Trojan Man

The era argument goes both ways. Yeah, it's easier to play offense today than it was 30+ years ago. That also means it's easier for opposing teams to rack up more points on your defense, putting more pressure on your QB and your offense to keep pace. The Chiefs don't win yesterday if their offense doesn't score on every second half possession they had. How many Super Bowls did Troy Aikman or Joe Montana have to score every single time they touched the ball in the second half to win it?

Larry Scott was terrible, but he wasn't an unavoidable act of God. He was hired because Pac 12 presidents bought what he was selling and he kept his job for as long as he did because the same presidents loved him. It's not a coincidence the conferences that prioritize competitive football and making money have good commissioners while the conference that prioritizes academic circle jerking and winning championships in sports nobody cares about has shitty commissioners. Larry Scott was a reflection of misplaced priorities among Pac 12 leadership. He had very high approval ratings with Pac 12 presidents while he was destroying the conference. Even if Scott landed Texas, Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State I don't know if that would have saved the Pac 12. They would have served as a nice counterbalance to the ivory tower attitudes plaguing the Pac 12, but giving more money to the people who killed this conference would have just encouraged them. USC, Texas and Oklahoma might still have developed wandering eyes for the conferences that take football seriously as opposed to the Pac 12, where they act like football success and non-revenue success are equally important. At least now an existential crisis is forcing some of the poor leadership around the Pac 12 that was happy to just ride the gravy train to reconsider their beliefs. For example Colorado wouldn't have hired Prime Time if they were in a stable conference. I usually like him but yes, he has a massive blind spot when discussing Pac 12 issues.

I highly recommend subbing to The Athletic, especially if there are multiple sports and teams you follow. Lots of deep content and most of their writers regularly engage with readers.

I think it's possible Houston could reach the same heights I described for those other programs, it's just not as likely. They have fewer fans and more competition in their own backyard than the others so it's a steeper climb, but it wasn't that long ago Herman was keeping home more Houston talent and knocking off Oklahoma and Florida State and Lamar Jackson. There were also other factors I didn't go into because I was getting too essay-ish, mainly location. For the Big 12 there was more value in expanding into Ohio and Florida than there was adding another Texas team. Both of those help bolster recruiting for the rest of the conference more than Houston does and they position the Big 12 to pick off ACC schools some day, which would cement their place as the "best of the rest" third place conference. It's vital the Pac 12 keeps a Southern California presence so that's a bump to SDSU's grade.

Out of the 4 new Big 12 schools plus SDSU BYU is a clear #1, Cincinnati/UCF/SDSU are all roughly even and Houston is last. Those three in the middle all have TCU/Utah-level potential with the right coach and a little success. The expanded playoff format will also help them to build upon any success. Who knows how it might have changed TCU's fortunes if the 12 team format existed back in 2014? I think the post-realignment Big 12 will snag an at large bid most years and might even land a second at large bid every so often. I expect Cincy to have a healthy uptick in recruiting now in the Big 12. It's dumb a state as big as Ohio only had one P5 team. It can easily support more than that. Cincy should be able to get a good amount of the second tier instate recruits that Ohio State passes on but who still want to stay in Ohio while playing in a respectable conference. Currently those guys go to schools like Kentucky, Louisville and B1G programs in neighboring states. UCF has the most potential out of this group. They have a massive amount of students and alumni, they're committed to football plus the big 3 Florida schools have all been wallowing in their own feces for awhile now so there is a local power vacuum. A good run in the Big 12 could turn them into a power. SDSU is committed to football (they just built a new stadium) and they have no other football competition in their market. They won't beat USC or UCLA or Oregon or B1G/SEC powers for the top Southern California recruits but if they win they should do well with the next batch of local recruits that programs like Utah and Washington and the Arizona schools live off. Of course these are predictions based on potential and not guaranteed to happen, but I think they are realistic outcomes with the right head coach in place and a supportive administration behind him.

