USC Traveler

I thought about your post as I was watching aggy expose Mizzou today. So many of the "game day atmosphere" shots during an aggy game revolve around military stuff- "cadets" with shaved heads, guys wearing WWI-era army outfits and carrying swords, the cannon getting fired, etc. It gives a completely distorted view of reality. They make it seem like a dominant part of student life. The networks portray it as if the place is only a few steps below West Point and Annapolis, but based on your numbers, I wonder where they rank vs any big state school ROTC program. Crazy that so much of the ags' identity seems to be tied up in something that has nothing to do with the vast majority of the student body. Fake Army, indeed. I don't know why it bugged me, but it did. Maybe because my grandfather graduated from Annapolis and then was in WW2 from the beginning to the end- literally. He was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked, and he was on the Missouri in Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremony. Anyway- fuck aggy.

Al- I quoted you to see what you thought, but also wanted to hear from other B12ers like @'stache and @oSuJeff97 I was looking at the schedule for CFB for the last weekend of the regular season, and the B12 schedule looks like it was put together by someone who has no understanding of which schools have rivalries and history with each other. Outside of Farmageddon and the Territorial Cup, none of it made sense. Utah at UCF ? TCU at UC ? UH at BYU ? Tech-WVU ? WTF ? I was expecting to see the Holy War, TCU-Baylor, etc. Looks like the B12 made a conscious decision to spread the rivalry games out earlier in the season. Are you guys happy with that ? I realize The Game, USC-ND, UT vs aggy, Iron Bowl, etc are all going to soak up a ton of oxygen that weekend, but for me, there's something special about rivalry weekend. Utah vs UCF or the Holy War on rivalry weekend- seems like an easy choice.

This is what I was saying about 10-20 pages ago, which is why I thought the PAC was clueless when they only offered Memphis, Tulane, UTSA and USF. They should have added enough schools in the West to give them a stable base, then offer Memphis and Tulane along with 3 or 4 schools in TX to create a Central division. It never made any sense from a Memphis or Tulane pov to come with only UTSA and USF- too much travel for every game besides Memphis vs Tulane games. Going in with UTSA, TX St and UNT (with CSU in the division to make it 6 teams) would be a much better proposition for Memphis and Tulane, 9 game schedule, with two road game vs the other division every year, so they'd only go to Boise, Pullman, Corvallis, etc, once every 3 years. Much easier travel for all their sports, and with the size of the media deal, limiting travel costs will matter. // I still think it would be smart to lock up Tx St and get to 8, then go after the other schools as a group.

Apparently, neither does the PAC. Dellenger said on one of the Yahoo CFB podcasts last week that the PAC was talking to Hawaii, but didn't make an offer, and then Hawaii signed on to stay in the MWC. The program is in shambles now, but some of that is temporary, and Hawaii would bring a lot of positives. They could do a lot worse for team # 8. Plan A (AAC schools), Plan B (UNLV and/or AFA) and Plan C (Hawaii) have all failed to materialize. Maybe Hawaii has an escape clause in the MWC deal if they get an offer as a full member of another conference. Otherwise, the PAC is on to Plan D. Could the below be Plan D ? Sac St would make for easy travel, and give the conference a presence in a 3rd part of CA.

I was originally thinking of the setup you're describing, but then thought they would have to start the season too early to do an 8 team G6 playoff that would end prior to the beginning of the big playoff. Wasn't factoring in that their desire for exposure would trump all else. If the kill fee was equal to the payout the G6 gets for participating in the 12 team playoff, which was probably not clarified well in the op, and there was decent tv money on top of it for the G6 playoff games (way better entertainment than bowl games), I was thinking schools would prefer to be the National Champion of the G6 level and have their season end as a champion, instead of getting crushed like a tomato can vs the #5 seed (which will frequently be the 3rd best team in the nation). I just don't see any Boise over OU type games in the playoff, given how strong the #5 seed is going to be every year. That team will be very focused for a playoff game, as opposed to some teams in the past that may have been sleepwalking through a bowl game. The # 5 team is always going to be very, very good. With the consolidation in the BIG/SEC, there won't be any more years where, say, a mediocre OU wins the B12 because the rest of the conference was down, then gets beat by a team like Boise. With NIL and the portal, the gulf between the #2/3 team in the BIG/SEC to the top G6 team will be measured in light years. I'm fine having the best G6 team in the big playoff. It gives everyone a shot, and we'll never have to hear any dumb debates about whether the G6 champ could have beaten the P4 champ. But if I'm running one of those G6 schools, I'd much rather have the season end on a high note being crowned the undisputed champion of the G6. If the title game was played during the week between the semis and championship game of the 12 team playoff, that would still give the two G6 programs a lot of exposure, but it would be overwhelmingly positive exposure, as opposed to getting slightly more exposure (#5 vs #12 will be the lowest rated playoff game in most years), but having the exposure be mixed, at best, as the team will almost always look like it doesn't belong on the same field as the # 5 seed. Ending the season getting embarrassed doesn't seem like anywhere near as good of exposure as raising a trophy and saying "We're the champs!!!"

