Left Behind: A Quick Dose Of Post Big 12 Reality

[mdmost 42865]

We were always destined to leave the Big 12. It was either going to be for the Big 10 or SEC. I don't think a forward thinking commissioner was going to change that. We weren't getting better options to join the Big 12 like USC & UCLA.

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

Once the networks decided they wanted to consolidate blue bloods, it was just a matter of where they were going to put them.  With the Big 10 and SEC anchored in the eastern time zone, with more populous fanbases, it made the most sense to push them there.  If for some reason ESPN and Fox decided they wanted to king make the Big 12, they could have done that, and forced bigger brands into the Big 12, but there were pre-existing demographics that made that a less profitable avenue.

All the talk of fit and culture is just talk.  It's about money, and the networks are in charge.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Al_4_ISU

[bborange 9969]

45 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Once the networks decided they wanted to consolidate blue bloods, it was just a matter of where they were going to put them.  With the Big 10 and SEC anchored in the eastern time zone, with more populous fanbases, it made the most sense to push them there.  If for some reason ESPN and Fox decided they wanted to king make the Big 12, they could have done that, and forced bigger brands into the Big 12, but there were pre-existing demographics that made that a less profitable avenue.

All the talk of fit and culture is just talk.  It's about money, and the networks are in charge.

['stache 21774]

1 hour ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Once the networks decided they wanted to consolidate blue bloods, it was just a matter of where they were going to put them.  With the Big 10 and SEC anchored in the eastern time zone, with more populous fanbases, it made the most sense to push them there.  If for some reason ESPN and Fox decided they wanted to king make the Big 12, they could have done that, and forced bigger brands into the Big 12, but there were pre-existing demographics that made that a less profitable avenue.

All the talk of fit and culture is just talk.  It's about money, and the networks are in charge.

Which is why I think the Pac-16 deal made the most sense. The BIG and SEC would then raid and kill the ACC (this was before the 2036 deal) and you have three large conferences without much disparity in revenues. The PAC with USC, UW, UO, UT, and OU, that's plenty of interest for TV. 

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Which is why I think the Pac-16 deal made the most sense. The BIG and SEC would then raid and kill the ACC (this was before the 2036 deal) and you have three large conferences without much disparity in revenues. The PAC with USC, UW, UO, UT, and OU, that's plenty of interest for TV. 

I think the networks would disagree on that.  Everything outside of those schools is deader weight than the Big 12, and at least the SEC and Big 10 deadweights have some fan interest.  The Pac 16 looks more like a sprawling version of the old Big 12 and less like the Prestige Worldwide model they're honing in on.  Then you have the TV time issues.

The fan investment is highest in the SEC, second in the Big 10, and third in the Big 12.  Pushing those 4 biggest brands west of the Mississippi to the east in front of the most eyeballs with a bunch of other big brand schools would have won out in the end.

I downplay culture and fit in all of this, but it matters in as much as fan engagement drives ratings, and the West Coast's collective indifference to college sports would have become an issue if the Pac 16 had happened.  The reason the new Big 12 was given a survivable TV deal was because it has high fan engagement and is a generally entertaining product.

[camel at sea 589]

49 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

I think the networks would disagree on that.  Everything outside of those schools is deader weight than the Big 12, and at least the SEC and Big 10 deadweights have some fan interest.  The Pac 16 looks more like a sprawling version of the old Big 12 and less like the Prestige Worldwide model they're honing in on.  Then you have the TV time issues.

The fan investment is highest in the SEC, second in the Big 10, and third in the Big 12.  Pushing those 4 biggest brands west of the Mississippi to the east in front of the most eyeballs with a bunch of other big brand schools would have won out in the end.

I downplay culture and fit in all of this, but it matters in as much as fan engagement drives ratings, and the West Coast's collective indifference to college sports would have become an issue if the Pac 16 had happened.  The reason the new Big 12 was given a survivable TV deal was because it has high fan engagement and is a generally entertaining product.

