Texas Longhorns and ‘Friends’ To Pac 12?

I hope this works out. Pac-12 makes the most sense for Texas, by a large margin.

For some reason, I imagine the negotiations have resembled the bowling alley scene between The Dude and The Stranger.

<img src= “http://thewareaglereader.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/stranger.jpg” rel=“nofollow”, width = 300>

 I like your style, Pac-12.

<img src = “http://assets.sbnation.com/imported_assets/81062/the_big_lebowski___jeff_bridges1.jpg” rel=“nofollow”, width = 300>

Well I like your style too, University of Texas. Got a whole cowboy thing goin’.

<img src= “http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XEJFl9oqyFU/TfGELl7w-QI/AAAAAAAAAOY/XOs4htC_q80/s1600/stranger%2B%2528lebowski%2529.jpg” rel=“nofollow”, width = 300>

Thankie.

If UT keeps total control of the LHN while only having to guarantee a small (less than 20%) portion of Pac XX content this is a mjor win…

Lets not forget that the carrier issues now go away as well…

I don’t get a warm fuzzy we are in total control of this process.

With the Pac-12-14-16 TV markets added the carrier issues would go away. ESPN will no doubt be willing to come down on the price if it means getting on the basic digital tier in California and Arizona.

I guess if we can’t keep our personal conference together thus would be the best bet. Let’s hope we cut a deal that limits our 9pm games. I’m an old man now.

That was inspired, BrickHorn.

Nobody is in control. Shit is happening in real time. Texas, not surprisingly, does have a lot of leverage.

Yeah, but can we still beat on Aggie?

Has anyone else had trouble getting the site to come up? I have been locked out for since this morning and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of traffic since the last time I was on.

If we keep the LHN intact I’m happy to go along. Keeping OU, OSU, and TT close at hand is probably the best option as well, but I was growing to like the ACC idea and I am definitely in the pro-central/eastern time zone camp.

So if the Pac goes to 16, the SEC goes to 16, the ACC, and Big 10 does the same how long until we see an NFL style play-off?

Ricky – Yeah, I think the website was down for a while.

Overall seems like the best solution (though I still like the idea of going to the Big Ten along with ND and maybe KU, or MU, or OU). I’m not crazy about the timezone difference, but I really did not like the ACC idea, especially after the took Pitt and Syr meaning there wouldn’t be a group of teams near us geographically.

None of this though addresses what seems like still a big hangup. The legal issues. A&M leaving alone doesn’t kill the Big12 and it’s TV deals. OU and Texas leaving does. So isn’t Baylor and the other have-nots likely to sue us and the PAC (and maybe A&M and the SEC as well)?

Even though I have turned into an east coaster I like the PAC “whatever” much more than the other options, allows us to keep a few regional rivalries and mix it up with the PAC schools.

The Big 10 and ACC made no sense to me, especially if we had to do them on our own.

I say lets go PAC and add ND to replace Aggie on the schedule.

Smart people being smart seems to me. Big 10 would have been fun but not so smart.

Me too had site issue. And love the Dude work up top.

Any word on the pod configuration? What is your opinion of the following:

DIVISION A

POD I

USC
UCLA
ARIZONA
ARIZONA STATE

POD II

OKLAHOMA
OKLAHOMA STATE
TEXAS TECH
TEXAS

DIVISION B

POD III

STANFORD
CALIFORNIA
COLORADO
UTAH

POD IV

OREGON
OREGON STATE
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON STATE

ACC. Independent for football, and all other sports will be affiliated with the ACC. Same for Notre Dame.

Does the move by the Pitt and Syracuse admins to premptively go to the ACC seem like a masterful move on the part of their ADs? I doubt Texas would have moved to the ACC w/o Tech and/or Mizzou (OU and OSU?) to keep a close ‘pod’ of schools. The Big East is likely dead. If they didn’t go now, their only hope is the Big 10.

ACC. Independent for football, and all other sports will be affiliated with the ACC. Same for Notre Dame

I floated that yesterday on Twitter. Seemed to make some sense. UT/ND play every year. ND and UT agree to each play some number of ACC football games every year. Sounded OK to me.

I assumed PAC pods would be:

HORNS
SOONERS
POKES
RAIDERS

BEARS
CARDINAL
BRUINS
TROJANS

DUCKS
BEAVERS
COUGARS
HUSKIES

WILDCATS
DEVILS
UTES
BUFFS

Brickhorn. Good stuff.

This is bad. Texans dont care about the left coast or the atlantic coast.

But we do care about Kansas, Iowa, or Mizzouri?

The legal elements of this will be interesting. TAMU, UT, OU, OSU and TT would all have to withdraw and pay the exit fees to the remaining 5 poor sisters (I’m assuming the big 5 don’t have the power to dissolve the conference by themselves). That’s a nice payday for the little five and could fund a lame but plausible 5 vs. 5 law suit.

Not that it really matters, this is obviously the right move for you guys.

Texans care about finding the best opportunity.

I have to think at least one other current Big12 team has a spot lined up elsewhere. That would be 6 teams how will vote to dissolve the conference and would I imagine make the lawsuits somewhat more difficult for Baylor or ISU to justify. The SEC can now take A&M and avoid the TI charges since their conditions were on Big 12 members waiving their right to sue (meaning they had no intention of taking Aggie without the approval of all the other Big 12 teams and therefore free of interference on their part), but if there is no longer a Big 12 then that point would become moot. While I would have loved to have seen Aggie hang in limbo for awhile, this mass movement makes sense and in a way Baylor potentially brought the house down on itself by threatening the Aggies.

Regardless of the outcome, would love to avoid “pod” as a descriptor.