I think it's a bit different for Texas because they'll be in the SEC with Oklahoma and A&M and Arkansas, but I expect the amount of hatred USC will get in the B1G to pale in comparison to how much Pac 12 schools hate USC. Geographic proximity plays a big part in hate and besides UCLA there will be 1500 miles separating USC from the next closest B1G school. Ohio State and Michigan are the teams the rest of the B1G fanbases are taught to hate starting as children so they soak up most of that inferiority complex, measuring stick bullshit. This is an underrated reason for joining the B1G. Every Pac 12 team circles their game against USC the day the schedules are released. The Buckeyes and Wolverines are the B1G teams who have to deal with every opponent turning them into their Super Bowl and unveiling a new uniform just for that game and doing a blackout in the stands and honoring some dead player or coach during a commercial break. I'm optimistic that means fewer conference games for USC where 5-8 win teams come out with their hair on fire and play like the 1985 Bears, only to revert to their usual 5-8 win selves the next week and lose to Cal or some shit. Living with the wealth disparity when you are also benefiting financially and with greater exposure from being affiliated with their big football programs is one thing. Being cut out of the big football money/exposure then asked to stay together for basketball and the non-revenue sports seems like a slap in the face. I'm pretty sure the rest of the Pac 12 schools would tell USC to fuck off if USC asked to continue participating in the Pac 12 for all sports except football. As for the noncon games that's apples and oranges. Those are one-off situations that have no impact on an athletic department's long term budget and health, plus the cut out schools still like the money and attention that comes from playing these big football games. There also aren't any hurt feelings between West Virginia and Alabama the way there are between USC/UCLA or Texas/Oklahoma and the Pac 12/Big 12. A point I'm seeing made in this thread is the cut out schools want to have their own football conferences they can win while competing against similar athletic departments and budgets. Why should that not also apply to other sports?

Why would the smaller schools agree to an arrangement like this, where they are cut off from the financial benefits of being associated with the big time football programs yet are still expected to compete in the same conference with the rest of their very well-funded sports and bail them out for deciding geography is irrelevant? The Prestige Worldwide schools would have so much more money thanks to their football consolidation that they could vastly outspend the non-PW schools for all coaching hires and build palaces for every sport.

I don't think that's a consideration at all. If the B1G wanted more Pac 12 teams at this time they would have already invited them. They could join at the same time as USC and UCLA with no media contract/GOR holdups since the Pac 12 hasn't renewed their media deal yet. There is no reason for the B1G/Fox to procrastinate if they are interested in adding more Pac 12 teams, all that can bring is headaches. I agree with what @Texas Wahoo just said. Fox likely wants the major 2024 story to be USC/UCLA joining the B1G so they are doing what they can to postpone Texas/Oklahoma to the SEC for another year. The B1G is officially done with ESPN/ABC starting 2023. All their games will be on Fox, NBC, CBS or BTN now. In 2023 CBS will broadcast part B1G part SEC, starting 2024 it's all B1G.

I think the Big 12 landing Oregon would be a major win. Oregon isn't going head to head with Texas Tech and West Virginia and Oklahoma State for recruits. Nobody remaining in the Big 12 will see their recruiting suffer if Oregon joins. Texas and Oklahoma both outclass the rest of the Big 12 in NIL and recruiting yet it's TCU that just played in the title game and Kansas State that just won the conference, so success against richer and more talented programs isn't impossible for Big 12 schools. Oregon is the closest thing to a nationally relevant flagship school the Big 12 could hope to add, plus getting them likely bags Washington too. There are a couple drawbacks to adding Oregon, though. The first is they will still be openly pining for a B1G invitation (Washington as well) and I could understand if the Big 12 schools decided they were done dealing with that drama in their daily lives. The next is state politicians trying to tack on Oregon State or Washington State to any Oregon/Washington realignment. Those are both MWC schools masquerading as P5 schools. They cancel out any value Oregon/Washington would bring and that should kill the possibility of any Pacific Northwest expansion. The B1G problem might resolve itself if the next commissioner is strongly against further expansion but the little brother problem will be trickier.

I don't think it's written in stone Oklahoma will fall off, but it's not a crazy one in a million kind of outcome either. Like I said, it's possible Venables ends up being a good coach who just had a rough first year. Kirby Smart went 8-5 in year 1 at Georgia, including losses to Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech and a blowout loss to Ole Miss. If the wheels don't fall off the schooner again in 2023 Venables should be able to land another strong class. Stacking up top 5-10 classes is 80% of the job. It's also possible he's the next coming of Will Muschamp, which means OU would have to nail the next hire because chaining together multiple bad hires is how you get lost in the wilderness. Being forced into another coaching change in their last Big 12 year or their first SEC year will make transitioning conferences that much harder for them. Oklahoma has a better recruiting situation than Nebraska. They will also be in a conference where half the teams in it reasonably expect to recruit at a top 10 level every year, which nullifies that recruiting advantage. Being a football-crazy SEC school with good recruiting isn't a license to success. Florida is a dedicated SEC school that doesn't have to survive on out of state recruiting. They haven't made the playoff yet, they haven't won their conference in 15 years and the one year they were in the CFP conversation late in the season was the joke 2020 season. Oklahoma's better recruiting might give them a floor of 7-8 wins instead of Nebraska's floor of 3-4 wins, but you need a top 10 coach to consistently surpass that level in the SEC.