The PAC 16 would have worked but the Big 12 needed to be the predator instead of the prey.  The Big 12's deadweight looks pretty similar to the deadweight in the Big Ten and SEC (schools that draw 50K+ in football at high tide.)  When people talk about apathy out west, they're seeing good ADs sharing a conference with MWC level ADs.  That's not what you'd have if Oregon or Washington visited Ames or Manhattan.  To the extent that both Stanford and Cal are part of that dead weight problem (they are), I think SC and UCLA needed the last decade of PAC problems to accept that.

The big thing though is that FOX wanted to bolster the B1G and the SEC wanted to bolster the SEC.  The Big 12 - PAC 12 merger idea needed someone separate like NBC to champion it financially.  

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

Just now, camel at sea said:

The PAC 16 would have worked but the Big 12 needed to be the predator instead of the prey.  The Big 12's deadweight looks pretty similar to the deadweight in the Big Ten and SEC (schools that draw 50K+ in football at high tide.)  When people talk about apathy out west, they're seeing good ADs sharing a conference with MWC level ADs.  That's not what you'd have if Oregon or Washington visited Ames or Manhattan.  To the extent that both Stanford and Cal are part of that dead weight problem (they are), I think SC and UCLA needed the last decade of PAC problems to accept that.

The big thing though is that FOX wanted to bolster the B1G and the SEC wanted to bolster the SEC.  The Big 12 - PAC 12 merger idea needed someone separate like NBC to champion it financially.  

Yeah, I agree with that.  If the original Big 12 had been rowing in the same direction and had a Big 10-esque comradery, they could have peeled USC/UCLA/Oregon/Wash, assuming that the TV networks wanted that to happen.

That would have been far more sustainable than UT/OU/OSU/Tech joining up with Pac 12.  Like you said, the Big 12's bottom feeders have higher engagement and investment than all but the top 1/3rd of the old Pac 12.

[camel at sea 589]

4 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Yeah, I agree with that.  If the original Big 12 had been rowing in the same direction and had a Big 10-esque comradery, they could have peeled USC/UCLA/Oregon/Wash, assuming that the TV networks wanted that to happen.

That would have been far more sustainable than UT/OU/OSU/Tech joining up with Pac 12.  Like you said, the Big 12's bottom feeders have higher engagement and investment than all but the top 1/3rd of the old Pac 12.

The Big Ten's comradery gets more credit than it deserves.  It's easier to have comradery when you've got a TV partner championing your existence.  We saw how fractured they started to look when the COVID debate hit them.  Nebraska was ready to leave their conference and Ohio State was floating threats, too.  The Big 12 needed its own TV partner.  That was always going to be a tall order.  Either a lot of things needed to have gone differently leading up to that 2007 time period when linear networks became a thing (to help the Big 12 jump the Big Ten and SEC for either ESPN or FOX), or someone like NBC needed to be convinced to adopt a different sports media strategy.

With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder how differently things go for the Big 12 if Bob Bullock doesn't get both Tech and Baylor into the Big 12.  If you replace Baylor with BYU, maybe there is a butterfly effect that follows. 

North:  BYU, CU, NU, ISU, KU, KSU
South:  A&M, UT, OU, TTU, MU, OSU

Maybe that alignment gets everyone on board with permanent cross-division games.  You'd have three north schools with recent-ish national titles to face the three powers in the south (rather than 2 and 3 in the original timeline.)  NU gets less butthurt b/c they keep OU annually.  CU doesn't fall off a cliff with better exposure in Texas.  The Tier 1 inventory is better.  Etc.  

['stache 21774]

38 minutes ago, camel at sea said:

The Big Ten's comradery gets more credit than it deserves.  It's easier to have comradery when you've got a TV partner championing your existence.  We saw how fractured they started to look when the COVID debate hit them.  Nebraska was ready to leave their conference and Ohio State was floating threats, too.  The Big 12 needed its own TV partner.  That was always going to be a tall order.  Either a lot of things needed to have gone differently leading up to that 2007 time period when linear networks became a thing (to help the Big 12 jump the Big Ten and SEC for either ESPN or FOX), or someone like NBC needed to be convinced to adopt a different sports media strategy.

