camel at sea

A really good college football game might get 5M viewers. Most college football viewers are regional (regardless of which conference you're in.) Most of the 100M+ people on the east coast live north of D.C. and do not care at all about college football. Building the sport around chasing east coast viewers is how you end up with Rutgers in the Big 10 playing games that nobody watches on the BTN. Once we hit a streaming era where northeasterners can opt out of buying the BTN, that addition won't even make financial sense anymore. The B1G is going to be saddled with a no-interest addition for decades because they were chasing dollars in a revenue model that changed a decade later. Long term, college football is dictated by match-ups. "Match-ups" are primarily built on whether the two teams playing are ranked. #10 Baylor vs. #8 Oklahoma State can draw 5M viewers if you play the game in primetime on ABC. But to a lesser extent, college football is also dictated by whether the game has significance to the locals. If you look at adding a school like Houston to the Big 12 they actually check both boxes. With talent shifting increasingly to the South, and away from the Great Plains and Midwest, the Coogs give you an addition that will frequently field an above average team. And they give you an addition with local interest. So maybe not right now, but at some point, expanding within Texas is going to make some sense.

Every single team in the Big 12 - except ISU - has made a serious national title run at least once since 2007. Since 2008, OU, Texas, OSU, KSU, TCU, and Baylor have all won the conference at least once. The big difference between the two conferences lately is that OU is up and USC is down. That allows the PAC's 2nd tier to be more competitive nationally because the Trojans aren't serving as a ceiling. Cal has two ten win seasons since 1992. They aren't *much better* than Baylor. Not at football, anyway.

If you just line the Big 12 up verses the PAC, top to bottom, it's pretty even. Oklahoma - USC Texas - UCLA WVU - Washington TCU - Stanford OK State - Oregon Tech - ASU KSU - Arizona Baylor - Cal ISU - Wazzu KU - Oregon State The Big 12's blue bloods are better. The PAC's dregs have been better. But it's pretty even overall. The biggest thing working against the Big 12's competitive second tier schools has been that the Big 12 has a blue blood playing well. The PAC doesn't have that with USC. Even still, there's not much separation between TCU/OSU and Stanford/Oregon over the last ten years. Both sides have a private school that rejuvenated after being bad for decades. And both sides have a program build largely by one mega-donor.

2008-2017: Oregon: 100-32 TCU: 98-32 OK State: 96-34 Stanford: 97-35

Hypothetically: If OU is in the SEC West, the Sooners are at least sharing a division with LSU (which I think most would consider a helmet school.) So that's an upgrade from zero. in the B1G West OU gets Nebraska annually. In both conferences, you'd get occasional cross-division games against helmet schools. In the Big 12 though? Never. The Big 12 could offset the situation to some degree by reducing the number of conference games back to 8. A 2nd helmet school on the annual OOC schedule would be easier to work out with 4 open OOC slots instead of just 3.

Just depends on which OU fans you talk to. If you read OU threads on this topic, there are definitely a few people bordering on the fanatical about leaving the Big 12. It's a perspective thing. If you see OU's valuation as unrelated to conference affiliation, then maybe the school is being held back by the status quo. The most common position I run into from the "we have to leave" people on the OU boards is that there are academic/research benefits to leaving. The other big position is that there aren't any helmet programs in the Big 12 that can *ever* visit Norman now that Nebraska is gone.

Including the QB room. I don't think that's even close. Ehlinger, Buechele, Rising, and Thompson > Martinez & Gebbia.

The first NU coach to ever make TX recruiting a priority was Pelini. And he didn't get to see that experiment through to the end. All of the people who blame NU's fall on losing Texas recruits are misrepresenting the actual history. Nebraska never really recruited Texas heavily. Solich and Callahan never really attempted to do what Pinkel did (successfully) at Mizzou. The new-found TX recruiting exposure via the Big 12 was the obvious supplement to losing those Prop 48 players and it took a decade for someone up in Lincoln to realize that. Mizzou was putrid before Pinkel got there and he built a program that won multiple division titles with TX recruits. NU could have done much better coming off of three national titles in the 90s. Obviously the Huskers weren't going to recruit Texas the way that Oklahoma does but could they have landed 3-4 four stars per recruiting cycle in the Big 12? Absolutely. It's baffling that it was never a focus until the end. As for it just being July? Completely agree. But with the December signing period, it's increasingly important to have a lot of hay in the barn before football season starts. Light up some B1G West teams this year and I think Frost probably sees things pick up. Struggle and maybe you end up dealing with a lot of "this scheme won't work in the Big 10" talk. Either way, if a guy ends up a good recruiter in the long run, you usually see the evidence of that in the class after his first season.

The B1G said publicly that they were worried about Penn State leaving. So I'm not all in on the idea that "nobody leaves the Big 10." Unlikely? Sure. Never? I don't buy that. As for whether Texas recruits help: Scott Frost would trade rosters with Tom Herman with zero second thoughts. You can overcome bad coaching and lousy player development very quickly if your program has recruited well. Texas can be back in national title contention as soon as this season if one of the QBs makes major progress. NU is a long way from being on the right side of the blue chip ratio. And they don't have a good path forward on that front.