Some alternatives:

“Gang” (as in “Cal Gang,” “Cowman Gang,” “Twin Peaks Gang,” etc.)

“Cluster” (has obvious advantages)

“Synod” (too divisive?)

I like the pod structure because of the diversity of competition it affords, but how is a conference champ determined? I imagine one option would be to pair two pods and have criteria for awarding a winner from each pairing to face off in a CCG. You could also rotate the pod pairing year to year. In this scenario, you still would never have two teams from the same pod playing in the CCG which seems like a plus because it ensures having a broader regional catchment for the reps in the CCG.

The Pods

Seafood & Rain Division
UW
Wash State
Oregon
Oregon state

Beach & Surf Division
UCLA
USC
Stanford
Cal

Cactus & MountainsDivision
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Utah

Spurs & Saddles Division
Texas
Texas Tech
OU
Okie State

I’ve lived in Texas most of my life. (I got here as fast as I could.) I’m married to a Louisiana girl and I know a ton of people for East Texas.

One thing that always struck me was somewhere around the Texas/Louisiana border is the cultural continental divide. On one side (including the aggies) are people that look east. They vacation in Florida, have a deep south mindset, and think Atlanta is a metropolis.

On the other side you have people like me that would much rather go west than east. Given a choice between going to Florida (Miami excepted) and California. I’ll head west every time.

What were seeing here is that dynamic playing out between us and the aggies and to some extent within our own fanbase.

Funny though that the Okies look west but then again they’ve done that since the dust bowl.

Thankie

Thank’ee – contraction of “Thank ye”. More Treasure Island than Texas Cowboy, though I prolly go for Thankyuh.

“For some reason, I imagine the negotiations have resembled the bowling alley scene between The Dude and The Stranger.”

Especially appropriate the weekend we finally ate the bar

So Texas is in 1 of 4 pods. These teams play each other and also play another pod. so every 3 years Texas plays USC in the regular season. Is that how the pods would work?

Bob,
I think yours is probably a generalization that plays out at the margins and isn’t really strong enough to be ‘cultural’. Most of my UT friends and acquaintances who lived in DFW or Houston tended to look east like going to New Orleans for spring break or on special occasions, while the people I knew from El Paso were the ones who were most likely to have gone to Cali or Arizona for trips. Most of the people I knew from Lubbock or Amarillo spent a lot of time up in Colorado or New Mexico and called California the Looney Left Coast. I had many friends who ended up working on the East Coast and all of them were from Dallas or Houston areas. My friends who were from the western part of the state to a person stayed either in Texas or in a surrounding state. Small, anecdotal sample, but it seems to diverge from your small, anecdotal sample!

Cal
Stanford
UCLA
USC

Water and Wine pod, imo.

BC should sponsor a “name the pods” contest. Free tote bag to the winner.

The lawsuit I am waiting for is not by the schools, but by the athletes on the money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get an opportunity for an education, a career after school, and a possible chance for a pro career.

The numbers are starting to get absurd with these conference television contracts, the changes are purely motivated by money, and it is a unique situation from any other group of students on any campus aside for the military academies.

If we have to win our ‘pod’ to go to the PAC-16 conference championship game, UT and OU will be the two best teams in the conference but squeezed into the same small group in 2012-13 and perhaps every other year.

The ‘far NW’ pod would be akin to the NFC West = whole-lotta-mediocrity.

Regardless, having certainty tomorrow night >> uncertainty in the mortally-wounded Big 12 for the next couple years.

Gitter done.

Love this deal. Easily the best possible outcome among a series of less-than-perfect outcomes. We get to keep our regional rivalries and the LHN, get improved academics and non-football sports, and get the least amount of incremental travel trade-off for the best amount of new recruiting exposure. Most of all, we remain Texas in a now more relevant conference, keep the RRR at the Fair in Dallas and limit disruption to the Texas recruiting landscape, which we will continue to dominate.

The mouth-breathing contingent of the Texas fanbase will never understand why it’s not the SEC and why our ultimate objective isn’t to provide the best fan experience, but who really gives a fuck what they think? Thankfully, our leadership doesn’t and that’s why we’re Texas and A&M is A&M.

Ricky,

I always figured the line goes right through Dallas and Houston. They’re both only a couple of hours from the eastern border of Texas and New Orleans doesn’t count. Booze, bars, and blackjacks 5 hours away by car is a free pass.

Baylor potentially brought the house down on itself by threatening the Aggies.

Not sure I see how this is. If Baylor does nothing and A&M leaves without fuss, OU would still be looking at leaving, and if they go the conference implodes. Boren’s statement a few days ago was basically “If A&M leaves we’ll be looking hard at leaving also”. If anything Baylor’s threat to sue has given OU something extra to think about that might still keep them here.

Bob – You are so right about the culture of East Texas. I lived most of my life in various parts of central Texas. The last few years though I’ve had to live in Longview just 30 minutes from the Louisiana border. The culture here is vastly different from central Texas. This areas feels much more like the South than it does Texas, and as someone who has been to the South a lot and not cared much for it, it’s not to my liking here.

Also, if reports are correct, we will have pulled off a major coup with respect to third-tier rights. As I understand it, we get to keep all LHN revenues if the LHN does better than the per-school average for third-tier rights. If the LHN underperforms the per-school third-tier-rights average, then the LHN revenues are rolled into the equation and we get 1/16 of the pie.

There’s a floor but no ceiling. All we cede is an amount of programming that is not so substantial that the UT higher-ups can’t live with it.

DeLoss, et al. have hit this thing out of the park.

From my side of Texas it woud be Thank Ewe. If you dont know how to pronounce Ewe call your local sheep herder.

