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Realignment talk not going away


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1 hour ago, DCLonghorn said:
2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:
For that real 90s throwback feel, you had to be calling Tex from a pay phone at some gas station in the middle of nowhere.

I called TEX from an airplane phone over the Pacific ocean. It cost a fucking fortune, but felt pretty damn futuristic compared to sitting on the ground in the Drum waiting for someone to come drop a class in person.

My then girlfriend and I both tried registering via TEX from southern Germany that first year. The touchtone buttons never worked correctly so we wound up getting a bunch of crappy also ran classes when we got back to 'Murica. The German phone would just give a long, hollow tone so TEX wasn't interested. 

Making this relevant to the realignment thread, I assume this technology is still current for half of the SEC partners we now have. 

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1 hour ago, 89Horn said:

‘85-‘89 registration at the Erwin Center arena concourse.  Junior year I needed a History class.  The table had no line.  Cool.  I walked up and asked for the class, only for the girl manning the table to point to the door behind her.  I walked in to find Section 33 totally filled with others waiting for a spot in the class to open up.

So when TCU, Tech, BU, KU, WVU, ISU, OSU and KSU call the SEC and Big 10, they will know how you felt.

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8 minutes ago, honolulu horn said:

Making this relevant to the realignment thread, I assume this technology is still current for half of the SEC partners we now have. 

Almost half.  The Hogs did beta testing on ARK last spring and are doing a full rollout this fall. 

Theirs just randomly assigns "English for Foreign Language All Students", "rith'metic" and "PE", though.

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1 hour ago, BachelorTrek said:

Dad did Add/Drop in Gregory.  Siblings and I did Add/Drop in the Drum--what a nightmare!  People sitting on the floor next to the Add/Drop tables in the concourse, waiting, hoping, for someone to come and drop the class they needed. After all day of futility, then departmentals at each college office all over campus began where the futility began anew. What a Shitshow!

TEX, which started in 1990, just told you your desired class was full, as expected, and you hoped more attempts meant you somehow avoided more departmentals.  Lulz.

Belmont must have been used for only a short period of time.  Superdrum opened fall '77 but I never remember add/drop being there.  And you really, really old folks used Gregory.

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44 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Well when you get rid of two shitty people like McRaven and Fenves and replace them with sports focused administrators, things can change quickly.

Fenves is at Emory University now.  From a writeup in their newsletter what he seems to be most proud of is removing Confederate statues.  Nothing to do with students or attracting faculty or research or fundraising and certainly nothing to do with football.  He moved to a school that has a Tshirt that brags about still being undefeated in football (they have never played).

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The Dellinger article:

https://www.si.com/college/2021/07/28/pac-12-responds-sec-realignment-cfp-expansion-problems

Pac12 leaders predict more movement in the P5, maybe major changes.  Could be as few as 30 schools in an eventual super league.

Some say no B12 leftovers are worthy of the P12, others suggest TCU and Kansas could make the cut.

Spoiler

Pac-12 Leaders Suggest Realignment Response as SEC Growth May Compromise CFP Expansion

Texas and Oklahoma's imminent move to the SEC is only the beginning. The Pac-12, while comfortable with its core group, is also listening to expansion suitors of its own.

ROSS DELLENGER

1 HOUR AGO

HOLLYWOOD — The College Football Playoff seemed destined to expand and expand quickly.

For two years, a group of CFP executives worked to create a model that they presented to decision makers and have disseminated across college football. Their 12-team proposal, largely celebrated across America, appeared on the fast track to approval in a September meeting, potentially within two years of replacing the current four-team model.

And then, in a seismic and stunning shift, the Big 12’s two biggest brands, Texas and Oklahoma, started the process this week of joining the SEC. Pac-12 leaders here at the conference’s annual media day say the move compromises the expansion model and will almost assuredly delay its approval, even potentially resulting in wholesale changes to its structure.

In fact, league administrators believe the SEC’s chess move, while calculated and cunning, will start a responsive chain of significant changes across the landscape of American college sports.

It’s the tip of the iceberg, says one. There will be more, says another.

The Realignment War of 2021 has begun, and this time, there is a particularly precious battleground: the expanded playoff model.

Conferences are scrambling and schools are jockeying, all of them tossed into a tizzy of action by the SEC’s bold play—stockpiling more of the nation’s richest college football programs.

It’s clear who the bad guys are this go-around: commissioner Greg Sankey and the Southeastern Conference, brandished by some here as the person and the entity that helped destroy a conference, pushed college football into a mess of disruption and compromised the expansion model.

