camel at sea

This is adjacent to the point I was making originally. The original point was this: Michigan has more in common with Minnesota than Texas has with Iowa State. That's not a dig on ISU, it's just reality. There are a lot of schools between Michigan and Minnesota in the B1G pecking order who have more in common with Michigan than Texas has with the rest of the current Big 12 (other than Oklahoma.) As a result, it's easier to govern the Big Ten than to govern the current Big 12. The interests of the member schools are naturally more aligned in the Big Ten. The Big 12 has been tenuously governed like a "haves" vs "have nots" conference since its inception. That's why there has been constant boardroom turbulence.

Some of it is. It's hard to find the numbers now b/c USAToday put everything behind a paywall. But for the sake of comparison: U Minnesota in 2018 had $125M in AD revenue. https://www.startribune.com/gophers-athletics-department-juggles-mix-of-debt-vs-revenue/510895082/ In 2020, Iowa State had $95M in AD revenue. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/college/iowa-state/randy-peterson/2020/07/16/iowa-state-cyclones-athletics-revenue-spending-big-12-rankings-usa-today-database/5449603002/ The media contract didn't account for the $30M difference. Obviously, going forward, the media rights gap between the Big 12 and Big Ten just got a lot wider so it'll play a bigger role in the future. But even factoring media rights out, the middle tier of the Big Ten is (financially) really strong. Competitively? Fan interest? I'm all in on the Big 12 in that argument. But the money talks.

The various institutions view themselves as similar, because they are similar. Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Nebraska, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Iowa are all significant revenue-earners. Indiana does really well when you add in their basketball revenue stream and Minnesota is Top 25ish in AD revenue, too. Michigan has more in common with Minnesota, as athletic departments, than Texas has in common with Iowa State.

Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Auburn, LSU, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia are all Top 20 nationally in AD revenue. Whatever financial edge aggy has, it's not a meaningful one. The only Big 12 schools in the Top 20 are Texas and Oklahoma. The disparity in the Big 12 is meaningful.

Two are wealthy with huge fanbases. The other 8 are comparatively much less wealthy with smaller fanbases. Something that's good for UT/OU (unequal revenue distribution, solo tier 3 deals, etc.) is not necessarily going to be good for the other 8... and vice versa. At a certain point, it gets to be really hard to keep everyone happy enough.

I think the reason Big 12 leadership has always been bad is that the top and bottom of the conference have always been so far apart. It's hard to represent both Kansas State/Baylor and Texas/Oklahoma. Invariably leaders end up on one end of that pendulum or the other. You don't see as much of that in the B1G and SEC b/c the institutions in those two conferences have more in common across the board. Some of that should have been overcome more effectively in the Big 12 but it was always an issue. One of the big strengths of the new Big 12 (at least from a self-governance standpoint) will be that the member schools are much more aligned going forward. Decisions that benefit Oklahoma State are likely to also benefit almost everyone else. There are no more 800 lb gorillas in the room. The downside will be branding / perception. You see some of that already. TCU is unbeaten and has 4 straight wins over teams that were ranked going into the game. They've got a win over a current Top 10 team. They're ranked 7th If Texas or OU had the same resume, they'd be ranked higher than 7th. The Big 12 will have to figure that out. In hindsight, what probably should have happened is a better merger of the SWC/Big8. Ex: NU, CU, KU, MU, OU, OSU, UT, A&M, Arky, Tech Get that group together in 1988 and they're all probably still together now.

So if the Big 12 signs a deal that ends up $60M for all in, does that give the decision-makers at U of Arizona the political cover to make the jump? And if it does, who follows? Arizona especially cannot drag their feet, I don't think. They're lower on the value pecking order than some of their PAC peers. If the Big 12 has ASU, would Arizona automatically be in ahead of SDSU? I'm not sure - especially if this all goes down a decade from now instead of a year from now. There's a scenario in play where the Four Corners schools leave for the Big 12 while the PAC North remnants just add 4 and set up very unequal revenue distribution. Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Or. St, WA St., SDSU, Fresno St, +1, +1 (Boise, Col. St., SMU, Nevada, Hawaii, etc.)

