Trojan Man

"Hey networks, give us the same media deal but cut down commercial breaks by 75%" You think that will work? The schools' say in the matter is when they prioritize the size of the media deal above all else. Like I said, they could also accept less money in exchange for fewer commercial breaks but I don't see any school going for that.

It's a cop out to blame the networks and conferences for games taking too long. The schools (yours and mine and all the others) are the reason games are longer and filled with more/longer commercial breaks. The conferences are doing what the schools instructed them to do - extract maximum value from media deals - and commercial breaks are how it happens. The schools could just as easily tell ESPN/Fox "Fuck off with your dozens of commercial breaks, you get one two-minute break per quarter plus another two minute break in between quarters and as much of halftime as you want" but that would put a major dent in the value of the TV contracts. The schools want these massive TV deals and the proliferation of advertising is what makes it possible. Athletic departments have collectively decided getting more TV money is worth degrading the experience of attending a game, that wasn't forced on them by conferences or networks.

Penn State recently gave Franklin a huge extension, they're married to him for at least a few more years until the new B1G media deal starts paying out and the buyout shrinks. Also, he seems to have Penn State on the upswing. They're 5-0, their freshman RB is going to end his college career with a lot of trophies and they have a pretty favorable schedule this year. They have a bye before going to Michigan in a couple weeks and they get Ohio State at home. I could see a 2008 Big 12 South scenario playing out in the B1G East this year where their top 3 teams all go 11-1 playing rock/paper/scissors against each other.

That's true, but the way the land is drawn up means a lot of very different populations are lumped together plus all of them have less representation in the Senate. Compare the size of California to the East Coast and you'll see it's ridiculous California is as big as it is. It runs from just above the FL/GA border all the way to NYC. That's 2 Californian senators for an area that gets 18 senators on the East Coast (NY, NJ, PA, DE, VA, MD, NC, SC, GA). If you suggested turning that East Coast stretch into one state nobody would take you seriously because New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians and Virginians and Georgians are all very different and deserve their own state governments to address their unique needs and Congressional representation and electoral votes. But on the West Coast nobody bats an eye at the Valley and San Diego and Orange County and the desert and everyone north of Sacramento being forced to do whatever LA and the Bay Area want, despite the fact these are all very different places with different populations and needs just like that East Coast stretch I described. San Francisco is 300 miles from Bakersfield, which is about the same distance Baltimore is from Raleigh NC. Bakersfield has absolutely nothing in common with San Francisco yet SF gets to decide all their state laws and statewide elections for them. Baltimore and Raleigh also have nothing in common, but it doesn't matter because East Coast states don't take up half their seaboard so each area gets their own state governments that best suit their needs.

Upon further review the call on the field is overturned.

You're not wrong. California is mostly a red state once you get out of the cities. Even then not all the cities are like LA and San Francisco when it comes to politics. San Diego is pretty conservative for a city that size due to the significant military influence there and Orange County was a bastion of conservatism until very recently. It might still be, tough to say if Orange County swinging blue the last few years was a Trump thing or a changing demographics thing. I no longer live in California, but on road trips to visit family there's a hand-painted billboard out in the desert I remember seeing since I was a kid advertising the local chapter of the John Birch Society. I haven't been on that highway since 2019 but it was still up then and I'm sure it's still up now.

67-26 vs the SEC West would be a lot more impressive than it is against the B1G West. 3 SEC West titles means you knocked off Alabama and LSU a few times. 3 B1G West titles means you had an easy cross-division draw those years and you didn't stub your toe against the only other somewhat competent teams in your division (Iowa, Minnesota, maybe Northwestern or Purdue sometimes).

I remember watching this game. 39-14 and it wasn't even that close (39-0 after 3 quarters). Kansas State ran for 261 yards on 50 attempts (5.2 ypc) with a long of 34, so that isn't thrown off by one 90 yard run. Colin Klein's passing numbers: 2/4, 9 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT Garrett Gilbert's passing numbers: 32/59, 272 yards, 1 TD, 5 INT Service academies would look at Klein's stat line and think you need a bit more balance on offense than that. Gilbert threw more passes to KSU players than Klein did. I distinctly remember Texas blocked a PAT then the kicker recovered it and scored for the 2 point conversion, which is the only time I've ever seen that happen at any level of football. This game felt like a fever dream watching as a neutral third party so I can only imagine how it felt to watch as a Texas fan. https://www.espn.com/college-football/boxscore/_/gameId/303102306