PAC 16 looks like the best option now, but only if 1) it’s organized by quadrants and 2) UT keeps control of the LHN (revenue split is less important). And one quad has to be the 4 Cali schools so every non-Cali school gets a game in Cali every year.

Probably pair one OK and one TX school so every school gets at least 1 game every other year in Texas. UT could keep the A&M game if it wanted and rotate BU and Rice thru 2 for 1’s with a buy game to keep a full home schedule with an occasional national game in years we don’t have any of the glamorous old PAC-8 schools.

Re Monty: “So Texas is in 1 of 4 pods. These teams play each other and also play another pod. so every 3 years Texas plays USC in the regular season. Is that how the pods would work?”

Or you play 3 games from your pod and 2 games with reps from each of the other 3 for a total of 9 conf games. You could alternate which 2 teams from each of the other pods you play annually or switch after a 2 year home and away series. Still allows for 3 non-con games per year.

I always figured the line goes right through Dallas and Houston.

I think it more tracks the line of where the piney woods begin. Something about these pine trees that breeds that culture.

Davey, The pay-to-athletes day is coming, sooner rather than later. But it won’t be until the Super Conferences have sorted themselves out.

Great (but lengthy) article in the Atlantic:

httpx://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/8643/

no x.

4 pods: A (OK & TX), B (AZ,CO,UT), C (CA), D (OR,WA)

Play every team in your pod, 2 from each of the other 3 pods H-A for 9 conf games.

You could pair pods to make “divisions” (perm or rotating) or just take the 2 teams with the best records which would mean lots of tie-breaking rules.

And pods mean you play every team h-a once every 4 years, so @USC once every 4 and USC in Austin once every 4.

The Southeast hasn’t been worth a dime since 1865 when the Northeastern Carpetbaggers moved in. There literally is one of everything in Florida (especially S. Florida). The Southeast is just dirty.

Since it now seems that superconferences are inevitable, out of all of the options, the Pac-16 seems best. And this new & improved pod system makes the proposition of a Pac-16 much more palatable than the Pac-8 vs New 8 divisional format.

Alas, it’s too bad Division I is going the superconferences route. To me, if you take the financial factor out of it, the idea of superconferences was more about fanboy wet dreams (e.g., "We get to road trip to X. Woohoo! [Never mind that you can always travel to X yourself w/o making universities lug their Olympic teams there]). Now, conference identity doesn’t mean much anymore. I think a Pandora’s Box has been opened, and we won’t like many of the repercussions.

Regardless of all their posturing, the Aggies better hope their game with us continues. Without the Texas game, and losing all other games in state, their recruiting footprint is not looking too good.

Zizzy-

Believe me, the Southeast is much nicer than the Northeast. Having lived in both, I would much rather live in Georgia than in New England. Hell I would take Mobile or Auburn over any city in New England.

Joetx,

I agee with your sentiments about the direction of the college game. There is the saying that all change isn’t good and I believe this is a great example. It also is an example of the phrase adapt or die.

PAC-16 seems like the optimal fit, if it comes to fruition – and I think it will.

I’ve gown up in Dallas mainly, having spent about 12 years in Austin as well for school and career.

Definitely, we fit best in the West culturally. East of here is Deliverance country and has always given me the willies when passing through the South and Southeast.

Go West, young men of the Horn, and seek your Destiny!

This is bad. Texans dont care about the left coast or the atlantic coast.

We are taking the only teams left that we care about.

The Afat plan: Divisional Pod Structure for determining a Champion in a 16 team football conference.

Too Long, Didn’t Read:

1. Allow teams to play the schools in their 4 school region every year.
2. Allow teams to visit the other three regions once a year and have a team from the other 3 regions visit them once a year.
3. Codify the unstated law that ‘the season is the playoff’.
4a. Reduce the chance of a championship rematch to below 20%.
4b. Eliminate the possibility of a rematch in a fair way.
4c. Create a fun, exciting new paradigm for conference post season that eliminates the possibility of a rematch in a fair and lucrative way.

I’m a nerd. A big nerd. I really like to think about the best way to crown champions in sports. So when I say that this Pac 16 thing not happening hurts my soul, I’m not kidding. It is like an entire imaginative side of my self was enticed by Lucy and then the ball was pulled away at the last second. And then beat with a club.

I’m putting this out anyway in the hopes that one day the 16 team super conference will become a reality and the head of the competition committee will stumble upon this doing a google search. Also to see if anyone is as crazy as me.

When doing something like this the media message is very important. The 16 team WAC failed at this and their Quadrant system failed miserably and was confusing to fans. The media message is this:

Win your division. Win your pod. Play for the championship.

Here is how it works. When each team is put in a pod and a divsion:

The Pods:

There are 4 regional pods. This allows for the maintaing of long standing rivalries.

East:
Texas
Texas Tech
OU
Oklahoma St.

Mountain:
Arizona
Arizona St.
Colorado
Utah

California:
USC
UCLA
Cal
Stanford

Northwest:
Oregon
Oregon St.
Washington
Washington St.

The Divisions:

The two divisions will be rebalanced every two years to allow for both even competition and road trip diversity. Each pod sends two teams to each division:

Rose Division:
Texas
Oklahoma St.
Arizona St.
Utah
USC
Stanford
Oregon St.
Washington

Fiesta Division:
OU
Texas Tech
Arizona
Colorado
Cal
UCLA
Oregon
Washington St.

