Official realignment thread - SEC formally invites OU and Texas to join the conference in 2025

[CULifer]

It is a careful line to walk, but I personally appreciate that the Pac12 wouldn't look at a guy like Briles. He should be in jail

Can't be that hard to walk that line if the SEC can high and mighty themselves into athletic dominance. We have the SEC as an example to follow, and wasn't it one of our former coaches who didn't believe in self-imposed limitations? Isn't that hard.

 

[Buffnik]

Why UNM? Let's just let them go/stay to the Wac or Mwc. The Cal schools can eat **** and let sdsu in

I was pretty much joking. Just naming 4 schools that were R1 for research intensity match, got us into new states that fit the footprint (expanded media), had basketball & arenas we'd enjoy, and were bad enough at football to basically make our rebuild easier on that side.

But the more I think about what started as a joke, I actually wouldn't hate this as much as I had thought I would. Be better to replace UNM with Okie Lite in this scenario, though. UNM is pretty much hopeless and the basketball doesn't even move the needle.

I think we'd actually like a Pac-16 with these schools within a pods format:

Northwest Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
California Pod: Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Desert Pod: Arizona, Arizona State, UNLV, Utah
Southwest Pod: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech

As a refresher, pods scheduling would mean that you played each of the teams in your pod every year for 3 conference games and 2 teams from each of the other pods every year (i.e., USC & Stanford for 2 years, then UCLA & Cal for the next 2 years) for 6 more conference games. Would be easy from this to also have a semi-final round to the conference playoff (4-team playoff), which would add 2 very high value games for the media contract.

For hoops, it would probably be 6 games (home/away) against your pod mates plus 12 games against the other schools every year for an 18-game conference schedule.

This would also add 4 states for media footprint & recruiting while keeping the culture largely intact.

The question is whether it would move the needle on media revenue.

Honestly, the more I think about this the less I hate it.

 

[CULifer]

I was pretty much joking. Just naming 4 schools that were R1 for research intensity match, got us into new states that fit the footprint (expanded media), had basketball & arenas we'd enjoy, and were bad enough at football to basically make our rebuild easier on that side.

But the more I think about what started as a joke, I actually wouldn't hate this as much as I had thought I would. Be better to replace UNM with Okie Lite in this scenario, though. UNM is pretty much hopeless and the basketball doesn't even move the needle.

I think we'd actually like a Pac-16 with these schools within a pods format:

Northwest Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
California Pod: Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Desert Pod: Arizona, Arizona State, UNLV, Utah
Southwest Pod: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
View attachment 47736
As a refresher, pods scheduling would mean that you played each of the teams in your pod every year for 3 conference games and 2 teams from each of the other pods every year (i.e., USC & Stanford for 2 years, then UCLA & Cal for the next 2 years) for 6 more conference games. Would be easy from this to also have a semi-final round to the conference playoff (4-team playoff), which would add 2 very high value games for the media contract.

For hoops, it would probably be 6 games (home/away) against your pod mates plus 12 games against the other schools every year for an 18-game conference schedule.

This would also add 4 states for media footprint & recruiting while keeping the culture largely intact.

The question is whether it would move the needle on media revenue.

Honestly, the more I think about this the less I hate it.

Tbh, I like the whole idea. Nik for Assistant to the commisioner.

 

[MiamiBuffs]

I was pretty much joking. Just naming 4 schools that were R1 for research intensity match, got us into new states that fit the footprint (expanded media), had basketball & arenas we'd enjoy, and were bad enough at football to basically make our rebuild easier on that side.

But the more I think about what started as a joke, I actually wouldn't hate this as much as I had thought I would. Be better to replace UNM with Okie Lite in this scenario, though. UNM is pretty much hopeless and the basketball doesn't even move the needle.

I think we'd actually like a Pac-16 with these schools within a pods format:

Northwest Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
California Pod: Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Desert Pod: Arizona, Arizona State, UNLV, Utah
Southwest Pod: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
View attachment 47736
As a refresher, pods scheduling would mean that you played each of the teams in your pod every year for 3 conference games and 2 teams from each of the other pods every year (i.e., USC & Stanford for 2 years, then UCLA & Cal for the next 2 years) for 6 more conference games. Would be easy from this to also have a semi-final round to the conference playoff (4-team playoff), which would add 2 very high value games for the media contract.

