Al_4_ISU

Would have preferred that, but I truly believe that the Big 12 only stabilized enough to pick up the 4 Corners BECAUSE of the AAC/BYU ads. Although I will say that in hoops, ISU/UH was a really fun and intense series last year. 2 absolute slobber knockers in the regular season before we broke them in the Big 12 CCG. I like having them on that end of things.

I don't get the impression that there's much of a UH fanbase to even give a shit about who they play. My guess is the schools they want to play the most are in the SEC already anyhow. But would they? That gives them games in excellent recruiting locations and their only close opponent. Outside of Cincy, they aren't driving anywhere anyhow.

One elephant in the room in the future is the quality gap between the Big 10 and SEC. The Big 10 just isn't that deep with elite teams. 2/3rds of the league are Big 12/ACC schools with nicer, richer parents. The SEC is about 25% schools that fit that bill, by comparison. Another thing is people keep asking "what's the end game?" like there's a tight cabal that has a specific outcome in mind and is just slow rolling the whole thing. I think it is FAR more chaotic and random than that, with decisions being made on what's profitable in that moment, with no centralized goal whatsoever. Over the last 20 years there have been many guarantees in realignment that didn't pan out. The 4 x 16 superconferences with the champions in the playoffs made up of pods, with the conferences being the Big 10, SEC, Pac 12, and ACC as the Big 12 died was the guarantee. Now the Pac 12 is dead, and the Big 12 is as well positioned as the ACC if not better. The current guarantee du jour is that the Big 10 and SEC will break away into somewhere between 32-48 schools into an NFL Lite. I have little doubt there will be future brand consolidation (the big ACC brands going to the SEC/Big 10) but I don't think that straight AFC/NFC model unfolds like that. I think there's some kind of split in D1 with the current G5 in one group and the current P4 in one group. The Big 10 and SEC will have the bulk of the money and power, but whatever playoff exists will have some token access to the third conference (if we even call them that at that point) that shakes out when the ACC left-behinds that still care about sports merge with the Big 12 into a third conference. I believe that ultimately walling off access to the roughly 60 schools not in a top 48 would lead to less interest in that level of the sport, and therefore less revenue created. Basically, I think it continues on the same path it's kind of on already, just with some more deck reshuffling and brand consolidation.

Agreed, but as you so eloquently said earlier, fuck 'em. I don't get the impression that other Texas schools in the Big 12 care anywhere near as much about playing Houston as they care about playing each other. I could be wrong on that in regards to Tech, but I'm sure it's true of Baylor and TCU. Houston legitimately has less history with them than we have with the Big 8 schools, and I just don't get the impression Houston really gives a shit about anything other than having a seat at this table at this point. They have more history with Cincy and UCF than we have with any of the eastern schools.

You're not at all insane.

ISU is closer to the KS schools and OK State than it is to any of the eastern schools

AZ/UT Big 8 Central time CU/TT/Cen Tex Coog/Eastern time Easy enough. Swap CU/OSU if the Pokes have a problem with it.

In my perfect world, we would be in a permanent pod with you guys, KU, and KSU. The ISU/OSU series has been absolutely wild almost every year since ‘11. I don’t think it’s a rivalry, but it’s absolutely a game both fanbases are on edge for.

When our fans flipped shit, our AD said “well, it obviously isn’t a big deal because we only sold 500 tickets to the game in Manhattan through our allotment”. There were several thousand ISU fans there, they just found better/cheaper seats on the secondary market. Not paying the official university mark up. There have been numerous trophy proposals from both sides, with several being legitimately good. The ADs just keep going “nah, we’re good”.

That’s partially on both of our ADs. They seem to love downplaying Farmageddon even though both fanbases and players/coaches will tell you it’s the biggest conference game. Its infuriating.

Hell yes! DMW is my favorite version of his work, but I celebrate it all.

End zones that don’t use a white stripe to mark the actual goal line. TCU, I’m looking at you.

Money always wins

Who is he rooting for?

It’s not “Texas’s fault”. It’s ESPN’s. Im just saying they used Texas’s slump as ammo in their campaign to make the Big 12 untenable to the largest brands.

That was essentially due to a decades-long media blitz that was intentionally designed to weaken the Big 12. Texas's slump was definitely a factor in that narrative too. If Colt McCoy doesn't get hurt in the 2010 natty and Texas wins that game, it's a huge blow to what was a budding SEC superiority narrative. If Texas had maintained and OU had done something with their playoff opportunities, the Big 12 would have had less of a perception problem. The fanbases were still not as big as the SEC or Big 10, and I think what happened might have happened anyways due to money, but the bias toward the SEC was absolutely related to the Big 12's biggest brands not having high end national success on the field in that time frame.

I think there's certainly a chance. I'm just not sure those do any more for you than schools like UNLV or Air Force. I would be curious to get the Texan perspective, but from the outside it seems like Texas State and UTSA are the G5 Texas schools with the biggest upside in terms of actually drawing a following. I might have put UNT there at one point, but it seems like those places have more of a base for whatever reason.

Yeah, it seems to me like those schools all had mostly equal worth (agree on SJSU) so a merger with Wazzu/Ore State under the Pac moniker always made the most sense to me.

I think it's funny that the MWC formally said "nah" to the merger proposal and is now getting raided by those they rejected. It's like they learned nothing from the Pac 12 rejecting the Irate 8. It's the exact same scenario playing out the next rung down the ladder.

I think the Dakotas and Montanas have a pretty good thing going being the kings of FCS. But it feels like there's a latent obsession with "MOAR" in this sport. I would bet they all get better TV ratings than UTEP or NMSU too. Those are small pop states, but they are football crazy, and the Dakota schools bring in a ton of kids from neighboring states (Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska) with cheap tuition.

Also - this might be where the Dakotas announce an FBS jump up. Maybe not to the Pac, but to whatever coalescences around the MWC leftovers

I’d like to see Air Force and Wyoming in there

That was my first thought. Like, how? To me, the funniest part of this is that how he still manages to totally Dave Grohl the whole thing. "Yeah, I fucked up, but I'm totally gonna try and do the right now" and you kinda believe him. Also kind of amazed in this day and age that these dalliances weren't a little more leaked.

User name gonna be checking out soon

This. Two things that disgust me the most in this world are cops abusing their power, and men abusing women. It's hard for me to have any sympathy for Hill on any front, but the cops were totally over the top here in a completely unsurprising way.