NCAA Conference Realignment

[Banedon]

If you're incredibly bored at work, go back and read this thread from the beginning. Fall-down hilarious.

 

As soon as I saw the blurb about this, I came here to re-read this thread.

 

EDIT: the good stuff starts on page 10 for those interested. Before that it's just "CubbieBum loves Purdue".

 

You know, in some ways we're very different people. The Bum's deulsional Purdue and Title IX ravings are the best source of comedy since rchap started a fantasy thread.

 

Haha. Yeah I shouldn't have referred to page 10 as the start of the "good stuff"...just the stuff relevant to the Texas predictions.

[illiniguy]

Man if Texas leaves the Big 12, how long until the remaining Big 12 isn't a BCS conference?

[jersey cubs fan]

Travel seems crazy though. It has to be expensive to fly every team that far for every conference road game.

 

Once you're getting in the air, there's probably not that big of a cost difference between flying to Minnesota or Happy Valley and flying to Texas.

[jersey cubs fan]

Man if Texas leaves the Big 12, how long until the remaining Big 12 isn't a BCS conference?

 

They could quickly turn around and add those respected non-BCS schools and turn it into a 14-16 team mega conference that would maintain it's status with numbers. Take away the best of the WAC and Mountain West, then let the remaining teams from those conferences merge.

[illiniguy]

Man if Texas leaves the Big 12, how long until the remaining Big 12 isn't a BCS conference?

 

They could quickly turn around and add those respected non-BCS schools and turn it into a 14-16 team mega conference that would maintain it's status with numbers. Take away the best of the WAC and Mountain West, then let the remaining teams from those conferences merge.

I guess, but it sounds like they could lose a couple of schools to the Pac Ten as well.

[jersey cubs fan]

Man if Texas leaves the Big 12, how long until the remaining Big 12 isn't a BCS conference?

 

They could quickly turn around and add those respected non-BCS schools and turn it into a 14-16 team mega conference that would maintain it's status with numbers. Take away the best of the WAC and Mountain West, then let the remaining teams from those conferences merge.

I guess, but it sounds like they could lose a couple of schools to the Pac Ten as well.

 

Possibly, but then you could just take the Pac 10, Big 12, WAC and Mountain West, and break it down into 3 conferences. There's 39 teams there if Texas leaves.

[SouthSideRyan]

Man if Texas leaves the Big 12, how long until the remaining Big 12 isn't a BCS conference?

 

They could quickly turn around and add those respected non-BCS schools and turn it into a 14-16 team mega conference that would maintain it's status with numbers. Take away the best of the WAC and Mountain West, then let the remaining teams from those conferences merge.

I guess, but it sounds like they could lose a couple of schools to the Pac Ten as well.

 

Possibly, but then you could just take the Pac 10, Big 12, WAC and Mountain West, and break it down into 3 conferences. There's 39 teams there if Texas leaves.

 

Most of the WAC is terrible at everything.

[Soul]

I think Pitt makes the most sense. The Big 10 might want Texas, but it doesn't seem like all that good a fit, and I'm struggling to come up with good reasons Texas would want to go to the Big 10. Why would that be better than just staying on the throne of the Big 12?

 

But Pitt......geographically closer, kind of the same style of football, the possibility of a good yearly rivalry with Penn State, maybe OSU too. Seems to work better, at least on the surface.

[jersey cubs fan]

I think Pitt makes the most sense. The Big 10 might want Texas, but it doesn't seem like all that good a fit, and I'm struggling to come up with good reasons Texas would want to go to the Big 10. Why would that be better than just staying on the throne of the Big 12?

 

Money.

 

But Pitt......geographically closer, kind of the same style of football, the possibility of a good yearly rivalry with Penn State, maybe OSU too. Seems to work better, at least on the surface.

 

Same style of football as who?

[jersey cubs fan]

Man if Texas leaves the Big 12, how long until the remaining Big 12 isn't a BCS conference?

 

They could quickly turn around and add those respected non-BCS schools and turn it into a 14-16 team mega conference that would maintain it's status with numbers. Take away the best of the WAC and Mountain West, then let the remaining teams from those conferences merge.

