The Cutter of Bish
Heisman
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RE: Larry Scott can't go away fast enough!
(06-13-2021 05:49 PM)schmolik Wrote: (06-13-2021 05:18 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote: (06-13-2021 09:56 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: The scheduling alliance went further for other sports than it did for football. That there was a revolving football schedule (it wasn't like all twelve members of the conference would play against the Big Ten's twelve members respectively every year) that did offer flexibility.
And it also exposes a greater internal issue or rift in that where three or four members can be greater than six or eight, if only just because of voting purposes, the majority bloc isn't attained because a minority cluster can keep a measure down.
I don't advocate for Scott. Again, I put this at the feet of the schools to own their own failures. The PAC seems pretty bogged down by what either a cluster of four CA schools, or just what Stanford and USC want. And if they aren't happy, the other six or eight have had to do without. The conference's failures are a collective one. But, it seems the easy and lazy thing to do, like the article seems to voice, that it's more one (Scott) than the other (the schools who vote). And there is CLEARLY a problem with how USC and Stanford can throw their weight around.
You don’t need to advocate for Scott. He does plenty of that for himself. What is good for Washington State may not be good for USC or UCLA or Stanford or Cal. For the scheduling alliance to have passed, Scott needed 9 of the 12 Pac-12 leaders to approve it. He did not have the votes. That did not stop him from announcing a scheduling alliance agreement between the two conferences. After the vote failed, both the Washington AD and the Utah AD announced that they were pleased that the vote failed. They liked having the scheduling flexibility. The California schools were not on-board and if the California schools are not on-board, then what is the point?
The reason Scott is being fired is that he failed at his job. The schools have a responsibility for their votes supporting his vision, but he needs to execute on that vision. Scott failed to execute on his vision.
The California schools control the Pac-12. And the North Carolina schools control the ACC, Texas controls the Big 12, Ohio State and Michigan control the Big Ten, and Alabama controls the SEC. How is the Pac-12 different in the fact that one or two schools control the conference? It isn't. What's different is that Larry Scott speaks without clearing it with the majority of the conference and/or the "power players". Were Jim Delany and John Swofford always in control or puppets controlled by the top schools? We don't know. What a commissioner can't do is speak without the approval of the top schools and/or the majority of the schools.
I think every conference has its problematic members, but, with maybe the exception of the Big XII, nobody's got the kind of "control" like the CA schools have over the PAC. Stanford and USC especially. But, even in the Big XII, while Texas (and OU) have a lot of pull, I thought it was understood that a Baylor lawsuit is ever-present until this contract is up. And who knows if they wouldn't pull something thereafter. And that's a conference where different forces pulling in opposite directions keep the conference intact. Others, especially the Big Ten and SEC, tend to be far more cohesive and unified. For the most part (eyes on you, Nebraska, and that's no big surprise because they were a malcontent in the Big XII). And if Carolina really ruled the ACC, that discounts the sort of "clout" Maryland pulled for a long time. The Carolina schools could be persuaded to change from time to time...Maryland, when it didn't get its way enough, well, we know what happened there (and it's probably only a matter of time until they, like Nebraska, make some noise about something in the Big Ten).
Scott didn't manage his schools well. Going over the heads of some of the members was (still is) bush league. But, is that what one has to do with those schools? The PAC could have had Texas 30 years ago. You can thank Stanford for stopping that one. They could have members in the Central time zone, or have a scheduling alliance with schools in the Central and Eastern time zones. Passes on both. And maybe those weren't the "ideal" options, but who gets to say that? If more schools wanted the alliance than schools who didn't, that's far different than the idea being a bad one where Scott did something he shouldn't have done. Even a 50-50 split speaks to the divides within the conference. When 2 or 4 are greater than 10 or 8 respectively, I don't see where that's more on Scott than it is the schools.
And the lowest of low hanging fruit still remains the pass on Oklahoma and State. Dislike the two of them as much as only a few did (but was enough), it would have hit a big reset button for a media deal. OU, even if you don't like State unless it's a side dish with Texas, was a game changer for the PAC. And much like how Stanford stood in the way of things in 1990 with both Colorado and Texas, I'm going to LOL so hard if we're talking about State being in the PAC by the end of this decade, because it will show, yet again, how the PAC gets in the way of itself when it comes to these initiatives. It really is unrivaled amongst the other major conferences.
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