camel at sea

OU fans look down on their home slate b/c their team has historically dominated that entire slate for decades. Iowa State has played OU around 90 times and has seven wins against OU all-time. Bedlam is 90-19-7 all-time. The Baylor series is 27-4 all-time. OU has 14 Big 12 titles and the next closest school in the conference has 3. The arrogance is earned and it's just been delusional by the Big 12 to think they can wish that OU donor sentiment away.

Nebraska football is wildly mismanaged. When they were in the Big 12, they never made a really concerted effort to recruit Texas until Pelini was the HC. Just as their TX and Louisiana recruit numbers started to increase, they moved to the Big Ten and turned those pipelines off. Now that they've got cornfed Big Ten west recruiting turf, they hired a guy in Scott Frost who runs an offense that needs TX/FL skill position athletes to make it work. Maybe they can get it turned this year... but I don't know. They just feel like they're going against the grain in too many ways to be successful long term. They also hired a West Coast offense guy to run their program when the Big 12's turf at the HS level was trending in the direction of the spread. They hired Mike Riley, way past his prime, jut for his pleasant personality. The smart move at NU would have been to go all-in on TX HS recruiting when the Big 12 was formed, in the 90s, when their brand was at an all-time high. That might have supplemented the losses they took with the rule change on partial qualifiers. If that happens, maybe they keep winning big, their feelings never get hurt so much, and maybe they stay in the Big 12. Mizzou did a really good job of raising their program from the dead in the Pinkel era by making deep inroads in Texas. NU could have done that and done it better. Now that they're a Great Plains program, for the long haul, I think Nebraska should try to look like Iowa and Wisconsin but it'll require a lot of patience to overhaul the roster from what Frost has put together. Maybe the transfer portal could speed that along.

OU winning natties elevates OU's value, it's self-perception, and probably also increases OU's disdain for the rest of the league (i.e. "we're tired of you riding our coattails.") From OU's end of things, the biggest problem with the 2011-> Big 12 was that there weren't any conference games on the home slate that got the OU fanbase excited to donate and buy tickets. Nothing other than Big 12 expansion could fix that. The Big 12 with an 8 game conference slate could have allowed for better OOC schedules, at least. The Big 12 didn't want that and several admins were vocal about it. OU has been deeply unhappy since 2011 and the Big 12 office (for one reason or another) has consistently told OU to go pound sand. Texas played the whole thing more quietly but I'd guess a lot of the same gripes existed beneath the surface. You can look at the debate about adding Louisville back in 2012 where OU was the party pushing that agenda, the debate about expansion in 2015 with OU again leading the way, the whole Baker Mayfield Rule thing about walk-on transfers (Texas sided with OU on both votes, ISU for example voted against the rule change both times), etc. At one point during the 2015 expansion debate, a bunch of Big 12 North school admins were telling KC media sources that Boren was an egomaniac and that if he'd just shut up, the perception of the Big 12 would improve. Boren might have been an egomaniac but he was publicly griping on behalf of his alums who were deeply unhappy. So if you're OU, at that point, you realize that your best option is to put your head down and leave as soon as possible b/c the folks up in Ames and Manhattan don't share your goals and objectives, and don't really seem to respect them, either.

The OU BMDs were never going to let David Boren drag the football program into a HS recruiting desert. When push came to shove there, Boren was not going to get his way on that. Boren and the academic side wanted the Big Ten and still want AAU membership, but the only way relocating to a Great Lakes conference was ever going to be allowed to happen was if Texas (and TX HS recruiting turf) went, too. OU could have gone alone to the SEC, though, which would not have been great for UT. Ultimately it was in the best interest of both UT and OU to work together. The big difference between Texas and Nebraska is that Texas still recruits elite players. Texas also has a NY6 win in recent memory. The records might be nearly identical but the two situations are vastly different. Texas is one competent coaching staff away from Top 10 teams and national title contention. Nebraska - with a great coach - has a ceiling of looking like Wisconsin.

Live sports have gone up in value a lot. I think it's safe to guess that if UT and OU had stayed in the Big 12 then per-team payouts would have been very competitive - but just not as strong as the SEC is going to be.

https://awfulannouncing.com/ncaa/navigate-big-ten-sec-payouts-power-five.html Yeah, Navigate projects per team payout to be over $100M annually. But the other stuff all factors in, too.