There's a real chance Oklahoma falls off into Nebraska territory in the SEC. They're going from a conference where they totally outclass 8/9 league foes in terms of revenue and recruiting potential to a conference where they will be middle of the pack in those metrics. Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Florida and LSU all surpass OU in these categories and you can make arguments for A&M and Tennessee. I think it's too early to write off Venables but he has to win at least 9 games next season and not get his ass handed to him in any losses to keep recruiting from falling off. There is a lag in recruiting results when a program goes from shitty to good or good to shitty, which helped Venables sign a very good 2023 class because OU still had a great reputation with recruits. A successful program can survive one bad season in year 1 of a new coach's era. But string together a few 6-7 win seasons and the apple loses its shine. Once that happens you're just killing time until the coach is fired because there is no recovery after recruiting declines. If Venables gets fired his replacement will have a steeper hill to climb because he'll be inheriting a struggling program instead of a program recruits know as one that dominates their conference and racks up Heismans. Oklahoma is praised for their dedication to football but how much of that was just being blessed with coaching stability and not having to take a ride on the coaching carousel in a year beginning with 2 until last year? Nothing about OU makes them immune to wandering the wilderness. It can happen to anyone and coaching hires are a crapshoot for everyone. Tennessee is pretty fucking dedicated to football too and they spent most of the last 20 years being a dumpster fire joke of a program, largely because they didn't have OU's luck with coaching hires and stability. You don't need much imagination to see OU falling into the same pit Tennessee is finally emerging from.

Agreed. Potential endorsement dollars for Tuscaloosa and Knoxville don't hold a candle to what LA and Austin can offer. Bryce Young wasn't getting NASCAR honorary starter deals in his own stadium like Caleb Williams is in a couple weeks. But I think that's a bigger boost for skill player recruiting than linemen recruiting. The glamour position guys who excel at schools in big markets will have lots of deals and money thrown at them. It will be harder for linemen to get noticed and collectives need to fill in that gap, even for the big market schools.

This way is better. No more NCAA Wheel of Justice nonsense where certain schools and conferences can cheat their ass off and never get more than a slap on the wrist while others have to follow the rules lest the NCAA steamroll their program. Yes, I am still angry the same organization that determined USC should have known what Reggie Bush's parents were up to hours away from campus in San Diego could somehow never link Cam Newton to his own father and then followed that up with a half game suspension vs Rice after Johnny Football sold autographs. The first few years of NIL will be bumpy and there will be more horror stories like what happened with Rashada, but I think the market will eventually correct itself as time goes on. No administration or coaching staff wants to be in the embarrassing position Florida is in right now, they'll get the collectives under control. Questionable NCAA enforcement aside, it was also dumb that college athletes were the only subset of law-abiding Americans who were not allowed to participate in the almighty free market our society is centered around. The only truly regrettable course of action was the NCAA fighting tooth and nail against players getting paid every step of the way until the SCOTUS bitch slapped them with a 9-0 decision. If the NCAA took a more forward thinking position on this issue and acknowledged the sand was shifting underneath them instead of digging in for a losing fight they could have worked together with the schools and players to institute some guard rails and regulation alongside NIL. But it's too late to do that now because any attempts at putting this genie back in the bottle will end with another judicial bitch slap and the NCAA knows it, so nothing short of collective bargaining will end this Wild West era.

I didn't think what I said about the relationship between Texas and the Big 12 was that controversial. Anyways, while we're talking about conferences taking way too fucking long to publish their 2023 schedules the Pac 12 is finally releasing theirs today. With adding 4 new teams and uncertainty over how long Texas and Oklahoma will remain I can understand the Big 12's delay but the Pac 12 screwing around with the schedule for this long doesn't have any such excuses. 2023 opponents and locations have been known for years but for some reason the Pac 12 needed extra time to get the dates down. Usually they announce the next year's schedule during CCG week. According to some rumors it sounds like the conference is positioning itself for a huge finish to the season with nearly all the games between every Pac 12 team expected to contend for the league title in 2023 scheduled for November. USC is supposedly getting Washington/at Oregon/UCLA to finish the season which I'm not too thrilled about, but as long as those teams also have to play real competition the week before they play USC instead of Colorado or ASU or St. Mary's Blind Pregnant Teenagers of the Poor I won't complain.

