took FAU and MTSU from the SBC; the SBC invited GA South and App St

7. CCU—After the split with the Catholic 7 the AAC (formerly BE) added Tulsa from C-USA because they were at an odd number (unable to find another fb only to balance out Navy); C-USA took WKU from the SBC; SBC brings in FCS CCU

8. Liberty—all of the P5 raids G5, G5 raids FCS; FCS raids other FCS moves left the Big South pretty crappy and the better FCS leagues like the CAA and SoCon blackballed the Flames causing them to upgrade

(04-15-2020 03:07 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(04-15-2020 12:46 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-15-2020 12:23 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  JRsec,

Where did you hear Stanford blocked Larry Scott's attempt to add Texas and Oklahoma? I know they have been pro Texas for decades. Also their President was not on the executive board when the P-10 attempted to be the P16.

It would not surprise me if they were in the group with UCLA (on the board) who wanted to swap KU in and Oklahoma State out.

But as for blocking, that's absurd. They were fine with Texas Tech and Utah (well in truth Utah has higher AI than the bottom four P12 ... just lack the reputation nationally), and are in a league with Oregon State, Washington State and the Arizona schools who far below what they would like for AI.

This one you need to show some proof, you can't just assert it's true.

It was over Oklahoma State and I didn't say they blocked Texas, I said they didn't want Texa-homa as it was presented, and later when Texas was assuaged with the LHN and just Oklahoma and Oklahoma State expressed interest they too were rejected and if I remember correctly either Boren or the beat writer commented on that one.

Just OU and oSu was never going to fly. Texas had to be in the group. Also Boren may not have even been aware of the internal P-10 attempt to swap KU for oSu, as we all only learned about it years later.

Frankly it turned out better for OU to stay put. West Virginia jumped on teh B12 in panic and they are now an outlier, when they might have been safer and playing schools (Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech) their fan base really cared about if they waited for the ACC slot to open up which Louisville got. Now they may be in the lurch if OU winds up in the B1G or SEC.

But Texas made a decision to pull out before the P-16 came to consummation anyway.

WVU was prudent to get off the Big East FB ship before it sank. Had they not, it might have been Louisville in the Big 12 and UConn in the ACC, while WVU is stuck in the American. Granted, taking UConn might have resulted in the ACC losing more than just UMD, which would provide a potential opening for WVU, albeit in a lesser ACC. However, the ACC has historically demonstrated the willingness to shoot itself in the foot in spite of better options.