With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder how differently things go for the Big 12 if Bob Bullock doesn't get both Tech and Baylor into the Big 12.  If you replace Baylor with BYU, maybe there is a butterfly effect that follows. 

North:  BYU, CU, NU, ISU, KU, KSU
South:  A&M, UT, OU, TTU, MU, OSU

Maybe that alignment gets everyone on board with permanent cross-division games.  You'd have three north schools with recent-ish national titles to face the three powers in the south (rather than 2 and 3 in the original timeline.)  NU gets less butthurt b/c they keep OU annually.  CU doesn't fall off a cliff with better exposure in Texas.  The Tier 1 inventory is better.  Etc.  

It was before my time, but I sometimes wonder if the Big 12 had formed a decade earlier, if it could have included Arkansas instead of Baylor.

[camel at sea 589]

4 minutes ago, 'stache said:

It was before my time, but I sometimes wonder if the Big 12 had formed a decade earlier, if it could have included Arkansas instead of Baylor.

Yeah, if the Big 12 could have formed sooner, then that probably happens.  It also probably happens if the Big 8 had been run properly.  If Roy Kramer is Big 8 commissioner, instead of SEC commissioner, then the Hogs probably get a Big 8 invite and the Big 8 would have put together a long-term plan to poach the SWC rather die in a merger with it.  

[Satchel 6908]

5 hours ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Once the networks decided they wanted to consolidate blue bloods, it was just a matter of where they were going to put them.  With the Big 10 and SEC anchored in the eastern time zone, with more populous fanbases, it made the most sense to push them there.  If for some reason ESPN and Fox decided they wanted to king make the Big 12, they could have done that, and forced bigger brands into the Big 12, but there were pre-existing demographics that made that a less profitable avenue.

All the talk of fit and culture is just talk.  It's about money, and the networks are in charge.

Although it is true that Texas, along with Vandy will be seen as the Hill Williams of the Sec.

[DFW Horn 6118]

2 hours ago, camel at sea said:

The Big Ten's comradery gets more credit than it deserves.  It's easier to have comradery when you've got a TV partner championing your existence.  We saw how fractured they started to look when the COVID debate hit them.  Nebraska was ready to leave their conference and Ohio State was floating threats, too.  The Big 12 needed its own TV partner.  That was always going to be a tall order.  Either a lot of things needed to have gone differently leading up to that 2007 time period when linear networks became a thing (to help the Big 12 jump the Big Ten and SEC for either ESPN or FOX), or someone like NBC needed to be convinced to adopt a different sports media strategy.

With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder how differently things go for the Big 12 if Bob Bullock doesn't get both Tech and Baylor into the Big 12.  If you replace Baylor with BYU, maybe there is a butterfly effect that follows. 

North:  BYU, CU, NU, ISU, KU, KSU
South:  A&M, UT, OU, TTU, MU, OSU

Maybe that alignment gets everyone on board with permanent cross-division games.  You'd have three north schools with recent-ish national titles to face the three powers in the south (rather than 2 and 3 in the original timeline.)  NU gets less butthurt b/c they keep OU annually.  CU doesn't fall off a cliff with better exposure in Texas.  The Tier 1 inventory is better.  Etc.  

* camaraderie 

[camel at sea 589]

2 hours ago, DFW Horn said:

* camaraderie 

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/comradery

[DFW Horn 6118]

3 minutes ago, camel at sea said:

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/comradery

[TKthunder2 4981]

8 hours ago, camel at sea said:

Yeah, if the Big 12 could have formed sooner, then that probably happens.  It also probably happens if the Big 8 had been run properly.  If Roy Kramer is Big 8 commissioner, instead of SEC commissioner, then the Hogs probably get a Big 8 invite and the Big 8 would have put together a long-term plan to poach the SWC rather die in a merger with it.  

I mean Baylor and Iowa State fucking sucked back then. They get credit for digging out of the basement in recent years, but honestly if you’re forming a brand new conference with no ties to the previous Big8 or SWC dropping ISU and Baylor for Arkansas (before they joined the SEC) and BYU would have been ideal.

