Realignment talk not going away

[gatormarc 937]

I'm guessing this is straight up Fox wanting to create specific matchups rather than any attempt at a balanced schedule.

[billfromlaketravis 11823]

9 hours ago, LateAughtsHorn said:

I've never understood the weird snobbery college fans have about NFL fans. Zero self awareness on how ridiculous us college football fans look to normal people. Lol

Many NFL fans are people that went to smaller schools where college football is nonexistent or irrelevant. A Wesleyan grad could give a shit about college football, but he's probably a diehard Jets/Giants/Patriots/Eagles/Bills fan. Wash and repeat with many of the colleges in the Northeast. NFL fandom is about where you're from, and not where you went to school. 

There's also a large gambling/fantasy football contingent within the NFL fanbase. These people really follow players instead of teams. 

There is some crossover. Diehard LSU/Saints or Texas/Cowboys fans. 

[The Hot Dog Buffet 1314]

7 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Each team having a different number of “protected” games sounds like a complete nightmare. And having some with zero regular games is odd. Conferences are gonna be a complete clusterfuck going forward. 

Yeah, protected rivalries shouldn't be a thing.

[Pasken 1312]

13 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

Yeah, protected rivalries shouldn't be a thing.

wtf? That's not what he's saying. Every team should have the same number of protected rivalry games. We should not get rid of them.

[The Hot Dog Buffet 1314]

1 minute ago, Pasken said:

wtf? That's not what he's saying. Every team should have the same number of protected rivalry games. We should not get rid of them.

No, just get rid of them. They don't really serve any purpose. It just makes it easier for some schools to win titles and more difficult for others. If a rivalry is important enough, the schools can be put into the same pod or division or whatever. Makes no sense to give A&M the Vanderbilt matchup that Alabama doesn't get because they have to play Tennessee every year.

[Gene Parmesan 4064]

21 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Many NFL fans are people that went to smaller schools where college football is nonexistent or irrelevant. A Wesleyan grad could give a shit about college football, but he's probably a diehard Jets/Giants/Patriots/Eagles/Bills fan. Wash and repeat with many of the colleges in the Northeast. NFL fandom is about where you're from, and not where you went to school. 

There's also a large gambling/fantasy football contingent within the NFL fanbase. These people really follow players instead of teams. 

There is some crossover. Diehard LSU/Saints or Texas/Cowboys fans. 

College graduates are a minority in the college fan population.  Much like the NFL fan population.  Maybe the college graduate turns his nose up to NFL fans, but in reality he is surrounded by just as many morons.

[mdmost 44053]

Was out of town when all the craziness went down on Friday. I'm happy for Oregon and Washington as their patience paid off. I'm happy that Arizona State, Utah, and Arizona got what they wanted and should've had a long time ago. It definitely makes the Big 12 a fun, no defense league (outside of Utah). Stanford and Cal get their wish to be sports-irrelevant. College football relegation finally occurred with the rest of the Pac 4. I guess Stanford might be thrown a bone if it can bring in Notre Dame but I think it's going to take the Big 10 forcing USC, Michigan State, and Michigan to no longer schedule Notre Dame to force their hand. That would mean moving to a 10 game conference schedule. I'm going to chuckle that we're going right back to having divisions in the Big 10 and Big 12 when everyone was thrilled that those had gone away. I hope the SEC holds firm and doesn't add anymore for now. I hope ESPN holds the ACC line on the GOR so FSU can't get out of it. You made the deal so live with it. 

[Hurtlocker 2219]

44 minutes ago, gatormarc said:

I'm guessing this is straight up Fox wanting to create specific matchups rather than any attempt at a balanced schedule.

That's why you see more of those protected games in the West, they're just putting a fence around those teams so the big brands can play each other more.

The only rivalry game in the B1G that matters to Fox is Michigan/Ohio State.   

[hawkfan 60]

1 hour ago, Lidig8r said:

Soooooooo.... you take Wisconsin, whose border is touched by not just one, but TWO of the Great Lakes ... and you put them in the Great Plains Division?

Then you take Rutgers, which actually borders the Atlantic Ocean ... and you put them in the Great Lakes Division?

