Big 12 Expansion
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Limey Frog
Full Member
Interesting article here on what a Pac/Big 12 merger would look like.
theathletic.com
Basics for non-Athletic subscribers is to add SDSU and SMU, go to four six-team divisions, have eight conference games in a 5+1+1+1 model, then your ninth conference game is a semi final for 1st place teams and just an additional round of regular games for everyone else (2nd place vs 2nd place, etc.).
I think it's decent idea, honestly. Unlike a lot of posters here I've always wanted to SMU back in our conference. The more in-state matchups the better for me.
The problems with this would be getting tied in to a behemoth that looks totally different if Oregon and co. get into the Big 10. Also you wouldn't have as much room to expand east if the ACC imploded.
I'd rather just poach the schools we've talked about, but I could live with this over some far worse possible outcomes.
How a Pac-12/Big 12 conference merger would play football
Here's how to organize and schedule a Big 12/Pac-12 merged conference. Looks pretty good!
theathletic.com
Basics for non-Athletic subscribers is to add SDSU and SMU, go to four six-team divisions, have eight conference games in a 5+1+1+1 model, then your ninth conference game is a semi final for 1st place teams and just an additional round of regular games for everyone else (2nd place vs 2nd place, etc.).
I think it's decent idea, honestly. Unlike a lot of posters here I've always wanted to SMU back in our conference. The more in-state matchups the better for me.
The problems with this would be getting tied in to a behemoth that looks totally different if Oregon and co. get into the Big 10. Also you wouldn't have as much room to expand east if the ACC imploded.
I'd rather just poach the schools we've talked about, but I could live with this over some far worse possible outcomes.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
I say we tie my antique Royal typewriter to SMU's leg and toss them into my septic tank.
Limey Frog
Full Member
This Ain't Chopped Liver
Active Member
Yes, a good letter with West Virginia’s vantage point well illustrating a problem. All those in charge should read it and feel some shame—the Longhorns front and center, for ripping apart the original Big 12 and then all the consequences.
I do wish the writer had not used “like” to begin the penultimate paragraph, ugh. I bet many/most judge intelligence by our writing.
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FrogAbroad
Full Member
One of the responses is For every change that rabid fans decry, the sport grows more popular and more profitable.
I think therein lies the crux of the problem. Younger, newer fans aren't so attached to the old rivalries as we older fans, and for them change feeds popularity. And pretty obviously, college sports is now the "College Sports Entertainment Industry" so consequently profitable beats traditional increasingly often. But if we look back at the history of sports, amateur or professional, I think we'll see those same trends, and many of us who have earned our status as Senior Citizens experienced and participated in and embraced many of them ourselves. As we age, change feels faster, more frequent and less tolerable. It'll pass, just as we will.
I think therein lies the crux of the problem. Younger, newer fans aren't so attached to the old rivalries as we older fans, and for them change feeds popularity. And pretty obviously, college sports is now the "College Sports Entertainment Industry" so consequently profitable beats traditional increasingly often. But if we look back at the history of sports, amateur or professional, I think we'll see those same trends, and many of us who have earned our status as Senior Citizens experienced and participated in and embraced many of them ourselves. As we age, change feels faster, more frequent and less tolerable. It'll pass, just as we will.
Eight
Member
Interesting article here on what a Pac/Big 12 merger would look like.
How a Pac-12/Big 12 conference merger would play football
Here's how to organize and schedule a Big 12/Pac-12 merged conference. Looks pretty good!
Basics for non-Athletic subscribers is to add SDSU and SMU, go to four six-team divisions, have eight conference games in a 5+1+1+1 model, then your ninth conference game is a semi final for 1st place teams and just an additional round of regular games for everyone else (2nd place vs 2nd place, etc.).
I think it's decent idea, honestly. Unlike a lot of posters here I've always wanted to SMU back in our conference. The more in-state matchups the better for me.
The problems with this would be getting tied in to a behemoth that looks totally different if Oregon and co. get into the Big 10. Also you wouldn't have as much room to expand east if the ACC imploded.
I'd rather just poach the schools we've talked about, but I could live with this over some far worse possible outcomes.
hell no to adding smu, bad enough we got the cultists conference killers and houston
understand adding sdsu to get a presence in socal, but smu brings nothing more than a place holder to the conference and there are other candidates that fulfill the "warm body" requirement used by mandel
the idea of intrastate focus is what helped killed the swc and there is nothing more to be gained by adding them
Can't see a full Big12/PAC12 merger, as the Big12 should only be interested in best/largest 4-6 media markets... easily eliminating WSU/OSU/UA/and possibly Utah(unless dumping BYU... lol !). That gives non invitees to BIG, a B12 option among ASU CU UO UW CAL Stanford for best viewer$hip.
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The more popular, younger fans argument is true in some ways, but that mainly comes from the SEC, BIG 10 and Media. Half empty stadiums, no geographic rivalries and fan apathy, that's what you see at 95% of the schools. What else are you going to watch on Saturdays, obviously viewership is up, but enthusiasm for college football? College football was just an undervalued stock that ESPN was hoping to keep hidden. It's out of the box and they have squeezed every penny of shareholder value while pushing a narrative and agenda that has ruined its greatness.