North - BYU, Colorado, Kansas, K State, Mizzou, Nebraska
South - Texas, aggy, Tech, Oklahoma, Okie St, Arkansas

Protected rivalries:
OU/NU (obvious, keep for TV/history)
UT/CU (next best 2, best academics)
aggy/KSU (next best 2, ag schools)
Ark/MU (border states, Easternmost)
Tech/BYU (former conferencemates, Westernmost)
OSU/KU (worst schools at the time, close Big8 members)

[closetohumping 17401]

19 hours ago, 'stache said:

Which is why I think the Pac-16 deal made the most sense. The BIG and SEC would then raid and kill the ACC (this was before the 2036 deal) and you have three large conferences without much disparity in revenues. The PAC with USC, UW, UO, UT, and OU, that's plenty of interest for TV. 

Yep.  But ESPN stopped it. 

[Guest]

On 3/23/2023 at 6:19 PM, billfromlaketravis said:

I guess we ended up the best football/weather conference. 

Enjoy the hurricanes and death-grip humidity.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Protected rivalries:
OU/NU (obvious, keep for TV/history)
UT/CU (next best 2, best academics)
aggy/KSU (next best 2, ag schools)
Ark/MU (border states, Easternmost)
Tech/BYU (former conferencemates, Westernmost)
OSU/KU (worst schools at the time, close Big8 members)

http://www.winsipedia.com/byu/vs/texas-tech

Edited March 25, 2023 by slorch

[Newy25 7638]

1 hour ago, slorch said:

Enjoy the hurricanes and death-grip humidity.

You do realize where Texas is located, right? 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Newy25 said:

You do realize where Texas is located, right? 

Indeed.  Austin and College Station to much higher degree are in the 'suck weather' of the SEC.  You realize where the SEC is located, right?

Sorry, I don't see that horseshit as being the 'better weather' conference.  Even at that, it's practically meaningless in the overall equation.  The cash is all that matters.

Edited March 25, 2023 by slorch

[TKthunder2 4981]

2 hours ago, slorch said:

http://www.winsipedia.com/byu/vs/texas-tech

Fuck me, yeah thought BYU was in the Border conference. Doesn’t change the lineup though.

[billfromlaketravis 11362]

On 3/23/2023 at 9:24 PM, LTbear said:

Given the choice between the Big Ten and the SEC, the SEC is a better weather conference. *

[camel at sea 589]

10 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

I mean Baylor and Iowa State fucking sucked back then. They get credit for digging out of the basement in recent years, but honestly if you’re forming a brand new conference with no ties to the previous Big8 or SWC dropping ISU and Baylor for Arkansas (before they joined the SEC) and BYU would have been ideal.

North - BYU, Colorado, Kansas, K State, Mizzou, Nebraska
South - Texas, aggy, Tech, Oklahoma, Okie St, Arkansas

Protected rivalries:
OU/NU (obvious, keep for TV/history)
UT/CU (next best 2, best academics)
aggy/KSU (next best 2, ag schools)
Ark/MU (border states, Easternmost)
Tech/BYU (former conferencemates, Westernmost)
OSU/KU (worst schools at the time, close Big8 members)

Yeah.  I think realistically it was never very likely that both conferences would drop members.  The ACC and Big East should have merged and dropped the weak members from each side, too.  But practically, if the Big 8 was going to let its own history die anyway, then doing that should have been on the table (just like it should have been for the ACC.)  A lot of the problem with how the merger happened was that the Big 8 did not go into it, initially, thinking it would be a merger.  They realized part of the way into the process that it would have to be one, though, and that's why the butthurt up in Lincoln never went away.  Maybe if everyone goes in knowing they need a new conference, then the construction of the new one ends up better.  

That said, if it's up to me and I'm running the Big 8, I invite Arky and BYU in the late 80s and then push for UT/aggy sometime later.

One thing with your scenario that would have mattered is timing.  K-State prior to Snyder was horrendous.  Nobody would have predicted in the early 90s that K-State would sustain success for the next 30 years.       

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

4 hours ago, slorch said:

Enjoy the hurricanes and death-grip humidity.

