Pac 10 Commish: Blame Texas Politics

It’s good to be the king.

I’m disappointed in the purposed leaks.

Note- I’m not disappointed enough to stop going to games, or obsessing or anything.

I call BS, TT.

You and all the BC bloggers are obsessed with the idea of schedules filled with marquee games, parity at the top echelons of college football and capped with a 16 team playoff.

Aint gonna happen in your life times. Get over it.

Are you disappointed that we did it to try to keep NU and the Big 12 together, or simply that we were using leaks period? (if we were in fact the leakers)

I’d still like to know if Plonsky went rogue with the leaks or not.

Just like everyone suspected. The UT administration fed Chip Brown information and used him to forward their agenda. I guess better Chip than Ketch.

Bill Bixby – If anybody understands obsession, it’s you.

I don’t blame Larry Scott for pointing his finger at whoever he believes sabatoged — at the least — what were quiet discussions. Maybe Texas, maybe Nebraska, maybe Baylor, maybe the Big 12 commish; it could have been any of them. I’m comfortable with with Big 12-2 (please pick another name) . . . I don’t see Colorado as a loss at all. Nebraska, of course, that hurts.

On the plus side: (1) I hated the Big 12 CG; the Big Ten and Big East and Pac-10 “regular season” winner never had to clear that final hurdle; those leagues have had a leg up for a dozen years; (2) The trade-off of playing Colorado and Nebraska two years out of four for playing KU, KSU, Mizzou and Iowa State every year is fine with me; it’s not like Nebraska was a Top 10 program the last 10 years; (3) Playing nine conference games means getting a La.-Laf. or UCF or Sam Houston State off the schedule; a clear positive.

When this comes up again in 3-4 years, Bevo TV should be up and running. It won’t be a negotiating point, it’ll be part of the package we bring to the table.

“I guess better Chip than Ketch.”

They realized that in order to feed Ketch anything, it would have to be deep fried, then drowned in cheese and accompanied by a bib. That’s why they get the big bucks.

Whatever dude.

BRAGGonUT said:
July 30th, 2010 at 8:28 am

I’d still like to know if Plonsky went rogue with the leaks or not.

That name makes me shudder.

Bragg are you going to start blogging again?

The best part about all this was Chip strutting around OBs like he did something special. He was handed this stuff on a silver platter to fit Belmont’s agenda.

Big orgs are not monolithic. The leaks come have easily come from Texas but not from TEXAS. Someone could have had a personal agenda (a deep abiding hatred of hippies, burning need to busy Manhattan Kansas every 4 years, etc) or maybe just wanted to feel like a well connected wheeler dealer.

I’d like to think the UT administration would have been more subltle than that.

My UT season ticket buddy is an Austin real estate type who is fairly well plugged in. He has said that state politics and budget shortfalls were the major untold story of the ultimate result of staying in the reduced Big 12. He made the point that Scott paid insufficient attention to this aspect when courting Texas and the other schools.

For those who wont miss Colorado I have to admit I will miss another excuse to go to Austin.
Not much difference between the rest of Texas, however, and the rest of the weed patch known as the big 12 missing 2. Have fun in Ames. Stillwater, Manhattan etc.
We can always take comfort in Scott;’s statement that he had to get Colorado first.
I will happy to see UT come to the PAc at a later date but please leave those latent homos at A&M and the mullahs from Baylor behind.

BTW, I have no idea if the leaks were intended to keep NU in the fold. Frankly, I don’t see how they would keep NU in the Big 12, unless the leaker thought the castaway members could pressure NU to stay to hold the Big 12 together.

I do suspect that, as hopefulhorn alludes to, the PAC-10 commissioner was acting far more independently, and making major decisions (like who to invite if TAMU bails) quicker than Bellmont liked.

“Scotty doesn’t know!”

We behaved like pussies and we should be embarrassed.

I kind of like the mullahs at Baylor.