Yeah, Georgia's schedule this year is a bit of a joke and it's why I won't include them in GOAT team conversations if they win tonight. They didn't play anyone worth a damn on the road (@South Carolina before they put it together, @Missouri, @Mississippi State, @Kentucky) and to top it off they looked like shit in two of those games. They played their biggest game of the year at home (Tennessee) and their next 3 biggest games at "neutral" Atlanta. I don't think they would still be undefeated if they had to play a couple ranked teams in hostile environments. Beating good teams on the road is very hard in college football, just ask Alabama. 2022 Georgia never had to do it and they struggled twice against mediocre teams on the road.

I think there is a happy middle ground you can find between the haves and the have nots. I personally believe it would be tragic for the sport if the biggest schools all broke away to make their own league and exclusively play each other. I've described why earlier in this thread but the chiefs need the indians as much as the indians need the chiefs. 6 autobids in the expanded playoff is a big step in keeping the sport together instead of coalescing around a handful of powerhouses. The Big 12 and Pac 12 just couldn't find that balance to make coexistence possible because both conferences have too many nutswinger schools, which means they're the ones dictating policy and setting the tone and deciding the conference's direction. Even before realignment too much of each conference based their decisions and their entire season on giving the middle finger to Texas/USC, which caused a lot of bitterness and hatred on each side. But look at the B1G and SEC. Their bluebloods and their middle of the road schools and their bottom feeders all work together pretty harmoniously without the constant drama and bullshit you see between the Big 12/Pac 12 and Texas/USC. They all row their boat in the same direction while the Big 12 and Pac 12 have sizable "Fuck Texas/Fuck USC" factions that would happily do whatever they can to kneecap their big bad wolves.

Right, I don't get how anyone came away from that game thinking TCU barely pulled it off. Anyone wants to talk about getting lucky in the semifinals, lets talk about Ohio State's kicker horribly shanking the gamewinning FG. TCU looked like the better, faster, stronger team from start to finish and Michigan is fortunate they weren't blown out. Anyways, if both teams bring their A game tonight Georgia wins but if Georgia brings their B game to TCU's A game TCU can win.

During the most recent portal cycle I didn't see any of these "bluebloods raiding midlevel P5 rosters of their superstars" Chicken Little outcomes. It's looking more and more like the portal will just be another way for talent to efficiently disperse and portal management will be a new skill coaches have to learn. It will filter out some dinosaur coaches who don't want to adjust (Dabo comes to mind) but most of them will learn and adapt. I also think the portal will force coaches to be a little more honest when recruiting high schoolers. If you sell a bunch of bullshit to a recruit now it's a lot easier for him to leave your program than it was 10+ years ago once he realizes coaches will say anything to get your commitment. At the P5 level I think the portal will be a net positive for everyone as long as you don't have one of those dinosaur coaches. You could even argue KSU-type teams will benefit the most from it. You need to have a keen eye for talent to win at that kind of program. If you can identify undervalued high school recruits the bigger schools passed on you can do the same with transfers, effectively doubling your recruiting base. At the G5 level I think it's more of a wash. It really hurts when they lose an overlooked recruit they developed into a star player to a P5 program but for every one guy like that G5 programs will get 10 P5 transfers who would have never considered a G5 school when they were coming out of high school. Hell with the Pac 12. This conference never did a fucking thing to help the LA schools and took it for granted they could live off LA in perpetuity. The rest of the Pac 12 constantly used their numbers to vote for policies that would help them at the expense of the LA schools and ignored every concern the LA schools had. All USC/UCLA ever got in return for giving the rest of the conference a massive amount of relevance and attention and money and recruits was hatred and bitterness and egalitarian nonsense that treated Corvallis and Tucson and Pullman like they were just as important to the Pac 12 as LA. Good to see the B1G's next media deal and the Pac's current media negotiations are showing them how fucking stupid it was to act like the nutswinger schools were as valuable as the LA schools. It wouldn't bother me at all if USC never played another Pac 12 school in any sport after 2023-24. I'll miss Washington, they're the closest thing USC has to a peer in the Pac 12. Besides the financial realities and hurt feelings on both sides that's another huge problem with Pac 12 membership from USC's perspective. USC is the only football blueblood in the Pac 12, which is not a good position to be in. You need some other powerhouses to help out with revenue generation and conference prestige/respect and to make sure the nutswingers don't hijack the conference. Support from other big time football programs is something USC will finally have in the B1G with Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State.

