Zinhead

LMAO at you for thinking that Rice is any better than a FCS team. Florida historically not played OOS OOC games for three reasons: 1 - Florida plays Georgia and LSU annually in the SEC. Collectively, those schools have won national titles in 03, 07, 19 and 21. 2 - Florida State is an annual end of season OOC game. They have won a national title in the past 20 years. 3 - If Florida makes it to the conference championship game, the likely opponent is Alabama who has won seven national titles in the past 20 years. That means in a good season, Florida's schedule will include teams that won more than half the national titles in past 20 years. With the exception of Alabama, that is true of every school in the SEC. Contrast that to Texas's conference and in-state schedule that features zero teams that won national titles in the past 20 years, and skips out on the best in-state OOC competition in favor of Rice. Yeah, go beat your chest about not playing FCS teams. Nobody cares.

Since 1966 Texas has played Rice 43 times. Rice, enrollment 4,076, has won exactly one of those games. Glad you were able to keep that cherished rivalry going for so long. With an annual rival like Rice, who needs FCS schools?

Florida's future OOC schedule includes: 2023 - Utah, FSU 2024 - Miami, UCF, FSU 2025 - USF, Miami, FSU 2026 - NC State, Cal, FSU 2027 - Cal, FSU 2028 - Colorado, ASU, FSU 2029 - Colorado, FSU 2030 - Texas, UCF, FSU 2031 - Texas, ASU, Notre Dame, FSU 2032 - Notre Dame, NC State, FSU

Florida plays Florida State every year OOC. In the past they have also played Florida directional schools or Miami in OOC games. The current AD is expanding the schedule, and Florida's future OOC schedule includes: 2023 - Utah, FSU 2024 - Miami, UCF, FSU 2025 - USF, Miami, FSU 2026 - NC State, Cal, FSU 2027 - Cal, FSU 2028 - Colorado, ASU, FSU 2029 - Colorado, FSU 2030 - Texas, UCF, FSU 2031 - Texas, ASU, Notre Dame, FSU 2032 - Notre Dame, NC State, FSU

SEC and BIG expansion into the ACC will really be driven by how much more ESPN or Fox wants the additional schools and inventory circa 2032-2034 when these decisions will be played out. Unless the broadcasters are will to pay up for the new schools, there will be no expansion. Some additional comments: 1 - There was a survey of UNC fans a few years ago, and the vast majority of fans at the time preferred the SEC to the Big 10. Moreover, UNC has reached out in the past to the SEC about joining. Note that these conversations were on the presidential level, not the AD level. UNC to SEC or Big 10 2 - How much leverage does Notre Dame have in negotiations with the BIG? We know they want a game in California at the end of each year, as well as regular trips to Florida, Georgia and the southeast for recruiting. If ND joins the BIG, how much will current BIG members give up in terms of scheduling to keep ND happy? 3 - FSU and Miami are not interconnected like UNC/Duke, UVA/VT or UNC/NCState. Either would ditch the other in a moments notice. The former UNC President talks about this around the 10:00 minute mark. Interview with Former UNC President

Notice the big empty area in Oregon. From the following map, they get much of their talent by attracting the best players in less competitive states. Recruiting Map From reports on some BIG blogs, travel for Olympic sports is a consideration as part of the expansion process, and one advantage that the Stanford/Cal pair-up has for the BIG is scheduling for Olympic sports. Teams can fly into the Bay area, play Cal and Stanford, and then jet down to LA to play USC and UCLA. Four games for three flights is very appealing for an athletic department. As a casual Stanford fan, the best case scenario would be to join the BIG with Washington, Oregon and Cal. That would keep all of the good PAC rivalries in place, and the BIG could play the conference championship game in the Rose Bowl.