I guess, but it sounds like they could lose a couple of schools to the Pac Ten as well.

 

Possibly, but then you could just take the Pac 10, Big 12, WAC and Mountain West, and break it down into 3 conferences. There's 39 teams there if Texas leaves.

 

Most of the WAC is terrible at everything.

 

Which just means you take the best of both of those conferences and leave the rest to fight amongst themselves.

[cubweiser03]

I would embrace Texas with open arms. This would be awesome. This is way more interesting to me than ND. Pac 10 has no shot at Texas, if Texas doesnt leave for the B10 they aint leaving.

[SouthSideRyan]

I think Pitt makes the most sense. The Big 10 might want Texas, but it doesn't seem like all that good a fit, and I'm struggling to come up with good reasons Texas would want to go to the Big 10. Why would that be better than just staying on the throne of the Big 12?

 

But Pitt......geographically closer, kind of the same style of football, the possibility of a good yearly rivalry with Penn State, maybe OSU too. Seems to work better, at least on the surface.

 

Yeah, only the surface.

 

Texas is a way better fit. Texas would want to go to the Big 10 because they want to be a national institution with a high academic standard, and because they like making money.

Edited February 12, 2010 by SouthSideRyan

[jersey cubs fan]

I would embrace Texas with open arms. This would be awesome. This is way more interesting to me than ND. Pac 10 has no shot at Texas, if Texas doesnt leave for the B10 they aint leaving.

 

As a big ten fan I would love to see Texas or ND, with Pitt as a distant third. Nobody else is interesting.

[TruffleShuffle]

i guess my biggest concern is for non-revenue sports, but penn state athletic teams pretty much fly everywhere (ohio st is the closest team in the conference, and they're 5 hours away) so texas would just be doing the same thing. athletically this would be a great thing for the conference; texas has great athletics pretty much across the board. they would probably win big ten baseball for about 50 years in a row, though.

[jersey cubs fan]

i guess my biggest concern is for non-revenue sports, but penn state athletic teams pretty much fly everywhere (ohio st is the closest team in the conference, and they're 5 hours away) so texas would just be doing the same thing. athletically this would be a great thing for the conference; texas has great athletics pretty much across the board. they would probably win big ten baseball for about 50 years in a row, though.

 

Yeah, I can't imagine it being significantly harder to get from Penn State to Texas than it is to get to Wisconsin, Minnesota or Iowa.

[SouthSideRyan]

i guess my biggest concern is for non-revenue sports, but penn state athletic teams pretty much fly everywhere (ohio st is the closest team in the conference, and they're 5 hours away) so texas would just be doing the same thing. athletically this would be a great thing for the conference; texas has great athletics pretty much across the board. they would probably win big ten baseball for about 50 years in a row, though.

 

Yeah, I can't imagine it being significantly harder to get from Penn State to Texas than it is to get to Wisconsin, Minnesota or Iowa.

 

And what is it, one trip per season? Texas's addition will more than make up the financial difference brought on by taking 12 flights to Austin throughout the year.

[TruffleShuffle]

i guess my biggest concern is for non-revenue sports, but penn state athletic teams pretty much fly everywhere (ohio st is the closest team in the conference, and they're 5 hours away) so texas would just be doing the same thing. athletically this would be a great thing for the conference; texas has great athletics pretty much across the board. they would probably win big ten baseball for about 50 years in a row, though.

 

Yeah, I can't imagine it being significantly harder to get from Penn State to Texas than it is to get to Wisconsin, Minnesota or Iowa.

 

And what is it, one trip per season? Texas's addition will more than make up the financial difference brought on by taking 12 flights to Austin throughout the year.

 

it's a bigger deal for texas' athletes having to fly a long way every time they have a road game.

 

reading that article on frankthetank, i wonder why notre dame doesn't consider the big ten more seriously. if it's true that notre dame is making half what [expletive] purdue and indiana make each year on football revenues, it would probably behoove notre dame's administration to join the big ten and tell their fans and alums to suck it up.