Then, you take Penn State, which borders one of the Great Lakes ... and you put them in the Atlantic Division?

Then, you take Minnesota, which borders both Canada and one of the Great Lakes ... and you put them in the Great Plains Division?

Then, you take Notre Dame, which is in Indiana, which is 2 time zones, and which at closest, is 6 states away from the Pacific Ocean, and put them in the Pacific Ocean?

Uh..... alrighty then!

Call them whatever you want, it protects all the majorly important rivalries, makes geographic sense (grouping wise), and is mostly competitively balanced with the exception of one division.

It seems crazy to me for the average fan to try and figure out scheduling or how you crown a conference champion in any other setup.

If you end up destroying rivalries and geography completely, you're going to kill the golden goose IMO.

[Bartles 769]

WTF is this Wyoming AD talking about? Stanford/Cal are "unique" and so maybe "not ideally suited" for...something? I can only read this as a dog whistle to their fans assuring them their towns won't be invaded by woke people on a football weekend

[Hurtlocker 2219]

1 minute ago, hawkfan said:

Call them whatever you want, it protects all the majorly important rivalries, makes geographic sense (grouping wise), and is mostly competitively balanced with the exception of one division.

It seems crazy to me for the average fan to try and figure out scheduling or how you crown a conference champion in any other setup.

If you end up destroying rivalries and geography completely, you're going to kill the golden goose IMO.

Not sure if you've been paying attention, but destroying geography and rivalries has pretty much been the defacto approach for the past 20 years.

[Pasken 1312]

28 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

No, just get rid of them. They don't really serve any purpose. It just makes it easier for some schools to win titles and more difficult for others. If a rivalry is important enough, the schools can be put into the same pod or division or whatever. Makes no sense to give A&M the Vanderbilt matchup that Alabama doesn't get because they have to play Tennessee every year.

Then there would be no annual OU/UT game.

Edit: Yeah, I guess you could have divisions but all that seems to lead to are unappealing title games.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Pasken

[oSuJeff97 3439]

19 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Was out of town when all the craziness went down on Friday. I'm happy for Oregon and Washington as their patience paid off. I'm happy that Arizona State, Utah, and Arizona got what they wanted and should've had a long time ago. It definitely makes the Big 12 a fun, no defense league (outside of Utah). Stanford and Cal get their wish to be sports-irrelevant. College football relegation finally occurred with the rest of the Pac 4. I guess Stanford might be thrown a bone if it can bring in Notre Dame but I think it's going to take the Big 10 forcing USC, Michigan State, and Michigan to no longer schedule Notre Dame to force their hand. That would mean moving to a 10 game conference schedule. I'm going to chuckle that we're going right back to having divisions in the Big 10 and Big 12 when everyone was thrilled that those had gone away. I hope the SEC holds firm and doesn't add anymore for now. I hope ESPN holds the ACC line on the GOR so FSU can't get out of it. You made the deal so live with it. 

Agree with all of this except the relegation part.

What's happening in CFB isn't relegation, because relegation is based on on-field performance. If you don't perform, you get booted.

In no way, shape or form do Washington State or Oregon State deserve to get "relegated" in a world where fucking Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Vanderbilt, etc., get to enjoy the spoils of being in one of the Prestige Worldwide conferences. 

[The Hot Dog Buffet 1314]

8 minutes ago, Pasken said:

Then there would be no annual OU/UT game.

Edit: Yeah, I guess you could have divisions but all that seems to lead to are unappealing title games.

We are moving toward 20 team conferences. If there isn't any sort of divisional structure, we are going to have to go with polls and mythical conference champions to set the title game matchups.

[Hurtlocker 2219]

2 minutes ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Agree with all of this except the relegation part.

What's happening in CFB isn't relegation, because relegation is based on on-field performance. If you don't perform, you get booted.

In no way, shape or form do Washington State or Oregon State deserve to get "relegated" in a world where fucking Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Vanderbilt, etc., get to enjoy the spoils of being in one of the Prestige Worldwide conferences. 

True, you also have promotion of BYU, Cinci, UCF, and Houston, primarily due to desire meeting timing.    If the Pac dissolved a year earlier, the four left without chairs may have had one.

