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Trojan Man

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Posts posted by Trojan Man

  1. 16 minutes ago, gernblansten said:

    He's currently the best, or one of the best, passers in a pass happy league that gives offenses every advantage and bubble wraps QBs. Seems premature to put him in the top 3, 5 or 10 all time after 5 years. IMHO, seemingly disrespects a number of past QBs and the NFL in which they played. He's a great player. His place in history is still to be determined.

    The era argument goes both ways.  Yeah, it's easier to play offense today than it was 30+ years ago.  That also means it's easier for opposing teams to rack up more points on your defense, putting more pressure on your QB and your offense to keep pace.  The Chiefs don't win yesterday if their offense doesn't score on every second half possession they had.  How many Super Bowls did Troy Aikman or Joe Montana have to score every single time they touched the ball in the second half to win it?

  2. 26 minutes ago, Thiefery said:

    I sorta feel bad for that conference (PAC) because they have had bad luck with their commissioners.. 

    I do think Larry Scott had the right idea, but he really needed to do everything to get UT and the other 3 schools to join. I think he was willing to accept LHN but his bosses said no and left it at that. 

    I wish the Big12 had Yorkman back in the Beebe days.. Conference would most likely have kept every member and who knows, they could be poaching SC and UCLA 

    Larry Scott was terrible, but he wasn't an unavoidable act of God.  He was hired because Pac 12 presidents bought what he was selling and he kept his job for as long as he did because the same presidents loved him.  It's not a coincidence the conferences that prioritize competitive football and making money have good commissioners while the conference that prioritizes academic circle jerking and winning championships in sports nobody cares about has shitty commissioners.  Larry Scott was a reflection of misplaced priorities among Pac 12 leadership.  He had very high approval ratings with Pac 12 presidents while he was destroying the conference.

    Even if Scott landed Texas, Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State I don't know if that would have saved the Pac 12.  They would have served as a nice counterbalance to the ivory tower attitudes plaguing the Pac 12, but giving more money to the people who killed this conference would have just encouraged them.  USC, Texas and Oklahoma might still have developed wandering eyes for the conferences that take football seriously as opposed to the Pac 12, where they act like football success and non-revenue success are equally important.  At least now an existential crisis is forcing some of the poor leadership around the Pac 12 that was happy to just ride the gravy train to reconsider their beliefs.  For example Colorado wouldn't have hired Prime Time if they were in a stable conference.

    11 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

    Stew was in tears as he wrote and tweeted that.

    I usually like him but yes, he has a massive blind spot when discussing Pac 12 issues.

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  3. 1 minute ago, Texas Wahoo said:

    I highly recommend subbing to The Athletic, especially if there are multiple sports and teams you follow.  Lots of deep content and most of their writers regularly engage with readers.

    Spoiler

    Written by Stewart Mandel, Nicole Auerbach, Max Olson and Chris Vannini.

    Realignment is back in the news, thanks to continued discussions within the Big 12 about early exits for Oklahoma and Texas, and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff’s visit to SMU on Wednesday.

    Here is the latest from The Athletic’s reporters.

    Pac-12 media rights

    Last July, shortly after USC and UCLA’s defections, the Pac-12 opened negotiations for its next media rights contract, which would take effect with the 2024 football season. Seven months later, there’s still no deal — and people are getting antsy. With good reason.

    Three people with knowledge of the discussions said commissioner George Kliavkoff is struggling to find partners willing to pay close to what the league is seeking. Two of those sources said Kliavkoff overpromised his members on how many bidders there would be and what dollar amount they could command — a target north of $40 million per school, according to one league athletic director. Today, it’s uncertain whether the Pac-12 will even be able to exceed the $31.6 million average the Big 12 reportedly landed in a six-year extension with ESPN and Fox it reached last fall.

    “(We) don’t have a deal because it hasn’t been good,” said the AD.

    Kliavkoff made some key miscalculations. At last summer’s Pac-12 media day, he suggested the Big Ten’s pending jackpot — which wound up being for $8.1 billion over seven years — would have a ripple effect on the Pac-12. But the Big Ten is a much more watched conference that garnered interest from nearly every major linear and digital media company. The Pac-12, by contrast, has found fewer bidders since going to the open market. Fox, for one, has expressed little interest now that the Los Angeles schools are part of its prized Big Ten package. And CBS (Big Ten and Mountain West) and NBC (Big Ten and Notre Dame) are set in college football for the next several years. However, one Pac-12 administrator did indicate a new player emerged shortly after the new year.

    Kliavkoff also sounded certain last summer that his league would be next in line after the Big Ten because its deal was up a year earlier than the Big 12’s (which runs through 2025). But Big 12 counterpart Brett Yormark outflanked him, convincing existing partners ESPN and Fox to open up negotiations a year early. Whereas Kliavkoff drew out the process by taking his rights to market, Yormark reached an extension of the current contract within a couple of months. And the Big 12’s agreement may have provided its own ripple effect on negotiations by unofficially setting a ceiling. 

    “It’s tough when your neighbor across the street sells his house for a low price,” said the Pac-12 administrator.

     

    ESPN remains interested in the Pac-12, particularly in the league’s 10:30 p.m. ET games, but New York Post sports media writer Andrew Marchand reported last fall that the Pac-12 and ESPN were “hundreds of millions apart.” Which may explain why the Pac-12 is looking at possibly putting the majority of its games on a streaming platform. Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand predicted in December the league will “sell almost its entire media package to Amazon for a price that is slightly higher than what the Big 12 gets from ESPN and Fox.”

    Which brings us back to expansion. Adding schools like San Diego State and SMU would not add significant value in a traditional TV deal, but a streaming service like Amazon or ESPN+ could be interested in volume. Inviting two more schools would add an extra 15 or so football games a year, which would raise the overall dollar amount (say, from $270 million a year to $300 million a year). Two sources believe the new schools would initially receive less than a full share — not unusual in these situations — which would up the existing schools’ slice of the pie.