[Guest]

Was thinking through schools nation wide that have the enrollment, academics (particularly graduate), athletics and markets that would interest the big 10. I'm trying to think of this independent of whether or not they make sense geographically or how likely they would be to leave their current situation. Here's what I come up with to start:

 

Texas

ND

UCLA

Cal

Virginia

 

after that, I can't think of many more that hit on all the criteria. Anyone else?

[TruffleShuffle]

Was thinking through schools nation wide that have the enrollment, academics (particularly graduate), athletics and markets that would interest the big 10. I'm trying to think of this independent of whether or not they make sense geographically or how likely they would be to leave their current situation. Here's what I come up with to start:

 

Texas

ND

UCLA

Cal

Virginia

 

after that, I can't think of many more that hit on all the criteria. Anyone else?

 

definitely north carolina, off the top of my head.

[cubsfan]

Florida

Washington

[TruffleShuffle]

Florida

Washington

 

yeah i think tim was being a little too strict on his academic requirements. penn state was a great get for the big ten, and is a fine school academically, but really not much different than, say, georgia, georgia tech or washington. actually some of those might be better schools. i think you could definitely add schools like usc, cal, stanford, boston college, kansas and miami to the list.

 

 

really, if you could blast texas off and set the state down where kentucky or the dakotas are, wouldn't this be a no-brainer? texas is a great academic school in a conference with a lot of mediocre academic institutions. they have by far the best athletic program, including great athletic facilities and infrastructure for non-revenue sports - the same cannot be said for most other big xii programs. they bring a ton of viewers (basically the entire state of texas) while much of the rest of the big xii is fairly sparsely-populated. they're a huge fish in a crappy pond, and would be a better fit in the big ten if not for geographical concerns.

[SouthSideRyan]

I'm not sure what you mean by enrollment, but Notre Dame is comparable to only Northwestern when looking at enrollment in the Big Ten

[dew1679666265]

Man if Texas leaves the Big 12, how long until the remaining Big 12 isn't a BCS conference?

 

They could quickly turn around and add those respected non-BCS schools and turn it into a 14-16 team mega conference that would maintain it's status with numbers. Take away the best of the WAC and Mountain West, then let the remaining teams from those conferences merge.

I guess, but it sounds like they could lose a couple of schools to the Pac Ten as well.

 

I realize they're not elite, but rumors are that Arkansas would have an interest to move to the Big 12 at some point. That would be a "name" program to add to it, at least.

[Soul]

I think Pitt makes the most sense. The Big 10 might want Texas, but it doesn't seem like all that good a fit, and I'm struggling to come up with good reasons Texas would want to go to the Big 10. Why would that be better than just staying on the throne of the Big 12?

 

But Pitt......geographically closer, kind of the same style of football, the possibility of a good yearly rivalry with Penn State, maybe OSU too. Seems to work better, at least on the surface.

 

Yeah, only the surface.

 

Texas is a way better fit. Texas would want to go to the Big 10 because they want to be a national institution with a high academic standard, and because they like making money.

 

OK. I already thought of Texas as all those things, but if they aren't then those would be good reasons.

 

I guess I am also underestimating the Big 10's clout here. It seems almost.....audacious....to me that they would think they could pluck Texas. But that's not really what I'm hearing now.

[SouthSideRyan]

 

Yeah, only the surface.

 

Texas is a way better fit. Texas would want to go to the Big 10 because they want to be a national institution with a high academic standard, and because they like making money.

 

OK. I already thought of Texas as all those things, but if they aren't then those would be good reasons.

 

 

I don't mean to disparage Texas. They are one of the best public universities in the country, but there's always room for improvement. The membership in the CIC is a big deal. The increase in revenue wouldn't be pocket change, the Big Ten is a financial juggernaut, and no other conference is close, especially not the Big XII. The only real cons to this move for Texas are athletic, and even they aren't overwhelming enough to definitely shoot it down. It's a matter of giving up on rivalries with schools they've dominated forever, and clearing it past the Texas legislature. (Can they really shoot this down?)