College Football Off-Season and into 2010

[TheHoundRules]

Huh, if there's any truth to this WVU would be insane not to have packed their bags yesterday. The Big 10 is going to raid at least 1 BE team, and possibly two. The ACC or SEC might come a-raidin' to keep up. The Big East is likely done in football. And I think WVU could be quite competitive in SEC basketball. With Huggy Bear around I have to think we'd be able to give Kentucky a run most years.

WVU would be a nice addition.

I hate the idea of a 16 team league. 12 is okay, but more is to much. All the expansion talking is killing me. I am ready for football.

[S John]

WVU would be a nice addition.

I hate the idea of a 16 team league. 12 is okay, but more is to much. All the expansion talking is killing me. I am ready for football.

Oh yea I'm ready too.

I think WVU would be a good addition culturally, as in the fan base of WVU is very passionate, and WVU was once a part of the now defunct 'Southern Conference' that included several current SEC teams. My only concern is the distance to games, but that can be overcome. Most people probably don't know this but there has been a huge diaspora of West Virginians over the past 20-30 years, mostly across the South. Tons of ex-WVians in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina.

For an anecdotal example, I have a very large extended family. Every one of them a West Virginia native. But as of 2010, due to the economic climate in WV over the last few decades, a good 50% of my extended family now lives in North Carolina, with several in Florida as well. Point being that were WVU to be in the SEC East, I still see a sizable contingent of WV ex-pats showing up anywhere from Knoxville to Gainesville.

Anyway, I'm excited about the prospect. I think that we'd have a lot of work to do to be competitive for a conference championship in the SEC, but I don't think we'll be a bottom dweller either.

[Frog Eater]

As a WVU grad living in South Carolina, I can attest that there are several other WVU fans living here. I agree that if WVU got invited to the SEC they would be crazy not to go in a heartbeat. I think that there is a good geographic match in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt. That would be four teams a bus ride away. The ride from WVU to South Carolina is six hours. To UGA is a little longer.

The powers that be at the SEC need to make this happen.

[HokieStone]

ACC on the verge of getting their new TV contract. It's not SEC/Big10 money, but upping the per-team payout from $5.6 million to $12.9 million per year isn't bad, especially considering that the SEC got their contract before the recession hit.

I assume all of these contracts are subject to re-negotiation if/when expansion hits.

Here's a comparison of current TV deals:

Annual Conference TV Numbers

Conference Total Per School

Big Ten $242 mil $22 mil

SEC $205 mil $17.08 mil

ACC $155 mil $12.9 mil

Big 12 $78 mil $6.5 mil

Pac-10 $58 mil $5.8 mil

Big East $33 mil $2.8 mil

I can't make the table look pretty in this message board, but it shouldn't be too hard to read. This makes me less worried about ACC teams jumping to the SEC - the financial gain is much less than it would have been before the new contract, and may not be worth any added expense. I don't know when the bottom 3 are up for contract renewal - one would presume the PAC-10 will get a better deal, and my guess is that the Big 12 and Big East are dependent on expansion, since they seem to have the biggest bulls-eyes on them.

[Celtigo]

Here comes the end?:

http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2010/06/03/pac-10-may-be-looking-to-add-six-big-12-schools-including-texas/?ncid=txtlnkusspor00000002

If this report is true then its almost certain the more attractive programs of the Big 12 North would flee to Jim Delaney's waiting embrace (if possible) and the Big 12 would cease to be. Kansas State, Iowa State, and Baylor being left out in the cold is kind of "meh", but there is a real possibility Kansas is homeless if the conference implodes. Surely somebody would want such a top notch bball program, even if football is "driving the bus" in expansion.

[Lukkake]

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/d_saturday/post/Colorado-AD-confirms-rumors-of-Big-12-s-demise-?urn=ncaaf,245581#remaining-contentr

Looks like the first real offer to expand one conference and annihilate another. The pac-10 is offering six Big 12 schools(Colorado, Oklahoma, Okie State, Texas Tech, Texas, and Texas A&M invitations to join the Pac/Big 16 team conference. No more round robin, I guess...

Any thoughts? Is this plausible? If these six teams do run the west coast, what do the SEC and Big Ten do? Nothing? Fight over the two or three quality programs in the big east?

I like chaos, and I cannot stand the NCAA. If we do get super conferences, the NCAA looks more and more irrelevant every minute. And what will happen to the Rose Bowl?!? I was following the conference shakup theories, but this seems like a real deal.

My main concern is that God's Conference will take GT,FSU, Clemson, and Miami and leave VT all alone, either independant or back in the big east. The next few days could get very interesting indeed. At the very least ts the biggest sign yet that conference realignment is a matter of when, not if.