    While those sources still believe the media deal will be completed before any expansion becomes official, they also understand there could be pressure from media partners to swap the order of events so they know exactly what that inventory will be.

    SMU and San Diego State in focus

    SMU’s home basketball game on Wednesday night was supposed to serve as a secret pitch meeting, but it became a public demonstration. Multiple promotions and honors were scheduled heading into the matchup with Temple, including football players being told to attend the game. Several people in the athletic department weren’t sure why. The reason for the emphasis became clear when The Action Network first reported that Kliavkoff would visit SMU on Wednesday and On3 reported he would be at the game.

    After a cold and rainy day in Dallas, Kliavkoff indeed attended. He tried to stay inconspicuous, wearing a black NBA Finals hat and a black quarter-zip. But The Athletic and the Dallas Morning News spotted him in a suite at the top of Moody Coliseum. He was flanked by two men who appeared to be Pac-12 deputy commissioner/COO Jamie Zaninovich and senior vice president of strategy Erik Hardenbergh. Throughout the game, the trio met with SMU president R. Gerald Turner, board of trustees chair and megadonor David B. Miller, athletic director Rick Hart and executive deputy AD/COO Kurt Pottkotter. Kliavkoff and Turner spoke for most of the second half, which saw SMU win on a free throw with three seconds left. The commissioner left the arena out of the view of media.

     

    SMU did not want this visit to become public, as conferences and schools prefer to keep realignment workings behind closed doors. Even after the news leaked, many SMU officials wouldn’t say a word on or off the record and wouldn’t confirm Kliavkoff’s appearance at the game. Many had found out he was coming only when the news broke.

    But the suddenly public nature of the visit provided an opportunity. SMU’s student section was packed and scattered with signs with Pac-12 references. One fan, Jack Joyce, wrote “Pac” on the back of an SMU club baseball jersey with the No. 12. Dallas mayor Eric Johnson tweeted his support before tipoff.

    After the win, Mustangs basketball coach Rob Lanier was asked whether he knew the Pac-12 commissioner was there and replied, “I read that, yep.”

    SMU’s Pac-12 case is centered on its location in Dallas, which would bring the Pac-12 into Texas and the Central time zone, along with solid academics (it is a top-75 national university per U.S. News & World Report and is working to become a R1 research school) and a lot of money (a $2 billion endowment and many active big-money donors). It’s a private school, with an enrollment of more than 12,000, and is nonsectarian, having split from the United Methodist Church in 2019. The Pac-12 has avoided schools with religious ties in the past.

    The school has had conversations with the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC dating back to at least last summer, a school official told The Athletic last year. Turner had a call scheduled with University of Washington president Ana Mari Cauce on Aug. 1 of last year, according to an email obtained by The Athletic in a public records request. Kliavkoff’s visit on Wednesday was a big step toward a possible transformative moment for a school slowly working its way back to a major conference since the Southwest Conference dissolved in 1996.

    San Diego State, which hosted Kliavkoff in December according to multiple reports, is confident about its position for Pac-12 expansion. The Aztecs’ case: a presence in Southern California, a new $310 million football stadium, an expanding campus and a combined football/men’s basketball record second only to Ohio State among FBS programs since 2010. The school put together a strategic operations plan to help prepare a possible move to the Pac-12, an idea SDSU took from Utah.

    “We’re competitive in all of our sports, we invest in our programs, and we’re a rising star from an academic standpoint,” athletic director JD Wicker said last month, adding separately, “If an opportunity comes to anyone to elevate, no one is going to say no. We’ll continue to be the best San Diego State we can be, and see where that leads up. We’ll work with (commissioner Gloria Nevarez) and the Mountain West to make sure we’re being the best partner to everyone we can be.”

    Leaders around college sports believe San Diego State is the No. 1 football option for the Pac-12 if it expands, but the longer the media deal negotiations drag out, the harder it is to predict what will happen.

    Where the Big 12 stands

    The Big 12 is now well-positioned to benefit from any Pac-12 chaos. But first, it needs to finalize its divorce from Oklahoma and Texas.

    Conversations continue about an early exit for the two departing schools, which are contractually bound to the Big 12 through the 2024-25 academic year. Talks that would allow the Sooners and Longhorns to move on to the SEC ahead of the 2024 football season hit a snag last week, but they are not dead, two people with knowledge of the negotiations said.

    Because of the number of parties — the Big 12 and its remaining schools, Oklahoma, Texas and television partners ESPN and Fox — the discussions are complex. While it remains possible the talks stall and Oklahoma and Texas are forced to stay through June 2025, neither side feels as if the discussions are close to a drop-dead deadline.

    “Everybody wants to get it done,” one high-ranking official at a Big 12 school said. “It comes down to ESPN and Fox working their deal out. Fox doesn’t want to give up too much content for 2024.”

    ESPN will become the exclusive home of the SEC starting in 2024-25, so adding the incoming members at that time would be ideal. But Fox must be made whole in some way if it’s going to agree to surrender its rights to 2024 games featuring the Big 12’s two biggest ratings-drivers. As one conference source close to the situation put it, “Fox doesn’t feel they need to give away something that they already have.”

    Even if the Fox-ESPN dynamic is truly the missing piece in these negotiations, leaders at Oklahoma and Texas would also need to be satisfied with the other critical detail — the expensive exit penalties — needed for settling on an early split.

    First-year Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has a lot of bold ideas for the future of the Big 12 and plenty he is determined to accomplish, but he can’t move forward with many of those ambitions until this early exit gets resolved.

    Yormark quickly delivered on a new media rights deal for the conference last October, agreeing to a six-year extension with ESPN and Fox through 2030-31 that will pay an average of $380 million per year. That maneuver to effectively leapfrog the Pac-12 when it had the advantage of being next to market is looking wiser by the day.

    The Big 12 has been eyeing the four remaining Pac-12 South schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah — since last summer but certainly also views Oregon and Washington as prized targets. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren’s departure makes it tough for those two schools to assess whether they fit into that conference’s future plans. The longer the Pac-12’s hunt for an acceptable TV deal drags on and stirs doubts about the conference’s financial future, the easier it becomes for Yormark to make his pitch to those schools.

