• The KillerFrogs

Ranking the schools after Conference Realignment

LeagueCityFrog

Active Member
Also, the Oklahoma and Kansas legislatures would not let big brother drop in-state little brother. Those four schools are tied at the hip. Iowa won't let Iowa State into the Big Ten. No way.
 

Eight

Member
The 8 pac schools outside of Oregon and Washington team up with the Big12, while WVU goes ACC and Iowa St goes B1G. Seems to work pretty well to me.

cal and stanford aren't joining the big 12 as they barely can tolerate being in the same athletic conference with the two arizona schools.

no way they are joining a conference with texas tech and two private, christian based schools.

family on the west coast would prefer to go back to the days of the old pac 8, but i don't see that happening as that is just too small a conference to garner much interest from television.

the simplest move that ensures the stability of the conferences is expanding the the cfp from 4 schools to 8 (i know your stance on this wex) and guarantee a bid to each of the p5 conference champions.

problem is the conferences want nfl type money from the networks, but won't agree to an nfl type situation where decisions are made for the benefit of everyone instead of one group over others
 

hiphopfroggy

Active Member
cal and stanford aren't joining the big 12 as they barely can tolerate being in the same athletic conference with the two arizona schools.

no way they are joining a conference with texas tech and two private, christian based schools.

family on the west coast would prefer to go back to the days of the old pac 8, but i don't see that happening as that is just too small a conference to garner much interest from television.

the simplest move that ensures the stability of the conferences is expanding the the cfp from 4 schools to 8 (i know your stance on this wex) and guarantee a bid to each of the p5 conference champions.

problem is the conferences want nfl type money from the networks, but won't agree to an nfl type situation where decisions are made for the benefit of everyone instead of one group over others

I dont think the next round of media negotiations will be based on attempting to please everyone, and I dont think one can rely on playoff expansion. I think the next round will be based on trying to please UT and OU specifically, and on the Pac side USC and UCLA specifically. And ESPN and Fox.

Either way the pressure is on the Pac as they are going broke, and can't keep any of their coaches or recruits or audience. Their business model is imploding so they are going to have to do something drastic soon. They dont have the luxury of snobbery anymore, and my word they are already in a conference w/ Arizona St. Arizona St. If one can tolerate Arizona St one can tolorate anything.
 

Eight

Member
I dont think the next decisions will be based on attempting to please everyone, and I dont think one can rely on playoff expansion. I think the next round will be based on trying to please UT and OU specifically, and on the Pac side USC and UCLA specifically. And ESPN and Fox.

Either way the pressure is on the Pac as they are going broke, and can't keep any of their coaches or recruits or audience. Their business model is imploding so they are going to have to do something drastic soon. They dont have the luxury of snobbery anymore, and my word they are already in a conference w/ Arizona St. Arizona St. If one can tolerate Arizona St one can tolorate anything.

remember that oregon state is actually the biggest school in that state and you have more oregon state alums than ducks which while that might not matter to anyone outside the state of oregon it does matter inside that state and while phil knight's money has raised the athletic department at uo it isn't enough to keep the school afloat.

the pac's problem is they have a mismatch of schools with a number that tolerate athletics and either don't want to or can't finance their athletic programs at the level of their peers.

finally, they have a commissioner who had no background in college athletics or ties to the west coast. larry scott is so far out of his depth he makes texas hiring steve patterson as their ad brilliant.

scott is a harvard educated tennis player who prior to become the pac 12 commissioner was the head of the women's tennis association.

don't know for sure, but if i had to guess that was a decision made by the cal schools and it has scheissed the pac over multiple times with the way he has bungled the television contracts, the conference network, and positioning the pac in the cfp.
 

froginaustin

Active Member
Also, the Oklahoma and Kansas legislatures would not let big brother drop in-state little brother. Those four schools are tied at the hip. Iowa won't let Iowa State into the Big Ten. No way.

I have heard for years from people that think they know what they are talking about (and as far as I know, they do), that Iowa will call in all the chips it has and will ever have with B1G institutions, to keep ISU out of Iowa's B1G conference. It never really dawned on me why Iowa would be so militant. After all, they face a legislature full of ISU grads/fans, that might run the show at a crucial time sort of like TTech and Baylol fans did our lege, in 1995 or so.

Then I think about the level of control that OkSU seems to have over OU's athletic business; that OrSU may have over UO's; that WSU may have over the Mighty Huskies', etc., and maybe the Iowa point of view makes sense despite at least the possibility of serious retaliation from ISU fans in their legislature.

Good friends of mine have a life-long, bitter hatred of Ole Miss for keeping a boot on the ambitions of Southern Miss. But Southern Miss is likely forever screwed because not only do the huge majority of practicing lawyers (who tend to be legislators in disproportionate numbers) in Mississippi have Ole Miss ties, but also Mississippi State historically lines up with Ole Miss in the in-state discussion about keeping Southern Miss a second class institution among Mississippi state colleges.
 