Edit-Celtigo beat me to the punch

[lokisnow]

Here comes the end?:

http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2010/06/03/pac-10-may-be-looking-to-add-six-big-12-schools-including-texas/?ncid=txtlnkusspor00000002

If this report is true then its almost certain the more attractive programs of the Big 12 North would flee to Jim Delaney's waiting embrace (if possible) and the Big 12 would cease to be. Kansas State, Iowa State, and Baylor being left out in the cold is kind of "meh", but there is a real possibility Kansas is homeless if the conference implodes. Surely somebody would want such a top notch bball program, even if football is "driving the bus" in expansion.

Since TV is what drives this I've got to say that particular super conference (PAC16, including the big texas schools, colorado and the oklahoma schools) has got to be worth at LEAST 25million/team and possibly get 30 million/team.

And at that kind of increase (18-21 million increase per school, depending on which conference they originate from) they'd be stupid not to take it.

I'd see Missouri and Nebraska going to the big 10, and I think the other north schools and baylor would have to join one of the mini conferences without automatic bids. The big 10 may take some of those schools if they can't rape the ACC and SEC to get enough teams to go up to 16 as well.

adding texas and texas AM was my dream expansion for the pac 10, so much better than adding boise or Utah. So if this pans out, tremendously exciting.

Additionally it makes an easy conference division, AZ schools to the same conference with the newbies, essentially preserving all the pac8 rivalries. This also keeps all the Washington/Oregon teams playing in southern california every year and with that many texas schools gives the teams not in the texas division at least one visit to texas every year. playing in Oklahoma also opens up Missouri and Kansas to Pacific recruiting. Likewise with four california teams in the coastal division, all eight teams from the texas division will visit the california recruiting market at least once a year. This is a brilliant, brilliant expansion. It sounds too good to be true and I hope it isn't.

[Rhom]

Since TV is what drives this I've got to say that particular super conference (PAC16, including the big texas schools, colorado and the oklahoma schools) has got to be worth at LEAST 25million/team and possibly get 30 million/team.

How do you figure? The total Big Ten number that Hokie Stone quoted was $242 million. For 16 teams to get 30 million per would be a $480 million deal. And you still don't have anything to draw the major east coast markets which really drive the television dollars. For all the talk of East Coast media bias and all the other conspiracy theories, there really is a certain truth to the fact that television ratings in the West just don't match up to the East. (Honestly, there's a lot more to do in the winter in California than there is in Pennsylvania.)

The geography of the divisions seem to work out just fine with essentially a Pacific Coast division and a Southern Desert division. As mentioned above, I really do wonder where this leaves Kansas. They're one of the top draws in basketball and their football team played in a BCS bowl recently. They'd be a welcome addition to any conference that could make it work.

I hate to see this happen, but it was always a matter of when not if.

[S John]

Well, if true then I could see Kansas getting picked up by the Big 10 along with Missouri, Nebraska, Rutgers, and one more to make 16.

The more I think about it, I'm not convinced that the SEC will actually try to poach teams. They already have a pretty sweet set up and adding more schools will cut into the pie. The SE US probably has the most reliable college football following in the country. There is zero chance of the SEC fading into obscurity, even if they do nothing during this whole process.

On the other hand, the ACC might be wise to go a-raiding again. Now is the time to lock up the east coast. Get Syracuse, UConn, WVU, and Pitt. Louisville or Cincy if Pitt goes Big 10. It might not do much against the monstrosities being created by the Pac-10/Big-12 and the Big 10, but it will shore up viewers in the Northeast and create one hell of a basketball conference.

[Ken Stone]

Interesting take on the expansion rumors:

Big 12 blew it by exchewing playoff

From the article:

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe all but killed his own conference on April 30, 2008.

That’s when he decided to team up with the Big Ten and Pac-10 to reject a four-team playoff being pushed by the SEC and ACC. If the Big 12 (and/or the Big East) had supported it, the so-called “Plus One” model likely would’ve happened.

Even that modest playoff would have meant hundreds of millions of additional revenue for college athletics. It would have then allowed for easy expansion for an even more lucrative 16-team postseason. That would have solved all the monetary concerns that have left the Big 12 on the verge of collapse at the hands of its one-time allies, the Big Ten and Pac-10.

Interesting take. He also has an article about the revenue generating potential of a playoff system, and makes the point:

"BCS bowl games are the single worst business arrangement in American sports. College football’s continued willingness to be fleeced by outside businessmen, who gleefully cut themselves in on millions in profits, makes even conference commissioners blush when confronted with the raw facts.

What other business outsources its most profitable and easily sold product – in this case postseason football?"

[Spring Bass]

Well, damn it. Looks like we're going to be left out again, the bastards.