And, if this bullshittery with FSU has legs, you may see Syracuse, BC, Wake and Tech join them on the outside.

[Pasken 1312]

2 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

We are moving toward 20 team conferences. If there isn't any sort of divisional structure, we are going to have to go with polls and mythical conference champions to set the title game matchups.

Or if we get to 24 team conferences then maybe a semi final conference game of the teams with the 4 best conference records. That should account enough for variances with schedules but hard to predict.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Pasken

[hawkfan 60]

17 minutes ago, Hurtlocker said:

Not sure if you've been paying attention, but destroying geography and rivalries has pretty much been the defacto approach for the past 20 years.

Agree, but if you can have both the TV money and the regional setup that has made college football great, why wouldn't you do that?

[bullet 1630]

10 hours ago, LateAughtsHorn said:

I've never understood the weird snobbery college fans have about NFL fans. Zero self awareness on how ridiculous us college football fans look to normal people. Lol

I remember a '77 Bengals-Steeler game.  Next to last game of the season.  By tiebreaks, Bengals needed to win by 8 or more to make the playoffs.  Game was played on an ice sheet at Riverfront.  Bengals won by 10.  After the game they were jumping up and down and just thrilled.  I remember thinking, "this feels like a college game."  I don't recall ever seeing so much excitement by a pro team again.  BTW, the Bengals came out flat the next week and got stomped by the Oilers, so the Steelers still made the playoffs.

[oSuJeff97 3439]

8 minutes ago, hawkfan said:

Call them whatever you want, it protects all the majorly important rivalries, makes geographic sense (grouping wise), and is mostly competitively balanced with the exception of one division.

Hey if we want to protect important rivalries and group teams that make sense geographically I have a wild idea that you wouldn't believe... we could take maybe the top 60 college football programs and group them into five conferences of 12 teams each - a "power 5" if you will....  one conference could include teams along the Atlantic coast... one in the Southeastern U.S.... one in the central plains and Texas... one in the upper Midwest... and one on the Pacific coast... 

 

[Hurtlocker 2219]

10 minutes ago, hawkfan said:

Agree, but if you can have both the TV money and the regional setup that has made college football great, why wouldn't you do that?

Watch how the intra conference basketball scheduling occurs.   You'd think it would be random so they can have different teams play each other, but they don't.   The networks make sure that its always Kansas/Kentucky every year, or Texas/Tennessee.

The B1Gs rights are owned by BTN, which is now primarily owned by Fox.   The schedule will end up being whatever garners the biggest audiences against Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and USC week in and week out.   The trophies are fun to talk about in the pregame, but they don't have an impact on audiences.

Ohio State/Maryland last year drew 6.6m on ABC in the afternoon....running opposite of Minnesota/Iowa drawing 2.5m on Fox.

[gatormarc 937]

 

[bullet 1630]

The pros are all so good and talented.  That takes some of the exciting plays away.  The talent gap in college and the mistakes create some of the exciting plays.

If you look at a game between professional chess players, its really well played.  But all of the beautiful combinations are usually in the notes.  They get countered.  if there is a little more of a gap, you see the beautiful combinations actually on the board.

[TrashMaster G 18097]

12 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Those athletes can transfer anywhere. Texas, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State and many other can pump out Olympic athletes just as well as Stanford and Cal.

It's not so simple.  Stanford has a lot of sports that generate Olympians that very few other colleges have, let alone P5... er P4 schools.

Texas, for example, does not have men's volleyball or either men's or women's water polo. Not many schools have any of those, let alone all of them.

[Hurtlocker 2219]

2 minutes ago, TrashMaster G said:

It's not so simple.  Stanford has a lot of sports that generate Olympians that very few other colleges have, let alone P5... er P4 schools.

Texas, for example, does not have men's volleyball or either men's or women's water polo. Not many schools have any of those, let alone all of them.

Independant sounds perfect then, they can be a US Olympic training center and get funding that way.

[gatormarc 937]

9 minutes ago, TrashMaster G said:

It's not so simple.  Stanford has a lot of sports that generate Olympians that very few other colleges have, let alone P5... er P4 schools.

Texas, for example, does not have men's volleyball or either men's or women's water polo. Not many schools have any of those, let alone all of them.

Yup.

