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Trojan Man

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Everything posted by Trojan Man

  1. USC beats better schools than Oregon for recruits. The #1 TE in the 2023 class chose USC over Georgia. USC also beat Notre Dame, Ohio State and Texas for other top recruits in the 2023 class. USC's highest rated 2024 commitment is from Georgia and he was favored to commit to Tennessee, plus USC beat Oregon for a couple commitments from top 100 recruits in this class. Anyways, Texas fans have a list of personal animosity reasons why they wouldn't want the SEC to invite certain Big 12 schools. Same deal with USC and certain Pac 12 schools. You all want a clean break from the nutswingers that have done nothing but hate you and blame you for every problem they encounter while simultaneously living off what you brought to their conference, so you should understand why USC isn't eager to let their nutswingers tag along to the B1G. Maybe we'd be more open to continuing those relationships if we didn't have decades of experience showing us all the benefits flow away from us and towards them.
  2. It's guys like Saban and Bryan Kelly and Senator Tuberville who are trying to put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to the portal and NIL, not Riley. Old guys stuck in their ways and not wanting to adapt and complaining how difficult change is making their job that pays them more in one year than most people will earn in a lifetime. Same as it ever was in any field undergoing seismic shifts. There is also a self-serving aspect to it. The coaches at Alabama and LSU do not want a landscape where they have to engage in bidding wars with USC and Texas and other schools/cities with far deeper pockets than theirs. This isn't baseless speculation. Saban has mentioned USC and Texas by name in his complaints about NIL. If Sanders wins big I guarantee that crowd will use him and Colorado as an example of why Congressional regulation of NIL and the portal is necessary. I'm pulling for him for that reason because one way or another it will bring clarity to a murky area.
  3. Their fans don't really care about Stanford, but Notre Dame likes playing Stanford because it lets them end each season with a game in California. It's a nice vacation from the shitty weather at home and since they never have a CCG the next week to start planning for some of their coaches can hang around for an extra day or two recruiting. They also have plenty of fans/alumni in California so this series guarantees a yearly game in front of that audience. Also every university president gets hot and bothered thinking about rubbing shoulders with Stanford. Lastly, Notre Dame doesn't like being thought of as a small town Midwestern school in the heart of B1G country. They like having a national image and a national schedule. Playing Stanford every year helps with that and it's also one reason why they cut a deal with the ACC. Basketball schools are untouchable because March Madness is how the NCAA makes most of its money. UNC basketball getting a postseason ban takes money out of the NCAA's pocket so the NCAA is incentivized to look the other way, like they also did when it came out Duke paid Zion Williamson and Kansas had Adidas funneling 5* recruits their way. Basketball schools get away with even more shit than SEC football. USC football receiving a postseason ban doesn't really matter to the NCAA because FBS postseason money goes to the schools, not the NCAA.
  4. There will be a lot of pissed off, dinosaur coaches and ADs screaming for portal restrictions if Colorado does well this year. Or rather, a lot more since they're already crying to Congress to do their job for them.
  5. I'll step off my soapbox and leave a link https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/31889336/former-usc-trojans-assistant-todd-mcnair-ncaa-settle-defamation-lawsuit If the networks say adding Oregon gets everyone a substantial raise then sure, it will happen. And as I said before I know that day is likely coming and I'd be happy just to keep them out for a decade. But if they aren't making everyone richer, like if the networks say "We'll provide 1 new share for Oregon and Washington to split 50/50 while the rest of your payouts stay the same" then I do think USC and UCLA would be able to affect that outcome. If you poached the two best employees from another company and they gave you a bad reference for a former longtime coworker that is now applying at your company wouldn't that play a part in your decision making? Nebraska and everyone else in the West benefited from divisions because all the good teams were in the East. Life is about to get a lot harder for West schools in 2024 (and a little easier for the East's have nots).
  6. That was a big time coaching fuck up. I was at the game and I immediately freaked out about Bush not being on the field as soon as I saw it. The play call could have been exactly the same (handoff up the middle to Lendale White) but if they just lined up Bush out wide, or motioned him from the backfield to the slot, he would have taken two defenders with him. Maybe that opens up enough space to get the first down. I'll agree it was a fair penalty when a similar football program gets hit with 30 lost scholarships and a 2 year bowl ban for 1 ineligible player.