A team plays every team in its pod and every team in its division. Texas’ schedule would look like this:

Texas Tech
@OU
Oklahoma St.
Arizona St
@Utah
USC
@Stanford
Oregon St.
@Washington

In this structure Texas gets a road trip to each region every year. This great for fans as well as for recruiting exposure. Due to the striking regional symmetry of the Pac-16 teams in the same sub region(Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Rocky Mountain, LA, San Fran, Oregon, Washington) can be split into separate divisions ensuring media and/or road trip access to every sub region every year.

The following three scenarios can be used for determining a champion in the league:

A. Traditional Divisional Champions:

After running this model 50,000 times through my computer, a rematch only occurs 19.94% of the time. This is a 20% improvement over a straight up 8 team division, play everyone in your division + 2 cross divisional games. This is a pretty big deal as rematch are against the very core of college footballness.

B. Alt-Championship:

In this model, the way to guarantee you get a spot in the championship game is to ‘Win your Division and win your Pod.’ 80% of the time your championship will not need to employ the alt championship rule. In an alt-championship scenario the traditional championship game would be a rematch. The only way this can happen is if the team that won the other division was in the same pod as you.

Say that Texas and OU both finished 8-1 in their division and there were no other 8-1 teams in the divisions. Texas and OU compete in the East Pod. Who won? Was it a 3 way tie? If so, only two teams are represented here so use the head to head tie breaker. Say Texas won their pod. They stay in the championship game and OU is booted out for the next highest place finisher in the the Fiesta Division that has not played Texas. 85% of the time this will be the 2nd place team. This equates to about 3% of the seasons that a 3rd place finisher would end up in the title game.

C. A new Paradigm. The Championship weekend.

In this system you do not have one championship game. You have 2. The season can end in one of 5 ways. 3 of them are crown a conference champion very cleanly and make up occur in 97.6% of model seasons simulated

Type 1: 61.7%

The 2 divsional winners have not played each other and the 2 second place winners have not played each other. In this scenario you play a Championship game and 3rd/4th place game.

Type 2: 15.6%

The 2 divisional winners have played already but neither has played the 2nd place team from the other league. The 2 games consist of the Rose Champ vs. Fiesta 2nd and Fiesta Champ vs. Rose 2nd. The team with the best record against the league after these games is the champion. The extra 2 games give you the head to head ammo you need to break any ties.

Take the following example:

Rose
-———
1. Arizona State (6-3) Division Record.
2. Washington (6-3) Division Record. Defeated Utah
3. Utah (6-3) Division Record. Lost To Washington
4. Oregon State (5-4) Overall Record. Defeated Oklahoma State
5. Oklahoma State (5-4) Overall Record. Lost To Oregon State
6. Stanford (4-5) Division Record. Defeated Texas
7. Texas (4-5) Division Record. Lost To Stanford
8. Southern California (4-5) Division Record.

Fiesta
-———
1. Arizona (6-3) Record.
2. Oregon (5-4) Overall Record. Defeated Colorado
3. Colorado (5-4) Overall Record. Lost To Oregon
4. UCLA (4-5) Record.
5. Washington State (3-6) Division Record. Defeated California
6. California (3-6) Division Record. Lost To Washington State
7. Oklahoma (3-6) Division Record. Defeated Texas Tech
8. Texas Tech (3-6) Division Record. Lost To Oklahoma

Rocky Mountain
-———
1. Arizona (2-1) Alone in the Division.
1. Arizona State (2-1) Defeated Utah.
2. Utah (2-1) Lost To Arizona State.
3. Colorado (0-3) Record.

Arizona State would play Oregon. and Washington would Play Arizona. If both Arizona teams won, leaving two teams at 7-3, Arizona would get the trophy because they beat Arizona St. during their pod play.

In this system you can never take a week off because you never know when that game may end up being a de facto ‘Championship’ game.

Type 3: 20.36%

The top two teams haven’t played so they play a championship game. The second two teams have played so we have to break the tie between them and then go get a second team that the tie winning team hasn’t played.

Type 4: 2.02%

In this scenario the top two teams have played and one of the divisional champs has played the 2nd place team in the other division. We have to go down a rank and get a different team. You then decide the champ like in Type 2.

Type 5: 0.2%

In this scenario All of the 1st and 2nd place teams come from the same pod. For example. Texas, OU finish 1st in their divisions and Oklahoma St. and Texas Tech finish 2nd. Here we just go down to the 3rd place teams to find a match for the Divisional champions.

I love the championship weekend. I think it is lucrative for TV and really fun for fans. It also removes the annoyance of rematches that have ruined a number of college football seasons. Plus, more quality football.

PAC-16
Anejo
SC
UCLA
Berkeley
Stanford

Reposado
UofKnight
OSU
UDub
WSU

Joven
UofA
ASU
Boulder
Utah

Blanco
GoodGuys
BadGuys
OkieLite
TexasLite

The slow destruction of college sports continues. Texas and Texas A&M not playing each other in football, and Syracuse and Georgetown not playing each other in basketball are just two more examples of all that is wrong with conference realignment.

srr50. This is NOT a homerun for the fan base; not at all.

If a lot of elitist alums want to go west, then they get what they wish for but most of the fans that dont post on forums and blogs will not like this.

Just my opinion but many, if not most, no longer wish to play A$M after all the childish behavior over the years. In this alignment option, we retain OU as a traditional rival, which is sufficient, I think. For our own best interests and theirs, we should just go a different route from A$M in the future.

I am excited about this option most and hope it can be done soon.

No dog in this fight, but it seems that from a purely objective standpoint you would want to have each of 4 pods with roughly equal strength. To me the OR/WA pod makes geographic sense, but there is some geographic flexibility with the others. From a conference strength balance point of view, you’d want UT, OU, and USC split into different pods. If so, you would do a CA pod, TX/AZ pod, and CO/UT/OK pod. Maybe the football wouldn’t be so good in the TX/AZ pod, but UT should be favored to win the pod regularly.