Why would you assume correctly that I'm an OU fan and then make me read this much? This took hours. What are you trying to do to me? A lot of this is in response to the OU fanbase and not my post, but I agree with a lot of it. Riley didn't really take a lot of OU talent with him. He took the most important player on the roster (Caleb Williams) and a couple of guys who may or may not end up as good players. It's just reality though that between Rattler leaving and Caleb Williams leaving (and Mordecai/Morris leaving the year prior) that there were zero QBs left in the room when Lebby arrived. I don't care how good a coach you are, you can't fix that in one off-season. Gabriel is more than serviceable but there's nothing behind him and it showed Saturday. You can't play offense without a quarterback, regardless of what other talent you have on the field. The one cautious note pretty much all OU fans / pundits were saying in the offseason is that they absolutely couldn't get by without Gabriel under center and we sure as heck saw that. OU put up 34 points against a pretty stout K-State defense when it had a healthy Gabriel. If you're trying to draw big picture, longer term conclusions, OU's offense is probably going to end up being pretty good under Lebby once the QB situation gets solved. OU's roster has a ton of talent on it - even on defense. Recruiting rankings aren't a perfect indicator of anything, but OU has a Top 10 roster according to 247. Culture change goes smoothly sometimes and sometimes it goes off the rails. Everyone said things that made OU's fanbase happy in the offseason ("complete buy in" etc.), but this looks like an off the rails situation. The old guys (talented or not) aren't picking up the scheme. The busts, poor run fits, bad angles, etc., are atrocious. It's probably an open question as to whether Venables can get the defense back on the rails with another offseason roster overhaul. I look at what Sark has done between last year and this one and I see some potential similarities. But Venables' squad will have to flash some positives early next year like Sark's team did in year 2. At this point at least, Venables' track record is good and his staff is recruiting well. But the on-field performance is awful... just like it was awful for a decade before he arrived.

OU scored 34 against a relatively good K-State defense a few weeks ago with a healthy Gabriel. The offense should be competitive if Gabriel is healthy the rest of the way. But OU doesn't have even the semblance of a backup QB. That Beville kid could barely take snaps last Saturday and he was allegedly the best option on the roster. Riley left that spot on the roster completely bare. Jackson Arnold coming in for '23 (5 star, elite 11 MVP) probably goes a long way toward solidifying the room next year but that doesn't help them the rest of the way in '22. The rest of the offense is in pretty good shape going forward. There's a lot of talent on hand. OU's defense has been really bad for a really long time. The last genuinely good defense at OU was 2009. I think there was an assumption that b/c Riley's staff had recruited well on that side of the ball that a competent DC could get things turned around quickly with the talent on hand. That's obviously not going to happen in year 1. They're some combination of 1) BV not having the personnel to run what he wants to run, and 2) the guys he inherited not picking up the scheme. The '23 recruiting class for OU - assuming those guys don't bail - will be the best one at OU in the recruiting services era. They'll have to hang on to those commits and do a good job in the portal.

"My school's top 10 team has sold out 2 of its 4 home games this year, in a stadium that seats 55,509." Congrats.

I think the two biggest areas of weakness are the interior of the OL and the LB group. The interior of the OL just isn't physically talented enough to be starting at a program like OU. Physically overmatched players make mistakes and commit penalties trying to compensate for their limitations. Bedenbaugh's reputation has been coasting off of those '17 and '18 OL groups for a long time now but I don't think BV/Lebby will put up with a unit like this year's for long. If you look back at OU's OL recruiting history, BB whiffed on every single OL recruit in both '18 and '19. Three current OL starters are portal guys. It's not a good situation and it's baffling that the OU fanbase overall keeps praising that guy so much. The ILB thing is the opposite problem. The players are plenty talented physically but they haven't been playing Venables' scheme for long enough yet. K-State gave a blueprint for confusing those two guys. There's some hope that spot gets much better at some point but it might not happen this year. Both the ILBs were missing run fits and taking bad angles all night against EMAW.