The point of the list was to determine the median SEC school. Putting six schools in the top tier and six in the lower tier leaves four schools to form the SEC median. In terms of on-field results LSU (three natties in 20 years) is easily superior to the schools ranked below them. They also carry the entire state by themselves. Missouri has two SEC championship game appearance in the past decade, and brings two major metros in St. Louis and Kansas City. That is better than any of the six schools in the lower tier.

I was not saying that BYU, Baylor, Cincy, or OK State would become playoff regulars because of the feedback loop. The schools that will make regular playoff appearances will be the same 15 schools with high blue chip ratios. What I am saying is that with an expanded playoff, the concentrated blue chip ratio of the Alabama, OSU and Georgia's will fall, there will likely be several schools in the BYU, Baylor, Cincy, or OK State range that, with a great a coach and a generational recruiting class, can can catch lighting in a bottle and win some playoff games. Here is a list of non-blue chip schools that would have been favored in at least the opening playoff game of an expanded playoffs. 2014 - Baylor, TCU 2015 - Iowa, Stanford 2017 - Wisconsin 2021 - Cincinnati, Baylor

The four team playoff gives teams that have made it into the playoff a big boost in recruiting, which then improves their chances of getting back into the playoffs. This feedback loop is why we see the same teams in the playoff every year. Unless a draft is instituted or a head coach changes, the feedback loop is difficult to break since talent accumulation (recruiting) is so important to college football. However, expanding the playoff to 12 or 16 schools will also expand the teams that can benefit from this feedback loop. The talent that is currently concentrated in the top 5-6 schools will be diffused to a group of 10 or 15 that will likely be playoff regulars. In this scenario, with talent more spread out than it currently is, it is much more likely that a BYU, Baylor, Cincy, or OK State level school can take advantage of HOF coach and make a deep run into the playoffs.

If you break down the colleges in the SEC into three tiers based on value, you get the following: Top Tier – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas MidTier – Auburn, Mizzou, Tennessee, Texas A&M Low Tier – Arkansas, Kentucky, Ole Miss, MSU, South Carolina, Vanderbilt In order to add value to the conference, any additions would have to be above the Mid-Tier line, or bring in new markets. Going through the ACC schools, FSU and Clemson meet the SEC mid-tier, but they don’t add new markets. UNC also meets the mid-tier line, while Virginia would be toward the low end of the mid-tier, but both bring in large new markets. None of the other ACC schools do much for the SEC as they compare unfavorably to the current mid-tier SEC schools in terms of value and market. Schools like VT and NCST are similar to OKState, TTU and Iowa State, strong football centric schools that are saddled with below median valuations. Also, while the BIG has restricted distributions to new members in order to make them financially viable, the SEC has never done this. All of the recent SEC additions were admitted as full members. The addition of Arkansas and South Carolina allowed for the creation of the new conference championship which paid their way in. Texas A&M and Missouri were mid-Tier schools that brought new markets and were financially additive to the conference, and Texas and Oklahoma both are top tier schools with new markets. Given these factors, if the SEC misses on UNC/UVA once the ACC Gore expires, I don’t think they will expand.

The only schools in the ACC that the SEC would take are UNC and Virginia, with FSU and Clemson borderline. The BIG would add GT and maybe Miami to those four schools largely because their financial model is different. The other schools like NC State have media values well below the existing median for the SEC and BIG, they add no additional value to either league. After the ACC GOR expires, you will have a 20 to 24 team BIG with or without Notre Dame, a 16 to 20 team SEC, and a 24+/- team Big 12 combined with the best PAC/ACC remnants. There will be an open playoff with the Big 12+ getting multiple teams in every year, but their media revenue will be a fraction of the BIG/SEC.

ASU is not AAU, Arizona is. Remember that these are college presidents making the decision, not football fans. If they would not take Oklahoma over AAU status and lose their chance at Texas because of that, why would they even consider ASU? At least Oklahoma pays the sports bills, ASU does not.