I’m personally pissed CU is no longer in the Big 12. Every 4 years I was able to see Texas play right here in Colorado, and it was basically a guaranteed win. It was nice to see all (err both) the glum CU fans after the games.

Sailor, you more than most.

Whatever you say, Bill.

I look forward to you posting the exact same comment on the next 15 posts.

I’ll miss CU and NU.
 
Two best road destinations in the league.
 
This will fully hit Texas fans when we start doing the one division round robin of road trip suck.

There is a huge difference between saying there was a leak and saying that something was leaked on purpose. Larry Scott seems to be basing a lot of his assumptions on gossip and hearsay. The fact that Chip Brown at one point reported that the Big 12 was dead, seems to create a pretty glaring inconsistency in his theory.

Why would the University of Texas leak sensitive information to orangebloods of all places? It’s like robbing a bank and using your own car for the getaway.

That name makes me shudder.

Mufasa

I keep going over the timeline in my head, and unless I have it wrong, the hammer came down before Beebe found the money under the coffee table in his office.

I underestimated the determination of politicians to get involved. Maybe next time, everyone will be able to follow their best interests.

What I fear has come from all of this is two things:
1. The politicians will use the interim between now and the next realigmnent to further entrench “politics” which will allow them to interject themselves.
2. The Ags seems to have successfully sold the notion that they are part of the other TX schools in the Big 12, UT/Tech/Baylor. As a result they’ll get to run off and do as they please while we get left playing nursemaid to everyone else.

You might argue that their irrelevance over the past decade allowed the appropriate distance or you could argue that UT being a supernova caused the disparity to be so large that as long as UT looked out for everyone else that A&M could go play tiddlywinks if they chose and no one would care.

I’ll miss CU and NU.

Two best road destinations in the league.

Granted, the bar isn’t very high there.

Sailor,

I’m flattered.

As for the leaks and the collapse of the super conference nightmare, it is now clear that the decision makers at Texas did not want to go anywhere. Once they saw only two teams were leaving they scuttled the whole thing and hood winked the gomers while about it.

Hee hee hee hee. I hate aggy.

“2. The Ags seems to have successfully sold the notion that they are part of the other TX schools in the Big 12, UT/Tech/Baylor. As a result they’ll get to run off and do as they please while we get left playing nursemaid to everyone else.”

I dunno about that. As far as this round went, both A&M and Texas were scolded and told to go home. The fact that the Aggies couldn’t afford to do anything but go home is irrelevant.

The leakers did not want this deal to go through. Who was motivated to kill the deal? Maybe bb? Maybe a coach? Chip Brown’s phone records contain the answer.

In a previous interview, Scott said that Baylor and A&M allied politicians screwed up this deal. So when Scott says Texas politics was the problem, I think he was referring to the state of Texas, not the University of Texas.

@BiH I think it’s hard to say how hot the politicians really were because I don’t think UT really wanted anything other than to stay anyways. I don’t think we ever got to see what would happen if UT’s self-interest (as perceived by current leadership) really conflicted with what at least some politocos want.

Another point on this article, this is just more evidence that UT tried to keep the conference together and tried to keep Nebraska around. So why in the world is Neb strutting around acting like we wronged them? They are like a woman who is mad and hurt but doesn’t even know why.

Sounds like the P16 was just UT’s safety net. OTOH, “The Bevo-D was not a deal-killer” makes me again wonder if the P16 will happen within a year. Governor’s race will soon conclude and the Legislative session will end June 1st. 2 huge minefields that would make waiting wise.

Then again, The (now other) Big Can’t Count Conference may announce further expansion right before the Legislature meets, almost certainly tipping the dominoes if they go past 14. I never believed 4×16 super conferences was realistic, too many teams left out would prompt Congressional intervention. 5×16 would be more feasible. But Mack’s comments suggest 4×16 really was about to happen, and remains a legit threat.