    That’s not his only option. The Big 12 continues to talk with Gonzaga, one high-ranking source at the school confirmed. They described the Big 12’s approach as much more forward-thinking than the Pac-12. Yormark’s background is in basketball, and he sees serious potential in the idea of making the best men’s basketball conference even stronger. The challenge for Gonzaga is convincing either conference to invite it as more than just a basketball-only member. There’s still reluctance to make a move unless it’s for all sports.

    When the Big 12 went through its last round of expansion in 2021, SMU was considered but wasn’t viewed as a serious contender. The concern was and has long been that SMU wouldn’t add value for the Big 12. But would the Pac-12 inviting SMU and entering the Dallas-Fort Worth market be detrimental for the Big 12? How will Yormark and his board assess that threat?

     The Athletic’s Andy Staples, Dana O’Neil and Christian Caple contributed to this report.

     

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  4. 19 minutes ago, DFW Horn said:

    UH should be able to keep more Houston talent home, too, with Big 12 cred using your logic for Cincinnati and UCF. Why wouldn't they? Their alumni's pockets aren't as deep collectively, but a few BMDs are committed to that program. 

    I think it's possible Houston could reach the same heights I described for those other programs, it's just not as likely.  They have fewer fans and more competition in their own backyard than the others so it's a steeper climb, but it wasn't that long ago Herman was keeping home more Houston talent and knocking off Oklahoma and Florida State and Lamar Jackson.  There were also other factors I didn't go into because I was getting too essay-ish, mainly location.

    For the Big 12 there was more value in expanding into Ohio and Florida than there was adding another Texas team.  Both of those help bolster recruiting for the rest of the conference more than Houston does and they position the Big 12 to pick off ACC schools some day, which would cement their place as the "best of the rest" third place conference.  It's vital the Pac 12 keeps a Southern California presence so that's a bump to SDSU's grade.

  5. 50 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

    I’m not convinced the corner schools wanted to jump. Easier travel, academic prestige, roughly the same money. So yeah, the Irate8 probably did as well as they were going to do. 
     

    That said, SDSU would have been a better choice than arguably all four of the new guys. NFL cities/traditional college football powers nearby kills off the fanbases for Coug High, Cincy, and UCF. 

    Out of the 4 new Big 12 schools plus SDSU BYU is a clear #1, Cincinnati/UCF/SDSU are all roughly even and Houston is last.  Those three in the middle all have TCU/Utah-level potential with the right coach and a little success.  The expanded playoff format will also help them to build upon any success.  Who knows how it might have changed TCU's fortunes if the 12 team format existed back in 2014?  I think the post-realignment Big 12 will snag an at large bid most years and might even land a second at large bid every so often.

    I expect Cincy to have a healthy uptick in recruiting now in the Big 12.  It's dumb a state as big as Ohio only had one P5 team.  It can easily support more than that.  Cincy should be able to get a good amount of the second tier instate recruits that Ohio State passes on but who still want to stay in Ohio while playing in a respectable conference.  Currently those guys go to schools like Kentucky, Louisville and B1G programs in neighboring states.  UCF has the most potential out of this group.  They have a massive amount of students and alumni, they're committed to football plus the big 3 Florida schools have all been wallowing in their own feces for awhile now so there is a local power vacuum.  A good run in the Big 12 could turn them into a power.  SDSU is committed to football (they just built a new stadium) and they have no other football competition in their market.  They won't beat USC or UCLA or Oregon or B1G/SEC powers for the top Southern California recruits but if they win they should do well with the next batch of local recruits that programs like Utah and Washington and the Arizona schools live off.  Of course these are predictions based on potential and not guaranteed to happen, but I think they are realistic outcomes with the right head coach in place and a supportive administration behind him.

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  6. 27 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

    It really isn't on my end.  I think the resource gap is big enough that the game would be more entertaining if the biggest dogs did their own thing, and the schools that have been associated with them historically, but down the food chain did their own thing.

    If it's not going to be a fairly big tent, that's a better product, IMO.  Straight up, no bullshit, no snark.

    The majority of people in this thread have made it pretty clear that they view the remaining Big 12 schools as the type of institutions they don't want to associate with.  I can understand why.  This idea fully frees the blue bloods from those arrangements.  If you don't think you'll be hated by the lower tier SEC schools (or that USC won't get hated by the lower tier Big 10 schools) you're nuts.  My proposal lets everyone duke it out at their respective peer group levels.

    I think it's a bit different for Texas because they'll be in the SEC with Oklahoma and A&M and Arkansas, but I expect the amount of hatred USC will get in the B1G to pale in comparison to how much Pac 12 schools hate USC.  Geographic proximity plays a big part in hate and besides UCLA there will be 1500 miles separating USC from the next closest B1G school.  Ohio State and Michigan are the teams the rest of the B1G fanbases are taught to hate starting as children so they soak up most of that inferiority complex, measuring stick bullshit.  This is an underrated reason for joining the B1G.  Every Pac 12 team circles their game against USC the day the schedules are released.  The Buckeyes and Wolverines are the B1G teams who have to deal with every opponent turning them into their Super Bowl and unveiling a new uniform just for that game and doing a blackout in the stands and honoring some dead player or coach during a commercial break.  I'm optimistic that means fewer conference games for USC where 5-8 win teams come out with their hair on fire and play like the 1985 Bears, only to revert to their usual 5-8 win selves the next week and lose to Cal or some shit.

