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

Boise doesn't add value sufficient to make up for the cost of giving them a share, don't see that from UNLV either. CSU fans don't care enough to bother, again no real value added.

San Diego should be a great market but isn't. Couldn't keep the Chargers and nobody cared, SDSU has terrible attendance even when they are good.
 
Buffnik said:
P.S. -- if we go by academic research intensity and what our presidents & chancellors seem to value, the most likely 4 (assuming we can't get UT or OU) would be the Tier 1 research universities: CSU, UNM and TTU with UNLV being on the cusp of moving up and maybe getting it in 2020 when the next Carnegie evaluations are due to come out. I'm not sure that would be all that horrible, actually.
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Don't forget Hawaii too...I believe they were up there too and given that they are getting a new stadium, that could change the outlook for them. I don't think they would be added ultimately even if Larry Scott has a hard on for Asia.

I have been playing with conferences in NCAA FB 14. I basically re-did the Pac-12 and MWC. I put CU in a I-25 conference with the likes of Wyoming, CSU, UNM, NMSU, UTEP, and TT while the I-15 conference had UNLV, UA, ASU, Utah State, BYU, Utah, and Nevada. I think a lot of CU fans would like this conference set up.

UNM might be hurting for money right now but they really do fit the Pac-12 like a glove. The airport in Albuquerque is pretty much right next to the UNM athletic facilities which was a point that Plati made when he made his Pac-12 and Big 12 comparison. Just look at the C-USA and AAC and you will see how similar it might be to the Pac-12. So TT and Lubbock does fit that criteria and maybe TT will welcome the opportunity to be a niche Texas school.

Moving on to CSU. I'm steadfast in the belief that Colorado should have two P5 schools and that hasn't changed. The question is does CSU fit the Pac-12? I don't think they fit as well as UNM & TT at this point and it is because they might be a little too far away from Denver. Given that Larmier & Weld Counties have more than 500K residents which is more than the Lubbock metro area of 327K (according to Wikipedia) so CSU still does fit the Pac-12 in some way.

UNLV is already in the VHRU group: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States

Nevada is VHRU too. So that prospective list should be Hawaii, Nevada, UNLV, CSU, UNM, and TT. Nevada will be under the gun to renovate their football stadium which still has a running track around the stadium and seats just 30K. A fast track expansion to 45-50K would need to happen with the track's removal.

Nevada & UNLV and UNM & TT should be the pairs so that means CSU probably goes to the Big 12 to take TT's spot. Hawaii & CSU would be the "9th member" of each division in a Pac-18.

West: Hawaii, WSU, UW, OSU, UO, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, and USC.
East: Utah, CSU, CU, TT, UNM, UA, ASU, UNLV, and Nevada.

Eight inter conference games for football. Games against the West can count as non-conference games.
Basketball would have 16 one way games and then round robin games with two selected rivals. CSU and perhaps Utah would be those two rivals.
 
MtnBuff said:
Boise doesn't add value sufficient to make up for the cost of giving them a share, don't see that from UNLV either. CSU fans don't care enough to bother, again no real value added.

San Diego should be a great market but isn't. Couldn't keep the Chargers and nobody cared, SDSU has terrible attendance even when they are good.
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I don't think anyone would mind/care if Boise State was traded for Oregon St or Washington State. Pullman and Corvallis do not necessarily fit the Pac-12 description and Bosie would be a good replacement for one of those. Pac-12 is basically a western urban athletic conference like the C-USA and the AAC. The ACC is very similar too.
 
Jalapeno said:
Don't forget Hawaii too...I believe they were up there too and given that they are getting a new stadium, that could change the outlook for them. I don't think they would be added ultimately even if Larry Scott has a hard on for Asia.

I have been playing with conferences in NCAA FB 14. I basically re-did the Pac-12 and MWC. I put CU in a I-25 conference with the likes of Wyoming, CSU, UNM, NMSU, UTEP, and TT while the I-15 conference had UNLV, UA, ASU, Utah State, BYU, Utah, and Nevada. I think a lot of CU fans would like this conference set up.

UNM might be hurting for money right now but they really do fit the Pac-12 like a glove. The airport in Albuquerque is pretty much right next to the UNM athletic facilities which was a point that Plati made when he made his Pac-12 and Big 12 comparison. Just look at the C-USA and AAC and you will see how similar it might be to the Pac-12. So TT and Lubbock does fit that criteria and maybe TT will welcome the opportunity to be a niche Texas school.

