Hurtlocker

Ha, also saw this article come across my feed this morning. Seems the Huskers are bemoaning the success of the ex-punching bag. Praise of Campbell doesn't have to be knock on Frost

Saw on the twitters that some of their big playmakers are coming back too

The timing was probably more "you're good until someone pays me to get rid of you"

Stolen and shortened up. Herman got the can because the top recruits were headed the wrong direction. That's job one. Job two is fucking coach them.

His current staff is basically his old staff at Toledo, which was basically the guys he played with at Mt Union. Odds are he's more of a Purple Wizard with his own team of scrapers than the guy who is going to go anywhere and call up A list coordinators.

Well if Chip says it, it has to be true.

This is all I needed to hear.

I'm still in this stage:

Outside the meteor concept, which is intriguing, how can we end up with both of these teams losing?

Sounds like Nebraska

So, by team (not sure why reporters still focus on total revenue when sizes are different): Big Ten: $55m SEC: $51.5m Pac 12: $44.2m* ACC: $32.5M Big 12: $43.9m* * Some other "of note"s" - We know the Pac revenues are not legit. For the other conferences with their own networks, they're just paid per year for their inventory. The entire worth of the BTN, for instance, is not in these numbers. The Pac revenue, since they own it all, includes the full revenue in this. What is missing is the expense of the network. In this year that the Pac 12 posted revenues of $530m, they only had distributions of $387m, or $32.25m per team. More in line with the ACC, than the Big 12. - Speaking of the Big 12, this is non-inclusive of any T3 deal, because those are not managed by the Big 12. Its not a ton, but probably adds another $50-70m total. That would make it closer to $50m per school, however it isn't even. Baylor is likely closer to $45 where Texas is closer to $55-57m. In reality though, it doesn't really matter to those who have. USC isn't hurt by the Pac-12s revenues any more than Texas doesn't really gain anything to get a couple more million. At a certain point there is a revenue diminishing returns, Where the difference is really seen is in the have nots. Schools like TCU and ISU are now outgaining the Colorados and Cals and Oregon States of the world and becoming more competitive. Mississippi State is growing revenue faster than UCLA. So, don't look at who is a few million more than someone else, consider that a rounding error. Find the schools losing money or deliberately going into debt to finance football. Outside butthurt, that's the only ones who would move for money.

Called it.

Is it just me, or is Mullen kind of a douche?

I'm really not sure anyone on the market was going to out perform Gus. Auburn's thought that they are going to be Alabama with a new coach is a bit Aggy. Bama had multiple 5* QBs sitting on the bench while Auburn was scouring the transfer market. I don't think they have the patience for the 2-3 massive recruiting classes they'll need to get that jump out of 4 loss seasons to 2-3 loss seasons. They've had five 10 win seasons in 20 years, and Gus had 2. Bama has had 15 in that time.