For hoops, it would probably be 6 games (home/away) against your pod mates plus 12 games against the other schools every year for an 18-game conference schedule.

This would also add 4 states for media footprint & recruiting while keeping the culture largely intact.

The question is whether it would move the needle on media revenue.

Honestly, the more I think about this the less I hate it.

**** the P12 if we have to rejoin the big 8

 

[Agent Dave Kujan]

I was pretty much joking. Just naming 4 schools that were R1 for research intensity match, got us into new states that fit the footprint (expanded media), had basketball & arenas we'd enjoy, and were bad enough at football to basically make our rebuild easier on that side.

But the more I think about what started as a joke, I actually wouldn't hate this as much as I had thought I would. Be better to replace UNM with Okie Lite in this scenario, though. UNM is pretty much hopeless and the basketball doesn't even move the needle.

I think we'd actually like a Pac-16 with these schools within a pods format:

Northwest Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
California Pod: Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Desert Pod: Arizona, Arizona State, UNLV, Utah
Southwest Pod: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
View attachment 47736
As a refresher, pods scheduling would mean that you played each of the teams in your pod every year for 3 conference games and 2 teams from each of the other pods every year (i.e., USC & Stanford for 2 years, then UCLA & Cal for the next 2 years) for 6 more conference games. Would be easy from this to also have a semi-final round to the conference playoff (4-team playoff), which would add 2 very high value games for the media contract.

For hoops, it would probably be 6 games (home/away) against your pod mates plus 12 games against the other schools every year for an 18-game conference schedule.

This would also add 4 states for media footprint & recruiting while keeping the culture largely intact.

The question is whether it would move the needle on media revenue.

Honestly, the more I think about this the less I hate it.

Type it up and get it over to Kliavkoff. I want it up and running for 2022

 

[Not Sure]

I was pretty much joking. Just naming 4 schools that were R1 for research intensity match, got us into new states that fit the footprint (expanded media), had basketball & arenas we'd enjoy, and were bad enough at football to basically make our rebuild easier on that side.

But the more I think about what started as a joke, I actually wouldn't hate this as much as I had thought I would. Be better to replace UNM with Okie Lite in this scenario, though. UNM is pretty much hopeless and the basketball doesn't even move the needle.

I think we'd actually like a Pac-16 with these schools within a pods format:

Northwest Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
California Pod: Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Desert Pod: Arizona, Arizona State, UNLV, Utah
Southwest Pod: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
View attachment 47736
As a refresher, pods scheduling would mean that you played each of the teams in your pod every year for 3 conference games and 2 teams from each of the other pods every year (i.e., USC & Stanford for 2 years, then UCLA & Cal for the next 2 years) for 6 more conference games. Would be easy from this to also have a semi-final round to the conference playoff (4-team playoff), which would add 2 very high value games for the media contract.

For hoops, it would probably be 6 games (home/away) against your pod mates plus 12 games against the other schools every year for an 18-game conference schedule.

This would also add 4 states for media footprint & recruiting while keeping the culture largely intact.

The question is whether it would move the needle on media revenue.

Honestly, the more I think about this the less I hate it.

If we were taking a Machiavellian approach, this would be perfect. It wouldn’t necessarily help us all that much, but it would absolutely be the complete end of the B12.

 

[HotRack]

Where the **** is Old Dominion anyway, I'm guessing Virginia. I don't know that's right?

Now that the assholes above have had their fun...
ODU is in Norfolk, Virginia, about 3 miles south of the world's largest Naval Base.

 

[RiverBuff]

I was pretty much joking. Just naming 4 schools that were R1 for research intensity match, got us into new states that fit the footprint (expanded media), had basketball & arenas we'd enjoy, and were bad enough at football to basically make our rebuild easier on that side.

But the more I think about what started as a joke, I actually wouldn't hate this as much as I had thought I would. Be better to replace UNM with Okie Lite in this scenario, though. UNM is pretty much hopeless and the basketball doesn't even move the needle.

I think we'd actually like a Pac-16 with these schools within a pods format:

Northwest Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
California Pod: Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Desert Pod: Arizona, Arizona State, UNLV, Utah
Southwest Pod: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
View attachment 47736
As a refresher, pods scheduling would mean that you played each of the teams in your pod every year for 3 conference games and 2 teams from each of the other pods every year (i.e., USC & Stanford for 2 years, then UCLA & Cal for the next 2 years) for 6 more conference games. Would be easy from this to also have a semi-final round to the conference playoff (4-team playoff), which would add 2 very high value games for the media contract.