The rub comes that it is tough to preserve historic rivalries among the TX/OK entrants. I’ll wait and see how these two contrary issues play out.

Soldier, what do you want to do? Remember, SEC is a non-starter with management.

In terms of road trips there is no better outcome. The Big 10 would have been a non starter for baseball and the SEC is just not a cultural fit apparently. We basically had three options:

1) Save the Big 12
2) Pac
3) Independence

We got the second best of the options. Clearly the Big 12 was the best option but we were apparently the only ones interested in keeping it alive. This is much better than joining the ACC or going independent.

Latest reports are less promising – LHN shared with Texas Tech. Yikes.

hydromod,

The problem is that strength of programs is not a constant.

What do you do if they do turn it around at UW, UCLA hires a real coach, or ASU actually leverages its location and resources and wins.

I do not understand the complaining about the pods. As it is being reported the winners of the pods do not determine the conference winner but rather the two best overall records will play in the conference championship.

The pod would determine 3 of the 9 games. Unlike the current Big 12 South Texas could very easily lose to Oklahoma and still be in the championship game. Not the case with our current alignment where division winners play in the Big 12 title game.

If a lot of elitist alums want to go west, then they get what they wish for but most of the fans that dont post on forums and blogs will not like this.

Most of the fans weren’t thrilled with the Big 12 either. It would be nice to still have the SWC, regional conferences are dead and gone

College football is like every other major sport (NFL, MLB, NBA) — it isn’t about the average fan. It is about TV sets and getting people to watch. TV tells us when to play and the Super Conferences are their way of telling us who to play.

Based on the current reality, this is about as good a deal we can get.

I think we should still play ATM, because I would hate to see East Texas alienated from the rest of Texas and the SEC get a good foothold there. If we play them regularly, and have success, it helps us maintain Texas dominance, and hurts ATM and the SEC as they recruit against us in that area.

Just my thoughts.

Hook’em

Be sure to check out Frogs O’ War for TCU’s new stance on realignment:

BREAKING NEWS: TCU TO JOIN THE HFFPAC.

I say lets go PAC and add ND to replace Aggie on the schedule.

I’ve heard this a lot. Are y’all assuming that ND will ditch their traditional USC/Stanford game on Thanksgiving?

Pac12 has Lane Kiffin . . . and his wife!

Maybe he should have said: “I say lets go PAC and add ‘anyone’ to replace Aggie on the schedule.” But lets say ND just to drive the Ags crazy.

UCLA fan here. Thanks fo’ the ass whooping….hopefully, the final nail in Skippy’s coffin. Can’t imagine a better travel conf. Pacific NW, Bay Area, SoCal, Desert, Mountains, Austin….Rock & Roll man. Great Athletics, Great Academics. Let the games begin.

I’m still hoping that the Big 10 could work out. Especially since it looks like ND won’t have the Big East to fall back on anymore for other sports. Syracuse and Pitt were the 2 lynchpins of the big east basketball-wise.

The LHN being split 2 ways is still a hell of a lot better than 16, even if it is TTech.

Does that mean TTech gets a weekly 30-minute coaches show on LHN ?

The taint of being roped in with an academic weak link like Tech (and it’s two okie cousins) sucks. I’d prefer Baylor, at least they have a decent medical school.

Pod names:

Legends
Leaders
Liars
Looky-Loos

Tech as a LHN partner is a nice knife in the Ags back on their way out to the east.

Today there are 121 FBS schools. Next year, 125. Three more and we have a nice binary number that will give us eight sixteen-team Regions. In each region, a four-round tournament will provide on-field champion, with all sixteen teams having an equal shot. Leave nine weekends for “regular” – i.e. non-Tournament – weekends. Play conference or rivalry or fun games for those nine weekends. At the end of the season – same exact schedule as now – there are eight Regional Champions, ready to start a three-round tournament to determine the True National Champion.

Conferences can stay as-is, and the bowls can stay mostly as-is (the BCS bowls prolly convert to Tournament games).

Start the year with five weeks of “regular” play. Week six, first round of Regional tournaments. Week seven, “regular”. Week eight, second tournament round.

Start with Thanksgiving weekend, and schedule backwards – that weekend is ALWAYS for your rivalry game, work backwards to figure “regular” and “tournament” weekends.

After the Fourth – Championship – round of Regionals, we go to the three-round playoffs for the Natty. Again, a week off after each round – save Xmas and New Years for Bowl Games, and play the Grand Final the next week. Tournament teams can be in Bowls… or not.

Every school will play up to 13 games, if they want to play all “regular” weekends, or they can take a few weekends off. But really, there’s no reason to take a bye… since the “regular” games have no bearing on the tournament, you can play fun games, let all the scrubs play, try out gadgets and trick plays, just generally have fun – I think it makes the games a hell of a lot more entertaining.

If you give a shit about this goofy idea, let me know – I went through the whole list and have the regions fairly well lined out. Who’s got Mark Cuban’s cell phone number?

Secret Squirrel-

Totally agreed- I suffered through some years in the NE, and lived in NC and GA in the military and civilian work. I found the SE to be very hospitable (but it sure ain’t Texas), but finally got back home about 15 years ago. I have to travel to Yankee land regularly and just find it repugnant.