Kiffin totally lost the team in 2012 and it didn't get any better in 2013. 2012 was when USC started the year ranked #1 and ended unranked, capped off with a loss to Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl that featured both on-field and off-field embarrassments. The 2013 Arizona State game gets all the attention because it's the game that got Kiffin tarmac'd, but it wasn't as bad of a loss as the Washington State loss a couple weeks before. At least ASU was a road game against a 10 win team, plus the depth problems caused by sanctions are the main reason that game got out of hand. The 10-7 home loss to a bad Coug team whose only touchdown came on a pick six was the most pathetic display of USC football I've ever seen, no small feat when you consider all the nominees for this category Clay Helton provided, and that one can't be blamed on a shallow depth chart. It felt like 2/3 of the play calls that game were bubble screens that went for -2 to 2 yards. When you're supposed to be an offensive genius and a QB guru your offense can't look that awful against a porous defense and you can't waffle between two QBs every week. It was also understood Kiffin was hired in a "making the best of a bad situation" context to guide USC through the sanctions and once those were up he'd be replaced with an elite coach...oops. Anyways, Kiffin has definitely grown and matured since then. If you told me I had to choose either Kiffin or Sark to be USC's head coach again I'd go with Kiffin in a heartbeat. If he replaced Helton I wouldn't have been upset about it. He wouldn't have been my first choice and I wouldn't have been giddy about his hire like I am with Riley, but he would still have me optimistic. He'll sign top 5 classes yearly and win big once he's at a school higher on the college football totem pole than Ole Miss. Sark's calling is OC/QB coach/recruiter because he is great at all of those things, but as a head coach he is decidedly mediocre. The good news for Texas is your cupboard will be fully stocked after you move on from Sark. He left behind a loaded roster at USC and if he was followed by a decent coach instead of a terrible coach USC would have a playoff appearance or two to show for it with the 2016-17 teams that were built by Sark.

2011 USC over Oregon, 38-35, at Autzen was a damn good win. I'd rank it 3rd for USC's post-Carroll wins, after the Penn State Rose Bowl and winning at Washington in 2016. Going into it Oregon was 9-1 and USC was 8-2. Oregon still had title game aspirations until that night. Matt Barkley, Marqise Lee and Robert Woods tore up Oregon's secondary. The defense did great until they got gassed in the 4th quarter but held on to win. If not for sanctions that would have been a CCG rematch a couple weeks later and I'm confident USC wins it again because Oregon's defense wasn't suddenly going to develop the speed and pass rush necessary to slow down USC.

Sark was a tequila man at USC.

Cal shouldn't get a penny from UCLA, and this is coming from someone who hates UCLA. They'd be a slam dunk for a Big 10 invite if they gave a shit about the only two sports that pay the bills instead of being actively hostile towards football and men's basketball. They didn't do everything they could to maximize their own success and profit (maybe the Pac 12 wouldn't be dying if they and the other schools in this category put in a little more effort) so they can fuck off if they want to grift anyone else. This saga is exactly why I don't want Cal tagging along to the Big 10. That letter really outlines why staying in the Pac 12 is unfeasible for reasons beyond media deals. Kliavkoff cited spending more on coaching salaries in the Big 10 as a reason why UCLA shouldn't go. "Hey stay here and keep employing Chip Kelly for cheap instead of spending more on a better coach." By that logic USC should have kept Clay Helton at 5M/yr over Lincoln Riley at 10M/yr. It doesn't inspire much confidence that things will get better when one of his arguments in favor of the Pac 12 is you can get by with cheaper, shittier coaches than you would be forced to hire if you want to compete in the Big 10.

Fuck that cocksucker and fuck the Pac 12.

I'm counting down all 680 days left until USC joins a legitimate conference with a respected leader and is no longer affiliated with this dumbass and his Little League conference. Actually that's an insult to Little League baseball because the LLWS is on a channel people can watch at a time the entire country is awake, unlike 3-0 USC's game this weekend at 3-0 Oregon State.

It's fucking stupid Cunningham isn't eligible. Typical Californian bureaucracy nonsense. The rules they're citing to deem him ineligible ("athletically-motivated transfers") shouldn't apply to out of state students moving into California, only students moving around inside of California. He isn't putting another California public school at a disadvantage with this transfer because he is coming from Georgia. Anyways, the moral of the story for future players in a similar situation is transfer to a private high school in California and you won't get fucked by the state government. Then if you're a 5* sign with the private school in LA and you can continue avoiding the state's bullshit.

Their AD needs to be shitcanned too, the situation between those two was borderline criminal. An agent (the AD) funneled public money to his former client (Herm) who wouldn't be hired as head coach at any other P5 school.

Guess which conference bitches all the time about their refs and thinks their conference has the worst refs in CFB? All of them.

That might actually be true, but not for the reasons Husker fans want. Fox is doing their Big Noon show for Oklahoma/Nebraska this weekend so Urban Meyer will be there. I'm sure interviewing Alberts about what went into the decision to fire Frost and what they're looking for in their next coach is part of that.

They'll get some late kicks, but for the size of the check Fox/NBC/CBS are writing it's not to broadcast a ton of 10 PM ET games between USC/UCLA and Maryland, Rutgers, Illinois that draw 1.5-2.5M viewers. It's to have primetime games with 10M+ viewers between USC and Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State. If I had to guess USC will get a couple late night kickoffs per year, the week 1 or 2 cupcake when a late kickoff would actually be nice because it's very hot in LA in early September and some random conference game against a middling opponent that not many people would watch in the middle of the day. UCLA will get an extra late night game unless they start winning and drawing better audiences. Another reason the Big 10 isn't going to fill up the home slate for USC and UCLA with late night kicks is because it would piss off the other Big 10 fanbases. I don't think they'd be too thrilled about staying up until 2 AM for their team's game to finish, especially since the Big 10 has a history of early games so they're used to getting done around 3 or 4 PM most Saturdays. In any case, I'm sure the Big 10 will handle late night kickoffs better than the Pac 12. USC's game at Oregon State in a couple weeks, which will be the last time USC ever plays at a location notorious for big upsets of highly ranked USC teams and could very well be a game between the conference's two best teams, is relegated to the fucking Pac 12 Network at 9:30 PM ET. A game that might be a CCG preview is on a network nobody has at a time most people are asleep. If Pac 12 "leadership" wants answers for why their shitty conference is dying and why I'm counting down the days until USC is done with this bush league nonsense they can start here.