If this goes through, I hope they'll throw us (Utah and some others) some type of bone, like they did with the BCS Bowls in 2004.

[S John]

Looks more and more like we're going to end up seeing four 16 team super-conferences when the dust settles. It might not be that bad, actually. I think that system really starts to lend itself to a 4-8 team playoff system being obvious.

It has become pretty clear that some sort of major shake-up is going to go down. For selfish reason's I'm really pulling for the Pac-10 bringing in those six Big 12 teams. It takes Texas off the table, which means that if the SEC does choose to expand to 16 it will be more likely to look east, increasing the chance that WVU lands in one of these possible super-conferences (ACC or SEC).

I also saw today where the Big 12 has given an ultimatum to Missouri and Nebraska. I think they're looking for them to either agree to stay in or announce their plans to leave for the Big 10 by the end of the week. I think that those two will be the first dominoes to fall. I think that if even one of them goes to the Big 10, the other Big 12 teams will bolt wherever they can go.

The ACC and SEC will see two of their rival conferences expand to 16 teams and start working toward doing the same. The Big-10 will then casually scoop up Rutgers causing the same thing to happen in the Big East that happened to the Big 12, with a few of those former Big East teams getting picked up by the ACC and SEC, while others are left in the cold.

My opinion (and hope) is that the safest teams in the Big East right now as far as landing somewhere are West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse... with Rutgers being already considered a goner. The reason for this is simple: perception. I think that the #1 problem with the Big East over the past 6 years has been that we re-stocked with former C-USA teams after the ACC raid. This is not necessarily a fair criticism as USF, Cincinnati, and Louisville have all had their moments since moving out of the mid-majors... but these are not traditional big name football schools hence a lot of scoffing at Big East football in general. The biggest names in the Big East are the remaining pre-raid members, even if Cincy has won the conference two years in a row. I see those 3 getting picked up first (WVU, Pitt, SU), with Connecticut my guess for most appealing n00b program.

As for the others, if the SEC expands without poaching from the ACC (which I'm not sure they will) then I think Louisville has a good chance of getting picked up there, maybe USF but I have doubts about them. Dunno about Cincy. I don't think the Big 10 wants them, the SEC might not want an Ohio team, and they could be a stretch for the ACC as well.

Then of course in the Big 12 we're looking at Baylor, Kansas, K-State, and Iowa State all possibly left out. Its going to be interesting to see who goes where and who gets the shaft big time. Those 4 Big 12 teams + the entire Big East save Rutgers better be out on the trail looking for a place to land.

[BLU-RAY]

So, uh, conference shenanigans aside, it looks like USC is gonna get a two-year postseason play ban.

Have fun, Lane!

[Andrik the Unsmiling]

So, uh, conference shenanigans aside, it looks like USC is gonna get a two-year postseason play ban.

Have fun, Lane!

Gee, I wonder why Pete Carroll decided to give the NFL another chance NOW after all those years? What a sleaze-- running out of town just ahead of the posse, eh Pete?

[Rhom]

As the Kiffin Turns seems to have turned out to be a very appropriate subtitle for this thread.

All I've heard so far is a two year post-season ban and some lost scholarships. Is there no word on vacating wins or even championships?

[Kalbear]

Also, Masoli has been booted off the team for being caught with pot while driving with a suspended license.

I'm glad that he was a Duck when he was, but man...how do you have that much talent and act the fool so badly? Such a waste.

[BLU-RAY]

Rhom, there was something about vacating '04 wins in that article as well, though it didn't mention any other seasons. I can't even remember if they won the NC that year, though.

[Rhom]

Rhom, there was something about vacating '04 wins in that article as well, though it didn't mention any other seasons. I can't even remember if they won the NC that year, though.

Ah, TYVM. I was going mainly on what the talking heads were saying on the radio this morning.

[adamsputnik]

Rhom, there was something about vacating '04 wins in that article as well, though it didn't mention any other seasons. I can't even remember if they won the NC that year, though.

Yeah, the Trojans won the NC that year. If they vacate their wins (which, I assume, would include the NC game), does the mantle pass along to whoever was #2 in the BCS? Or is it just going to be 'no champion in 2004' in the record books?

[L'Sana]

Yeah, the Trojans won the NC that year. If they vacate their wins (which, I assume, would include the NC game), does the mantle pass along to whoever was #2 in the BCS? Or is it just going to be 'no champion in 2004' in the record books?

I have no idea what the "official" answer to that question is, but IIRC, 2004 was the year that there were still 3 undefeated teams at the end of the bowls, so if you had to pick a year to choose a different national champion, that wouldn't be a bad one. Auburn would be a logical choice to be awarded the National Championship for 2004--in fact they probably consider themselves champions already. Utah would probably put up a token protest, but not much of one.