For hoops, it would probably be 6 games (home/away) against your pod mates plus 12 games against the other schools every year for an 18-game conference schedule.

This would also add 4 states for media footprint & recruiting while keeping the culture largely intact.

The question is whether it would move the needle on media revenue.

Honestly, the more I think about this the less I hate it.

I like it, I think. Rather be in a pod with other schools than the Big 12 rejects.

One exception is that Commissioner Kliavkoff has stated that the Pac-12 will probably go to 8 in conference games vs. the 9 now and what you suggest. This was part of the alliance 'agreement' with the Big Ten and ACC and allow more OOC games with them, especially for TV dealing. Of course, this is easily addressed.

 

[BuffLuke80]

Now that the assholes above have had their fun...
ODU is in Norfolk, Virginia, about 3 miles south of the world's largest Naval Base.

Well, you just had me join them prick.

 

[Dark Bohner]

Nik for Assistant to the commisioner.

It’s Assistant Commissioner!

 

[Bison]

Marshall is going to the Sun Belt too. JMU has to get the approval from a state committee before they make it official with the SBC but they should get it done a week from today.



That eastern division is going to be something:

Marshall
ODU
JMU
App State
Coastal Carolina
Georgia State
Georgia Southern

Troy State could be a realignment winner since they go to what seems an easier division:

Troy State
South Alabama
Southern Miss
Arkansas State
Monroe
Louisana
Texas State

On the C-USA front, they are talking with NMSU, Liberty (I think Liberty declined an offer at this point), and Sam Houston State. I think C-USA might be grasping at straws but the Big 12 was once all certain to be dead back in 2010...

 

[Bison]

Latest on C-USA: https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf...&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=BrettMcMurphy

Western Kentucky & MTSU might leave C-USA for the MAC soon. That will be 11 C-USA schools that have left the conference if that happens.

Having a long term TV contract in place would have been helpful.

 

[Bison]

I have talked about the WAC and ASUN as two FCS conferences that could re-classify to FBS months ago. WAC still has their FBS charter.

 

[Bison]

Officials: Sun Belt Conference's TV contract was big factor in enticing Marshall

UPDATED, 10:38 a. m. 11/1/21. The Sun Belt Conference’s long-term contract with ESPN is one of the factors that attracted Marshall University to switch from Conference USA to the Sun Belt, MU officials said. “The feedback we get from our fans all the time - they can’t find our games,” MU...

wchstv.com

Marshall fans are going to be happy to have their games on the ESPN family of channels.

 

[Bison]

 

[Buffnik]

It's weird to me that we're seeing FBS expand so much. Instead, I wish the NCAA would enforce its minimum requirements.

I mean, if you can't draw 15k per game in paid or actual then you're not on this level.

 

[SerenityBuff]

I wish I didn’t know. But because my wife went to a small college and CU doesn’t have a baseball team, she adopted them, being our local team at the time, and I have spent more soul sucking afternoons at that field than I care to remember.
To be fair, my son attended baseball camps there for a few years which made him a pretty good ball player.

I can think of a worse days than an afternoon watching a ball game. Haha!

 

[MtnBuff]

It's weird to me that we're seeing FBS expand so much. Instead, I wish the NCAA would enforce its minimum requirements.

I mean, if you can't draw 15k per game in paid or actual then you're not on this level.

When they start to see the additional cost of running even the most basic FBS level team and they don't see real increases in revenues to cover those cost it is likely just a matter of time until we start seeing schools dropping back down, or even dropping football all together.

 

[BuffWarHog]

I can think of a worse days than an afternoon watching a ball game. Haha!

Kinda. It was usually in the upper 30s, low 40s. And I’ve got personal reasons for hating that university…and Norfolk.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

Kinda. It was usually in the upper 30s, low 40s. And I’ve got personal reasons for hating that university…and Norfolk.

I want in on this - Norfolk sucks!!!!

 

[Bison]

It's weird to me that we're seeing FBS expand so much. Instead, I wish the NCAA would enforce its minimum requirements.