With 11 commits on board for 2019, NU has one blue chipper. And their 247 composite ranking is #39. It's a long time until signing day but that's probably not as good as a lot of their fans would like. Obviously he deserves some time but if Scott Frost - coming off a "national championship" at UCF - can't lure elite recruits to Lincoln, what's the plan? Finally just accept a lesser stature? I still maintain their home run recruiting situation was to end up in a 10 team Big 12. If they'd just waited a couple of extra weeks before accepting that B1G invite it might have happened. They never relied heavily on TX recruiting in the past because they didn't need to with the Prop 48 players they used to bring in. But 4 games against TX schools every year would give them a chance to build real pipelines in Texas. That situation also gives them annual games with OU and Texas - which are both more exciting for their fans than anyone on their annual schedule now. Travel would be easier. Basketball and baseball would be upgraded. Who knows. With all that talk of getting KU, KSU, and ISU on their schedule, maybe Moos is putting up some fan sentiment trial balloons about going home.

Yep. 2012 was the year they ended up playing Lunt, Walsh, and Chelf. And their offense was good all season. In 2013 was the same story except the defense was better. They should have played in a BCS bowl game but blew a last minute lead to OU in Bedlam. Their 2014 team put up 31 against #1 Florida State in week 1. But Walsh got hurt, they ended up playing some guy named Dax Garmann in the middle of the season, until Rudolph took the reigns late in the year. It's been a long time since Gundy didn't have a good QB.

I don't know if they do or not. But when was the last time Oklahoma State didn't have a QB who could play? Gundy gets the benefit of the doubt at this point.

Rudolph was a 4 star. But the point is still well made. I think the key is to land a highly rated QB every single cycle. Do that and you don't end up in a position where you're hoping a true freshman can play. And there's no reason not to do that if you've put up the kind of offensive numbers that OK State has put up for a decade, in a region that churns out elite spread QBs. That said I think OSU will be fine at QB this year whether Sanders is ready to play or not. Gundy always finds someone who can play.

The recruiting criticism of Gundy is fair. In an alternative timeline where Stoops doesn't re-punt to Tyreek Hill in 2014, Gundy probably gets fired. If the Pokes then hire Tom Herman/Lincoln Riley/Larry Fedora/etc., they're probably recruiting better and elevating the program's ceiling. Top 10 recruiting isn't realistic in Stillwater but Top 25 classes are. Gundy had a window in the Big 12 where Texas was way down, OU was down, and Oklahoma State had the best facilities in the conference. It's not hard to understand why Boone would be frustrated that he didn't do more with that. That's not an argument that they'd be winning more with a different coach. It's hard to beat what Gundy is doing in the win/loss column. But better recruiting is how you turn the corner and Gundy isn't going to do that there.

Northwest Arkansas and Little Rock are both a lot nicer than they were 20 years ago. The poverty in that state is mostly eastern Arkansas and southern Arkansas (outside the big population zones.) Arkansas would be a great fit in the Big 12. And since we have all of our media rights on the market in a few years, and the SEC only has their Tier 1 rights up, they might actually end up making more money in the Big 12 than in the SEC - if they were here, that is. My preference would probably be a straight up WVU for Arkansas trade with the SEC. The SEC gets to plant a flag in Pittsburgh and they get to move Mizzou to the West division. The Big 12 gets a 10th member that actually makes sense.

Lloyd you keep talking about "the last ten years." LSU hasn't won a major bowl game in over 10 years. They've only been to one major bowl in that span of time. If the Gators don't make a major bowl trip this year, they'll be 0-1 in major bowl games in the last decade, too. Last year was Georgia's first major bowl appearance in a decade. Tennessee hasn't played in a major bowl game since the 90s. OSU is 1-1 in major bowls in the last 10 years. TCU is 2-1. K-State is 0-1. WVU is 1-0. Baylor is 0-2. You can go back a little farther than ten years and find better results for the SEC's 2nd tier, obviously. Is 15 years the timeframe that matters? 25 years?

If the money remains competitive, I don't expect anyone to leave the Big 12. I haven't heard a compelling case yet about why the money won't be competitive. OU is probably going through the best period of success in the history of its athletic department. OU is one of three schools in the country with a $1B+ football value. The Sooners have won 11 team national titles since 2013 in 4 different sports. That's not including the men's tennis program which played for a team title 3 different times in that span, a men's basketball program which made a Final Four and produced a Naismith winner, a football team with three straight Big 12 titles, a Heisman winner, two CFP playoff appearances, and two Sugar Bowl wins in the last five years. So why all the bitching from OU fans? 1) there's probably a troll op fomenting some dissatisfaction from OU fans, 2) there's some residual fan embarrassment/resentment from the "wallflower" fiasco and fallout, and 3) there are still a couple legitimate problems with the Big 12 that nobody seems interested in addressing. There isn't a helmet school within the conference to visit Norman (and moving the best CFB rivalry in the country from the State Fair to a home and home isn't an option.) That makes the home schedule look like trash every other year. And the academic standing of the conference took a major hit. Four AAU schools left and we replaced them with WVU (barely in the US News Top 200) and TCU (really good undergrad perception but a non-research university.) That academic hit probably means more to OU than Texas since the Longhorns' academic bona fides are established locally and nationally. OU is much improved academically in the last quarter century but is still nowhere close to where the big money wants it to be. On the whole though, the Big 12 is fine. Olympic sports are great. Other than Texas sucking for a decade, Big 12 football has been good. OSU, TCU, Baylor, and K-State have Big 12 titles this decade. TCU is playing better football by far than anyone who left. When Herman starts winning 10 games a year, the Big 12 will move back into the "top SEC challenger" spot.