Men's Volleyball - 25 Div 1 programs

Men's Water Polo - 25 Div 1 programs

Women's Water Polo - 34 Div 1 programs

[bullet 1630]

1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Many NFL fans are people that went to smaller schools where college football is nonexistent or irrelevant. A Wesleyan grad could give a shit about college football, but he's probably a diehard Jets/Giants/Patriots/Eagles/Bills fan. Wash and repeat with many of the colleges in the Northeast. NFL fandom is about where you're from, and not where you went to school. 

There's also a large gambling/fantasy football contingent within the NFL fanbase. These people really follow players instead of teams. 

There is some crossover. Diehard LSU/Saints or Texas/Cowboys fans. 

Its unreal how big the fantasy football NFL fanbase has become.  I think Yormack is trying to tap into the gambling fanbase.

[Lidig8r 1906]

45 minutes ago, hawkfan said:

 

If you end up destroying rivalries and geography completely, you're going to kill the golden goose IMO.

Too late.

Texas - aggy ... dead

Texas - Arkansas ... dead

Kansas - Missouri ... dead

Oklahoma - Nebraska ... dead

Oklahoma - Okie Lite ... Soon to be dead

Colorado - Nebraska ... dead

Nebraska - Relevance ... dead

The golden goose is already on the platter having been plucked, brined, stuffed with celery, onion, rosemary, oranges, butter/sage rubbed on the breast and under the skin, roasted at 350 degrees and now being served up.

The networks/streaming services will make all of the important calls from this point forward. Whatever is in their best, financial interests will be implemented. Colleges, universities, fans, athletics ... are mere sacrificial lambs being placed on the altar of profiteering.

[Evil Bill Obrien 3510]

15 minutes ago, gatormarc said:

 

I really hope it was Cal's president who did that, karma hit him like a ton of bricks immediately 

[PilotsError 2337]

Any school that fired their coaching staff for not getting the jab deserves to lose their athletic department at best. 

[TKthunder2 5059]

9 hours ago, Texas Wahoo said:

I don’t necessarily disagree with your larger point, but a lot of this was because the ACC pre-FSU joining (which is when Clemson won pre-Dabo) was hot garbage. I know beating out Maryland, NC State, and Duke for the most ACC championships is pretty exciting. Then a real football team joined in FSU and they rattled off 9 straight and 12/14 ACC championships.  

And that’s fair. But the main point now in the world of streaming is who has an invested fan base that brings the eyeballs. Stadium capacity that gets utilized (not UCLA) is going to be an indicator of who the major targets are.

[Horn of Gabriel 1886]

2 minutes ago, Lidig8r said:

Too late.

Texas - aggy ... dead

Texas - Arkansas ... dead

Kansas - Missouri ... dead

Oklahoma - Nebraska ... dead

Oklahoma - Okie Lite ... Soon to be dead

Colorado - Nebraska ... dead

Nebraska - Relevance ... dead

The golden goose is already on the platter having been plucked, brined, stuffed with celery, onion, rosemary, oranges, butter/sage rubbed on the breast and under the skin, roasted at 350 degrees and now being served up.

The networks/streaming services will make all of the important calls from this point forward. Whatever is in their best, financial interests will be implemented. Colleges, universities, fans, athletics ... are mere sacrificial lambs being placed on the altar of profiteering.

WTF are you talking about?  Texas/aggy and TX/arky are both coming back starting in '24.  And oh BTW in the time since those rivalries had stopped being played each year I think that CFB has done kinda OK.

[gatormarc 937]

2 minutes ago, PilotsError said:

Any school that fired their coaching staff for not getting the jab deserves to lose their athletic department at best. 

 How did I end up in the fucking cloakroom?

[bullet 1630]

52 minutes ago, Pasken said:

Then there would be no annual OU/UT game.

Edit: Yeah, I guess you could have divisions but all that seems to lead to are unappealing title games.

I like divisions, but once you get over 14, you might as well have separate leagues if you have divisions.  And a lot of games teams like get thrown by the wayside.  So in this 16-18 team conference world, divisions are gone.

[bullet 1630]

45 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

We are moving toward 20 team conferences. If there isn't any sort of divisional structure, we are going to have to go with polls and mythical conference champions to set the title game matchups.