  7. The NCAA isn't a court of law. And like I said, when this matter was taken to a court of law they lost and ended up owing a settlement to the coach they said "should have known." If the NCAA wants to act like a court of law they should bring in other legal standards, like precedent. Then they couldn't play favorites where they hammer Pac 12 and Big 12 schools that should have known everything going on while conveniently forgetting about that precedent when Cam Newton's eligibility is under investigation.
  8. I was asked what I thought and I elaborated. It's relevant to this thread because Oregon played a part in the sanctions, Oregon is angling for a B1G invitation and USC has a say on whether or not Oregon gets in. Therefore, USC's grievances with Oregon are likely affecting realignment. People act like Pete Carroll gave Bush a mansion in Beverly Hills and a Ferrari to get him to sign with USC. Bush's parents had a few rent-free months of housing hours away from campus and Bush received a used car (it was a Jeep Cherokee or something similar, not a real fancy car). All benefits were from a felon with zero affiliation to USC and whose primary motivation was to get him to leave USC for the NFL. It's a goddamn joke USC was hammered for that while other schools, mainly SEC schools, get a slap on the wrist for far worse. Just like it's a goddamn joke people are still clutching their pearls over what would nowadays be a mediocre NIL deal. Players who couldn't hold Bush's jockstrap are now getting more money and nicer cars than he did.
  9. I think a few things. -"Should have known" is a ridiculous justification to nuke a football program. The NCAA decided to use that justification by wholeheartedly trusting the word of a spurned felon wannabe agent who provided Bush's family with illegal benefits to get him to leave for the NFL (Bush signed with a real agent once he left for the draft, which pissed off the felon so he squealed). The NCAA has not used "should have known" in any investigations since then. Keep in mind this is the same organization that somehow couldn't connect Cam Newton to his own father who was selling him to the highest bidder during his recruitment, yet they believed USC's coaches in LA should know what a player's parents are doing at all times hours away in San Diego. -To make it even better, the pompous dickhead leading the investigation who coined "should have known" and "high profile athletes need high profile compliance" while wagging his finger at USC was the AD at Miami while booster Nevin Shapiro was gifting their football players hookers and abortions and cocaine. To my shock neither of those zingers were anywhere to be found in that investigation. If there was any fairness in the NCAA somebody from USC would have been part of Miami's investigation. -After 5 years of investigating and grinding their ax the only dirt the NCAA found on any of USC's coaches was the RB coach, and it was weak. He ended up winning a lawsuit and a settlement vs the NCAA because of the way they railroaded him and effectively ended his college coaching opportunities. -To bring it back to the topic of this thread, fuck Oregon for voting for sanctions to prop themselves up. I can think of no better way to get even than cockblocking them out of the B1G. And fuck all the Pac 12 fans that blame USC's subpar 2010s decade for hurting the value/reputation of the Pac 12, as if the sanctions they loved so much and the parity at all costs they pushed for weren't primarily responsible for that. USC is a juggernaut and Pac 10 fans whine about USC being too good then applaud the NCAA's sanctions, USC struggles and Pac 12 fans whine that USC isn't performing well enough to carry the conference. When dealing with people who only put you in lose-lose situations the winning move is to walk away, which is exactly what happened. I don't think B1G teams and coaches and fans will act like little bitches if USC goes undefeated and waxes Oklahoma's ass in the title game like Pac 10 fans did.