Texas is certainly Southwestern, but the key tie is “South”. We have nothing in common with the NE. Whatsoever. I am no fan of the Left Coast, but not sure I feel any sense of community with the B1G. The ACC is beneath us. So, (sigh), I guess the PAC is our best opportunity. I’d rather hole up with our kin, ala the SWC, but that’s a pipe dream of days of yore……

@ Arriviste – Since ’69, Baylor College of Medicine has nothing to do w/ Baylor University.

i read somewhere that pods will be ‘aligned’. is that right? if so, there is another word that means ‘aligned pods’: ‘division’.

if our pod is always aligned with the az/utah/colo schools, then we are actually the east division. if so, we are being sold a bill of goods.

Well, I am much more inclined to go on a family vacation to LA, Phoenix, the Bay, or Seattle than anywhere else in the Big XII. I am also likely to go on a family vacation to one of those locales in the future, and getting to watch Texas football play will make it even better.

Hook ’em!

don’t know why any horns fan wouldn’t want the pac really. austin is a west coast town in texas. wanna go eat well/listen to jams/watch sports/drink beer/not give a general fuck about who is sitting around you/keep it laid back? you might as well be in austin or eugene or seattle or la or the bay or boulder or phoenix. every single one of those places chills hard except that we care more about football than they do. it’s the winnest of win sitches. sure hope it happens.

According to the original statesman blog article that is the source of all of this, the current plan is the most common one here, play all in own pod and 2 from each of the other pods. The twist is that the championship game is 2 best records period even if they are from the same pod. If this is true then, for football, at least, ‘alignment’ is meaningless.

Also we wouldn’t be sharing with Tech per se, there would just be a requirement that there be a
“noticeable” (my word) amount of PAC-16 programming. My sense, shared by a few others on BON, is that LS just wants to make sure that the LHN and brand is strongly associated with the PAC-16 brand. As some others have pointed out, I think this helps us with getting national distribution of the network with no major dilution of the basic brand.

“The taint of being roped in with an academic weak link like Tech (and it’s two okie cousins) sucks. I’d prefer Baylor, at least they have a decent medical school.”

Baylor and Baylor College of Medicine divorced ~ 50 years ago.

Texas as a member of an Atlantic or Pacific Coast makes no sense at all. So if we can admit we’re choosing between the relative merits of two completely absurd choices….

The ACC’s gobbling the New York market and effectively making a play to add the Big East’s basketball contract to its existing rights deal. I give them credit for doubling down on the conference’s known strengths and adding some key TV/recruiting areas, so I am not really sure Texas ever really fit their plans. The timing of the Syracuse/Pitt decision was clearly held until after Gavett’s death, but given that decision, I don’t think the ACC rumors were anything other than mutually beneficial leverage/smoke screens.

I have to be honest — playing in a Pac-16 as their Far Eastern Pod bothers me. It looks good on paper, but it seems more a marriage of convenience than a partnership. Didn’t we just we just do that?

Texas is too good for the PAC.
Make no mistake, the original PAC (10) will always view us as second class citizens, and I think in time a lot of you who are cheering this move will agree with me. This is purely a money move on their part, not out of love or respect for UT. The B12 is (was) a football fanatical conference. The PAC schools have quarter empty stadiums on a good Saturday. Say what you want about the B1G, but unlike the ACC or PAC no matter how s**y their team or crappy the economy they sell out top to bottom. Personally, I would have modified the LHN if it meant keeping the full B12 together, but its too late for that -and ESPN wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. USC and UCLA are and always will be perceived by the media as the top dogs in that conference, and as a proud Longhorn I’ll never get used to that.

yea i’m sure they were waiting for him to croak out hitting the chess clock in his death throes before they ran to the phone. good lord.

Death on a Friday, announced on a Saturday. Gavitt was a beloved and enormously respected figure in basketball circles, and the Big East was his baby. His death was expected, not sudden. The timing of the announcement was not time-critical, so it could wait.

Maybe it was all a complete coincidence. But I seriously doubt it.

OrangeBro: Exactly.

The SEC clearly excels at football. The ACC clearly excels at basketball. The Pac-12 clearly excels at arrogance, TV sets, and history lessons in how dominant their conference used to be.

Maybe we’ll push them to new heights. Hope so.

Not sure I agree with the thought that we would be second class citizens in the P12. I’m actually starting a pool on when the first school starts bitching about us throwing our weight around.

My money is 10 seconds after the terms are announced especially if we keep our own network that gets beamed into CO, AZ, CA, WA, and OR. Especially if we have a “everything’s shared equally unless we make more money in which case we get to keep all of it”.

It’s going to get even more interesting if we have a best two teams play for the championship and it becomes a standing TX-OU rematch every year.

PAC 16 and OrangeBro: Make no mistake, Texas’ preference was to preserve the Big XII. But they couldn’t do that on their own. OU wanted out, understandably. The story of this year’s realignment will be that others (A&M, OU, Pitt, Syracuse, and the SEC) pushed to start Armaggedon before Texas (and B1G and Big East) were ready. I think Texas is making a great choice, and everything you’re saying just makes me think Texas and OU will dominate this conference in similar fashion to their dominance pf the Big XII. How is that bad?

Best to wait until the details are known to evaluate a deal, but it certainly could be good.

Afat,

Interesting breakdown on the pods and divisions. Not sure your third choice is possible under current NCAA rules, but enjoyed your take all the same.

Orangebro, bro. So you think UCLA and SoCal will ways be thought top dog by media even when Texas and OU are in their conference? You are high. Pac16, so arrogance is the only place we excel? It’s not arrogant to look down upon asses like you. It’s natural.

Bob said: September 18th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Not sure I agree with the thought that we would be second class citizens in the P12. I’m actually starting a pool on when the first school starts bitching about us throwing our weight around.

