Trojan Man

USC beats better schools than Oregon for recruits. The #1 TE in the 2023 class chose USC over Georgia. USC also beat Notre Dame, Ohio State and Texas for other top recruits in the 2023 class. USC's highest rated 2024 commitment is from Georgia and he was favored to commit to Tennessee, plus USC beat Oregon for a couple commitments from top 100 recruits in this class. Anyways, Texas fans have a list of personal animosity reasons why they wouldn't want the SEC to invite certain Big 12 schools. Same deal with USC and certain Pac 12 schools. You all want a clean break from the nutswingers that have done nothing but hate you and blame you for every problem they encounter while simultaneously living off what you brought to their conference, so you should understand why USC isn't eager to let their nutswingers tag along to the B1G. Maybe we'd be more open to continuing those relationships if we didn't have decades of experience showing us all the benefits flow away from us and towards them.

It's guys like Saban and Bryan Kelly and Senator Tuberville who are trying to put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to the portal and NIL, not Riley. Old guys stuck in their ways and not wanting to adapt and complaining how difficult change is making their job that pays them more in one year than most people will earn in a lifetime. Same as it ever was in any field undergoing seismic shifts. There is also a self-serving aspect to it. The coaches at Alabama and LSU do not want a landscape where they have to engage in bidding wars with USC and Texas and other schools/cities with far deeper pockets than theirs. This isn't baseless speculation. Saban has mentioned USC and Texas by name in his complaints about NIL. If Sanders wins big I guarantee that crowd will use him and Colorado as an example of why Congressional regulation of NIL and the portal is necessary. I'm pulling for him for that reason because one way or another it will bring clarity to a murky area.

Hey now, it's just one thread.

Their fans don't really care about Stanford, but Notre Dame likes playing Stanford because it lets them end each season with a game in California. It's a nice vacation from the shitty weather at home and since they never have a CCG the next week to start planning for some of their coaches can hang around for an extra day or two recruiting. They also have plenty of fans/alumni in California so this series guarantees a yearly game in front of that audience. Also every university president gets hot and bothered thinking about rubbing shoulders with Stanford. Lastly, Notre Dame doesn't like being thought of as a small town Midwestern school in the heart of B1G country. They like having a national image and a national schedule. Playing Stanford every year helps with that and it's also one reason why they cut a deal with the ACC. Basketball schools are untouchable because March Madness is how the NCAA makes most of its money. UNC basketball getting a postseason ban takes money out of the NCAA's pocket so the NCAA is incentivized to look the other way, like they also did when it came out Duke paid Zion Williamson and Kansas had Adidas funneling 5* recruits their way. Basketball schools get away with even more shit than SEC football. USC football receiving a postseason ban doesn't really matter to the NCAA because FBS postseason money goes to the schools, not the NCAA.

There will be a lot of pissed off, dinosaur coaches and ADs screaming for portal restrictions if Colorado does well this year. Or rather, a lot more since they're already crying to Congress to do their job for them.

I'll step off my soapbox and leave a link https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/31889336/former-usc-trojans-assistant-todd-mcnair-ncaa-settle-defamation-lawsuit If the networks say adding Oregon gets everyone a substantial raise then sure, it will happen. And as I said before I know that day is likely coming and I'd be happy just to keep them out for a decade. But if they aren't making everyone richer, like if the networks say "We'll provide 1 new share for Oregon and Washington to split 50/50 while the rest of your payouts stay the same" then I do think USC and UCLA would be able to affect that outcome. If you poached the two best employees from another company and they gave you a bad reference for a former longtime coworker that is now applying at your company wouldn't that play a part in your decision making? Nebraska and everyone else in the West benefited from divisions because all the good teams were in the East. Life is about to get a lot harder for West schools in 2024 (and a little easier for the East's have nots).

That was a big time coaching fuck up. I was at the game and I immediately freaked out about Bush not being on the field as soon as I saw it. The play call could have been exactly the same (handoff up the middle to Lendale White) but if they just lined up Bush out wide, or motioned him from the backfield to the slot, he would have taken two defenders with him. Maybe that opens up enough space to get the first down. I'll agree it was a fair penalty when a similar football program gets hit with 30 lost scholarships and a 2 year bowl ban for 1 ineligible player.