  10. You'd think, but here's the catch. Cal owes a shit ton of money on their stadium. 10 years ago they took on almost half a billion in debt to renovate their stadium and build a new athletic training center. If you're wondering why it's so expensive the stadium is built on a fault line and it's designated as a historic site, so those plus being in a pricey ZIP code of a pricey state jacked up the price. They are only paying interest until 2032, and their interest-only payments are already 20% of their athletic budget. They are scheduled to make payments on the principal from 2032 through the rest of the century, and payments will jack up once they start paying down the principal. They need to play football in a major conference to get the revenue necessary to pay this debt off. Without that the options to pay their debt are praying a wealthy alumni will help them out (unlikely, but maybe Aaron Rodgers wants a stadium named after him), stealing some of UCLA's B1G jackpot or begging the state for a bailout. Anyways, this is yet another example of why USC and UCLA had to leave the Pac 12. Members of this conference were making century-long financial commitments on the assumption they would always have the LA schools to subsidize them, yet they refused to ever give the LA schools anything in return. And you can see why. Unequal revenue sharing to pay USC and UCLA what they are worth isn't feasible if you already penciled in that revenue for the next century to pay off your stadium debt. Here's a link if anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1680579-cals-stadium-renovation-debt-shows-schools-need-to-keep-football-in-perspective With Oregon it's not just that, it's also personal. They directly contributed to fucking over USC with sanctions. They had an athletic department employee on the investigation committee and that employee voted for 30 lost scholarships and a two year bowl ban on the basis of "USC should have known what Reggie Bush's parents were up to in San Diego." They stabbed USC in the back so they could dance atop our corpse. Why should USC want to bring that kind of bullshit to their new home? The rest of the Pac 10 cheered on the sanctions because they hated Pete Carroll making them all play for second place for most of the 2000s, which is another reason you don't see too many tears from USC fans about leaving the Pac 12. Fuck Oregon, even if they recruited like Arizona State I still never want to bring them to the B1G for that reason. For the 10 years of fun they had at USC's expense they can enjoy a lifetime in purgatory. There are some other personal reasons for USC and UCLA to not want Oregon in the B1G, but for USC that's the main reason. That said, I understand Oregon probably will get into the B1G at some point. If they are on the outside looking in for at least a decade or so I'd be satisfied. That's enough time to remind them they are not and never were USC's equal, plus after that many years all high school recruits will remember is that USC has played in a top conference their whole life while Oregon has not. A decade of B1G paydays vs the decade of Pac Whatever or Big 12 paydays Oregon will get is also nice.
  11. They should view it as good. The Big 12 needs to be more attractive to blue chip recruits and Sanders definitely helps with that. From a competitive standpoint I don't think they'd sweat it. They're used to playing Texas and Oklahoma yearly and those two run laps around the rest of the Big 12 in terms of roster talent. And if Sanders does turn Colorado into a powerhouse he'll be in the SEC or at Florida State soon after.
  12. The legal exposure line never made sense to me. USC and UCLA fulfilled their contractual obligations to the Pac 12 before leaving for the B1G. They announced their intention to leave by the deadline established in the contract and they are Pac 12 members until the date specified in the contract. After that they are free to leave and the Pac 12 can't do anything about it. If other schools leaving a conference follow the same by the book process what grounds are there for their old conference to sue anyone? What is there to litigate had the B1G pursued more Pac 12 teams before the Big 12 knocked over the Colorado domino? No conference owns its members in perpetuity. They own their rights for the duration of the contract, and that's it. When contracts expire schools are free to look around and explore their options. This is like saying the Yankees can't sign too many free agents at once from the Mariners and they have to wait for the Rangers to pick up a couple Mariners free agents or else the Mariners will sue them. As long as all contracts are respected (or renegotiated to the agreement of all parties) there is nothing to settle in court.
  13. I know a lot of single women in their late 30s who feel the same way.
  14. During two a days in high school we always did bull in the ring and Oklahomas. We did the "start on your feet" 2v2 or 3v3 Oklahomas as well as the "start on your back" 1v1 version. Our coaches usually matched up guys of similar size/speed/age. That way we wouldn't have the all conference senior defensive tackle murdering the sophomore receiver who is still learning how to put on his pads. I'm in my 30s so this isn't ancient history, but I'm pretty sure I am one of the last to regularly do those drills during all 4 years in high school. I distinctly remember one time where I got concussed during bull in the ring at the beginning of practice and I was still a full participant for the remainder of practice. Anyways, I liked these drills. They helped to weed out the baseball players and the basketball players and the track & field guys from the football players.
  15. SEC school gets a slap on the wrist for cheating their ass off. Huh, I've never seen that before. And I'm sure Pruitt was squeaky clean during his time at Alabama and Georgia before Tennessee hired him. No need to dig any deeper on his other jobs, all the cheating was confined to Tennessee.
