camel at sea

The biggest reason to play the CCG is that everyone else is doing it and it will be held against the conference champ in seeding if we don't do it.

If they go with "six highest ranked conference champs" then they're giving an auto-bid without directly saying that they're giving an auto-bid. That said, I guess this opens the door slightly for the possibility of the MWC and AAC champ getting in ahead of the PAC champ occasionally.

I think at the end of the day, if adding those two somehow became an option for the Big 12, everyone would decide that the extra competition for end-ofo-season exposure is worth what you get in return. But yeah, it's not a total no-brainer. Most of the Big 12's ex-SWC schools and their donors would be stoked to have Arkansas back on the schedule regularly. I don't think Mizzou has the same juice with the Big 8 schools but the Big 8 schools would probably be for it, for the most part. Adding those two would also improve our Tier 1 football content. CBS can see Texas-Arkansas or Oklahoma-Arkansas. So that's a factor, too.

Arky and Mizzou to the Big 12. Then if Nebraska follows along sometime after, the B1G can back-fill with Cincinnati or an ACC school. Maybe if the B1G grabs an ACC school, we surrender WVU at that point. North: OU, OSU, KU, KSU, ISU, NU South: UT, TTU, MU, TCU, BU, Arky I would enjoy something that ends up looking like this.

Yeah. If you're (let's say) Arky and Mizzou and you see an expanded playoff... don't you think you could actually be in it occasionally if you're in the Big 12? Going to 12 means you don't have to even beat OU. On the other end of that... why would "the other 8" in the Big 12 want to add competition to make the CFP to their own league? Is adding Arky/Mizzou worth the price of competing against them? If you're a SWC ex, maybe that's a trade off you don't mind. Same with the Big 8 exes and Mizzou. It might help the home slate look more appealing to some of those fanbases year over year. They both probably make Big 12 basketball a lot more fun. I don't know though.

COVID is probably going to get the CFP expansion done faster. There's less reason for the AAC to push for growing into a "power" conference, via expansion, if they feel secure that they'll consistently have the G5 spot in an expanded playoff with status quo.

Yeah. OU has been playing a lot of 11 a.m. games over the last few years. Ohio State plays them too, but it's a little fan friendlier for them with the time zone difference. So the situation with the early kickoff complaints at OU is a little bit unique. That said, it's not like PAC ADs haven't been complaining publicly about late kick off times for a decade. In any case, Castiglione has undoubtedly been fielding the complaints and passing them along to FOX. For whatever reason, FOX has either chosen not to take OU's complaints seriously or they're unable to do anything about it. If the issue was the former, then FOX probably understands the animosity right now better than they did before the press release. If it's the latter, then the complainers know the situation better. I'd imagine that this issue will be a point of contention between OU, the Big 12, and the media partner whenever we get around to negotiating the next rights deal. It sounds as though the Big 12 supported OU in this at least. I for one like the idea of the Big 12 parking Tier 1 in that now vacated mid-afternoon spot on CBS.

There's an OU-to-B1G group that takes every bit of negative press, whenever it happens and for whatever the reason, and argues uses that press to argue for leaving for the Big Ten. This story though was kind of a backfire.

That early timeslot sucks for local businesses and for hosting a recruiting weekend. Joe C has to hear from his donors, local businesses, Riley, etc. At some point after this goes on for years, Joe has to make it look like he's at least trying to do something about it. It's not like OU hasn't been a team player in taking those early kickoffs for years for years. I get why FOX does what they do from a branding standpoint but that doesn't make the strategy comfortable for their rights partners west of the eastern time zone. If you don't want your partners looking around (either from your or from their conference that partners with you), you have to be a little flexible.