Please do remember that you are adding Houston and Orlando. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Please do remember that you are adding Houston and Orlando. 

Yessir, but not claiming the weather high ground.  Who knew Hawaii had all that leverage?

[KennyPowders 331]

I see the losers of all of this have migrated from “Midwest football rocks the jocks” to we “weather discussion”.

 

always enjoy how pathetic this thread is because of the users. Have a nice saturday

[Okie State 3788]

Another zinger from KennyPowders.

[ChiTownDoc 21102]

On 3/16/2023 at 11:30 AM, oSuJeff97 said:

I'm not sure I agree with this.  

My brother-in-law is a scout for an NFL team. He travels a TON and goes all over the place. Scouts may not visit literally every school in FBS and FCS but they absolutely have not problem (and do) visit every single P5 school.  You're acting like some of the lesser Big 12 schools are end-of-the-line G5 schools; that's 100% not the case.

The idea that NFL scouts wouldn't have seen a player from a program like K-State is completely and totally false.

Tech guy is top 2-3 edge (I know) on the board.  People are morons.  Aaron Donald is from Pitt and was missed.  People turn over every rock these days.  There’s still misses but not because someone wasn’t looked at.  Morons.  

41 minutes ago, KennyPowders said:

I see the losers of all of this have migrated from “Midwest football rocks the jocks” to we “weather discussion”.

 

always enjoy how pathetic this thread is because of the users. Have a nice saturday

3/10

[TKthunder2 4981]

30 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Tech guy is top 2-3 edge (I know) on the board.  People are morons.  Aaron Donald is from Pitt and was missed.  People turn over every rock these days.  There’s still misses but not because someone wasn’t looked at.  Morons.

No one misses on top 3-4 round talent, scouting at that level is mostly picking between which elite player has the best upside, our discussion was around filling out a scout team or practice squad with fringe diamond in the rough/project guys.

A K State guy that doesn’t get invited to the combine has a lower chance of getting an UDFA deal than an Alabama guy that doesn’t get invited to the combine.

The Big 12 pro days is an attempt to reduce the gap between Alabama and K State by giving a fringe K State DB more opportunities to be seen by and make impressions on scouts so that they are remembered when they are filling out their  rosters the day after the draft.

[ChiTownDoc 21102]

17 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

No one misses on top 3-4 round talent, scouting at that level is mostly picking between which elite player has the best upside, our discussion was around filling out a scout team or practice squad with fringe diamond in the rough/project guys.

A K State guy that doesn’t get invited to the combine has a lower chance of getting an UDFA deal than an Alabama guy that doesn’t get invited to the combine.

The Big 12 pro days is an attempt to reduce the gap between Alabama and K State by giving a fringe K State DB more opportunities to be seen by and make impressions on scouts so that they are remembered when they are filling out their  rosters the day after the draft.

We are saying same thing.  

[Crockett 488]

10 hours ago, KennyPowders said:

always enjoy how pathetic this thread is because of the users. Have a nice saturday

And yet here you are and posting

[trza-hawk 269]

I live close to a school with a team in the Pioneer League that plays against other schools that don't offer scholarships. The NFL has found two guys from this one non scholarship team in my time living here. If you have the talent, the scouts will find you. P5, Power 5, D-II or D-III, wherever. Maybe a generation ago baseball scouts had a better reputation for finding guys than the NFL scouts. But that was a long time ago and you rarely hear about guys going to Canada or the semi-pro ranks before getting scouted by the nfl.

[Ignatius 4002]

On 3/25/2023 at 11:37 AM, billfromlaketravis said:

Given the choice between the Big Ten and the SEC, the SEC is a better weather conference. *

How so? Weather for B10 games only gets consistently bad once you get into November, and at that point you’ve got like 3 games left. October in B10 country is what you’d consider ‘football weather’; games at DKR (and in the SEC) in October are by and large a muggy sweatfest. Games in September aren’t worthy of comparison…

Edited March 26, 2023 by Ignatius

[Newy25 7638]

On 3/25/2023 at 8:36 AM, slorch said:

Indeed.  Austin and College Station to much higher degree are in the 'suck weather' of the SEC.  You realize where the SEC is located, right?