The end game for the BIG, which is 10 years out, is to absorb three or four PAC schools, three or four ACC schools, and ND. This will give them 24 to 25 schools that will include the best football brands outside the SEC. It won't be a conference, but more of a league to maximize the value of television rights. This is the model that will bring the highest return to their existing members. Since ND seems to want to stay independent for the next cycle, taking several PAC teams would make sense. At this point, there are couple of things going on: None of the remaining PAC members merit a full share of revenue from the new BIG contract. The PAC schools are trying to maximize their collective media value, as well as protect it's high earners. This why you see feelers to SMU and SDSU about potential memberships, and talk of non-equal revenue sharing. The BIG is waiting to see what the remaining collective media value of the PAC schools is, and how much each is worth individually. Once there is some consensus as to their media value, the BIG will know how much of a discount to revenue each PAC member would need to make their admission to the conference financially feasible. The only schools the BIG would be looking at would be the remaining AAU schools in the PAC. This would include Arizona, Cal, Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, Utah and Washington. If I were the President of a BIG school, I would see which schools would be most willing to accept discounted financial distributions based on market value over the next cycle, and add the schools that bring the most academic and athletic prestige to the league.

Stanford has won their conference three times in the past decade. That is pretty good for a perennial middling and lower ranked program.

Here is an article that described one of the podless schedules that has been proposed. SEC Podless Schedule The problems with this proposal are that the quality of the permanent opponents will always be uneven.

There was some scuttlebutt on a Stanford message board that the school had approached the BIG and offered to take a reduced payout tied to their market value. One can assume that UW, OU and Cal have done the same thing.

I was in Palo Alto recently. Texas and Florida are definitely considered part of the great satan.

That is what makes the current situation an interesting application of game theory. If you are Arizona or any of the other "quarters" schools, you know that Stanford/Cal/OU/UW will bolt to the BIG at the first opportunity. You also know that you have a spot in the Big 12 right now. However, if the BIG only takes two or three of the remaining Pac 12, that leaves another school or two in a bigger media market available for the Big 12. If you are the Big 12, and you are taking four, who is left out among the following after BIG takes their top two or three choices? Arizona / ASU / Cal / Colorado / Oregon / Stanford / Utah / Washington I have to think that Arizona is the least attractive school on that list, and the most likely to be left out, and the most likely to take the safety option. They just need one more school to jump with.

The only way to get rid of the BIG dead weight is to blow up the conference and start over. That will never happen. What many people forget is that the schools see themselves as universities first, and football programs second. The SEC will not expand until the ACC GOR is up. When they do, the only two schools they will definitely target are UNC and UVA. Clemson and FSU would be borderline, but none of the other ACC schools would hold any interest for the SEC.

The following link is to study that attempts to measure fan support. Y’all should like it since Texas does very well. Altimore Collins Fanbase Survey Here is what I think the BIG’s immediate plan is. Step 1 – Take USC and UCLA as they are the only two school combination that meets the minimum valuation requirements for BIG. Step 2 – Tell Stanford/Cal/UW/UO that they will be under consideration for BIG membership, but will have to take a haircut on distributions since they don’t pull their own weight. Step 3 – Tell the other PAC schools they are not under consideration for BIG membership, and never will be. Step 4 – Say you are “waiting on Godot/Notre Dame” while you sit back and let the four remaining target schools go through the motions of figuring out how much they are worth on the open market without USC/UCLA. We are at this stage right now, with talk of uneven distributions within the PAC or PACC mergers to bolster some more TV money. Step 5 - Cross your fingers that the Big 12 tries to raid the PAC, and one or more of the four corner schools breaks and further destabilizes the conference. Step 6 – Once Stanford/Cal/UW/UO figure out how much they are worth on the open market, come in with the BIG offer that is slightly higher than that. There is plenty of time to wait them out because they don’t have any good choices. Step 7 – Profit. The end game is that Stanford/Cal/UW/UO will be in the BIG in a few years. They only thing that will derail this is if the state governments come and try to tie UW with WSU and OU with OSE, but I don’t think they will.