HG73
Active Member
WV is thanking their lucky stars every day to be in a power conference, the only power conference that is interested in them. Plus we just added 3 G5 teams partly as a bridge to them. Sure they prefer the ACC but I don't see an invite. And it would pay a lot less. If things go well WV will have 4-6 new neighbors out west that are bonafide P5 state flagship schools with excellent academics. They could do worse.
If they want to schedule Pitt and VT then pick up the phone. Those would be great rivalry games and very popular with the networks.
HornyWartyToad
Active Member
The end of that sentence should include, "for now." I grew up loving CFB because my old man did, and took us to the games. I can remember vividly, on weekends sitting hunched over his old 50-lb a.m. radio that on a clear night would pick up Hawaii, listening to games on the West Coast, from our house in Houston.
I'm diehard TCU, and my boy has gotten *some* of that, but I'm fast approaching disinterested. We already go to WAY fewer games ever since CDC scheissed us out of our fantastic seats we had forever, and this new setup isn't going to turn that around, most likely.
When I was my boy's age, I couldn't wait for DCTF to come out each summer so I could read it cover to cover and memorize all my team's players and their jersey numbers and stats, and to spend some time knowing for sure which dudes on rival teams I really really hated. Anybody know Steve Worster? I still want to punch him and Jim Street. My kid couldn't name you three TCU players today. I feel like I barely can.
Brand loyalty, and [ Finebaum ]ting on your rivals is what drove college football to the heights it has reached. That, and the thought that maybe, just maybe, if all the cards fell just right and the stars aligned perfectly, your team could be playing for all the marbles at the end of the year. I don't see how what's happening now doesn't destroy that, at least for a large segment of the viewing audience.
Hell, I guess I never really loved that sorry heifer, anyway.
Palliative Care
Active Member
I understand Toad. Today it’s more about money and TV networks than it is about fan loyalty and bitter rivals. Frankly I doubt that TCU ever gets the marbles to play for a national title ever again. The odds just keep getting longer and longer. Bigger conferences mean more losses and less national recognition. A one loss season already pretty much spells doom except for the SEC. Don’t kid yourselves expansed play offs just means more B10 and SEC teams. Yes change can be exciting but old rivalries were as well. Bowl games will loose traditional ties and will be just play off games. Oh boy someone wins the Cotton Bowl! Yeah who do they play next? It is not quite the same is it? Change for the sack of change is meaningless. Change for betterment of the sport still has to earn its place. New and different does not necessarily equate to better or even as good.
I am for new members in the conference and a bigger B12. Otherwise a slow death would be our fate. But I hold no illusion that the B12 will ever be on anything like equal footing with the SEC or the B10.
I am for new members in the conference and a bigger B12. Otherwise a slow death would be our fate. But I hold no illusion that the B12 will ever be on anything like equal footing with the SEC or the B10.
Limey Frog
Full Member
This is it exactly. I grew up on English soccer. The second match I ever went to my team (which my granddad had seen win the FA Cup in 1946 and my dad had watched win the league twice in the '70s) beat our hated local rival (who most of the lads at my school cheered for) in a big upset. The sense of excitement and belonging from walking out of the ground in a massive crowd all chanting happily was intoxicating.
The second TCU football game I ever attended was against Texas Tech in 2006. Well, GP's Frog taught Mike Leach's loudmouthed Red Raiders a thing or two about defense. At this point I haven't lived in Texas in almost a decade, but I'll always love TCU and it will never matter more to beat anyone than other schools in Texas.
These are the moments that get you hooked. That's the spirit of the game that the TV networks are monetizing. But if there's nothing real for the next generation of fans to fall in love with in person, there will be nothing substantial left to monetize. It'll all just be like everything else in post-modern mass consumer capitalism: sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Hoosierfrog
Tier 1
Lots of people on here are asking, who?
Palliative Care
Active Member
Ed and the Mandela effect gives me the creeps.
Paradoxotaur
Full Member
Name checks out.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
Like Shakespeare had his character say, "It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." We have fools flush with borrowed cash, gambling on which bunch of Brand Names will people tune into, with no grasp of the regional rivalries or passionate hatreds any cursory glance at the lore would tell of. They don't care about five years from now, they care about tomorrow. Maybe even the day after. Beyond that is the misty distance, which they will worry about in a couple of days.
There was a show I watched many years ago, concerning an old hospital (St. Elsewhere). In the final episode, one of the constant characters has a sone who is autistic. The boy is creative, but cannot communicate. The character who is his Father loves him dearly, but is frustrated by their mutual inability to communicate. The final scene of the series is one of the autistic child holding a snow globe, with a model of the hospital facade in the globe. The father, certain that his turbulent son will smash it all to pieces, snatches it away from him as he stares at it in wonder, saying, "You don't know what you're doing with that!" Often I feel that same emotion as I watch ESPN, FOX and others snatch and grab, and jumble and bribe: They don't know what they're doing. Worst of all, they don't care. They will smash it all to pieces, and walk away satisfied...
Longhorn from Aledo
Active Member
Texas historic rivals are OU, A&M, and Piggy in that order. Going by this guy's argument, Texas should have been in the SEC a decade ago. TCU's historical rivals are SMU and Baylor. The B12 should add SMU.
Dogfrog
Active Member
TCU’s 7-3 record vs UT since joining the B12 should help prepare you for the SEC.