    8 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    I don't follow. It's already the case that conferences with bluebloods and not bluebloods co-exist with massive wealth disparities, even with the tv revenues roughly equal. The bluebloods can already hire away from the nonbluebloods by paying a lot more. OSU has had multiple coordinators taken by the bluebloods, including just last year with Knowles to Ohio State. The only reason we've kept Gundy is that he's an alum and turned down other opportunities when we pay him a little more. By your theory non-conference matchups like OKST-FSU, TCU-Ohio State, WVU-Bama (just a few I recall) would never happen because the nonblueblood is almost always at a disadvantage and your theory is that they would not accept the matchup (they don't get straight payouts like G5 and FCS opponents). It also doesn't really track that the Prestige Worldwide football revenues would carry over into basketball to much notable extent. If it did, there's no way Baylor would every have won a national title or Tech come within a few points of one too. The disparities already exist and are far less extreme in basketball regardless of program incomes. I don't think that would change much.

    Living with the wealth disparity when you are also benefiting financially and with greater exposure from being affiliated with their big football programs is one thing.  Being cut out of the big football money/exposure then asked to stay together for basketball and the non-revenue sports seems like a slap in the face.  I'm pretty sure the rest of the Pac 12 schools would tell USC to fuck off if USC asked to continue participating in the Pac 12 for all sports except football.

    As for the noncon games that's apples and oranges.  Those are one-off situations that have no impact on an athletic department's long term budget and health, plus the cut out schools still like the money and attention that comes from playing these big football games.  There also aren't any hurt feelings between West Virginia and Alabama the way there are between USC/UCLA or Texas/Oklahoma and the Pac 12/Big 12.  A point I'm seeing made in this thread is the cut out schools want to have their own football conferences they can win while competing against similar athletic departments and budgets.  Why should that not also apply to other sports?

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  7. 23 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    I imagine Prestige Worldwide being for football only. Everyone else would align geographically or historically and the football bluebloods would play everything else as part of those realigned conferences. I think it's clear that football is the big money maker by orders of magnitude over basketball. KU and UK move the needle some, but not in comparison to football. Baylor, Illinois, Louisville, Syracuse, Virginia certainly don't. If its 40 teams and football driven, OKST and ISU almost certainly make the cut over those programs, and also Maryland, Indiana, and UConn.  

    Why would the smaller schools agree to an arrangement like this, where they are cut off from the financial benefits of being associated with the big time football programs yet are still expected to compete in the same conference with the rest of their very well-funded sports and bail them out for deciding geography is irrelevant?  The Prestige Worldwide schools would have so much more money thanks to their football consolidation that they could vastly outspend the non-PW schools for all coaching hires and build palaces for every sport.

  8. 35 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:

    Note that this is no longer about the B12, this is all Fox. Also by slowing down Texas/OU this slows down the potential poaching of the Pac12 which means it gives Fox more time to decide how they want to deal with the potential of the B10 and westward expansion.

    I don't think that's a consideration at all.  If the B1G wanted more Pac 12 teams at this time they would have already invited them.  They could join at the same time as USC and UCLA with no media contract/GOR holdups since the Pac 12 hasn't renewed their media deal yet.  There is no reason for the B1G/Fox to procrastinate if they are interested in adding more Pac 12 teams, all that can bring is headaches.  I agree with what @Texas Wahoo just said.  Fox likely wants the major 2024 story to be USC/UCLA joining the B1G so they are doing what they can to postpone Texas/Oklahoma to the SEC for another year.

    7 minutes ago, mdmost said:

    Joel Klatt always talks about Texas OU as a game Fox wants to do, only behind tOSU/Michigan. I believe ABC gets first choice this year so that means they'll get tOSU/Michigan. 

    The B1G is officially done with ESPN/ABC starting 2023.  All their games will be on Fox, NBC, CBS or BTN now.  In 2023 CBS will broadcast part B1G part SEC, starting 2024 it's all B1G.

  9. 1 hour ago, statsman said:

    It would be very, very stupid of the B12 to take in Oregon. Oregon recruits Texas and California, and just lost exposure in Southern California. They have more NIL money than any remaining B12 school. 

    I think the Big 12 landing Oregon would be a major win.  Oregon isn't going head to head with Texas Tech and West Virginia and Oklahoma State for recruits.  Nobody remaining in the Big 12 will see their recruiting suffer if Oregon joins.  Texas and Oklahoma both outclass the rest of the Big 12 in NIL and recruiting yet it's TCU that just played in the title game and Kansas State that just won the conference, so success against richer and more talented programs isn't impossible for Big 12 schools.  Oregon is the closest thing to a nationally relevant flagship school the Big 12 could hope to add, plus getting them likely bags Washington too.

    There are a couple drawbacks to adding Oregon, though.  The first is they will still be openly pining for a B1G invitation (Washington as well) and I could understand if the Big 12 schools decided they were done dealing with that drama in their daily lives.  The next is state politicians trying to tack on Oregon State or Washington State to any Oregon/Washington realignment.  Those are both MWC schools masquerading as P5 schools.  They cancel out any value Oregon/Washington would bring and that should kill the possibility of any Pacific Northwest expansion.  The B1G problem might resolve itself if the next commissioner is strongly against further expansion but the little brother problem will be trickier.

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  10. 8 hours ago, Saint Austin said:

    You people are dreaming. As much as I'd love for OU to become a Nebraska-like has-been, they're too close in proximity to the North Texas recruiting hotbeds to become irrelevant for long. Additionally, when Nebraska left for the Big Ten, they abandoned that Texas recruiting pipeline. OU, on the other hand, will not only be able to continue to recruit Texas, but other SEC states more easily now.

     

    6 hours ago, Nivek said:

    I think there is a difference between Tennessee and OU, proximity to a talent-rich state.   OU is right next to one.   Tennessee has to get kids from multiple states nearby to support its program and must cast a wider net. 

    I don't think it's written in stone Oklahoma will fall off, but it's not a crazy one in a million kind of outcome either.  Like I said, it's possible Venables ends up being a good coach who just had a rough first year.  Kirby Smart went 8-5 in year 1 at Georgia, including losses to Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech and a blowout loss to Ole Miss.  If the wheels don't fall off the schooner again in 2023 Venables should be able to land another strong class.  Stacking up top 5-10 classes is 80% of the job.  It's also possible he's the next coming of Will Muschamp, which means OU would have to nail the next hire because chaining together multiple bad hires is how you get lost in the wilderness.  Being forced into another coaching change in their last Big 12 year or their first SEC year will make transitioning conferences that much harder for them.