I also wonder if UT’s talks with Notre Dame and perhaps a few other schools may lead them to try and form their own 16-team super conference. Pick off the best of the B12-2, Big East, maybe AR, and SoCal. How many P12 teams would follow them out the door? The goal being a UT-ND and maybe USC based 3rd super conference instead of the ACC or P16. Let the ACC and P12 leftovers form the 4th and deal with the bad travel instead of UT.

A UT-ND-USC super conference might be feasible and lure ND with appearance-based revenue sharing, individual school channels and subcontracts, and non-traditional conference scheduling. Divide into pods with divisions that shift every year and you could get away with as few as 6 conference games. Crazy, but about the only way UT could avoid the reduced influence they’d have in P16 if we go to 4×16 super conferences. SEC isn’t desirable and they’d be an outlier in the Big Ten+ with an even more diminished voice.

Who knows.

Why do we need a conference with 16 teams, 12 teams, or even 10 teams? How much do you think the TV contract would be worth if USC, UCLA, California, and Stanford bolted the PAC 10 to form a new conference (football only) with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor? Add the huge California and Texas media markets, exclude the smaller market teams, and go after Notre Dame and their huge fan base. Everybody knows that Baylor and Aggy sucks, but every conference needs a few bitches to slap around.

Why Baylor? They are not a public school and will be a problem for schools that seek academic alliances, due to their POV.

What about OU? I’m fairly certain that their AD and our AD saw eye to eye on the conference realignment, and they never hesitated.

Dropping the dead weight of Baylor and Tech would be great, but it might be politically impossible. In-bred Sooners would be welcome if they could ditch Oklahoma State and we could dump Baylor. Too many fine programs are married to ugly sister schools.

Old-Time Texas Chili Recipe by the BBQ Pit Boys…

I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…

The net to me with the dust settling is that Tech has definitely improved it’s position long-term, Baylor will remain irrelevant and everyone is beginning to accept that aggy may make a wild card move at some point, no matter how idiotic or suicidal it may be. I agree with most that the Big 12 is a placeholder, but it looks like I will have to make my peace with the fact that no matter how the next move plays out we will probably never be free from OU.

“The net to me with the dust settling is that Tech has definitely improved it’s position long-term,”

Eh, I dunno. Texas was handcuffed to Tech because Kent Hance and Rick Perry are really good buds. In five or ten years, neither of those individuals is likely to have as much influence on this issue as they have right now.

That’s not to say that someone else wouldn’t want to assume the strong-arm role at that time, but I really don’t know who it would be right now.

PinkHorn – sure was nice of you to refer to Oklahoma as a ‘fine program’. Don’t know many in burnt orange that would make that admission.

I think Husker was gone no matter what. I think Dr Tom and Co despise all things Texas and couldn’t get past it. The Buffs tried an end-around that at the time I thought was a brilliant manuver to not allow the Texas legislature control Colorado destiny, but I think the plan backfired when the merger didn’t go through. I also believe Texas was more interested in starting Longhorn Television than it was in joining the PAC Whatever. Once Beebee caved on that issue, the merger was a moot point.

I did find it interesting that aggie was so interested in jumping to SEC and not staying tied to UT. I wanted to see the Sooners in the SEC as well, but TBone Pickens may have successfully purchased the Oklahoma legislature to prevent a Sooner/Cowboy break. SEC doesn’t need a pretender football program in OSU, so I’m not sure the SEC angle would go. I predict in 3 years theBig XII or whatever they call it will be history as we know it.

BFS—

Don’t agree. The conference will sustain because, amongst other things, the North schools, save possibly Mizzou, though not likely, learned that this is their only option. Sure the financial scales are tiltied to Texas and Oklahoma, and A&M gets to think they’re a big boy, but politically expedient and lasting marriages are part of our history…..Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln, FDR and Eleanor, JFK and Jackie and Bill and Hillary. Loveless perhaps, but lasting because they couldn’t succeed without each other.

Besides, I’m pumped about a round robin football schedule. As an ’80s era Sooner-boy, I loved playing everyone every year. And the hoops are gonna be a bitch, just like ’85-92 Big 8 were.