Froggish

Active Member
I think the next move for college football will be national in nature such as moving to a 4 quad set up with media rights negotiations being handled in a consolidated manner. That will mean a reduction in teams at the top to 48 or 56. So 8 to 16 teams will be relegated and I would assume it will more than anything those who are private and have little to no political clout. Any expansion by a single conference will almost exclusively be the adding of a few G5 schools and I don't get the impression the B12 or anyone else is that desperate to move away from their current formats. B12 is actually working for its 10 members and the PAC is going the direction of expansion with their cash problems. There is probably every bit of 10-15 schools that are dying financially trying to keep up with the "joneses" and would actually be better off de-investing some resources in their programs.

I can assure you that Ok St and OU are breaking the state of Oklahoma financially.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
the simplest move that ensures the stability of the conferences is expanding the the cfp from 4 schools to 8 (i know your stance on this wex) and guarantee a bid to each of the p5 conference champions.

My stance on it isn't all that strong, other than the fact that I feel very strongly that the outcome isn't going to be what most people think it will be. I think over time it would only serve to separate the have's and have not's even more. But if that's what everyone wants, ok. It would ensure stability of the conferences I suppose but I get a sense that having a team included in the CFP playoff isn't quite as big a deal for a conference as it was in the initial years of the CFP.
 

hiphopfroggy

Active Member
IMO, the bulk of the decisions regarding the next round of realignment won't be coming out of the Oregon, Washington or Iowa legislatures. There are numerous more central and powerful organizations that will be deep into negotiations before the aforementioned are even brought to the discussion.
 

Eight

Member
IMO, the bulk of the decisions regarding the next round of realignment won't be coming out of the Oregon, Washington or Iowa legislatures. There are numerous more central and powerful organizations that will be deep into negotiations before the aforementioned are even brought to the discussion.

the problem is you have a tug of war between those who believe the purpose of these schools are academics first and athletics seconds and those who want to treat the athletics as a separate entity from the academic purpose of the institutions.

the only unified entities are the networks as at this time each conference operated independent of the other, espn basically drives the cfp, and you don't even have a universal agreement among the conferences.

the three strongest football programs in the pac 12 right now are uo, utah, and washington. the pac desperately needs at the least usc or ucla to get their [ Finebaum ] straight, but right now no one is willing to take that bet.
 

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
"He who pays the piper calls the tune" said the poet, and ESPN will essentially call the shots in this. They are the ones who write the big checks. Yeah, FOX is in play a little, but they are a drop in the ESPN bucket.

problem is the conferences want nfl type money from the networks, but won't agree to an nfl type situation where decisions are made for the benefit of everyone instead of one group over others

Be careful what you wish for. However bad the individual Conference management may be, and bitter rivalries within those Conferences, I hold that it would be infinitely worse were ESPN to take over and dictate Conference alignment, scheduling, and membership. They are about to do just that, and we could very well be looking at the last years of College Football As We Knew It.
 

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
"He who pays the piper calls the tune" said the poet, and ESPN will essentially call the shots in this. They are the ones who write the big checks. Yeah, FOX is in play a little, but they are a drop in the ESPN bucket.

problem is the conferences want nfl type money from the networks, but won't agree to an nfl type situation where decisions are made for the benefit of everyone instead of one group over others

Be careful what you wish for. However bad the individual Conference management may be, and bitter rivalries within those Conferences, I hold that it would be infinitely worse were ESPN to take over and dictate Conference alignment, scheduling, and membership. They are about to do just that, and we could very well be looking at the last years of College Football As We Knew It.
 

Eight

Member
"He who pays the piper calls the tune" said the poet, and ESPN will essentially call the shots in this. They are the ones who write the big checks. Yeah, FOX is in play a little, but they are a drop in the ESPN bucket.



Be careful what you wish for. However bad the individual Conference management may be, and bitter rivalries within those Conferences, I hold that it would be infinitely worse were ESPN to take over and dictate Conference alignment, scheduling, and membership. They are about to do just that, and we could very well be looking at the last years of College Football As We Knew It.

i agree that espn making the decisions has not been good and will not be good going forward for college football.

the problem is that you have no one representing the best interest of college football and i think in situations as the longhorn network, espn has been able to find some school or conference greedy enough (aka dumb enough) to give espn a degree of control.

college football is speeding towards some big problems with the next round of contracts and no one on the network or streaming side is going to be acting in the best interest of college football.
 

LeagueCityFrog

Active Member
One other item too... There was a good article written by The Athletic right before this past football season. They interviewed the former long time Texas AD DeLoss Dodds, a K-State graduate by the way.... What he said in there was a key I think for TCU's stability. He said he and his burnt orange contingent looked long and hard at the Pac 10, but ultimately decided against it because he did not think the long travel to play the Oregon States, the Washingtons, and the Washington States was fair to their student athletes and their studies. UT made a proportionate TV deal for themselves with their tier three TV rights and tried to minimize how much their student athletes had to travel.