    Oklahoma has a better recruiting situation than Nebraska.  They will also be in a conference where half the teams in it reasonably expect to recruit at a top 10 level every year, which nullifies that recruiting advantage.  Being a football-crazy SEC school with good recruiting isn't a license to success.  Florida is a dedicated SEC school that doesn't have to survive on out of state recruiting.  They haven't made the playoff yet, they haven't won their conference in 15 years and the one year they were in the CFP conversation late in the season was the joke 2020 season.  Oklahoma's better recruiting might give them a floor of 7-8 wins instead of Nebraska's floor of 3-4 wins, but you need a top 10 coach to consistently surpass that level in the SEC.

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  11. 2 hours ago, 'stache said:

    I think they'll have a few but will average around 8-9 wins per year and will win the conference very 5-6 years or so. I really hope I'm wrong, but their infrastructure and history, including recent history, is just too much to think they'll have many 6-6 seasons. They'll pay as well as anyone after next season and pull in a big name head coach.

    There's a real chance Oklahoma falls off into Nebraska territory in the SEC.  They're going from a conference where they totally outclass 8/9 league foes in terms of revenue and recruiting potential to a conference where they will be middle of the pack in those metrics.  Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Florida and LSU all surpass OU in these categories and you can make arguments for A&M and Tennessee.  I think it's too early to write off Venables but he has to win at least 9 games next season and not get his ass handed to him in any losses to keep recruiting from falling off.  There is a lag in recruiting results when a program goes from shitty to good or good to shitty, which helped Venables sign a very good 2023 class because OU still had a great reputation with recruits.  A successful program can survive one bad season in year 1 of a new coach's era.  But string together a few 6-7 win seasons and the apple loses its shine.  Once that happens you're just killing time until the coach is fired because there is no recovery after recruiting declines.  If Venables gets fired his replacement will have a steeper hill to climb because he'll be inheriting a struggling program instead of a program recruits know as one that dominates their conference and racks up Heismans.

    Oklahoma is praised for their dedication to football but how much of that was just being blessed with coaching stability and not having to take a ride on the coaching carousel in a year beginning with 2 until last year?  Nothing about OU makes them immune to wandering the wilderness.  It can happen to anyone and coaching hires are a crapshoot for everyone.  Tennessee is pretty fucking dedicated to football too and they spent most of the last 20 years being a dumpster fire joke of a program, largely because they didn't have OU's luck with coaching hires and stability.  You don't need much imagination to see OU falling into the same pit Tennessee is finally emerging from.

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  12. 7 minutes ago, DFW Horn said:

    Well, it should be for USC and Texas. At least, it's proven to be thus far.

    Agreed.  Potential endorsement dollars for Tuscaloosa and Knoxville don't hold a candle to what LA and Austin can offer.  Bryce Young wasn't getting NASCAR honorary starter deals in his own stadium like Caleb Williams is in a couple weeks.  But I think that's a bigger boost for skill player recruiting than linemen recruiting.  The glamour position guys who excel at schools in big markets will have lots of deals and money thrown at them.  It will be harder for linemen to get noticed and collectives need to fill in that gap, even for the big market schools.

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  13. 30 minutes ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

    I’m beginning to think I liked the old method of bags and fake jobs better. 

    This way is better.  No more NCAA Wheel of Justice nonsense where certain schools and conferences can cheat their ass off and never get more than a slap on the wrist while others have to follow the rules lest the NCAA steamroll their program.  Yes, I am still angry the same organization that determined USC should have known what Reggie Bush's parents were up to hours away from campus in San Diego could somehow never link Cam Newton to his own father and then followed that up with a half game suspension vs Rice after Johnny Football sold autographs.  The first few years of NIL will be bumpy and there will be more horror stories like what happened with Rashada, but I think the market will eventually correct itself as time goes on.  No administration or coaching staff wants to be in the embarrassing position Florida is in right now, they'll get the collectives under control.

    Questionable NCAA enforcement aside, it was also dumb that college athletes were the only subset of law-abiding Americans who were not allowed to participate in the almighty free market our society is centered around.  The only truly regrettable course of action was the NCAA fighting tooth and nail against players getting paid every step of the way until the SCOTUS bitch slapped them with a 9-0 decision.  If the NCAA took a more forward thinking position on this issue and acknowledged the sand was shifting underneath them instead of digging in for a losing fight they could have worked together with the schools and players to institute some guard rails and regulation alongside NIL.  But it's too late to do that now because any attempts at putting this genie back in the bottle will end with another judicial bitch slap and the NCAA knows it, so nothing short of collective bargaining will end this Wild West era.

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  14. I didn't think what I said about the relationship between Texas and the Big 12 was that controversial.  Anyways, while we're talking about conferences taking way too fucking long to publish their 2023 schedules the Pac 12 is finally releasing theirs today.  With adding 4 new teams and uncertainty over how long Texas and Oklahoma will remain I can understand the Big 12's delay but the Pac 12 screwing around with the schedule for this long doesn't have any such excuses.  2023 opponents and locations have been known for years but for some reason the Pac 12 needed extra time to get the dates down.  Usually they announce the next year's schedule during CCG week.

    According to some rumors it sounds like the conference is positioning itself for a huge finish to the season with nearly all the games between every Pac 12 team expected to contend for the league title in 2023 scheduled for November.  USC is supposedly getting Washington/at Oregon/UCLA to finish the season which I'm not too thrilled about, but as long as those teams also have to play real competition the week before they play USC instead of Colorado or ASU or St. Mary's Blind Pregnant Teenagers of the Poor I won't complain.