UT; OU, Arky, aggy aggy: UT, LSU, MSU Arky: UT, Mizzou, LSU OU: UT, Mizzou, Florida Mizzou: OU, Arky, Kentucky LSU: Ole Miss, aggy, Arky Ole Miss: LSU, MSU, Auburn MSU: Ole Miss, Bama, aggy Bama: Auburn, Tennessee, MSU Auburn: Bama, Georgia, Ole Miss Georgia: Florida, Auburn, S. Carolina Tennessee: Bama, Kentucky, Vandy Florida: Georgia, Oklahoma, S. Carolina S. Carolina: Georgia, Vandy, Florida Kentucky: Vandy, Tennessee, Mizzou Vandy: Tennessee, Kentucky, S. Carolina I could go for something like this. It preserves most of the important rivalry games. Everyone has at least one permanent opponent that their fanbase would consider either a rival or a marquee opponent. Nobody has three blue bloods annually. The biggest oddball game would be OU-Florida but that's a "made for TV" game. You lose some annual SEC games in this trade-off but that was always unavoidable. If it's an 8 game schedule, then you rotate five... and that gets you through the rest of the SEC, home and away, once every five years. The 9 game slate gets you through everyone once every four years. My guess is that the SEC ends up playing 8 and taking less money. They've always been willing to make that trade-off and it's not like they won't be swimming in money either way. Their lower level brands get boosted by the extra OOC win and it's easier for everyone with a permanent OOC rival to schedule that game when there is extra scheduling flexibility. Maybe Disney helps Mizzou get Kansas on the schedule permanently, OU playing Bedlam, etc.

I'd guess we end up with a 3-5 model. The 8 game crowd gets what they want. The rivalry games get played annually. Everyone still sees everyone else in the conference more often than happens now b/c of the rotation. Maybe this then leads to a push to formalize OOC games/series to offset the lost 9th conference game. There are a lot of potential ACC and Big 12 rivalry games that SEC schools could play.

There's a difference between lack of talent and the total failure to develop talent. UT's roster is always littered with blue chippers who had elite offers. That's the talent. Those guys have been getting on campus and not looking like blue chippers after spending time in the program. Either everyone else who was offering those blue-chippers out of HS made a bad evaluation, too, and the bad evals were disproportionately for the guys who picked UT... or the actual problem is the staff/culture/etc. in Austin.

Texas has had bad coaching (Xs and Os, S&C, etc.) for 10+ years and a large percentage of the fans point fingers at the "lack of talent" instead of at the guys running the program. If you've got a 66% BCR, you've got a better roster than Baylor or Iowa State. You're just not developing them.

https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/Blue-chip-ratio-college-football-2021-16-teams-who-can-win-national-title-166530729/#166530729_4

I mean... Texas doesn't have to be "back" to be in a CCG. Their 2018 team finished with four losses, played in the CCG, and won a Sugar Bowl. The roster now is more talented than then. That said, I do increasingly foresee the completely unforced error, by the Big 12, of the Sooners and Longhorns playing in the CCG on their way out the door.

Texas has either the best or second best roster in the Big 12. I know that has been true during the entire 10+ year downturn but it's a big risk for the Big 12 to bet that it never gets turned - especially with Sark pulling an elite 5 star QB from the portal. But it would be a very Big 12 move to let Texas and OU play in the CCG the year that they leave the league.

I know they're hung up on not needing to reshuffle the divisions after the SEC move but the thing that makes the most sense is to put the Longhorns and Sooners in the same division to avoid the possibility of a CCG rematch. The two out-going schools, playing in the CCG, would be a terrible look for the new Big 12. Big 12 South: OU, OSU, Tech, TCU, Baylor, Texas, Houston Big 12 Other: BYU, KSU, KU, ISU, Cincy, WVU, UCF This probably works for a year or two and it's TV / fan friendly. You can just slide BYU over and go West/East when the SEC exit occurs. Alternatively, they could do something like this: West: BYU, OU, Tech, TCU, Baylor, Texas, Houston East: KSU, OSU, KU, ISU, Cincy, WVU, UCF They keep talking about expansion to 14. They could plug Boise and Colorado State into the West division after we go and they wouldn't need to worry about a reshuffle. Boise is the top TV target left on the board, I'd guess, and Colorado State is one of the few G5 schools with ready-to-go football facilities and a good academic profile. The big hang-up here though is that I strongly suspect Oklahoma State will fight tooth and nail to stay with the Texas schools. I also think going to 14 is just a dumb idea generally. There's no good reason not to see how things shake out in the PAC and ACC. There might be better options for #13/#14 available later.