Great minds think alike my friend.🤘 That would be a fun format and put a nice spotlight on those programs.

Even better, get their small slice of revenue from the big boy playoff in return for not having a team in the big playoff, sort of like a kill fee in return for not suing over access. Then run an 8 team G6 playoff around the edges of the big playoff- start a week earlier, play their championship during the week between the semifinals and the title game for the big playoff. Play the semis on Tuesday and Wednesday nights if needed to make it work. Every G6 conference champ plus two at large. Would be a fun format, with teams that are reasonably evenly matched.

Yeah- I’ve been to a few 1AA/FCS playoff games, and they were great. I’ve never really understood why so many programs have wanted to move up. What JMU has been doing is amazing, but I feel like they’re the first FCS program to quickly prosper in FBS. If I went to a former FCS powerhouse like GA Southern, I’d be bummed about trading those playoff games for a crappy bowl game. Hopefully the G6 does set up their own playoff sooner rather than later. I’d much rather watch similarly-matched teams playing each other than seeing a sacrificial lamb get destroyed by the # 2 team in the SEC or BIG every year. Even if they feel like they have to stay in the big playoff for the money, they could start their season a week or two earlier than the big boys to allow an actual G6 playoff to determine the team that gets to play in the big playoff.

😂 It’s so true. There were lots of maps, lots of theories, and more lists of pods than I care to remember. As a group, there was a general consensus that we were definitely heading towards some sort of consolidation. There were definitely more than a few UT and OU to the SEC and even a few Best of the PAC to the BIG posts, but I’m pretty positive no one had Texas State to the PAC. Fresno St to the PAC would be a close second for truly shocking.

Ah, got it. Well USC's admin has also been clueless for most of the last 15 years. That's part of why Commissar Scott and Co were able to stay in power for so long. USC didn't fight tooth and nail to make the PAC16 happen, and let Scott, Wazzu, Cal, etc kill the deal over LHN even though unequal revenue had been in place in the PAC for years. They also never tried to push Scott out. They self-sanctioned with Haden and Swann as ADs, and Clown Helton as HC. And they were so petrified of the NCAA boogeyman hiding under the bed that USC is now 3 years behind schools like UT on NIL. So yeah, no surprise that they thought they could win an open and shut case.

That’s even more stupid than I thought. That’s laughable.

If you’re referring to me, you’ve got the wrong poster. I never thought the PAC schools that were leaving had any chance of maintaining control. They lost their voting rights as soon as they announced they were leaving. As for the PAC being clueless, we can agree to disagree, but I saw it up close for multiple decades, through multiple commissioners and Presidents of the various universities. And they were clueless. The objective evidence is that despite there being more money available in tv deals than ever before the conference no longer exists in its former form, and is only a shell of itself, due to a long, dreadful series of mistakes, starting with Stanford vetoing Texas joining, the PAC 16 falling apart over LHN, the PACNet, all the way up to Klownkoff rejecting the ESPN offer last year. Nothing about this botched attempt to turn the PAC into the top G6 conference looks any different than previous decades of ineptitude. Do you think the PAC has played their hand well ?

Agreed. The idea was good, but the problem is that they didn't do enough to motivate the AAC schools to leave, probably because they didn't look at it from the AAC schools' POV. They're also focused on keeping membership numbers low for better revenue, and maybe also living in a fantasyland that Cal and Stanford will eventually come back. I posted last week that if I'm running Memphis or Tulane, I'm not going to the PAC unless there are enough schools in an Eastern division to limit travel to the West Coast to once per year. PAC would have been smart to take the top 8 from the MWC to dissolve it, then offer Memphis, Tulane, USF, UTSA and six more AAC/Sunbelt schools to kneecap the AAC and create a G6 "superconference" that would almost always get the G6 playoff bid. Even though it would be 20 schools, the AAC and MWC both have a lot of games broadcast on ESPN, FS1 and CBSsn, so the money would be there. But all of this assumes that the people running the PAC, Wazzu, and OSU know what they're doing. As we know- they don't.

This would have been the move if the newPAC was run by smart people. Wazzu and OSU could have kept the money and invested in their programs. The only thing that may save them is if the MWC is run by even dumber people, and they haven't changed their bylaws to remove voting power from a member as soon as they announce they're leaving. If that's the case, PAC could still take three more schools and dissolve the MWC.

Cal should just own who they are and make that their logo. Would boost attendance and they would instantly get a lot more support from admin and faculty. Would certainly add an extra layer of spice to games at Clemson, FSU, and SMU. It actually looks pretty badass as a helmet logo.