  15. 5 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

    Not only that…Georgia was basically playing at home in that game. Ohio State likely wins it if Day doesn’t call two stupid pass plays (one was almost picked and Stroud was sacked on the second) to set up the shanked FG. No Day didn’t fuck up the kick but they should have kept it on the ground if they were going to run the plays. Georgia played to a hometown crowd for their CFP playoff. TCU and Meatchicken at least had to go to Zona. I mean shit. I think TCU winning bothers people for reasons other than they’d care to admit. Go Frogs. Spit blood in their eyes! 
     

    On a lighter note, what Dykes did his year was offer a blueprint for schools like them to get this far. Very effective use of the portal (15 slots he had to fill.) sure having upperclassmen matters but people act like that’s the only factor with guys who had to learn a brand new offensive scheme and defensive formation from a brand new staff (save the two staff members Dykes kept from Patterson’s staff.) 

    I will smile huge when TCU wins the big one for the little guys. It’s why I love college football. What Dykes did can be replicated. 

    Yeah, Georgia's schedule this year is a bit of a joke and it's why I won't include them in GOAT team conversations if they win tonight.  They didn't play anyone worth a damn on the road (@South Carolina before they put it together, @Missouri, @Mississippi State, @Kentucky) and to top it off they looked like shit in two of those games.  They played their biggest game of the year at home (Tennessee) and their next 3 biggest games at "neutral" Atlanta.  I don't think they would still be undefeated if they had to play a couple ranked teams in hostile environments.  Beating good teams on the road is very hard in college football, just ask Alabama.  2022 Georgia never had to do it and they struggled twice against mediocre teams on the road.

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  16. 1 hour ago, Doc Daneeka said:

    It seems to me that this kind of reality, similar to the current Big 12, is what will eventually drive something like a 64-team super division. I could see this leading to much more difficult schedules, more losses by top teams, and something closer to the NFL playoffs.

    I think there is a happy middle ground you can find between the haves and the have nots.  I personally believe it would be tragic for the sport if the biggest schools all broke away to make their own league and exclusively play each other.  I've described why earlier in this thread but the chiefs need the indians as much as the indians need the chiefs.  6 autobids in the expanded playoff is a big step in keeping the sport together instead of coalescing around a handful of powerhouses.

    The Big 12 and Pac 12 just couldn't find that balance to make coexistence possible because both conferences have too many nutswinger schools, which means they're the ones dictating policy and setting the tone and deciding the conference's direction.  Even before realignment too much of each conference based their decisions and their entire season on giving the middle finger to Texas/USC, which caused a lot of bitterness and hatred on each side.  But look at the B1G and SEC.  Their bluebloods and their middle of the road schools and their bottom feeders all work together pretty harmoniously without the constant drama and bullshit you see between the Big 12/Pac 12 and Texas/USC.  They all row their boat in the same direction while the Big 12 and Pac 12 have sizable "Fuck Texas/Fuck USC" factions that would happily do whatever they can to kneecap their big bad wolves.

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  17. 23 hours ago, nnm said:

    Take off your blue blood glasses.
    Michigan benefitted from a phantom roughing call resulting in a TD, got a pick from a well thrown ball which the receiver deflected, which resulted in another TD, got a fumble deep inside TCU’s territory, and benefitted from phantom DPI calls. 

    TCU dominated the game, led wire to wire, and it was UM, not little ol’ TCU, running scared and running trick plays to try to keep up. 

    If the results were reversed, everyone would be talking about how UM dominated and plucky TCU came close but just couldn’t quite get there despite a miraculous 3Q. 

    UM was lucky to be within 3 towards the end.

    UGA is better than UM, but not the dominant team they were last year. They may win, but I don’t think it’s going to be the game the lazy blue blood tshirt fans think it is. 

    Right, I don't get how anyone came away from that game thinking TCU barely pulled it off.  Anyone wants to talk about getting lucky in the semifinals, lets talk about Ohio State's kicker horribly shanking the gamewinning FG.  TCU looked like the better, faster, stronger team from start to finish and Michigan is fortunate they weren't blown out.  Anyways, if both teams bring their A game tonight Georgia wins but if Georgia brings their B game to TCU's A game TCU can win.

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  18. 21 hours ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

    Yeah, Deuce has commercial money, merchandise sales, and a deal that lets him drive a Porsche around Manhattan. I could see NIL pulling non-skill position players from mid-level programs to blue bloods, but I really don't see standout stars leaving.

    During the most recent portal cycle I didn't see any of these "bluebloods raiding midlevel P5 rosters of their superstars" Chicken Little outcomes.  It's looking more and more like the portal will just be another way for talent to efficiently disperse and portal management will be a new skill coaches have to learn.  It will filter out some dinosaur coaches who don't want to adjust (Dabo comes to mind) but most of them will learn and adapt.  I also think the portal will force coaches to be a little more honest when recruiting high schoolers.  If you sell a bunch of bullshit to a recruit now it's a lot easier for him to leave your program than it was 10+ years ago once he realizes coaches will say anything to get your commitment.

    At the P5 level I think the portal will be a net positive for everyone as long as you don't have one of those dinosaur coaches.  You could even argue KSU-type teams will benefit the most from it.  You need to have a keen eye for talent to win at that kind of program.  If you can identify undervalued high school recruits the bigger schools passed on you can do the same with transfers, effectively doubling your recruiting base.  At the G5 level I think it's more of a wash.  It really hurts when they lose an overlooked recruit they developed into a star player to a P5 program but for every one guy like that G5 programs will get 10 P5 transfers who would have never considered a G5 school when they were coming out of high school.

    11 hours ago, Tomatillo said:

    Just counterproductive and disingenuous that they would leave the P-12 for the B!G. That's sad. They are literally the heart of the P-12 and are leaving everyone else high and dry for a league that wins national titles in the major sports as often as there is snow in LA. At least the Texas/OU move makes sense geographically and culturally. 