1. Bama (SEC Champ) 2. Clemson (ACC Champ) 3. Ohio State (Big Ten Champ) 4. Washington (PAC 12 champ) 5. Penn State (B1G runner-up) 6. Michigan (B1G 3rd place) 7. Oklahoma (Big 12 champ) 8. Wisconsin (B1G 4th place team) 9. Southern Cal (PAC 12 #2) 10. Colorado (PAC 12 #3) 11. Florida State (ACC #2) 12. W. Michigan (MAC?) 13. Temple (AAC) 14. SDSU (MWC) 15. W. Kentucky (CUSA?) 16. App State (Sun Belt) So the SEC and Big 12 got one team in each... the Big 10 had 3 schools seeded ahead of the Big 12 champ. The PAC put three teams in - one of them Colorado? It'd be easier to sell a 16 team playoff if the graph reflected reality a little better.

Yeah. This makes the CFP a national event. More teams making a playoff will help some other schools recruit against the current system's playoff regulars. It's fair. "Did you win your conference?" is completely objective. Plugging in a G5 champ will add a "Cinderella" element to the event. 2 at-large spots will account for the possibility that the two best teams in the country were in the same conference. If you wanted to tweak this set-up, you could maybe require that a P5 conference champ doesn't make the playoff automatically if they are ranked below 12th or something. That would squeeze out the rare 4+ loss conference champ from contention and keep the regular season important.

The comments on Twitter beneath the announcement were pretty interesting. There were a lot more "now let's do football and basketball" sentiment coming from Mizzou folks than I would have thought.

You can consistently land Top 15 classes at Tennessee. If they just play up to their talent level, and beat the teams they're supposed to beat, then they're an 8-4/9-3 program on an annual basis that should at least not get blown off the field by Florida/Georgia most years, even if they are slightly less talented. They haven't been close to that in a long time. Total program mismanagement. I don't see Heupel as a guy who can create some separation between Tennessee and Missouri/South Carolina/Kentucky. The job is good enough that Tennessee should be a step above those programs but they haven't had a guy in Knoxville who can consistently win those games in fifteen years.

About once a year, when football starts getting pummeled, you'll see Arky fans on Hogville or one of their other boards starting a thread about why they need to leave the SEC for the Big 12. It always has more support than you'd expect. I have family in Ft. Smith. The older folks don't drink as much of the kool aid as the younger people in my experience. The older folks remember what it used to feel like to win.

Nobody involved in that decision still has any decision-making authority. The media landscape has shifted dramatically. Both sides would benefit from reuniting.

The SEC has a new deal coming up. The Big 12 will have a new deal after that and it will be a significant per-team raise, too. Put NU into the Big 12 before Arky has to decide and the gap is not all that wide. The next SEC deal will have them making about $65M per. The Big 12 will be distributing about $45M per at the end of our current deal - a 13 year old media rights deal - and that $45M distribution number doesn't include Tier 3. (Texas will be making $60M+ on an ancient Big 12 deal+LHN at the same time the SEC leaps forward to $65M per.) Assuming the Big 12's Tier 1/2 deals improve at a similar clip to the projection of improvement everyone is getting, and is distributing (conservative guess) $55M per from everything but Tier 3, then an Arky move to the Big 12 would mean their media money doesn't change much at all They could probably make pretty good money on Tier 3. They have big fan support for football, basketball, and baseball. As for the Kool Aid drinking? There is a large contingent of their fans - especially the ones in NW Arkansas - who constantly bring up how much better off they'd be in the Big 12. Those fans are right, btw.

Yeah. If you cut the conference slate back to 8 games, you boost the perception/branding/etc. of the product but you make less money. And vice versa. If the Corn are available, though, it helps. Our media rights w/ an 8 game slate become more valuable with them in tow than those rights are at status quo. How much more valuable? Not sure but NU is definitely additive. They'd just be another program that has the fanbase and resources to get over the top when they cycle up (like a Big 12 version of the Vols.) They just lack the recruiting footprint to be cycled up decade after decade like they were in the old days. Are they available? The B1G GOR runs through the early 2030s. They're either looking for a mutual parting with the Big Ten or they're looking for a legal window to crawl through given the Big Ten's COVID policies. I'd be surprised if they don't have lawyers looking into that because their admin has not exactly been going out of its way publicly to repair that marriage. Offer them an annual Thanksgiving game with Oklahoma and they probably have the donor support to move back if the legal side can get worked out. They might even be able to talk about "travel in the era of COVID" or some such, too. If we're a full-blown Disney owned conference at some point (we're mostly just waiting on OU to get there), maybe we can get the Mouse on board with ironing out some issues that FOX created for us 10 years ago. Corn on board + a WVU for Arky trade, and suddenly we're very close to having a viable SECish set-up. The fans will like those divisions. There are good TV games across the conference ($). The conference is culturally and geographically cohesive from a branding standpoint. North: OU, NU, OSU, KSU, ISU, KU South: UT, Arky, TTU, TCU, BU, ??