IF the system is going to remain the same then you need to play to that system. I posted in another thread, but once the SEC had to play itself this year instead of having 8 conference games and 3 cupcakes, 2 of which usually being FCS, they looked pretty normal, which is to say, top heavy. Top heavy is how you get into the playoff. Getting into the playoff is how you get the press. The press is how your brand is built. @camel at sea and @bullet and several others have been saying it for years, mimic the SEC and your numbers will improve. Its true. The problem for the Big 12 is you can't both make your numbers improve AND increase your TV revenues. You kind of need to do the ACC thing where you give up the now for the future. You've got two massive brands, which is enough. The Big Ten is basically OSU/Michigan. The SEC is basically Alabama/Georgia. You've got the base. If you just add massive brands, as alluded too above, you may have more TV money initially, but you'll also have the big guys taking more loses. Prestige worldwide works way better as a post season than a regular season. There has to be 50-70% of the conference that takes its lumps and is paid to do so. To make the jump like the SEC, you need the next group to step up, with 3-4 teams who can compete nationally, but not always be world beaters. If they can remain consistent, for 10-15+ years, you'll start to flesh out a different narrative. Florida wasn't really a thing until the 90s, LSU wasn't until the 2000s (yes I know they won before, but in being a national power), Auburn is a roller coaster. But, due to the BCS, all of them got a crack at a natty and took care of business when they had the opportunity. If you go grab two schools you can validate and also beat up on, play a 8 game conference schedule, add some bye week competition and a couple P5 cross overs, you'll get the press, if your Alphas dominate and you win those cross overs. Texas/Oklahoma always need to be in the top 3 battling it out with either 0-2 losses tops. That gives you the top heavy. Then you need 3-4 beta schools who can all interchange to compete at a high level, all the time, and dedicate their resources to winning. They won't all go 15 years straight, but what you want is for each of them to get 3-4 ten seasons wins over a decade, and be in the 7-8 range for the rest. The Big 12 has the making of that too. Texas Tech, Okie State, KState, TCU, Baylor, West Virginia and now ISU have shown they can step up. You don't want to end up like the Pac though, where they are not top heavy and 3-4 losses is standard. Win the the inter conference, get a few freebee wins, and get 3-4 teams to the end of the season with less than 2 wins, then slap down your bowl games. Keep building fan bases so stadiums end up in the 80s on average and next thing you know you're sitting in the drivers seat. The problem is there is no way of doing that without time. The SEC did it over 20 years and had large rabid fan bases to tap into. They're now able to leverage that into media deals. The Big Ten did as well, with secondaries like Michigan State, Wisconsin, Penn State and Iowa all filling in the OSU/UM gaps. The Big 12 could likely be right on par had they remained together, but they aren't far behind considering their contracts are old. At the end of the day, the Big 12's issue, as noted above, is there just are not any blue bloods on the borders looking for a home, especially the eastern boarders where ALL the money is. The Big kind of got the last of those with Penn State and Nebraska, and they got Nebraska 20 years removed from relevance. If Texas and Oklahoma both left to join the SEC, it may make a bigger immediate paycheck, but they'd need to share losses now with other Prestige Worldwide names, which opens up opportunities for those who aren't canibalizing each other. Additionally, OU and Texas don't need more resources to be successful. They just need to use those resources to be successful. Clemson makes $100m less than Texas in revenue. Making $300m isn't going to get Texas a ring. Oklahoma makes the same revenue as Alabama. Turning resources into success isn't a conference conversation. Iowa State makes $120m less than Texas and went 8-1 in conference this year. So with the assumption that everything stays the same, adding two teams that are in the footprint, could be solid 500 teams where they have spurts of 8-10 wins and, most importantly, have the potential to improve greatly by investing resources (see Iowa State) would help everyone by going to 8 conference games. If everything changes where the CFB is expanding and moving to more P5 games, having ten is sitting in a great spot because you have less mouths. Hell, you may have teams like Cinci paying the Big 12 to join just so they can have the schedule. Side note: if it is just revenue that we're worried about, the way to get that even better than expansion, is by pooling resources. If the Pac 12 and Big 12 combined their rights, even while staying separate conferences, and went to market, they'd make far more than they would raiding. If you add the Big Ten into this consortium, the numbers get freakishly high. Neinas tried to do this prior to 2010 realignment and couldn't the powers to agree on anything, but it dwarfs anything a single conference can get. And why would the Big Ten want in since they make the most? Because now all of the inventory for the ACC and SEC is in ESPN, locking up the east coast and south. With 36 teams combined over 4 time zones, you're able to provide a very unique and well leveraged inventory to multiple outlets simultaneously. In short, you could basically value and sell more like the NFL. And nearly all of their rights come up (outside the Big Ten Network needing fed with inventory) between 2023 and 2025.

No one has bought into the SEC being amazing just for the being the SEC other than Aggy: Their good is beating the #7 team in the nation, highest with 3 loses, by 3 points at home. Their bad is getting curb stomped by the #1 team in the country by 28. Their ugly is winning 7 more games by an average margin of 13 (high 45, low 5) against teams with a combined winning percentage of 37.5%. It just means more.