    Hell with the Pac 12.  This conference never did a fucking thing to help the LA schools and took it for granted they could live off LA in perpetuity.  The rest of the Pac 12 constantly used their numbers to vote for policies that would help them at the expense of the LA schools and ignored every concern the LA schools had.  All USC/UCLA ever got in return for giving the rest of the conference a massive amount of relevance and attention and money and recruits was hatred and bitterness and egalitarian nonsense that treated Corvallis and Tucson and Pullman like they were just as important to the Pac 12 as LA.  Good to see the B1G's next media deal and the Pac's current media negotiations are showing them how fucking stupid it was to act like the nutswinger schools were as valuable as the LA schools.

    It wouldn't bother me at all if USC never played another Pac 12 school in any sport after 2023-24.  I'll miss Washington, they're the closest thing USC has to a peer in the Pac 12.  Besides the financial realities and hurt feelings on both sides that's another huge problem with Pac 12 membership from USC's perspective.  USC is the only football blueblood in the Pac 12, which is not a good position to be in.  You need some other powerhouses to help out with revenue generation and conference prestige/respect and to make sure the nutswingers don't hijack the conference.  Support from other big time football programs is something USC will finally have in the B1G with Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State.

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  19. 10 minutes ago, RoyalBevo21 said:

    In my 34 years of life thus far, Columbus, Ohio is in the running for the worst city I've ever been to. Truly nothing redeeming about the place. And holy shit to the stuff they call "good eating".

     

    I respect your want of college football royalty. I feel like Texas and USC have been in a very similar position the last 10 years with the little guys sucking our programs dry, then bitching to high heaven when we said enough is enough. But more excited to visit Minneapolis and Iowa City over Salt Lake City or Boulder is interesting. Both cities are cold AF with a lot of white people that think bland food is good. And have really weird accents. 

    Anyone who wants a trip somewhere warm and diverse isn't going to Boulder or Salt Lake City.  I don't mind the cold.  I left California a long time ago.  I live in a part of the country that's about to get fucked up by snow and ice and negative temperatures.  I want to go to Minnesota because they have a cool stadium, it seems like a fun city where I can find things to do and I'm a big baseball and hockey fan so if I can also fit in a Twins game or a Wild game I'd be happy.  As for Iowa that might be a one and done I mentioned in my last post, but it seems like an electric atmosphere plus the contrast in style with how Iowa plays and how USC plays will be a lot of fun.  Columbus doesn't seem like a great destination but they have a NHL team and blueblood vs blueblood will always be a good time.  That's my biggest complaint with playing in the Pac 12, no other bluebloods to play against or to help fund the conference or keep the conference from favoring the freeloaders too much.  Another reason I'm more excited for these new B1G locales than the old Pac 12 destinations is because in the B1G USC will actually be valued and appreciated by conference mates for the first time ever.  The rest of the Pac 12 has always fucking hated USC's guts and the decision to leave poured fuel on that fire.  I'm looking forward to ending these unhealthy relationships.

    I wish the stars had aligned in a way to bring Texas and USC into the same conference.  The two have a lot in common, both the good and the bad.  Those two plus Oklahoma are the only bluebloods west of the Mississippi and it's unfortunate they couldn't all run their own western conference together as opposed to joining eastern conferences where they'll always be outsiders.

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  20. 5 minutes ago, closetohumping said:

    Look,  it’s a good move to a much better conference.  Kudos.  But a trip to State College will never be more enjoyable than a trip to the Bay Area, Eugene, ,Boulder or Phoenix.  Ok game day atmospheres will likely be better but if you’re gonna make a weekend of it, the pac has great locales

    Familiarity plays a part.  If I never go to Phoenix again in my life I won't mind.  The place is a soulless furnace that shouldn't exist and the games are either in the scorching sun or the middle of the night.  Also a lot of these trips get scheduled for Thursday or Friday night games and those are a lot harder to attend, plus weeknight games usually have smaller crowds.  It feels like half the time USC plays at Colorado or Cal it's a weekday.  Outside of week 1 and Black Friday the B1G doesn't really do that bush league shit.  I have enough reasons besides Cal/Stanford road games to go to the Bay Area so no loss there.  Likewise, novelty also plays a part.  I'm sure some of those B1G places I'm excited to visit will be one and done after I experience them firsthand.

    I probably weight gameday experience higher than most others.  Most Pac 12 stadiums have a meh gameday environment.  Some of them like Oregon State and Washington State are in 30K stadiums (plus Corvallis and Pullman are also in the middle of nowhere and not fun to visit).  Fucking ridiculous for a blueblood to regularly visit rinky dink, far flung stadiums like that.  I think every B1G stadium except Northwestern is at least 50K capacity and they have Chicago going for them to offset that, plus they're about to build a new state of the art stadium.  Boulder is cool and all but the games themselves suck because other than one fluke year Colorado has been dogshit their entire time in the Pac 12.  If they were winning 7-9 games most years instead of 0-3 games playing them would be a lot more attractive.  Oregon has a good gameday atmosphere but Eugene itself is nothing special.

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  21. 1 hour ago, Gidnik said:

    the point is we wont have to play in fucking manhjattan ks or the state of west virginia. whats so fucking hard to understand you ASVAB waiver?

    The point is every conference has shitty destinations you won't like, at least until we get to the endgame of the biggest 16-32 schools breaking away from the rest of the sport and forming their own league.  But I'm happy to trade the Pac 12's undesirable locations for the B1G's undesirable locations because the B1G has more peer programs and more places I want to go than the Pac 12 does, and it seems like a similar situation for Texas fans comparing Big 12 visits to SEC visits.

    Washington is the only Pac 12 destination I'll miss whereas I'm very excited to go to games at Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa.  That more than offsets the clunkers at Rutgers and Maryland and Indiana and Purdue (Notre Dame is enough Indiana for me).  Trading the one place I like in the Pac 12, which USC only visited once every four years anyways, for 9 places I want to see USC play is a huge upgrade.  Even then, I'll like the shitty visits in the B1G more than the Pac 12.  Indiana won't circle their visit from USC on the day the schedules come out and spend the entire offseason planning for that game and treat it like their Super Bowl the way Oregon State and Washington State and Arizona and the rest of the Pac 12 does.  Ohio State and Michigan and Penn State get the brunt of that boogeyman bullshit in the B1G, which will be a nice change.