Yeah. Bedlam and the KU-Mizzou Border War game make a lot of sense on "Rivalry Week." I think a SWC themed Kickoff Classic for Week 0 or Week 1 would be awesome. Texas-Tech, aggy-Baylor, Arky-TCU, etc. From the Big 12 side of it, if the schools involved could lock that down with a multi-year contract, that would give their TV deal a bump.

OU fans don't want to hear from now until the end of time that they killed the series when they offered to keep playing it and OSU declined. You're kind of seeing that play out now. OU fans also know (or strongly suspect) that at some point down the road, when it's going to be much more difficult to work out, OSU is going to start banging the drum to resume the football series and then they'll claim OU is scared to play them if it takes a while to get it worked out. Meanwhile, OSU is almost certainly going to want to continue playing OU in everything else, OOC, except in the sport that pays the bills. All of that said, I 100% get why Mike Gundy would rejoice to be rid of the series. OSU is Top 10 nationally in win % over the last 15 years, and the only reason he doesn't have a trophy case filled with Big 12 championships and major bowl appearances is OU.

ESPN getting involved is probably the only way the series gets saved in the short term. It would make a lot of sense for ESPN to improve the visibility of its (hypothetical) Big 12 investment with a slate of "rivalry week" games against the SEC, in the same way that they do that for the ACC. The key difference though seems to be that the ACC schools *want* to play that permanent OOC game. But money talks. Maybe we could see Disney orchestrate Kansas-Missouri, , Bedlam, and some slate of ex SWC match-ups. In the long term, I think if Oklahoma State stays at or near the top of the Big 12 for the next decade+, then the odds of the series returning goes way down without media partner intervention. Oklahoma State won't see any upside in it. If they're losing, and not selling out, then maybe they'll want to play again.

Clemson and South Carolina play annually. So do Georgia Tech and Georgia. Pitt and WVU scheduled 8 games between 2022 and 2032. TCU nearly always plays SMU. It's entirely possible to continue playing a rivalry game after conference realignment. My guess is that at some point, Oklahoma State will come around.

The only opponent on OSU's OOC slate for the 2030 and 2031 seasons is Tulsa. If Oklahoma State wanted to play again in football, it would already be announced and on the schedule. I don't necessarily blame them for not wanting to play. My guess, though, is that they're going to change their mind at some point.

If Weiberg wanted to continue the series, he would have said "we hoe to get it scheduled again down the road when logistics allow" instead of going with a never say never statement.

It's weird that this needs to be said... but Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are not married. It's a complex business relationship. Is continuing to play the game a good business decision for OSU? Probably. If not right now, for existing schedule commitment reasons, then certainly down the road. Is OSU going to want OU as an advocate in the event the SEC ever expands again? Probably. Would OSU have left OU behind in the Big 12 if the SEC had invited them instead? 100%.

You think the year plus of OU proclaiming publicly that they wanted to keep playing Bedlam OOC was a lie?

OU wanted to continue playing the series. OSU can/t/won't clear its OOC decks to make it work. I can't say I blame OSU on their end. They've got a few pretty good OOC matchups coming up and they're not the ones who changed leagues. The 9 game conference slate makes scheduling pretty difficult.

OU has campuses / "study centers" in Italy, Mexico, and Brazil. I believe there is one planned for Turkey as well.

Bob Thompson would know. I can't see any way that the PAC survives all of this. Big 12 adds the Four Corners. Big Ten adds Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Washington Notre Dame remains independent. Disney gets Big 12 hoops - which is even better now, Big 12 Tier 3 (ESPN+), and Big 12 After Dark as an upgrade over PAC After Dark. FOX gets a national conference, with a ton of brands, and essentially a merger of the PAC and Big 10. By breaking the PAC up, and shuffling its members into eastern conferences, both networks probably end up improving national exposure for the west coast schools. Maybe that helps with fan interest decline on the west coast. As a consolation prize to Wazzu and Oregon State, they both probably end up with a more clear path to an expanded CFP via the MWC.

I love this kind of stuff. Considering how much parity of resources there will be, the new Big 12 will be very entertaining if these fanbases care and hate each other.

If I'm ESPN, I'd rather have "Big 12 After Dark."