Anyone who wants a trip somewhere warm and diverse isn't going to Boulder or Salt Lake City. I don't mind the cold. I left California a long time ago. I live in a part of the country that's about to get fucked up by snow and ice and negative temperatures. I want to go to Minnesota because they have a cool stadium, it seems like a fun city where I can find things to do and I'm a big baseball and hockey fan so if I can also fit in a Twins game or a Wild game I'd be happy. As for Iowa that might be a one and done I mentioned in my last post, but it seems like an electric atmosphere plus the contrast in style with how Iowa plays and how USC plays will be a lot of fun. Columbus doesn't seem like a great destination but they have a NHL team and blueblood vs blueblood will always be a good time. That's my biggest complaint with playing in the Pac 12, no other bluebloods to play against or to help fund the conference or keep the conference from favoring the freeloaders too much. Another reason I'm more excited for these new B1G locales than the old Pac 12 destinations is because in the B1G USC will actually be valued and appreciated by conference mates for the first time ever. The rest of the Pac 12 has always fucking hated USC's guts and the decision to leave poured fuel on that fire. I'm looking forward to ending these unhealthy relationships. I wish the stars had aligned in a way to bring Texas and USC into the same conference. The two have a lot in common, both the good and the bad. Those two plus Oklahoma are the only bluebloods west of the Mississippi and it's unfortunate they couldn't all run their own western conference together as opposed to joining eastern conferences where they'll always be outsiders.

Familiarity plays a part. If I never go to Phoenix again in my life I won't mind. The place is a soulless furnace that shouldn't exist and the games are either in the scorching sun or the middle of the night. Also a lot of these trips get scheduled for Thursday or Friday night games and those are a lot harder to attend, plus weeknight games usually have smaller crowds. It feels like half the time USC plays at Colorado or Cal it's a weekday. Outside of week 1 and Black Friday the B1G doesn't really do that bush league shit. I have enough reasons besides Cal/Stanford road games to go to the Bay Area so no loss there. Likewise, novelty also plays a part. I'm sure some of those B1G places I'm excited to visit will be one and done after I experience them firsthand. I probably weight gameday experience higher than most others. Most Pac 12 stadiums have a meh gameday environment. Some of them like Oregon State and Washington State are in 30K stadiums (plus Corvallis and Pullman are also in the middle of nowhere and not fun to visit). Fucking ridiculous for a blueblood to regularly visit rinky dink, far flung stadiums like that. I think every B1G stadium except Northwestern is at least 50K capacity and they have Chicago going for them to offset that, plus they're about to build a new state of the art stadium. Boulder is cool and all but the games themselves suck because other than one fluke year Colorado has been dogshit their entire time in the Pac 12. If they were winning 7-9 games most years instead of 0-3 games playing them would be a lot more attractive. Oregon has a good gameday atmosphere but Eugene itself is nothing special.

The point is every conference has shitty destinations you won't like, at least until we get to the endgame of the biggest 16-32 schools breaking away from the rest of the sport and forming their own league. But I'm happy to trade the Pac 12's undesirable locations for the B1G's undesirable locations because the B1G has more peer programs and more places I want to go than the Pac 12 does, and it seems like a similar situation for Texas fans comparing Big 12 visits to SEC visits. Washington is the only Pac 12 destination I'll miss whereas I'm very excited to go to games at Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. That more than offsets the clunkers at Rutgers and Maryland and Indiana and Purdue (Notre Dame is enough Indiana for me). Trading the one place I like in the Pac 12, which USC only visited once every four years anyways, for 9 places I want to see USC play is a huge upgrade. Even then, I'll like the shitty visits in the B1G more than the Pac 12. Indiana won't circle their visit from USC on the day the schedules come out and spend the entire offseason planning for that game and treat it like their Super Bowl the way Oregon State and Washington State and Arizona and the rest of the Pac 12 does. Ohio State and Michigan and Penn State get the brunt of that boogeyman bullshit in the B1G, which will be a nice change.