Moving on to CSU. I'm steadfast in the belief that Colorado should have two P5 schools and that hasn't changed. The question is does CSU fit the Pac-12? I don't think they fit as well as UNM & TT at this point and it is because they might be a little too far away from Denver. Given that Larmier & Weld Counties have more than 500K residents which is more than the Lubbock metro area of 327K (according to Wikipedia) so CSU still does fit the Pac-12 in some way.

UNLV is already in the VHRU group: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States

Nevada is VHRU too. So that prospective list should be Hawaii, Nevada, UNLV, CSU, UNM, and TT. Nevada will be under the gun to renovate their football stadium which still has a running track around the stadium and seats just 30K. A fast track expansion to 45-50K would need to happen with the track's removal.

Nevada & UNLV and UNM & TT should be the pairs so that means CSU probably goes to the Big 12 to take TT's spot. Hawaii & CSU would be the "9th member" of each division in a Pac-18.

West: Hawaii, WSU, UW, OSU, UO, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, and USC.
East: Utah, CSU, CU, TT, UNM, UA, ASU, UNLV, and Nevada.

Eight inter conference games for football. Games against the West can count as non-conference games.
Basketball would have 16 one way games and then round robin games with two selected rivals. CSU and perhaps Utah would be those two rivals.
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Road trips to conference games >>>>> flights to conference games right?
 
onealcd said:
Flights to fun places for conference games > road trips to Laramie, Lubbock, El Paso, Las Crucas and Albuquerque. That sounds ****ing terrible.
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That's rich given that we used to go to Lincoln, Norman, Stillwater, Manhattan, Lawerence, Ames, College Station, and Lubbock. Only Lubbock wouldn't have any mountains in that case.
 
Jalapeno said:
That's rich given that we used to go to Lincoln, Norman, Stillwater, Manhattan, Lawerence, Ames, College Station, and Lubbock. Only Lubbock wouldn't have any mountains in that case.
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You really don't see a difference between those schools and the ones you pointed out?
 
onealcd said:
You really don't see a difference between those schools and the ones you pointed out?
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Fan support is one thing but it doesn't matter to the college presidents & chancellors. The presidents & chancellors look at the school's profile much more closely than athletic teams and use those teams as a marketing tool (front porch) of the university. Only the Big Ten is really selective about AAU membership. If that VHRU rating was to be used in this case, we'd have to remove Wyoming & NMSU from that list. That VHRU is also the minimum membership requirement for the Pac-12 which Utah met and that is applied in the Big Ten and ACC. The SEC is moving in that direction especially with Mizzou and Texas A&M who are VHRU members in addition to AAU members. The Big 12 would most likely require the same thing in its inevitable round of expansion. The I-25 division wouldn't be that much different from the Big 12 which also have two non-VHRU universities in TCU and Baylor.

It's possible that the media money is going to decline in relative to the athletic department's budget and a greater emphasis of that would be placed on the location of the other schools. It's of no secret how much smaller the Pac-12 crowds at Folsom Field are compared to the Big 12 crowds. It's also no secret that only Utah and Arizona have actually added more seating while the rest of the conference including CU have shrunk capacity. Can you explain that for me?

Laramie & Las Crues are close to Ft. Collins and El Paso anyway. Wyoming would be the only school where you would really have to drive to and back to the airport on a distance of over 1 1/2 hours. Ft. Collins is 1 hour 15 minutes and Las Crues is 50 minutes in the middle of nowhere. Everyone else is close to the airport.
 
ahoelsken said:
Odds of CU leaving this conference to join the Big 10>>>>>Odds of the Pac 12 adding anybody from the MWC other than UNLV.
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Wouldn't that have been better odds than Rutgers joining the Big Ten yet it happened?
 
Jalapeno said:
Fan support is one thing but it doesn't matter to the college presidents & chancellors. The presidents & chancellors look at the school's profile much more closely than athletic teams and use those teams as a marketing tool (front porch) of the university. Only the Big Ten is really selective about AAU membership. If that VHRU rating was to be used in this case, we'd have to remove Wyoming & NMSU from that list. That VHRU is also the minimum membership requirement for the Pac-12 which Utah met and that is applied in the Big Ten and ACC. The SEC is moving in that direction especially with Mizzou and Texas A&M who are VHRU members in addition to AAU members. The Big 12 would most likely require the same thing in its inevitable round of expansion. The I-25 division wouldn't be that much different from the Big 12 which also have two non-VHRU universities in TCU and Baylor.