Yes, that's exactly how it works. It's a topic I remember researching when Georgia Southern hired Helton, the salary he gets from them is subtracted from the buyout USC is paying him.

From a "get generational wealth" perspective Nebraska is the better job, but from an "I like winning and a fanbase that doesn't have delusional expectations" perspective Kansas State is better. KSU will be in the top third of the new Big 12 hierarchy and can realistically expect to compete for new Big 12 titles. Hell, they can expect that this year with Oklahoma and Texas still around. It will probably happen because the universe seems to get a kick out of tormenting Husker fans so naturally Adrian Martinez will lead KSU to a Big 12 title while earning all-conference honors after 4 years of not making a bowl game at Nebraska. But I don't think they'll ever run a coach out of town for "only" winning 9 games like Nebraska has. The Big 10 is abolishing divisions when it goes to 16 teams, which makes life harder for every school in the Big 10 West because they will actually need to be a top 2 team in the conference to make the CCG instead of getting lucky with their schedule and dodging all/most of the good East teams. I just can't envision a scenario where Nebraska will ever be either 1st or 2nd competing with Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Iowa and USC. I can see Kansas State being 1st or 2nd among Oklahoma State, Baylor, Cincinnati, UCF, TCU, BYU and Tech.

The good thing about the NFL coming back to LA is it drew the kind of scumbags you see in this thread back to their natural habitat. During the Carroll years this invasive species infested the Coliseum, now they're SoFi's problem. Unfortunately, this thread might get a video from this week's USC game with Fresno State coming to town. Trashiest dipshits in college football, I wish USC would stop scheduling them.

I'll call my shot now: Frost lands on his feet as OC at Iowa. The guy still knows how to run an offense. If Iowa's offense was merely average instead of an abomination that would look terrible in 1922 they'd be a top 10 team with a shot at making the CFP as the 4 seed with their defense and special teams. That's a bar Frost can clear. Most importantly, it would be funny to watch him run it up on the guy who replaces him at Nebraska. If Ferentz decides nepotism is more important than winning games and Iowa lets him get away with it Wisconsin is another Big 10 school that should look to upgrade their offense (14 points at home vs Washington State is a fucking joke) and gets a chance to embarrass Nebraska annually.

For Arizona they aren't just getting another 10 million out of it (and it's important to point out that is a more meaningful raise for them than it would be for Texas or USC). There are other benefits, like stability and better football and better basketball and recruiting opportunities. Oregon and Washington are publicly doing everything they can to get into the Big 10. That puts the rest of the conference at Kevin Warren's mercy because it's lights out for the Pac 10 if those two leave. If Arizona leaves for the Big 12 now they control their own destiny and they have some leverage with the Big 12 as opposed to waiting for Oregon/Washington/Warren to force them into a desperation move. The Big 12 has much higher quality football than the Pac 10 and more schools that give a shit about winning, which should be a boost for Arizona's program. They made a good hire and they have some NIL backing, they're on an upward trajectory. The Big 12 is the best basketball conference. That doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things but I can see why it's attractive to a basketball school. They'll love playing more of their basketball games at a time most of the country can watch on a network people have instead of being relegated to constant 10-11 PM ET Pac 12 Network tipoffs. They can replace their California recruiting pipelines (which is entirely LA/Southern California so kiss that goodbye whether they're Big 12 or Pac 10) with new Texas pipelines. I can't find a reason for Arizona to stay in the Pac 10. Even the travel isn't that much worse. Tucson to Seattle is 1221 miles in the air, Tucson to Ames is 982 miles (farther than Tucson to any Big 12 TX school) and Tucson to Morgantown is 1797 miles.

I do. That link goes to a 69 page realignment thread on Arizona's 247 board, dating back to a few days after the USC/UCLA to the Big 10 news broke. I don't know how connected he is, but this is the Arizona 247 guy and he seems to be credible with their fans as knowing what he is talking about. On page 68, about 90 minutes ago, he said "Last i heard, the Big 12 believes it will be making about $10 million more per school than the Pac-12. It is likely working to get a television deal to actually show Pac-12 schools those numbers." The other recent posts are posters reacting to that and one guy who thinks there is no way the Big 12 will get more money than the Pac 12. Most of the other posters disagree with that guy and want Arizona to leave for the Big 12 ASAP if they do end up getting that much more money than the Pac 12. Lots of arguments using ass-pulled media valuations for the Pac 12 and Big 12 schools and other such speculation, but for the most part the Arizona fans sound eager to join the Big 12.