I think Bowlsby needs to be proactive right now and chat with Chris Del Conte and the OU contingent. I would be cool with any of these schools....Arkansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona, or Arizona State. All winnable games for TCU and all national brands.

If TCU football starts scoring points on offense again like 2014, then watch out....
 
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Eight

Member
One other item too... There was a good article written by The Athletic right before this past football season. They interviewed the former long time Texas AD DeLoss Doods, a K-State graduate by the way.... What he said in there was a key I think for TCU's stability. He said he and his burnt orange contingent looked long and hard at the Pac 10, but ultimately decided against it because he did not think the long travel to play the Oregon States, the Washingtons, and the Washington States was fair to their student athletes and their studies. UT made a proportionate TV deal for themselves with their tier three TV rights and tried to minimize how much their student athletes had to travel.

I think Bowlsby needs to be proactive right now and chat with Chris Del Conte and the OU contingent. I would be cool with any of these schools....Arkansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona, or Arizona State. All winnable games for TCU and all national brands.

If TCU football starts scoring points on offense again like 2014, then watch out....

i don't see arkansas leaving the sec or nebraska ever coming back to a conference with texas.

the arizonia schools however do make some sense as they have no historical tie to the pac, they actually have historical ties with tech and the old border conference days, the travel isn't a killer, the programs are strong in multiple sports, and it gives you the ability to recruit socal without dealing with the california schools.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
i agree that money making the decisions has not been good and will not be good going forward for college football.

FIFY

ESPN wouldn't control anything if the conferences and schools weren't willing to sell that control to them. ESPN is trying to make money like any business out there, they are not the root of whatever "problems" are there are or whatever bad path we are going down. All the conferences would have to do is put their foot down and say this is what we're doing and this is how we're doing it, now how much do you want to pay to show our games on TV? Instead they are laser focused on the bottom line ($$) which drives almost every decision they make. How else can you explain how Rutgers ended up in the same league as Nebraska and West Virginia ended up in the same league as Texas Tech.

I didn't follow the business side of college sports back in the 80's and 90's but I never remember hearing anything about rights fees and each conference member's annual take. Nobody seemed to care, now it's front page news whenever a league announces how much money they make. What sports fan really cares about that?
 

Eight

Member
FIFY

ESPN wouldn't control anything if the conferences and schools weren't willing to sell that control to them. ESPN is trying to make money like any business out there, they are not the root of whatever "problems" are there are or whatever bad path we are going down. All the conferences would have to do is put their foot down and say this is what we're doing and this is how we're doing it, now how much do you want to pay to show our games on TV? Instead they are laser focused on the bottom line ($$) which drives almost every decision they make. How else can you explain how Rutgers ended up in the same league as Nebraska and West Virginia ended up in the same league as Texas Tech.

I didn't follow the business side of college sports back in the 80's and 90's but I never remember hearing anything about rights fees and each conference member's annual take. Nobody seemed to care, now it's front page news whenever a league announces how much money they make. What sports fan really cares about that?

here is a link to an interesting article by sally jenkins in 2011 about the court decision in 1984 that put all this in motion.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...charge-since/2011/09/23/gIQAVDyoqK_story.html
 

froginaustin

Active Member
i don't see arkansas leaving the sec or nebraska ever coming back to a conference with texas.

the arizonia schools however do make some sense as they have no historical tie to the pac, they actually have historical ties with tech and the old border conference days, the travel isn't a killer, the programs are strong in multiple sports, and it gives you the ability to recruit socal without dealing with the california schools.

The Arizona schools get lots of regular non-athlete students from Southern California. And lots of athletic recruits. I suspect it would be tough for the Azes to move away from Calli connections. More important than ancient Border Conference ties.

ED: Besides I hope the conference wouldn’t add Pacific time zone teams without WVU having a say so.
 

froginaustin

Active Member
One other item too... There was a good article written by The Athletic right before this past football season. They interviewed the former long time Texas AD DeLoss Doods, a K-State graduate by the way.... What he said in there was a key I think for TCU's stability. He said he and his burnt orange contingent looked long and hard at the Pac 10, but ultimately decided against it because he did not think the long travel to play the Oregon States, the Washingtons, and the Washington States was fair to their student athletes and their studies. UT made a proportionate TV deal for themselves with their tier three TV rights and tried to minimize how much their student athletes had to travel.

I think Bowlsby needs to be proactive right now and chat with Chris Del Conte and the OU contingent. I would be cool with any of these schools....Arkansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona, or Arizona State. All winnable games for TCU and all national brands.

If TCU football starts scoring points on offense again like 2014, then watch out....

Liked for "Doods".
 
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