It's possible that the media money is going to decline in relative to the athletic department's budget and a greater emphasis of that would be placed on the location of the other schools. It's of no secret how much smaller the Pac-12 crowds at Folsom Field are compared to the Big 12 crowds. It's also no secret that only Utah and Arizona have actually added more seating while the rest of the conference including CU have shrunk capacity. Can you explain that for me?

Laramie & Las Crues are close to Ft. Collins and El Paso anyway. Wyoming would be the only school where you would really have to drive to and back to the airport on a distance of over 1 1/2 hours. Ft. Collins is 1 hour 15 minutes and Las Crues is 50 minutes in the middle of nowhere. Everyone else is close to the airport.
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Fan/program support definitely matters to these schools. It is almost impossible to compare the schools in the latest rounds of realignment to the ones you are talking about. Those fan bases suck and they aren't traveling that far usually, let alone they have a smaller amount of customers to begin with.

The crowds at Folsom are smaller now because the program has been so bad for so long. I was at CU when we first switched to the Pac and stadium attendance was not an issue but you just can't build the same crowds when the record has been so poor. Visiting fans don't want to travel to the game to watch some crappy team no matter how cool Boulder is. All it takes is a move back to respectability and there won't be an issue. We would have the same problems if we were still in the Big-12.

So now you want to fly to El Paso and Las Cruces in this "driving conference" but an hour and a half flight to Phoenix, a 2 hour trip to LA and the Bay are too far for you?
 
I think it would be a good thing to eliminate fly-over states. The west is too damn spread out as it is.

Metro centers in our footprint make the most sense. Boise and Albuquerque are marginal. The big ones we're missing are Las Vegas and San Diego.
 
BerkeleyBuff said:
I think we have enough California schools.
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I think you're probably right.

Frankly, the 2 programs I'd love to see added for 2020ish would be BYU and UNLV. That would tie together the conference with the 2 biggest national brands in the west. In fact, I'd bet that a lot of casual college fans probably assume that they are already in our conference.

They both already have the facilities in place for football and basketball. As a basketball fan, those 2 would also add the most prestige for the conference (which we need).
 
Buffnik said:
I think it would be a good thing to eliminate fly-over states. The west is too damn spread out as it is.

Metro centers in our footprint make the most sense. Boise and Albuquerque are marginal. The big ones we're missing are Las Vegas and San Diego.
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I agree with the first sentence. Second sentence, the Pac-8 took both Arizona schools in at the time knowing they would be long term projects. Boise and ABQ would be viewed in the same light. We still need to take in UNLV and SDSU though. A good reason to take CSU & UNM is that it would block off the west from any sensible future Big 12 expansion that could take CSU & UNM even if that looks very remote. If the Big 12 takes CSU, they could also take BYU which could have an impact on future Pac-12 media rights deals since the market is diluted in Utah & Colorado.

Buffnik said:
I think you're probably right.

Frankly, the 2 programs I'd love to see added for 2020ish would be BYU and UNLV. That would tie together the conference with the 2 biggest national brands in the west. In fact, I'd bet that a lot of casual college fans probably assume that they are already in our conference.

They both already have the facilities in place for football and basketball. As a basketball fan, those 2 would also add the most prestige for the conference (which we need).
Click to expand...

I have been telling the Pac12Board members that BYU needs to be brought in and I get nothing but resistance. I guess Californians are still bitter about the Prop 8 fight which was heavily funded by the Mormon Church. The Pac-12 needs a good villain or two and BYU fits that to a glove. On the BYU side, there might no longer be a desire to be in another conference for football again after going through all those issues with the old WAC & current MWC. That's why I'm not buying any of the rumors of BYU to the AAC.

Those same board members also would insist that the Pac-12 already covers San Diego and Las Vegas anyway.

UNLV & UNM would be excellent adds for basketball and even football because the pecking order in football in the Pac-12 wouldn't go through a huge upheaval as well which would keep some football schools happy. Adding more football heavy weights would be counterproductive and could lead to a break up of the PAC later on like the near death of the Big 12 back in 2010.

This might be a realistic option since the Oklahoma schools might have burned the bridges with the Pac-12 & Larry Scott after OU used the threat of leaving the Big 12 as leverage for a better Big 12 deal.
 
onealcd said:
Fan/program support definitely matters to these schools. It is almost impossible to compare the schools in the latest rounds of realignment to the ones you are talking about. Those fan bases suck and they aren't traveling that far usually, let alone they have a smaller amount of customers to begin with.