Sorry, I don't see that horseshit as being the 'better weather' conference.  Even at that, it's practically meaningless in the overall equation.  The cash is all that matters.

Keep telling yourself that when you go to a game in Evanston in late November. 

[Richard Kimball 1492]

Weather smack talk not going away. 

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

This is a strange argument tangent.

But October in Iowa is as good as football weather gets.  September and November can suck in opposite directions.  I think it was 2013 where it was 102 the day of the first game and below 0 by the time the final game kicked.

[LTbear 4161]

I live in Montana now. Best football weather there is. 

[Uncle Nate 2097]

This thread once again proving the off-season sucks. 

[DFW Horn 6118]

1 hour ago, LTbear said:

I live in Montana now. Best football weather there is. 

Sooo.....Bobcats or Grizzlies?

[LTbear 4161]

34 minutes ago, DFW Horn said:

Sooo.....Bobcats or Grizzlies?

Griz. I'm a professor with UM. Game day here is as much fun as anywhere in college football.

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

8 minutes ago, LTbear said:

Griz. I'm a professor with UM. Game day here is as much fun as anywhere in college football.

I've watched a few games there.  I would absolutely love to attend a game there.  Maybe some time when UNI (wife's an alum) has to go there in the playoffs.  Better atmosphere (and probably attendance) than some of the Pac 12 and ACC bottom feeders.

[LTbear 4161]

3 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

I've watched a few games there.  I would absolutely love to attend a game there.  Maybe some time when UNI (wife's an alum) has to go there in the playoffs.  Better atmosphere (and probably attendance) than some of the Pac 12 and ACC bottom feeders.

Legitimately better attendance that WSU and OSU many days. Atmosphere is fantastic (surprisingly loud stadium for 25k) and the tailgating is great as well. If you ever make it up for a game let me know. 

[Josef Pwag 1728]

6 hours ago, LTbear said:

I live in Montana now. Best football weather there is. 

[TrashMaster G 17391]

6 hours ago, Josef Pwag said:

I would like to have seen Montana... play Montana State.

[Dnaguy 11777]

On 3/24/2023 at 11:16 AM, Al_4_ISU said:

I think the networks would disagree on that.  Everything outside of those schools is deader weight than the Big 12, and at least the SEC and Big 10 deadweights have some fan interest.  The Pac 16 looks more like a sprawling version of the old Big 12 and less like the Prestige Worldwide model they're honing in on.  Then you have the TV time issues.

The fan investment is highest in the SEC, second in the Big 10, and third in the Big 12.  Pushing those 4 biggest brands west of the Mississippi to the east in front of the most eyeballs with a bunch of other big brand schools would have won out in the end.

I downplay culture and fit in all of this, but it matters in as much as fan engagement drives ratings, and the West Coast's collective indifference to college sports would have become an issue if the Pac 16 had happened.  The reason the new Big 12 was given a survivable TV deal was because it has high fan engagement and is a generally entertaining product.

 

On 3/24/2023 at 12:45 PM, camel at sea said:

The PAC 16 would have worked but the Big 12 needed to be the predator instead of the prey.  The Big 12's deadweight looks pretty similar to the deadweight in the Big Ten and SEC (schools that draw 50K+ in football at high tide.)  When people talk about apathy out west, they're seeing good ADs sharing a conference with MWC level ADs.  That's not what you'd have if Oregon or Washington visited Ames or Manhattan.  To the extent that both Stanford and Cal are part of that dead weight problem (they are), I think SC and UCLA needed the last decade of PAC problems to accept that.

The big thing though is that FOX wanted to bolster the B1G and the SEC wanted to bolster the SEC.  The Big 12 - PAC 12 merger idea needed someone separate like NBC to champion it financially.  

 

On 3/24/2023 at 12:48 PM, Al_4_ISU said:

Yeah, I agree with that.  If the original Big 12 had been rowing in the same direction and had a Big 10-esque comradery, they could have peeled USC/UCLA/Oregon/Wash, assuming that the TV networks wanted that to happen.