Sankey was on the four-person working group that created the 12-team proposal, leading some around college athletics to question his motives as one of few who knew that his league could soon expand.

“It’s fishy,” says one.

“It’s insider trading,” says another.

While some say the SEC wisely and secretly leaped ahead of everyone else in the next wave of realignment, others describe the move as unnecessary and harmful to college sports. The SEC burned already charred bridges and even ruined personal relationships, they say.

As a result, high-level decision-makers are contemplating a retaliatory move. Does the Pac-12, Big Ten and others form an alliance against the big, bad SEC?

“We will have a response,” says one Pac-12 administrator.

For now, the league’s new commissioner, George Kliavkoff, is attempting to preserve his own membership at a time of uncertainty, keeping together the group and its golden goose, USC, while also weighing the possibility of adding more. The Pac-12 is receiving significant interest from suitors about expansion, Kliavkoff told reporters here Tuesday. And while they’re listening, conference leaders are more than happy to remain at 12 teams, he says.

Some administrators believe that none of the remaining eight Big 12 teams offer value to the conference—they would not increase the league distribution. Others say programs such as TCU, in the Dallas-area hub, is attractive, as well as Kansas’ basketball program.

But how does this Realignment War really end? Some here believe the final chapter is a 30-plus team superleague, an exclusive club of grandfathered programs and college football bluebloods governing themselves in a structure that may even feature collective bargaining and their own postseason, completely separate from the NCAA system and operating on its own accord. The whispers have started to grow louder, and the SEC’s expansion is the start toward such an event, multiple college officials believe.

“That’s where we’re heading,” says one.

And so what next? Many decline to predict such a move. But they know one is coming.

The Realignment War is here. The battles are just getting started. And the dominoes are only beginning to topple.

“Two teams moving from one conference to another, that’s fine,” says Stanford coach David Shaw. “Now, what does that inspire other conferences to do? If it’s just two teams, good for them and let’s move on. But I don’t think it will just be two teams.”

 

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9 minutes ago, clapclapclap said:

Pac 12 at first threw a fit because there were no autobids.  They lost that argument so they are using a different line of attack.  2 times in the BCS era they did not make the top 6 conferences.  But if they had Iowa St. and Kansas St., they would have made it every year.  Big 12 and SEC champs made it all 23 years.

 

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1 hour ago, 27-25 said:

Ditch them all and head over to Sonoma.  The wine's better here (minus perhaps the Cabs), a bit less expensive and less pretentious.

Or just go to Los Olivos.... even better wine and way less pretentious. 

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It would be kind of entertaining to see a hodgepodge Big 12 get a top 4 playoff spot in the new format over the PAC 12. 

As embarrassing as the Big 12 has been, that conference is more of a joke.  And forging a scheduling agreement with the Big Ten nonconference will only serve to hurt the PAC's chances.

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I think the most likely scenario for the PAC is some sort of merger with the B1G. 30 teams is a very specific number that might tip their hand. There are 26 teams in both conferences now, and I could see them adding 4 others. IA State, Kansas, TCU, and one of OK State, WVU, or Tech. Tech or OK State make the most sense, but academics will be a problem for both. An argument could be made that grabbing TCU and Tech gives the western half of the state an interest in the PAC, but OK State would add another state worth of eyeballs. In that scenario, Tech and Ok State might be in a death match for the final spot with the loser going G5 unless the ACC swoops in like a white knight, but The ACC is the next most likely to be stripped for parts. 

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3 hours ago, Vito Andolini said:

Besides wine in recent posts, I did learn about TEX several pages back. Based on that shitty YouTube clip, it was awful. I was on campus a bit earlier than that. To register in my day, you went to the Co-op, bought a big ass white book with small print and then stood in line for hours at the Erwin Center for hours before learning the class you needed was full.

But for $4 a semester hour, we didn’t bitch much.

Hey, there’s a Slavic languages and a couple anthropology classes that still have room., go around to section 113, the tables are still right next to each other  


 

17 minutes ago, bullet said:

Think they believe the Pac 12 will expand.

The PAC is on life support, at this point it seems just as likely that SEC raids the ACC and the B1G raids the PAC and we end up with 2 super leagues.   
The SEC with more recent football prowess with blue bloods Bama, OU and UT but a bunch of football firsts w/ Clemson, LSU, UF, FSU, Miami, etc.