The crowds at Folsom are smaller now because the program has been so bad for so long. I was at CU when we first switched to the Pac and stadium attendance was not an issue but you just can't build the same crowds when the record has been so poor. Visiting fans don't want to travel to the game to watch some crappy team no matter how cool Boulder is. All it takes is a move back to respectability and there won't be an issue. We would have the same problems if we were still in the Big-12.

So now you want to fly to El Paso and Las Cruces in this "driving conference" but an hour and a half flight to Phoenix, a 2 hour trip to LA and the Bay are too far for you?
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You are right that that fan/alumni support does matter and CU is in the right place at the moment. That still doesn't guarantee that we will ever be in as a harmonic conference as the old Big 8 was and that was the basis I used in that case.

CU's incompetence in football hasn't been helpful but you should know that the PAC fanbase is a notch below the Big 12's fanbase. It's even possible that the I-25 conference might have even better fan support than the Pac-12.

And it would be nice if CU had more conference rivals within driving distance but I'm competent with where CU is at right now. I would still root for CU no matter what conference they are even if they were "demoted" to the MWC or an I-25 conference. I have said on this board that I don't like the Pac-12 that much but understand why CU is in that conference.
 
Jalapeno said:
You are right that that fan/alumni support does matter and CU is in the right place at the moment. That still doesn't guarantee that we will ever be in as a harmonic conference as the old Big 8 was and that was the basis I used in that case.

CU's incompetence in football hasn't been helpful but you should know that the PAC fanbase is a notch below the Big 12's fanbase. It's even possible that the I-25 conference might have even better fan support than the Pac-12.

And it would be nice if CU had more conference rivals within driving distance but I'm competent with where CU is at right now. I would still root for CU no matter what conference they are even if they were "demoted" to the MWC or an I-25 conference. I have said on this board that I don't like the Pac-12 that much but understand why CU is in that conference.
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We won't ever not be in a major conference.

Buffnik said:
I think you're probably right.

Frankly, the 2 programs I'd love to see added for 2020ish would be BYU and UNLV. That would tie together the conference with the 2 biggest national brands in the west. In fact, I'd bet that a lot of casual college fans probably assume that they are already in our conference.

They both already have the facilities in place for football and basketball. As a basketball fan, those 2 would also add the most prestige for the conference (which we need).
Click to expand...

I'd hate that-the one thing I hate about being in this league is there's no real rival here.
 
Last edited:
Notable on the criteria that matters to the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors -- the new Carnegie Classification added UNLV and Nevada to its list of Tier 1 Doctoral Universities (131 on it in total). Other programs in the west that made it are CSU, New Mexico and Hawaii. I believe all of them also qualified in 2015.

Entire Pac-12 is still in. Big 12 other than Baylor and TCU are on the list.

http://carnegieclassifications.iu.e..."basic2005_ids":"15"}&start_page=standard.php
https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/unlv-attains-highest-status-research-university
 
Buffnik said:
Notable on the criteria that matters to the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors -- the new Carnegie Classification added UNLV and Nevada to its list of Tier 1 Doctoral Universities (131 on it in total). Other programs in the west that made it are CSU, New Mexico and Hawaii. I believe all of them also qualified in 2015.

Entire Pac-12 is still in. Big 12 other than Baylor and TCU are on the list.

http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/srp.php?clq={"basic2005_ids":"15"}&start_page=standard.php
https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/unlv-attains-highest-status-research-university
Click to expand...

If Nevada re-did their football stadium.......
 
ahoelsken said:
I'd hate that-the one thing I hate about being in this league is there's no real rival here.
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That was also the case in the Big 8 for most of CU's history until McCartney decided to circle Nebraska. It took several years until that caught on.

I don't know what the answer is. Unfortunately, CU is just damn isolated from natural geographic rivalries. Every other P5 is a 7 hour drive from Boulder or farther. Unless CSU is added to the conference, no one is really all that drivable.

What I could see is CU developing something like Washington has for rivalries. In-state against Washington State is a big game where they look down on their opponent while packing the stadium. Regional supremacy rival is Oregon -- those schools are even a little farther away from each other than Boulder & Salt Lake City so there's no reason that CU-Utah couldn't be like UW-UO. Then they've got the general rivalry feel from their side for USC as that program they circle, with a win just meaning more.

I think CU can have that same thing with less happening on the in-state side but with the added benefit of what we can do in the non-conference by playing our old Big 8/12 mates on a semi-regular basis as we've seen from the recent scheduling. Program really needs to start doing more to pump up that Utah game, though.
 
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