Well its going to be who beat the 6th place team by more points.

[Evil Bill Obrien 3510]

46 minutes ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Agree with all of this except the relegation part.

What's happening in CFB isn't relegation, because relegation is based on on-field performance. If you don't perform, you get booted.

In no way, shape or form do Washington State or Oregon State deserve to get "relegated" in a world where fucking Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Vanderbilt, etc., get to enjoy the spoils of being in one of the Prestige Worldwide conferences. 

Call it fiscal relegation then, and you are right they don't deserve it, but it happened and if any of the B1G gravy train riders are paying attention they will realize their free ride might eventually come to a similar end. Whenever the ACC starts to break apart I'm sure there will be people at the B1G office looking for ways to jettison them to bring in the top of the ACC.

[bullet 1630]

23 minutes ago, Hurtlocker said:

Watch how the intra conference basketball scheduling occurs.   You'd think it would be random so they can have different teams play each other, but they don't.   The networks make sure that its always Kansas/Kentucky every year, or Texas/Tennessee.

The B1Gs rights are owned by BTN, which is now primarily owned by Fox.   The schedule will end up being whatever garners the biggest audiences against Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and USC week in and week out.   The trophies are fun to talk about in the pregame, but they don't have an impact on audiences.

Ohio State/Maryland last year drew 6.6m on ABC in the afternoon....running opposite of Minnesota/Iowa drawing 2.5m on Fox.

With the SEC, when Florida was up in basketball, they made sure UK and Florida played twice.  UK and Tennessee, who were each other's biggest rivals, only played once.  UK rarely won in Knoxville, except the years they won the NCAA.  It was about TV matchups.

[The Hot Dog Buffet 1314]

2 minutes ago, bullet said:

I like divisions, but once you get over 14, you might as well have separate leagues if you have divisions.  And a lot of games teams like get thrown by the wayside.  So in this 16-18 team conference world, divisions are gone.

The format with 4 pods works. It lets you keep a few regional schools to play every year, plus another pod in a round robin. Winner of that round robin goes to the championship game. Rotate pods every 2 years.

You might as well not even have a league at all if you can't come up with a decent way of determining a champion on the field.

[gmr548 16701]

The B1G has already said no more divisions, so you don’t need to waste your time coming up with potential divisions. They already made it clear that each team will have anywhere from 0-3 protected “rivalries” and with the addition of UW and Oregon it’s obvious that they will be protected rivals of each other.
The interesting question will be if they make UW/UO “protected rivals” of USC/UCLA too. On the one hand that would reduce West Coast travel for the rest of the B1G. On the other I can imagine USC especially not liking that since there seems to be some animosity with Oregon (and not in a “friendly rivalry” kind of way).

Logistics and consolidating market share/interest on the west cost were two of the drivers of adding UW and Oregon, it would be weird if the PAC schools weren’t playing each other every year in that context

['stache 22144]

1 hour ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

Yeah, protected rivalries shouldn't be a thing.

 

1 hour ago, Pasken said:

wtf? That's not what he's saying. Every team should have the same number of protected rivalry games. We should not get rid of them.

Yeah, I'm saying some teams having zero and some having 3 makes no effing sense. Since we won't have divisions anymore, pods make more sense for scheduling purposes. The new Big 12 sets up nicely to have four scheduling pods based on geography and history. Play everyone in your pod and rotate two from others every year. The two best records play each other in the CCG. What is really going to be a clusterfuck is when one of the top two records played a much easier schedule than the team one loss behind them. The second that is Ohio State or Michigan, they'll change it all up again. That's true whether you go with scheduling pods or whatever number of "protected" games each team gets. 

[gmr548 16701]

WTF is this Wyoming AD talking about? Stanford/Cal are "unique" and so maybe "not ideally suited" for...something? I can only read this as a dog whistle to their fans assuring them their towns won't be invaded by woke people on a football weekend

I think it can just as easily be read as implying Stanford and Cal don’t really want to be in a glorified Mountain West.

They may not have a choice though.