I don't think it's just that expansion beyond what they've already invited dilutes academic branding. It's going to dilute athletics, too. I don't know why the Big 12 would consider expanding beyond the four they've already taken at this point. They should give it ten years and see what shakes out in the PAC and ACC first. The only way the big money schools in the PAC get financially competitive is to join the Big 10. If that happens, then the Big 12 could look at Utah and the Arizona schools as expansion targets. Those would all be a lot better than Boise or Memphis. Fox Sports seems to be cutting expenses. If the fallback plan in the Big 12 office was to move more inventory to FOX, that door is probably not as open as they'd like. CBS and NBC are probably looking for Tier 1 content and the Big 12's strength is a good slate of Tier 2 inventory. It would probably be a smart move to hire a commissioner who has a good working relationship with Disney, mend some fences, and to then try hard to work out something with the SEC to keep the existing relationship going (bowl tie ins, basketball challenge, a football scheduling pact, voting pact, etc.)

Incompetency, at a certain point, starts to smell like sabotage. Bowlsby's inaction made it easier for Texas and OU to leave. Then again, his reaction mirrors a lot of what I've seen from the Iowa State fanbase online.

Boise makes a big facilities master plan announcement today. The Big 12 keeps talking about going to 14 after Texas and OU leave... either Boise is trying to secure one of those two spots or they know they're going to be one of those two.

I guess this makes some sense if they pair up with Gonzaga as "travel partners." They could probably pull off Indy football but the media payout for that would be the big thing.

Yeah. USF apparently has a site selected for a stadium and has started fundraising. But this means they're probably 5+ years away from that being a reality at the very earliest. https://www.usf.edu/news/2022/usf-committee-recommends-site-for-on-campus-football-stadium-5-million-gift-announced-to-advance-the-project.aspx I think Memphis could probably avoid having to do an on-campus stadium if the city of Memphis pitched in big, along with FedEx, for a serious nine figure renovation of the Liberty Bowl. But they've still got to get it done. That said, on-campus would probably be preferred. The Tigers make the most geographic sense and I think they'd transition to P5 most quickly from a fan support standpoint (they could draw 45-50K crowds consistently for football, and 15K for basketball if the NCAA doesn't nuke them from orbit.) But yeah. If it were me making decisions for the Big 12, I'd set the investment parameters for the G5 schools and then see what shakes out with the ACC or PAC. There are some schools like Louisville, Pitt, Miami, etc., that probably wouldn't get picked up by the Big 2 in the fallout of a raid of the SEC. Alternatively if the big brands on the West Coast join the B1G, there will be some value leftover in the PAC as well. Short term, assuming no more major realignment earthquakes, partnering with the PAC makes a ton of sense. If I'm CBS or Amazon, I'd be nervous about the slate of Tier 1 content from either of those conferences individually. But if you combine them and let me pick a game of the week from both combined, then there's much more of a guarantee that the game will draw eyeballs. SC-Oregon one week. OK State-WVU the next. That's not bad.

So once Texas and OU are gone, who are #13 and #14? I think Colorado St is an institutional fit and has the facilities (which I guess demonstrates commitment to athletics.) But the fan support is not there for football and they haven't really been that good in the MWC over the last 20 years. USF is an academic fit but doesn't have the facilities in place or the fan support currently. Memphis is the best athletics fit but has stadium issues and is not a great fit academically (which the Presidents will care about.) Boise is Memphis but without basketball, with much worse geography, and a non-existent surrounding recruiting base. SMU is probably the best athletics/academics combo, with the best geography, and the most built-in rivalries, but they're probably out b/c the market they represent is already covered as well as it can be. I think the intra-conference politics for inviting SMU will be bad for them, too. Tulane kind of works. Academic fit. Non-redundant geography. Deep donor pockets. Decent recent football team (3 bowls in a row before 2021.) New football stadium. But the fan support is extremely weak. If It were me, I'd hold at 12 and wait for one of the above to become more worthy (Colorado State wins in football and draws some fans; Memphis keeps winning in football and irons out its stadium future.) Alternatively, maybe the Big 12 can make a run at Louisville if the ACC gets raided in a decade.