B1G with Dome, USC, tOSU, Meatchicken, *Corn. along with some good footballers in Oregon, Whisky, probably others.  
 

might not be the worst thing to have 2 super conferences, 20 teams each, four 10 team divisions, essentially 4 regional conferences.  This is where I think it’s headed, the slow ones thought there was still plenty of time, NIL sped up the timeline.  

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11 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

Whoever said play Arky on Thanksgiving was spot on.

Agreed.  Our stipulations to the SEC should be "equal revenue sharing, conference HQ in Birmingham, same commish, and we play Arky on T-giving and A&M last weekend of September".

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5 minutes ago, Hook1997 said:

Quit being bitches and enjoy aggie tears on Thanksgiving like the pilgrims intended.  That “lets play x,y,z instead” sounds exactly like the crap on texags since this started.  

48DF2AAC-254B-4B14-A3AF-5A613555F9D9.jpeg

How about we get aggy’s opinion, then do the opposite of that?

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B1G may grab some Pac schools, but they're looking to expand south.  Previously, Jim Delany tried hard to get UVA, UNC, and GTech, and rumored to have talked to FSU and Miami.  I'm sure the SEC is also interested in UNC, UVA, and probably Clemson/FSU to lock down most of the South.  I'd guess the B1G would make an exception to their AAU fetish if they could land Clemson and probably FSU (though Miami is academically superior). 

Different leagues with different motivations, but bottom line both would benefit from a breakup of the ACC.  And if you kill off most of your competition (3 of 5 P5's) to create a duopoly, there are benefits that offset the conventional wisdom that only huge brands are worth adding.  Of course weaker P5's are likely to get left out, but a GTech that might not be worth adding in a 2 or 4 team expansion can make sense for a variety of reasons when you whittle it down to a super SEC and super B1G.

It may not happen immediately, but I doubt the ACC survives to anywhere close to 2036.

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38 minutes ago, Treefidy said:

Hey, there’s a Slavic languages and a couple anthropology classes that still have room., go around to section 113, the tables are still right next to each other  

Holy shit, I graduated the last year you could take a “foreign language substitute*,” and I took 15 hours of “European Studies.” One of my classes was something like “Slavic Folklore,” in which we literally spent several weeks studying really fucked up fairy tales, some very dark shit. One of my favorite classes ever. I’d love to read some of those stories again. 

*You had to pass two foreign language classes in high school to qualify. I took Spanish I in 8th grade, Spanish II in 9th, so though I “had” two years of foreign language, one was technically in junior high, and I sweated whether this would come back to haunt me until that last exit interview you have as a graduating Senior, when the counselor dude said, “Vito, you’re all good.”

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1 hour ago, pops said:

Or just go to Los Olivos.... even better wine and way less pretentious. 

I live near Sonoma and before that I lived near Los Olivos, both are great.  If you go to Los Olivos, plan an extra day to hit up the wine ghetto in Lompoc.

Don’t waste your time with Napa, it’s full of tourists from Dallas that think they are sommelier’s.

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16 minutes ago, Vito Andolini said:

Holy shit, I graduated the last year you could take a “foreign language substitute*,” and I took 15 hours of “European Studies.” One of my classes was something like “Slavic Folklore,” in which we literally spent several weeks studying really fucked up fairy tales, some very dark shit. One of my favorite classes ever. I’d love to read some of those stories again. 

That class has been around a while and it is awesome. I used to get super baked beforehand and it made things absolutely fascinating. Good times. 

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I checked to see if there was some way they have the same guy teaching it (they don’t), which would be quite a trick since that was the early 80’s. Kinda bald dude, probably glasses, nice guy. I don’t think we even had textbooks, he literally handed out a xeroxed stack of the stories. Trolls eating kids stuff. Europeans told some crazy ass tales.

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6 hours ago, Zhorn96 said:

go to Beringer telling them that its "good"

ditch the OU and atm couples

go to V Sattui down the road and laugh at the others

I was told back in the mid-80s that one of the V Sattui winery family members had recently gone to Texas. It was our favorite winery back in those days when we visited my sister in SF and Palo Alto. 

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My vote:

  • Open with Arky
  • Keep Texas-OU exactly where it is, has been, and forever shall be
  • Play aggy on Turkey day

I know, I get it...aggy is insufferable and a lot of you want to punish them for their asshattery.  But dammit, Turkey day/weekend just hasn't been the same for the last 10 years.  Bring 'em on.

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