  16. Arizona State has been called a sleeping giant for as long as I can remember. I have never seen them wake up. At some point they're comatose instead of sleeping. On paper they should be much better than they have been but for whatever reason (pro sports town, too many transplant residents in their backyard, poor hiring, lack of administrative support) it has never clicked. Their profile screams Big 12 to me. They do have a couple things going for them that could help get into the B1G. Arizona has a lot of Midwestern retirees and tourists. I don't have a source for this but the eyeball test tells me Phoenix is one of the cities outside of the B1G's footprint with the highest amount of B1G alumni/fans. Phoenix also has many Californian residents and ASU would do a lot more to ease travel for USC and UCLA than Oregon or Washington so that might get them Yes votes from the LA schools. But I go back to the money and I just don't see how ASU clears the hurdle of adding enough revenue to pay for themselves and make the rest of the B1G schools at least a few more bucks. Even when you consider ASU vs B1G teams is worth more than ASU vs Pac 12 or Big 12 teams it's still not worth the B1G's current contract or what the next contract will look like. ASU and Oregon and Stanford and Washington are having a hard time getting networks to pay them $30M/year right now. You need some serious voodoo to suddenly make them worth over twice that, especially when you consider any further B1G additions will water down the frequency of the blockbuster matchups the networks salivated over when signing this deal unless the B1G adds more conference games.
  17. TV should change the rules so the Arizona schools can't host day games before the third Saturday of October because early October can still be brutal. I wasn't drinking that day and I made sure to be well-hydrated beforehand so I wasn't hurting too bad, plus the outcome of the game helped, but that was my one and only Arizona State visit. As for ASU's future affiliation I think the B1G is a longshot. They're prioritizing Notre Dame and ACC teams before they will head West again, with the only exception maybe being Stanford if that's what it takes to land the Irish. If they do come West again Stanford, Washington, Oregon and maybe even Colorado are higher on the wishlist than ASU. I'm also not sure if the media money will even be there to support massive conferences, given the fact almost all of the big earners are off the board and the future for cable/broadcasters is hazy at best. If we end up going from a cable model to a 100% streaming DTC model that means having popular brands instead of large markets and maximizing your biggest matchups will make you the most money. Scheduling fewer games between USC/Michigan and Ohio State/Penn State because you have to make room for USC/ASU and Ohio State/Stanford is a money-losing move in that environment. Notre Dame + a friend still makes everyone in the B1G richer, but that would raise an already high bar to clear for future invitations even higher. Teams like Florida State and Oregon and Washington have trouble adding enough revenue right now (while Notre Dame is still independent) to justify an invitation so I don't know how ASU will do it. Since no existing member will take a pay cut to make room for new members 18 teams, maybe 20, feels like it might be the limit for how large the B1G and the SEC can become. If things play out this way the best move for teams outside the B1G and the SEC is to consolidate as much as possible into a third conference, and it's looking like the Big 12 will become that conference. The ACC is fucked by their very long GOR and below market contract plus the public desire for all their best teams to leave ASAP. After another decade of the drama that has played out among the ACC haves and have nots this offseason their relationships will disintegrate. The Pac 12 is fucked by poor leadership, poor geography/time zones, apathetic fanbases and prioritizing academics over athletics. The Big 12 doesn't have these problems. They could potentially have teams in all 4 time zones and fill TV windows all day, they survived losing their most valuable teams, their remaining teams know they most likely aren't getting a B1G or SEC golden ticket, they generally field pretty competitive and well-supported teams in the revenue sports and they aren't run by schools like Cal that are openly hostile to revenue sports and think the size of their library has any bearing on media value. If the ACC and the Pac 12 die or are whittled down to their least valuable schools that frees up more money and more windows for a hypothetical third place conference. They could get their payout higher than the ACC, the current Big 12 or the Pac 12 will make on their own even if it's not quite B1G/SEC money. Basically, for ASU it comes down to hedging your bet by taking the safe and sure thing (Big 12 invitation) or going all in on the longshot (B1G invitation). That would be pretty rich if the Pac 12 takes oppressive Saudi blood money after all the fuss certain Pac 12 schools made about the possibility of inviting red state religious schools due to ethical and moral concerns.
  18. Georgia Tech was in the SEC from 1933-63. Both schools were also in the Southern conference for a decade or so before they joined the SEC together. Now that I think about it, technically this doesn't apply to what you asked because hurt feelings never interrupted their series. Besides 2020 they have played uninterrupted since 1925. Georgia Tech left for independence because they were unhappy about how much SEC teams were oversigning recruits, so that wasn't quite the same as Oklahoma leaving behind Oklahoma State for the SEC. Being independent also meant Tech had room to continue scheduling Georgia.