Its not that I don't like bowls. You'd still have them. What I'm saying is currently conferences and bowls are dictating what has to happen, instead of being dictated to. Look at how much had to be given up to the Rose Bowl just to have a 4 team playoff. That ended up benefiting the Big 12 and SEC, since they went and did the Sugar deal, but just because you benefited doesn't mean it wasn't a bad deal. Or look at this year when 2-8 South Carolina had a post season slot and 9-2 Army was left out in the cold. These micro agreements fracture the overall sport and make it harder to put in the 4, 8, or even 16 best teams, let alone keep it from just being the best 3 teams, all the time. If there is a central power for all qualifying teams, as opposed to fifedoms in conferences and big bowls who can play different amounts of games (remember the SEC played less games long before Ohio State did it this year) and have different qualifying rules, then you're not placating the Rose to devise a system, you're bidding out your assets. In what I suggest, since CFB would own the games, each location/bowl would have to bid on their slot (e.g. whether they are the 1/16 match up, the 4/5 match up, the 19/20 match up or even a quarter or semi) and each media company would bid on parts, much like how the NFL sells its rights. The Rose is still the Rose, but it has to also invest to stay big. You're not really getting rid of the end result for the viewer, you're just changing the execution on how they're slotted.

Yeah I agree on WVU, they're a good position and they've got a pretty large brand in the east. They're basically a suburb of Pittsburgh and draw lots of attention from DC too. In the mid-Atlantic from NYC to NC, which has a ton of people, they're likely the second tier of brands with ND/Penn State being the top, then WVU/Vtech, then the Maryland/Rutgers/UVA/Pitts of the world. The SEC could do it easier with WVU, but if you're out there, figure out how to maximize it.

Obviously work is slowing down, I'm spending too much time on this board today. I think it would help, but it will cause some issues too. No one in their right mind things Oregon deserves a shot at a title this year. And, while we can say Rona, Georgia Tech won the ACC with a 6-6 record when FSU was suspended. I'd argue that's why they seed, but someone will say they're not deserving. Part two is, does the AAC get a bid? Personally, and I know its kind of silly considering I just had three posts talking about realignment, but my wish list, which would also solve this, is dissolving conferences and the bowl system completely as a relic of a bygone era. I feel like we always try and make some perfect system fit into the confines of an imperfect one that no matter what we do its a lost cause. So, I recommend you blow it up and come up with something different: Tier 1: Requirements: Minimum spend threshold for football (not researching now, but, for example, lets say you need to spend $30m in running a program. Its not revenue based, its investment based). NIL for all players, 4 year/lifetime scholarships, enhanced medical treatment/insurance. Players union and both professional and HS agent rules. Work with NFL combine/scouts/whoever to provide professional insurance, which provides players a benefit for what they would have been predicted to earn with a rookie contract if they chose to stick around school and got injured in later years. Limitations: To keep things in check Open books, subpoena powers, everything managed by a single Czar, including media rights for the entire Tier, etc. etc. etc. Perhaps even a limitation with how much can be invested in the sport. If we really wanted more parity, they could find a way to limit the amount of high ranked kids someone can have on the roster per class (like you only have 3 5* slots to spread out over your positions, 15 4*, etc. Random numbers for examples) Set up: Would depend on the teams who chose to qualify, but focus being on the bulk of the season in regional games, with part of the schedule playing between areas. Since there is no conference, you don't need a CCG, which allows at least one more round of playoffs, which could easily go to 16. Seed everything to the bottom though and anyone 17 and below (if 16 is the magic number) is slotted into exhibition bowls, so 17 plays 18, 19 plays 20, etc. Revenues: Shared with all members with a boost given per final ranking. Relegation: Lack of investment over a 5 year cycle would kick you out Tier 2: Requirements: Min/Max spend threshold like T1, but could be more like $10m to 30M. Players still have representation, scholarships and Limitations: Run by the same Czar office Set Up: exactly the same with their own playoffs/champion. Likely wouldn't have as many exhibition bowls. Though 17/18 of Tier 2 may be worth more than 29/30 of T1, who knows. Revenues: Shared with all members with a boost given per final ranking. Relegation: Investing within a certain window, full plan for increased investment, and success over a 5 year cycle sets you up to slide into T1 as an associate (where you have a set time to ramp up) if someone chooses to fall out. Anyway, this is all off the cuff as I ignore this conference call. The point is, fuck the entire current set up. Blow it to hell and set it up differently going forward. EDIT: forgot to add, to maximize money, T2 could be Spring ball and T1 could be Fall