I think the smaller programs will still be able to take care of their stars most of the time. This exact situation could have happened with Deuce Vaughn but it didn't. Maybe the presence of Bijan Robinson meant transferring to Texas was never on the table for Vaughn but still there are other bigger, richer programs than Kansas State where he would have been the unquestioned #1 RB yet he's spending his entire college career at KSU. KSU/Manhattan will never match Texas/Austin dollar for dollar but they also aren't an apathetic, bankrupt fanbase with a crumbling local economy that can't afford any sponsorships or NIL deals. The KSUs of the world won't outbid bigger programs for 5* recruits but they can offer enough to hang on to their diamonds in the rough after they're already in the program. So far almost all portal movement seems to be one of the following categories: -Player who balled out at FCS moving up to FBS -Player who balled out at G5 moving up to P5 -Player who never saw the field at P5 dropping to G5, or blueblood to middle of the road P5 -Lateral moves because a player is unhappy about a coaching change or how he's used in the scheme or the general direction of the program Off the top of my head I can only think of two moves similar to what you brought up where a star player left a smaller P5 program for a blueblood: RB Jahmyr Gibbs from Georgia Tech to Alabama and WR Jordan Addison from Pitt to USC. You could make a plausible case both had reasons beyond NIL for the change. Gibbs had to know his head coach was on the hot seat going into 2022 and didn't want to deal with that shit his last year in college. It was the right call as GT did fire their coach during the season. Addison went through spring practice catching dying ducks from Kedon Slovis after winning a Biletnikoff playing with a future first round QB and decided he'd have more fun finishing his college career in Riley's offense catching dimes from Caleb Williams. If GT had a more stable coaching situation and if Pickett had another year at Pitt those two guys probably don't leave.

Hard disagree. Usually at least one of the academies is doing well at any given time. Since they largely recruit from the same pool that means the success of one directly hinders the success of the other two, but they usually cycle between success. None are perpetually shit. Air Force went 9-3 this year and 10-3 last year. All 6 of their losses were by one score. Navy went 11-2 in 2019, including a win over Kansas State in their bowl game. Army has taken Michigan and Oklahoma to OT in recent memory. The academies only play 1 or 2 P5 games a year and they usually hold their own in those games. For their other 10-11 games against G5 and FCS competition they do as well as any other G5 program that puts in a little effort. It's also important to keep in mind that academy football is mainly a military recruiting tool, not a money-printing NFL millionaire factory, and playing football at the highest level helps more with military recruiting than dropping down a level. I guarantee Navy's coaches use the annual game vs Notre Dame as a recruiting pitch and that pitch goes away if Navy drops to FCS. I don't think being unable to utilize the portal and NIL is a problem for the service academies. Any recruit considering playing for an academy isn't doing it for money and their upperclassmen aren't allowed to transfer out so they don't have to worry about their guys who develop into stars transferring out. The biggest football problem facing the academies is rule changes limiting cut blocks and blindside blocks, making it harder to execute option offenses. It will be interesting to see if Navy acknowledges that and tries out a new offense or if they keep on trucking with the option.

UCF seems like they could be a sleeping giant. They have a huge enrollment, they're in a great recruiting area, Florida State might finally be improving but the big Florida schools have all been sucking shit through a straw for a long time. UCF is also about to earn more from their conference payout than the ACC schools. 5 years from now I wouldn't be surprised if UCF is earning top 4 playoff seeds while Florida and Florida State and Miami are all stuck in 7-5 purgatory.

It's absolutely about money. There can still be secondary benefits like better recruiting, but money is #1. Texas, Oklahoma and USC saw the writing on the wall and reacted accordingly. It would be unacceptable for schools like that to be getting conference payouts half the size of what Mississippi State and Illinois get while continuing to subsidize the equivalents of Mississippi State and Illinois in their current conference. I'm certain that's the motivation behind the Prime Time hire. They finally realized that having a perennially trash football program and being content to put in the minimum effort necessary to get your conference check has consequences. I hope this Hail Mary doesn't get Colorado into the B1G. They were a worthless addition to the Pac 12 and the same would be true in the B1G. Maybe if they started caring about football when they joined the Pac 12 back in 2011 things would be different because like you said Colorado checks a lot of boxes for the B1G, but one thing the B1G has more than enough of are shitty football teams. Stanford, Washington and Utah are the only Pac schools that should get any B1G consideration.