The NCAA isn't a court of law. And like I said, when this matter was taken to a court of law they lost and ended up owing a settlement to the coach they said "should have known." If the NCAA wants to act like a court of law they should bring in other legal standards, like precedent. Then they couldn't play favorites where they hammer Pac 12 and Big 12 schools that should have known everything going on while conveniently forgetting about that precedent when Cam Newton's eligibility is under investigation.

I was asked what I thought and I elaborated. It's relevant to this thread because Oregon played a part in the sanctions, Oregon is angling for a B1G invitation and USC has a say on whether or not Oregon gets in. Therefore, USC's grievances with Oregon are likely affecting realignment. People act like Pete Carroll gave Bush a mansion in Beverly Hills and a Ferrari to get him to sign with USC. Bush's parents had a few rent-free months of housing hours away from campus and Bush received a used car (it was a Jeep Cherokee or something similar, not a real fancy car). All benefits were from a felon with zero affiliation to USC and whose primary motivation was to get him to leave USC for the NFL. It's a goddamn joke USC was hammered for that while other schools, mainly SEC schools, get a slap on the wrist for far worse. Just like it's a goddamn joke people are still clutching their pearls over what would nowadays be a mediocre NIL deal. Players who couldn't hold Bush's jockstrap are now getting more money and nicer cars than he did.

I think a few things. -"Should have known" is a ridiculous justification to nuke a football program. The NCAA decided to use that justification by wholeheartedly trusting the word of a spurned felon wannabe agent who provided Bush's family with illegal benefits to get him to leave for the NFL (Bush signed with a real agent once he left for the draft, which pissed off the felon so he squealed). The NCAA has not used "should have known" in any investigations since then. Keep in mind this is the same organization that somehow couldn't connect Cam Newton to his own father who was selling him to the highest bidder during his recruitment, yet they believed USC's coaches in LA should know what a player's parents are doing at all times hours away in San Diego. -To make it even better, the pompous dickhead leading the investigation who coined "should have known" and "high profile athletes need high profile compliance" while wagging his finger at USC was the AD at Miami while booster Nevin Shapiro was gifting their football players hookers and abortions and cocaine. To my shock neither of those zingers were anywhere to be found in that investigation. If there was any fairness in the NCAA somebody from USC would have been part of Miami's investigation. -After 5 years of investigating and grinding their ax the only dirt the NCAA found on any of USC's coaches was the RB coach, and it was weak. He ended up winning a lawsuit and a settlement vs the NCAA because of the way they railroaded him and effectively ended his college coaching opportunities. -To bring it back to the topic of this thread, fuck Oregon for voting for sanctions to prop themselves up. I can think of no better way to get even than cockblocking them out of the B1G. And fuck all the Pac 12 fans that blame USC's subpar 2010s decade for hurting the value/reputation of the Pac 12, as if the sanctions they loved so much and the parity at all costs they pushed for weren't primarily responsible for that. USC is a juggernaut and Pac 10 fans whine about USC being too good then applaud the NCAA's sanctions, USC struggles and Pac 12 fans whine that USC isn't performing well enough to carry the conference. When dealing with people who only put you in lose-lose situations the winning move is to walk away, which is exactly what happened. I don't think B1G teams and coaches and fans will act like little bitches if USC goes undefeated and waxes Oklahoma's ass in the title game like Pac 10 fans did.