  22. 12 minutes ago, statsman said:

    Sure. For example, Texas will be paying its players a lot more than the other Big XII programs. It won’t be pretty when a freshman phenom at KSU decides to transfer to Texas for significantly more money and compete against his old teammates. But, that’s the future reality. 
     
    There are two responses the league can make-

    1. Do nothing about it (unpopular with small programs)

    2. Limit the transfers (unpopular with big programs). 
     

    Like-sized and like-minded programs should be in leagues together. 

    I think the smaller programs will still be able to take care of their stars most of the time.  This exact situation could have happened with Deuce Vaughn but it didn't.  Maybe the presence of Bijan Robinson meant transferring to Texas was never on the table for Vaughn but still there are other bigger, richer programs than Kansas State where he would have been the unquestioned #1 RB yet he's spending his entire college career at KSU.  KSU/Manhattan will never match Texas/Austin dollar for dollar but they also aren't an apathetic, bankrupt fanbase with a crumbling local economy that can't afford any sponsorships or NIL deals.  The KSUs of the world won't outbid bigger programs for 5* recruits but they can offer enough to hang on to their diamonds in the rough after they're already in the program.  So far almost all portal movement seems to be one of the following categories:

    -Player who balled out at FCS moving up to FBS

    -Player who balled out at G5 moving up to P5

    -Player who never saw the field at P5 dropping to G5, or blueblood to middle of the road P5

    -Lateral moves because a player is unhappy about a coaching change or how he's used in the scheme or the general direction of the program

    Off the top of my head I can only think of two moves similar to what you brought up where a star player left a smaller P5 program for a blueblood: RB Jahmyr Gibbs from Georgia Tech to Alabama and WR Jordan Addison from Pitt to USC.  You could make a plausible case both had reasons beyond NIL for the change.  Gibbs had to know his head coach was on the hot seat going into 2022 and didn't want to deal with that shit his last year in college.  It was the right call as GT did fire their coach during the season.  Addison went through spring practice catching dying ducks from Kedon Slovis after winning a Biletnikoff playing with a future first round QB and decided he'd have more fun finishing his college career in Riley's offense catching dimes from Caleb Williams.  If GT had a more stable coaching situation and if Pickett had another year at Pitt those two guys probably don't leave.

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  23. 3 hours ago, DFW Horn said:

    That's too bad.

    IMO, the service academies should drop down to FCS competition. That's a better fit for their programs and talent level.

    Hard disagree.  Usually at least one of the academies is doing well at any given time.  Since they largely recruit from the same pool that means the success of one directly hinders the success of the other two, but they usually cycle between success.  None are perpetually shit.  Air Force went 9-3 this year and 10-3 last year.  All 6 of their losses were by one score.  Navy went 11-2 in 2019, including a win over Kansas State in their bowl game.  Army has taken Michigan and Oklahoma to OT in recent memory.  The academies only play 1 or 2 P5 games a year and they usually hold their own in those games.  For their other 10-11 games against G5 and FCS competition they do as well as any other G5 program that puts in a little effort.  It's also important to keep in mind that academy football is mainly a military recruiting tool, not a money-printing NFL millionaire factory, and playing football at the highest level helps more with military recruiting than dropping down a level.  I guarantee Navy's coaches use the annual game vs Notre Dame as a recruiting pitch and that pitch goes away if Navy drops to FCS.

    I don't think being unable to utilize the portal and NIL is a problem for the service academies.  Any recruit considering playing for an academy isn't doing it for money and their upperclassmen aren't allowed to transfer out so they don't have to worry about their guys who develop into stars transferring out.  The biggest football problem facing the academies is rule changes limiting cut blocks and blindside blocks, making it harder to execute option offenses.  It will be interesting to see if Navy acknowledges that and tries out a new offense or if they keep on trucking with the option.

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  24. 20 hours ago, redswingline said:

    Due to the media market size, it makes sense for the Big 12 to bring in UCF.

    UH? Politicians must have pushed that one through.

     

    UCF seems like they could be a sleeping giant.  They have a huge enrollment, they're in a great recruiting area, Florida State might finally be improving but the big Florida schools have all been sucking shit through a straw for a long time.  UCF is also about to earn more from their conference payout than the ACC schools.  5 years from now I wouldn't be surprised if UCF is earning top 4 playoff seeds while Florida and Florida State and Miami are all stuck in 7-5 purgatory.

  25. 12 hours ago, Hurtlocker said:

    Still going to argue it had nothing to do with money, at least for Texas.   This was all about stopping a recruiting advantage that the SEC had built.   Now they can't say, "But do you SEC bro?"   It should cut into Aggy and LSU's gains.    Teams in the top five consistently can pull from everywhere, but now there is more protection at home.

    It's absolutely about money.  There can still be secondary benefits like better recruiting, but money is #1.  Texas, Oklahoma and USC saw the writing on the wall and reacted accordingly.  It would be unacceptable for schools like that to be getting conference payouts half the size of what Mississippi State and Illinois get while continuing to subsidize the equivalents of Mississippi State and Illinois in their current conference.

    1 hour ago, Saint Austin said:

    Wouldn't surprise me a bit if CU would make a push to be included as a Big Ten expansion candidate. It's an AAU school, has a significant metropolitan area in the state, and would be a natural bridge between the traditional Big Ten schools and the West Coast add-ons.

    I'm certain that's the motivation behind the Prime Time hire.  They finally realized that having a perennially trash football program and being content to put in the minimum effort necessary to get your conference check has consequences.  I hope this Hail Mary doesn't get Colorado into the B1G.  They were a worthless addition to the Pac 12 and the same would be true in the B1G.  Maybe if they started caring about football when they joined the Pac 12 back in 2011 things would be different because like you said Colorado checks a lot of boxes for the B1G, but one thing the B1G has more than enough of are shitty football teams.  Stanford, Washington and Utah are the only Pac schools that should get any B1G consideration.

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