[Deej 77834]

31 minutes ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Hey if we want to protect important rivalries and group teams that make sense geographically I have a wild idea that you wouldn't believe... we could take maybe the top 60 college football programs and group them into five conferences of 12 teams each - a "power 5" if you will....  one conference could include teams along the Atlantic coast... one in the Southeastern U.S.... one in the central plains and Texas... one in the upper Midwest... and one on the Pacific coast... 

 

[TKthunder2 5059]

Fuck pods.

[gatormarc 937]

13 minutes ago, bullet said:

With the SEC, when Florida was up in basketball, they made sure UK and Florida played twice.  UK and Tennessee, who were each other's biggest rivals, only played once.  UK rarely won in Knoxville, except the years they won the NCAA.  It was about TV matchups.

I think you're just talking about a couple of carryover seasons between formats.

Prior to 2011/12, we had divisional play and Kentucky played everyone in the East twice.

2015/16, they set up the 3 permanent opponents and Tennessee is one of Kentucky's, meaning they play them 3 times.

In the gap, there were 2 seasons where UTn and UK didn't play twice.

 

[camel at sea 589]

12 hours ago, ATXhorn17 said:

Clemson would be a mistake… If they revert to mediocrity post-Dabo, they bring literally nothing else to the table.

I was curious, so I pulled up the stats from stassen.com to see what Clemson looked like from 1980-2009 (three decades before Dabo got the full-time job.)  

In that span, Clemson had the 17th best record in the country, and three losing seasons total.  Their mediocre eras are still pretty good.  They've had 12 straight ten+ win seasons at this point so I'd guess their donors who are used to all the winning will spend the cash to make sure it continues.  Their school is a short drive from Atlanta, so they mostly just need to keep local kids close to home to be good.  I think their worst case scenario is to be another version of Auburn.  

[gatormarc 937]

10 minutes ago, gatormarc said:

meaning they play them 3 times.

Can't edit... meant they play them twice.

[Pancho 46315]

33 minutes ago, bullet said:

With the SEC, when Florida was up in basketball, they made sure UK and Florida played twice. .

They did not manipulate the schedule to make 2 teams play just because one was good at the time. 

[Sbbruin 22144]

2 hours ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

Yeah, protected rivalries shouldn't be a thing.

SC/UCLA has to happen every year, as does Mich/OSU.  You need some.  Just the same number for everybody.

[utee94 16088]

23 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

Fuck pods.

[bullet 1630]

34 minutes ago, 'stache said:

 

Yeah, I'm saying some teams having zero and some having 3 makes no effing sense. Since we won't have divisions anymore, pods make more sense for scheduling purposes. The new Big 12 sets up nicely to have four scheduling pods based on geography and history. Play everyone in your pod and rotate two from others every year. The two best records play each other in the CCG. What is really going to be a clusterfuck is when one of the top two records played a much easier schedule than the team one loss behind them. The second that is Ohio State or Michigan, they'll change it all up again. That's true whether you go with scheduling pods or whatever number of "protected" games each team gets. 

Look at the Big 10+1. 8 game schedule and sometimes teams didn't get Ohio St. and Michigan.  Those teams competed for the title.  Northwestern won without playing either.  One year there was a basically .500 Purdue team that would have won if they simply had beaten Penn St.  One year Iowa and Ohio St. were both 8-0 in conference.  And that was when you only skipped 2 of the other 10 teams.  The tiebreaks will be a mess.

 

Maybe if the SEC and Big 10 get big enough, they can merge and split into 12 team conferences.  USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Missouri, Arkansas, LSU and one other in our 12 team western group.  Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, Michigan St., Ohio St., Penn St., Rutgers in the northern group.  Maryland and the rest of the SEC in the southeastern group.

[Zhorn96 1835]

40 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

I think it can just as easily be read as implying Stanford and Cal don’t really want to be in a glorified Mountain West.

They may not have a choice though.

Financially, Cal can't be in the MWC.  If payouts are $4-7M and little possibility of increasing, their debt overruns them unless the UC regents take on all the stadium debt.  I suspect if they can get out of Wilcox's contract (owe him $20Mish from '24-27), they would kill football, then slash their AD down to the minimum.  Several sports are fully endowed but baseball and most of the men's programs get chopped.  They'll have serious Title IX issues if they change their current plan.