You'd think, but here's the catch. Cal owes a shit ton of money on their stadium. 10 years ago they took on almost half a billion in debt to renovate their stadium and build a new athletic training center. If you're wondering why it's so expensive the stadium is built on a fault line and it's designated as a historic site, so those plus being in a pricey ZIP code of a pricey state jacked up the price. They are only paying interest until 2032, and their interest-only payments are already 20% of their athletic budget. They are scheduled to make payments on the principal from 2032 through the rest of the century, and payments will jack up once they start paying down the principal. They need to play football in a major conference to get the revenue necessary to pay this debt off. Without that the options to pay their debt are praying a wealthy alumni will help them out (unlikely, but maybe Aaron Rodgers wants a stadium named after him), stealing some of UCLA's B1G jackpot or begging the state for a bailout. Anyways, this is yet another example of why USC and UCLA had to leave the Pac 12. Members of this conference were making century-long financial commitments on the assumption they would always have the LA schools to subsidize them, yet they refused to ever give the LA schools anything in return. And you can see why. Unequal revenue sharing to pay USC and UCLA what they are worth isn't feasible if you already penciled in that revenue for the next century to pay off your stadium debt. Here's a link if anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1680579-cals-stadium-renovation-debt-shows-schools-need-to-keep-football-in-perspective With Oregon it's not just that, it's also personal. They directly contributed to fucking over USC with sanctions. They had an athletic department employee on the investigation committee and that employee voted for 30 lost scholarships and a two year bowl ban on the basis of "USC should have known what Reggie Bush's parents were up to in San Diego." They stabbed USC in the back so they could dance atop our corpse. Why should USC want to bring that kind of bullshit to their new home? The rest of the Pac 10 cheered on the sanctions because they hated Pete Carroll making them all play for second place for most of the 2000s, which is another reason you don't see too many tears from USC fans about leaving the Pac 12. Fuck Oregon, even if they recruited like Arizona State I still never want to bring them to the B1G for that reason. For the 10 years of fun they had at USC's expense they can enjoy a lifetime in purgatory. There are some other personal reasons for USC and UCLA to not want Oregon in the B1G, but for USC that's the main reason. That said, I understand Oregon probably will get into the B1G at some point. If they are on the outside looking in for at least a decade or so I'd be satisfied. That's enough time to remind them they are not and never were USC's equal, plus after that many years all high school recruits will remember is that USC has played in a top conference their whole life while Oregon has not. A decade of B1G paydays vs the decade of Pac Whatever or Big 12 paydays Oregon will get is also nice.

They should view it as good. The Big 12 needs to be more attractive to blue chip recruits and Sanders definitely helps with that. From a competitive standpoint I don't think they'd sweat it. They're used to playing Texas and Oklahoma yearly and those two run laps around the rest of the Big 12 in terms of roster talent. And if Sanders does turn Colorado into a powerhouse he'll be in the SEC or at Florida State soon after.

The legal exposure line never made sense to me. USC and UCLA fulfilled their contractual obligations to the Pac 12 before leaving for the B1G. They announced their intention to leave by the deadline established in the contract and they are Pac 12 members until the date specified in the contract. After that they are free to leave and the Pac 12 can't do anything about it. If other schools leaving a conference follow the same by the book process what grounds are there for their old conference to sue anyone? What is there to litigate had the B1G pursued more Pac 12 teams before the Big 12 knocked over the Colorado domino? No conference owns its members in perpetuity. They own their rights for the duration of the contract, and that's it. When contracts expire schools are free to look around and explore their options. This is like saying the Yankees can't sign too many free agents at once from the Mariners and they have to wait for the Rangers to pick up a couple Mariners free agents or else the Mariners will sue them. As long as all contracts are respected (or renegotiated to the agreement of all parties) there is nothing to settle in court.

I know a lot of single women in their late 30s who feel the same way.

During two a days in high school we always did bull in the ring and Oklahomas. We did the "start on your feet" 2v2 or 3v3 Oklahomas as well as the "start on your back" 1v1 version. Our coaches usually matched up guys of similar size/speed/age. That way we wouldn't have the all conference senior defensive tackle murdering the sophomore receiver who is still learning how to put on his pads. I'm in my 30s so this isn't ancient history, but I'm pretty sure I am one of the last to regularly do those drills during all 4 years in high school. I distinctly remember one time where I got concussed during bull in the ring at the beginning of practice and I was still a full participant for the remainder of practice. Anyways, I liked these drills. They helped to weed out the baseball players and the basketball players and the track & field guys from the football players.