We need to behave like perfect citizens in the new conference. I’m so tired of the “Texas = Darth Vader” talk. Given our national image, it may not take much of a transgression to get all of this talk started again with schools threatening to defect and so forth. I’ve had my fill of conference instability.

Hopefully, what happened in the past was more a function of context rather than a function of UT’s supposedly selfish, “my way or the highway” nature. NU never got over the partial-qualifier vote, and their on-the-field struggles intensified the bitterness. CU thinks of itself as Western outpost and could never relinquish its “California Dreamin” fantasy. A&M has been waiting for years to get out of UT’s shadow and forge its own identity.

At Barney’s in Pasadena. Great win. BaskIng in PAC 16 future with my boy Chad and we have spent the last few beers with a pen and a pile of cocktail napkIns and we have created the:

National Nod to the Pod.

PAC 16
No need reheating above. Pods as listed.

ACC
Pod 1
UNC
Duke
NC State
Wake Forest

Pod 2
UVA
Va Tech
BC
Maryland

Pod 3
Syracuse
Pitt
UConn
Rutgers

Pod 4
Miami
FSU
Ga Tech
U Central Fla

Big 10 (now Big 16)
Pod 1
Kansas
Missouri
Iowa
Iowa State

Pod 2
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Penn State
Illinois

Pod 3
Indiana
Purdue
Nebraska
Northwestern

Pod 4
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Temple

I’m going to maintain consistency and say: I’ll believe it once the official (unconditional) invitations are made by the Pac 12. As Drew said, this is going down in real time and no one’s in control. What that means is that an unbelievably complex multi-party negotiation needs to be settled before it’s final.

That being said, I’ve been saying for weeks that a Pac 16 with pod scheduling would be the ideal outcome, and that the LHN issues would be eminently negotiable. Crossing fingers.

More to come in a stupid bet with someone who doesn’t know that UT has more alum on NFL rosters in 2010 than any other college. Meh.

Pod Nod Part 2
SEC
Pod1
Alabama
Auburn
Tennessee
Vandy

Pod 2
Florida
Georgia
South Carolina
Clemson

Pod 3
Arkansas
Kentucky
Louisville
Patsy U

Pod 4
Aggy
Miss St.
Ole Miss
LSU

Keeps Iron Bowl, Tide-Volunteer tilt, World’s Largest Cocktail party,
Ole Miss-Miss State.

Only loss LSU-Tide. Price of progress.

Big (L) East
Whatever is left in the trash bin. Smells bad, but one pod could be:

Houston
Rice
Baylor
 TCU

Who knows if BIG 16 takes Iowa state but Hawkeye lettle brother status might get them a nod.

KU gets in on BB & Mizzou grabs tails into conference.

Chad and I just got our payment for bar bet. Boddingtons. I think thIs smart phone/Internet thing might stick around.

JR: I dig it. Nice.

Believe me, the Southeast is much nicer than the Northeast. Having lived in both, I would much rather live in Georgia than in New England. Hell I would take Mobile or Auburn over any city in New England. ’

Lemme guess: you’re a pussy who wets her pants at the first hint of snow. The only thing the high-crime, culturally backwoods, chock full of mouthbreathers southeast has going for it is that college football is popular there.

I don’t wet my pants over it, but I f*cking hate snow. Snow is for suckers who have to deal with it half the year and therefore start telling themselves it’s great, when it’s obviously PILES OF FROZEN WATER EVERYWHERE and that’s kinda stupid. If it’s snowing heavily in a place I live there better be a mountain in my backyard or I’m moving.

I also hate most of the Southeast. New Orleans is very fine, Miami’s cool, Atlanta and Athens and Louisville are alright. The rest doesn’t offer enough to overcome the smell of slavery.

Give me Austin or the West Coast. There the only problem is the people – hippies, hipsters, douchebags galore. But people can be artfully avoided in ways that snow can’t.

Bobby — Oh. so witty. See, you think you’re much more clever than you really are. Not just arrogant, but arrogant without real warrant. Thanks for proving my point, plus.

BD6 – NE is just as backwards as the SE outside the key population corridors, and in those corridors the traffic, property prices, and property taxes make anything other than a business visit insufferable. The SE is getting there on traffic, but property prices and taxes remain lower. Plus, no snow and a tad more civility (seriously, who wants you as a neighbor)?

Strike me up as one of the elitists that post on blogs, but other than the hippies, hipsters and douchebags galore (Austin and Dallas have plenty by the way), i think this is by far the best option for you guys.

Hands up if you think this is what espn wanted all along. LHN as bait and switch?

Seriously

Let me complete my thought. Seriously? Mobile over Boston?

@JR

Your SEC pods end up disturbing the Auburn/Georgia game, which has a LOT more in history and pageantry than Bama/LSU.

Jr,

You also lose Georgia/Auburn which is the oldest rivalry in the south and the annual LSU/Florida tilt as well as the Florida/TN tilt. Bigger is not necessarily better. All of these conferences are extremely watered down products where you actually play just over half of your conference foes in a calendar year.

Not preserving the Neb/OU game during the formation of the conference was one of the Big 12’s biggest mistakes. It made it that much easier for Nebraska to leave.

Is anyone really excited about going to play in half empty stadiums? I would say the Pac 10 is not a cultural fit. They couldn’t give a damn about football.

Can we be real for a minute? If you’re going to get on a plane in October and fly for a couple of hours to see a game, would you rather arrive in sunny California or Iowa City/Minneapolis/Baltimore/Tuscaloosa. To me, the answer is pretty simple.

Groundhog said -

Not preserving the Neb/OU game during the formation of the conference was one of the Big 12′s biggest mistakes. It made it that much easier for Nebraska to leave.