That would have been far more sustainable than UT/OU/OSU/Tech joining up with Pac 12.  Like you said, the Big 12's bottom feeders have higher engagement and investment than all but the top 1/3rd of the old Pac 12.

All of this ignores the disastrous Pac network design, Larry Scott’s ineptitude, and NBC sports’ lack of a cable sports footprint need to fill content in the late 2000’s / early 2010’s when your hypothetical merger would have taken place.

ABC/ESPN1/2/U and FOX / FS1 &2 had the established cable footprint and the additional channels to play more games. NBC didn’t.

Now maybe they could have formed something in addition to a PAC16 network. Peacock sports or something IDK. Maybe with the Olympics, shittier ND games, a PAC16, and likely a BYU deal or SunBelt or Conf. USA or MAC or something IDK. That probably would have worked. Bob Costas doing a Big Noon kickoff / College Game Day like show anyone? 

But alas, Larry Scott failed in getting a central time zone presence required to have noon kickoffs. Without it, the PAC always had to miss out on a whole window of actual football fans and not just those in your geographic footprint.

He failed in his design of the PAC network as well.

I almost think that if one of the 3 legs (NBC’s sports cable presence needing content, Larry Scott, PAC design) had been different somehow, this may have worked. 

But they aren’t all really independent, so it’s hard to say. Would anyone other than Larry Scott WANT the PAC network to go it alone? Would NBC have allowed that? Did it ‘go it alone’ because NBC wouldn’t back it to begin with? Were these decisions made at the top due to circumstances or were the circumstances a result of decisions at the top?

 

 

[BachelorTrek 2937]

On 3/23/2023 at 6:19 PM, billfromlaketravis said:

I want to say we’ll look back in 10 years and laugh, but the officiating in the 2015 Okie State game has caused generational trauma. 
 

UT Administration needed to wake up. Unfortunately for us, the Big 12’’s shittiness was akin to being dragged out of bed naked, hooded, flown to a CIA Black Site, and water boarded for 11 years. 
 

I guess we ended up the best football/weather conference. 

I'm still traumatized by DB Paul Behrman biting on a pump-fake against tech in Austin that put that season into a tailspin. Everyone in the stands, including me, saw Behrman run forward at that moment, and that was the game.
 

November 4, 1989, at Memorial Stadium: tech 24, Texas 17

First tech win in Austin since 1967

Anthony Manyweather gets for a 65 yd TD pass from Jamie Gill.

Edited March 30, 2023 by BachelorTrek

[BachelorTrek 2937]

On 3/25/2023 at 10:37 AM, billfromlaketravis said:

Given the choice between the Big SLOW Ten and the SEC, the SEC is a better weather conference. *

FIFY

No contest! 

The Big SLOW Ten, in the frozen north, loses.

I hate that weather so much you couldn't pay me enough to ever live there. 

[BachelorTrek 2937]

On 3/27/2023 at 4:35 PM, Josef Pwag said:

[Uncle Nate 2097]

45 minutes ago, BachelorTrek said:

I'm still traumatized by DB Paul Behrman biting on a pump-fake against tech in Austin that put that season into a tailspin. Everyone in the stands, including me, saw Behrman run forward at that moment, and that was the game.
 

November 4, 1989, at Memorial Stadium: tech 24, Texas 17

First tech win in Austin since 1967

Anthony Manyweather gets for a 65 yd TD pass from Jamie Gill.

I was there.  I was a junior in high school, and the last time Tech beat UT in Austin my dad was a junior at Tech and had made that roadtrip.

[Magus Ossis 2784]

55 minutes ago, BachelorTrek said:

I'm still traumatized by DB Paul Behrman biting on a pump-fake against tech in Austin that put that season into a tailspin. Everyone in the stands, including me, saw Behrman run forward at that moment, and that was the game.
 

November 4, 1989, at Memorial Stadium: tech 24, Texas 17

First tech win in Austin since 1967

Anthony Manyweather gets for a 65 yd TD pass from Jamie Gill.

The coach for that 1967 Tech win over Texas was Longhorn alumnus and member of the UT Men's Athletic Hall of Honor JT King.