The post upthread that has the Big 12 basically running pretty even with the PAC and ACC after Texas and OU leaves is from someone who analyzes potential media contracts. The new Big 12 doesn't have the bigger brands of the two coastal leagues but it has far fewer absolute dead weight programs than either so it basically evens out. If the Big 12 minus UT/OU is running even with the PAC and ACC, I think what we can infer from that is that if UT and OU had stayed in the Big 12, conference payouts would have been well north of the two coastal conferences even if it remained well south of the B1G and SEC. Big 12 schools will have to choose whether or not to replace the once-per-year gate revenue boost of having either UT or OU visit. Those games also helped to move donations and season ticket packages so I'd guess we'll see more aggressive OOC scheduling at some places. OSU (to name one place) was already going that route anyway with Arky, Oregon, and Bama on the future slate. Baylor has Oregon and Auburn on the future schedule. I'd guess this reality is why Tech is trying to land a long term annual OOC series with UT.

That's a really good outcome for the Big 12 if they pull that off, especially after you add in the Texas/OU buyout money coming their way. They won't be competitive for national titles in football but none of those schools are anyway. Widening the resources gap doesn't change much except to solidify the present reality in concrete. But if you're Oklahoma State, Baylor, Iowa State... the present reality is not that bad. They could keep their programs in about the same spot where they are now (developing high 3 stars and the portal into Top 25 programs) and in some sense elevate themselves with a prestige boost of winning conference titles and making CFP appearances. That fulfills the university's mission with football. The Big 12 will also have the money to be competitive in men's basketball on the national level, too, which should keep KU happy. I think with a disparity like that, the biggest impact will be coaching salaries / stability. The B1G and SEC's middle weights will be able to money whip for OOC coaches in a way they haven't been able to before. But that will be offset a little bit by how much more difficult it will be to meet W/L expectations at those places. Mizzou has averaged about 6 wins per year, for the last 7 years. Add Texas, OU, and a 9 game SEC slate, and maybe that drops to 4-5 wins per year. It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out long term with respect to a job's attractiveness. It actually probably ends up being a bigger deal for Olympics than for football. A Big 12 school probably fights to keep a good football or men's hoops coach. They'll let an elite golf / baseball / softball coach go.

That's the thing. The ACC and PAC are not a big deal in their regions. The coastal audiences do not care as much about college football in their footprints. OSU/Baylor won't compete with the SEC but it will compete very well with Arizona State vs. UCLA or Florida State vs. Boston College. There's about to be a big gulf between the SEC/B1G and the ACC/PAC/B12. But the Big 12 is in that 2nd group and not some place farther down. An elite ACC or PAC team will have some more national TV appeal than anyone in the Big 12 but the depth of interest below the top will be minimal in either of those two leagues. The Big 12 slate of games has more depth of interest. BYU and WVU consistently do pretty well on TV and the residents of Texas and Oklahoma leave their TV on all day watching college football. Give it a decade and I expect the Big 12 to emerge as the clear 3rd in average TV ratings - as it has always been.

In theory they should be able to make ACC/PAC type of money in a new deal. They're going to have average TV ratings in the ballpark of those two conferences after UT and OU leave. The AAC was creeping up toward the PAC over the last few years and the newest version of the Big 12 will be quite a bit stronger than the AAC was. I suspect that once the new deals are worked out that the Big 12 will start showing some more flexibility with the idea of letting UT and OU leave. Iowa State's leadership might want to turn the screws to the two schools that are leaving but the Texhoma schools probably won't. They're going to want UT, A&M, and OU on future schedules - and friendly relations in the event an SEC spot ever opens up (not to mention avoiding exit precedents they'd have to live up to themselves if they leave, too.)

I'll be interested to see if the Big 12 eventually ends up a reluctant "friend" of the SEC. From a sports culture standpoint, those two conferences will still be closely aligned on most issues even after Texas and OU move. Getting the Big 12 to vote in lockstep would force the ACC into the tie-breaker role and I strongly guess they don't want to be in a position where they might have to vote against the best interest of their own football schools. It wouldn't be all that hard for the SEC to provide the Big 12 some carrots. They could keep bowl tie-ins in place (to the extent that matters in an expanded CFP) and they could probably also keep the Big 12 - SEC challenge going in men's hoops. I don't know if it would be necessary to facilitate some kind of rivalry series between the two leagues in football but the geography largely works for that, too, and once the CFP expands then playing more P5 teams throughout the season matters a lot less. SEC schools playing historical little brothers OOC is good press / state politics for the SEC side and it's better money / access to relevance for the little brothers.