I mean, if you can't draw 15k per game in paid or actual then you're not on this level.

If schools could no longer pay on top of the student user fees they collect at a top tier level, there would be much less schools at that level. $500 collected from 30,000 students per semester amounts to $30 million per year and that alone should cover the scholarship costs of the student athletes and the olympic sport coaching salaries. James Madison students are paying like $2,000 per year and that explains why their athletic department budget was huge for FCS standards and they could easily make the move to FBS. The fees per year that CU students are paying in comparison is a paltry $57. If CU students were to pay $500, that would be almost an extra $15M per season and just imagine how many CU problems would be solved. NBC News link below and you can enter the name of any D1 college.

College students may pay thousands in athletic fees and not know it

NBC News found that college students are paying a rising cost, sometimes thousands of dollars, to support athletic programs — fees that don't always appear on their tuition bills.

www.nbcnews.com

If those P5 schools should start charging their students an extra $500 to $1,000 per year for athletic user fees, the top 64 teams could break away from the rest. The scary thing is that schools like UT, OU, Alabama, etc from the SEC charge their students nothing and they could raise a good chunk of money from students if they had to.

Another way to illustrate the ability of FCS schools to move up is those chairback seats. If you have just 5,000 of those seats and charge $500 per season plus you sell those out, that's $2.5M already in the bank and that alone should cover the coaching staff salaries of a G5 team. Now that's a hint of how CSU is coming up with the money to pay off their new stadium.

 

[Bison]

Missed this news? I did too.



Next up: WKU & MTSU to the MAC could happen soon but the payout per school has to be decent.

 

[Not Sure]

If schools could no longer pay on top of the student user fees they collect at a top tier level, there would be much less schools at that level. $500 collected from 30,000 students per semester amounts to $30 million per year and that alone should cover the scholarship costs of the student athletes and the olympic sport coaching salaries. James Madison students are paying like $2,000 per year and that explains why their athletic department budget was huge for FCS standards and they could easily make the move to FBS. The fees per year that CU students are paying in comparison is a paltry $57. If CU students were to pay $500, that would be almost an extra $15M per season and just imagine how many CU problems would be solved. NBC News link below and you can enter the name of any D1 college.

College students may pay thousands in athletic fees and not know it

NBC News found that college students are paying a rising cost, sometimes thousands of dollars, to support athletic programs — fees that don't always appear on their tuition bills.

www.nbcnews.com

If those P5 schools should start charging their students an extra $500 to $1,000 per year for athletic user fees, the top 64 teams could break away from the rest. The scary thing is that schools like UT, OU, Alabama, etc from the SEC charge their students nothing and they could raise a good chunk of money from students if they had to.

Another way to illustrate the ability of FCS schools to move up is those chairback seats. If you have just 5,000 of those seats and charge $500 per season plus you sell those out, that's $2.5M already in the bank and that alone should cover the coaching staff salaries of a G5 team. Now that's a hint of how CSU is coming up with the money to pay off their new stadium.

Right, because college is so cheap now that an additional $1,000/year is a drop in the bucket, right?

 

[Bison]

MAC ends speculation, won't pursue expansion

The Mid-American Conference, looking "to end the speculation," said it would continue to be a 12-team league with no current plans for expansion.

www.espn.com

MAC declines to expand. I guess this puts realignment on hold for now except in the WAC and perhaps ASUN which will want to replace departing schools to keep the FCS minimum number of teams to have an AQ.

There's also the NCAA constitution changes coming as soon as January which could kick off another wave of realignment.

 

[Bison]

Right, because college is so cheap now that an additional $1,000/year is a drop in the bucket, right?

I was simply pointing out a scenario where the P5 could break away from the G5 and have its own division.

 

[Johnny Juzang]

Loyola (Chi) is leaving the MVC for the A-10 (basketball).

 

[Uncle Ken]

I want in on this - Norfolk sucks!!!!

I managed to avoid Norfolk during my Navy career. I did get the holy **** beaten out of me when I was there as a Middie, though.

 

[NW Buff]

Has the SEC tried to throw Texas back yet?

 

[DeNiro]

Has the SEC tried to throw Texas back yet?

Vandy needs a win.

 

[BuffWarHog]

Honestly, if I were Texas, I would have played the SEC game with Oklahoma, make OU announce first, then head faked back into the Big 12.