No need to overcomplicate it. Nebraska + 1. Get the Huskers an annual game with OU. Husker fans are happy. They feel like a Big 8 wrong is righted. Sooner fans are happy (no more boat rocking about leaving.) It works financially. NU might take a pay cut with that move, but it would be a small one on a per team basis. They probably make up the difference with better travel and happier donors. Who should be the plus one? It's probably gonna be a G5 school but NU's fanbase is large enough to carry someone like Cincinnati. No harm asking CU or Arky if they want to be 12, though. North: NU, WVU, UC, ISU, KU, KSU South: OU, UT, TCU, BU, TTU, OSU Something like that probably works. 9 game schedule + an annual cross-division game and everyone plays everyone home and home every three years or so. If SC wants out of the PAC, give them a Big 12 version of the ND deal with the ACC. But make it football only. They get CTZ exposure for football, big money, and nobody has to deal with travel issues. Partial membership avoids travel issues. They can park everything else next to Gonzaga or something. They'd have enough empty schedule slots left over in football to play whichever PAC schools + ND that they want to play, too. Everybody wins except the PAC and they're losing already.

Call it fandom or tribalism. Either way, a lot of them do want to return to the Big 12. If their administration gives the rest the green light to cheer a conference affiliation switch, there won't be many Big Ten proponents left in their camp.

Put me in the camp that would welcome NU back. Hate is good for college football. If tOSU and Michigan is any indicator, one-sided rivalries are fine for the TV side. Add Nebby and trade WVU for Arky and we've almost got an ideal Big 8 / SWC division split. North: OU, NU, OSU, KSU, KU, ISU South: UT, Arky, TTU, TCU, BU, ?? Or we could just play at 11 teams and make sure the big brand / rivals play each other every year.

A lot of the fissures in the Big 12 were personality driven. Osborne and Dodds didn't seem to get along all that well. But most of the divisiveness was overblown PR to justify the change. Get the Huskers an annual game with OU again, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and their cranky old BMDs would be pretty happy. It doesn't really matter whether or not they are ever 1990s Nebraska again. If they are our post-2000 Wisconsin that would work out just fine, too.

Somewhere in here I think you missed the point. I wasn't dumping on the Pokes. They're out-performing Arkansas in football for the last 15 years despite fewer resources, very similar geography, and less history. The big difference is that one of them is in a conference that is a good fit (the Big 12) and the other is in a bad fit (the SEC.) The conference fit outweighs all of Arkansas's other advantages. Thirty years for Arkansas in the SEC is a large enough sample size to look at their situation fairly. Before they moved to the SEC, they were a better version of what Oklahoma State is now. In 1989, you could make a good argument that the Hogs were on par, from a prestige standpoint, with programs like Georgia.

Arkansas in the SEC is what they've been for 30 years. Arkansas in the Big 12 is Oklahoma State - but with more tradition, more in-conference respect, a bigger fanbase, and better financial resources.

If you get a chance to add a program that's Top 10 all time by almost every metric, with one of the largest fanbases in the country... you take it.

If they don't qualify for the top tier because they don't populate NFL rosters, nor do they compete for the CFP... then you probably have to kick out a LOT of schools from the top tier. There are a lot of schools who don't do either of those things. For the military, top tier football is about service academy recruiting. They need those big TV games to run their ads.