  19. Georgia/Georgia Tech. He's right. I've heard the exact same thing said by posters here, that for Texas the SEC move is more about being affiliated with peers than money. Athletically, Texas has more in common with SEC schools than Big 12 schools. As for the quality loss angle that is also true and something I have heard from Texas fans. SEC losses aren't held against teams nearly as much as Big 12 losses are, and I'm anticipating the same thing helping my team. I'm looking forward to B1G losses being forgiven and shrugged off by the media and voters and the committee as opposed to the scarlet letter nature of Pac 12 losses.
  20. Thursday/Friday night games are the kind of thing people enjoy as long as their team isn't involved. I love having weeknight games to watch but I hate when USC has to play on a weeknight, especially at home. As a neutral viewer it's nice to watch a game from start to finish that likely involves teams I otherwise wouldn't see very often. Getting more exposure for middle of the road teams that don't get many prime windows is the best use of weeknight games. On the other hand, It feels very bush league to have your blueblood team playing on a weeknight in the middle of the season when other bluebloods either never play on weeknights or only do so for week 1 and Thanksgiving/Black Friday. Going forward the lone scenario I wouldn't complain about a weeknight game for USC in the B1G is if there is only one all season, it's coming off a bye week, it's on the road and it's against a bottom half of the conference opponent. Requiring USC and UCLA to host a weeknight game every other year or so was one of the grievances the schools had with the Pac 12. Fighting LA rush hour traffic to get to the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl absolutely kills attendance and the atmosphere at the game. It's less of a problem for college town schools. I think Lincoln Riley and Chip Kelly will have an impact on how the B1G plays similar to what A&M and Missouri did to the SEC. The SEC started to copy Big 12 offenses after their Big 12 additions lit up SEC defenses in their first few years in the league. Riley's younger brother was TCU's OC last season when they they carved apart Michigan's defense that looked incredible all year against stale B1G offenses, which makes me very confident Riley will have even better results with his offense full of 4-5* recruits and the B1G DC only having 1 week to prepare. Kelly is also a very good offensive mind and playcaller, plus he just signed a 5* QB. Give it a couple years of USC and UCLA lighting up the scoreboard against B1G defenses that aren't used to playing QBs who can accurately throw the ball more than 10 yards and offenses that aim to score 45 points instead of 17 points and they will finally modernize their playbooks.
  21. The crystal trophy has not been decommissioned. It is still rewarded to the Coaches Poll champion.
  22. IIRC, the reason USC and UCLA announced they were leaving on that specific date (6/30/22) is because that was the deadline to announce you are leaving after the 2023-24 year without any penalties. No announcement to leave then would have meant you were either agreeing to stay and negotiate a new media deal/GOR (which the remaining Pac 12 schools started doing shortly after USC/UCLA made their exit) or you were going to pay some kind of penalty to leave after 2023-24. I'm unsure how that will play out with Arizona, Colorado and anybody else who might leave after 2023-24. They didn't announce they were leaving by 6/30/22. However, AFAIK there is nothing contractually binding them to the Pac 12 past 2023-24. That 6/30/22 deadline was mainly to know who was in or out when starting negotiations for a new contract. They could argue they made a good faith effort for Kliavkoff and the Pac 12 to negotiate a new deal on their behalf but after over a year of being told a new deal was right around the corner they lost confidence it would ever materialize, so fuck paying any penalties to a conference that couldn't uphold their end of things. I think the end of this month or early August is finally the "shit or get off the pot" moment for Pac 12 schools with options. If Pac 12 Media Days are a disaster because the only thing anyone wants to talk about is the lack of a media deal that would give them something dramatic to point at and say "Everyone knows what a fucking mess this conference and its leadership is, we have to move" to boosters and anyone in a position of power who is still undecided. From a practical standpoint a move then also gives their accountants a budget forecast to work with and their new conference all season to hype up the moves and start planning schedules for 2024-25.
  23. I'm flattered you think I know this kind of thing, but I was under the impression realignment discussion is strictly for unsourced rampant speculation and wildly optimistic wishes and outlandish scenarios that require all 3 of a genie's wishes.
  24. "Those new jeans make your ass look creative and forward thinking, honey" "We're excited to offer you the job. Would you like to hear about our creative and forward thinking benefits and compensation package?" "That mole looks pretty sketchy. I'm referring you to the most creative and forward thinking dermatologist I know to take a closer look at it."
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