There is some value here too, but its longer term. And, to date, we've been more focused on the short term in both righting the ship and trying to keep up with those whose ship was already righted. But, look at the attention Cinci is getting this year. Why couldn't you bridge the gap between TX and WVU with a Memphis(preferably Arky)/Cinci and spend a decade beefing them up. You'd be better off in the long run than hitching up to San Fran. Time Zones are a bitch.

There are very valuable properties in the Pac 12, including UCLA, Oregon, and Washington. Cal and Stanford are no slouches either. The issue the Pac has isn't properties, outside the fact that they don't have any football powers at the moment, but that can be changed considering Cali pumps out talent. The conference, though, is struggling with the ramifications of a few bad decisions and geography: 1 - While the west coast is populous and loaded, it is very spread out compared to the east coast and from the East Coast as well. CFB eyeballs are driven by Eastern (47% of US population), Central (29%), Pacific (17%), and then Mountain time zones (7%), in that order. Due to that, most Pac 12 games are played in front of a market of 80m instead of 250m. 2 - The deal, part one: That CBS 3:30 eastern time slot for the SEC is basically the start of nationwide viewing and it gives a shit ton of exposure for the teams within it. The other Big 4 can play in the noon eastern slot and still be in front of 200m people, so their secondary slot is still very valuable. The Pac 12's deal didn't get them into these windows, matter a fact most of their games are structured for west coast timing. Which, can be smart if you leverage your own market and can get everyone (See Birmingham), but in this case they needed to get outside their market. This is why you see Oregon, Washington and USC fly to the east coast for made for tv early season games. So instead of getting a larger audience, they're trying to maximize a terribly small audience and ended up relegated to timing windows that were unused by the other conferences, e.g. after prime time eastern. No eyeballs, no money. 3 - The deal, part two: The Pac12 Network was great in concept, terrible in execution. Sports networks, outside ESPN, are inherently regional. Even the best of them all, the Yes Network, is carved out of like 50 square miles. Each non-football pro team goes with a small footprint around a major market and the NFL takes this to the max by carving up the US to show the games they think will be the highest rated in that specific metro area. So the idea having 6 smaller networks instead of one big one, had some good stuff in it, but the issue became, "why do I need to pay for two channels?" Creating a big Pac12Network and regional satellites meant they had to not only ask all the distributers to pony up twice, but they also had to feed that beast with inventory. They made a very solid contract originally, but it was for 70-80% of their inventory and the rest was used to feed the PacN. Since the PacN had no carriage, it made very little money, but had huge expenses, so very little made it back to the schools. In reality, sports conferences (or teams for that matter), shouldn't really be in the distribution business. When Larry got hard thinking he'd turn the Pac12 into a "media company" instead of a sports conference, they lost sight of, like, everything. TLDR - its not that they don't have value, its that they don't maximize their value nor even realize 100% of the value. They're sort of in the same place the SWC and Big 8 were 25 years ago. If they don't find a way to get out of their bubble, by more than playing ND, they aren't going to reverse their trend line. And, quite simply, they need to focus on football more than they do. Raiding - you don't need them all. One team in LA and one in SF is enough. You don't need two from Oregon and Washington. You likely don't need two from AZ either. Matter a fact, none may work out because, to give Dodds some credit, he knew the money pointed east, not west. Unless you could take select properties, enhance them to be world beaters again, AND only play them at 3:30 or PT against current Big 12, then you risk driving your own eyeballs west, instead of east.

That's a solid group, but Nebraska was persona non grata in the AAU long before the Big Ten invite. Part of me thinks Perlman thought the other Big Ten Presidents would step in to save them after they moved. They didn't. Also, Oregon and Washington are AAU

They've got to figure out a way to embed, that's brilliant.

This game could rock now, fuck Tennessee