Is anyone really excited about going to play in half empty stadiums? I would say the Pac 10 is not a cultural fit. They couldn’t give a damn about football.

I gotta agree with the first statement, that was a huge mistake in retrospect. However, your comment about no one giving a damn about football in the Pac-whatever is ridiculous. You’ve obviously never been to a game in Seattle or Eugene. Both are incredible venues and can be very loud — and Autzen is ALWAYS sold out. Husky Stadium will be too once they put up a few more W’s. I remember plenty of empty seats in DKR in the late-80s thru the 90’s, and that’s in a town with no pro sports competition.

This isn’t a done deal. I still think that the B1G will have to make its pass at UT. The options on the table left for the B1G are Missouri, Kansas, Iowa State, and Rutgers. Not much fun there, and they don’t improve the B1G. Other wild cards could be an ACC raid of Maryland, Virginia, and Pitt (the ink is not yet dry). Or wildest of wild cards Florida, and of course ND. Getting UT would be the only ‘easy’ get of a team who would improve the league (ND being tough, and Florida, well, lets not even start). With UT I could see ND follwing and possibly even UF (I know, madness, but think it through, and its not as crazy as it first sounds, finally UF is lumped in with the rest of those rednecks in the SEC, and can join its academic peers without a drop off in football competition)

With the Pac-12, SEC and ACC all showing their hands the last few weeks, B1G has to make a decision now whether it is going to keep up or not as they will not forgive themselves if they miss out on UT given what will be left. I think if UT goes west (which I think it will – see baseball argument earlier in this thread) I think you will see MO, KU, MD and either Rutgers or UVA joining the B1G. (Yes I know a, UVA adds little in sports, but the B1G genuinely want to maintain its academic reputation, UVA is the best option out there as a ‘make-weight’ to balance out KU and MO joining, and as a large public university, they fit like a glove. Also MD and UVA would mean that the B1G owns DC.)

Yup, the “half-empty stadiums” are mostly in the ACC and Big East.

EnglishAg – The presence of so many hippies, hipsters and douchebags galore make Austin and the West Coast a natural fit, imo. That and the mutual lack of blizzards.

As far as ESPN’s invisible hand…I think ESPN has wanted conference realignment all along, in general. That would push some of the better schools in conferences with which ESPN is only marginally affiliated into the conferences where it has a larger presence. And it gets rid of some of the conference chaff that ESPN currently has to air in exchange for conferences that consistently pull better ratings. Plus it pushes the BCS closer to a playoff, where ESPN would probably be the biggest winner of all.

But specifically, I’m not convinced that ESPN wants to fold the LHN into the Pac 12 Network. I suspect they may hold up the deal for that reason. From what I could tell, the LHN was considered by ESPN to be its alternate model to regional and conference networks, a way to suck up the best pieces of the action while messing with their competitor’s plans for third-tier rights on regional or conference nets. It may be that the shenanigans over the last few months have taught ESPN that such a plan isn’t feasible, or heck, that may have never been the plan. Maybe they invented it in order to trigger realignmageddon. But ESPN committed $1 bln for the content and production of the LHN and you don’t typically bet that kind of money on a bluff. They wanted it to succeed on its own terms, to encourage a flowering of single-school networks across America branded with the ESPN logo.

But at a minimum I suspect that ESPN had some plans at first, and maybe devious ones. But like Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan…and then they get hit. Now I suspect ESPN’s in the same position as every other party in this negotiation: trying to stay one step ahead of developments and make the best for themselves. They do have a hole card, though: the LHN contract explicitly guarantees that in case of realignment ESPN keeps its TV rights. They’ve got veto power.

Even Texas going to the Rose Bowl to Play UCLA, could not draw a crowd. Half empty. That not only speaks to UCLA being down, but Texas coming to town just does not mean much out west. I bet those television sets in California were not even tuned in. All is not Rosy, but as far as realignment goes, that is the best choice, unless something happens and the Big 12 is brought back to life., Moving will not change anything, we will still be regionalized, They are just hoping we can fill their seats, but what they really want is tv revenue from the state of Texas. This is great for the networks and pack 12 Not so great for UT.

So BD6 doesn’t like southern hospitality, pretty women, country music, the 10th amendment, God, or mama?

Dagga, there was slavery throughout the union, as well, before the War Between the States.

Mobile over Boston, any day. I wouldn’t be able to stay long where people still can’t pronounce the letter R. (“Hey you guys, wanna go down to da ballpawk today?”)

oh yeah, add: guns, Elvis, and puppies.

I agree with Monty. They want what Texas brings in viewership, but they don’t give a crap about UT itself or even the things we care about. Appalachian State draws 30,000 in freaking Boone, NC, and it’s really loud — and Oregon wants to thump its chest over 54,000?

A football conference based on a preference for doing some pre-game wine-tasting in the Willamette valley? I’ve done it; it’s fun and quite scenic. And it’s no reason to throw UT sports into a California orbit. There may be very good reasons. That ain’t one of them.

The Big East was built to “monetize” the Northeastern TV markets with respect to college sports. It’s always been a house of cards, and now it’s functionally dead. There’s a lesson in that somewhere if anyone in the midst of this land grab for anyone who wants to slow down and think about it for a minute.

NW Horn,

You are correct about Eugene and Husky stadium. In fact, the people in Seattle love the Huskies. However, our california partners not so much. The fact is the Pac 10 has always been behind The Big 10, SEC, and the Big 12 when it comes to football.

I’m happy to hear you agree about the Neb/OU game. I think it is the number one reason why the Big 12 disintegrated over time. A part of Neb football died and they eventually felt it was time to move on. The beauty of college football are the rivalry games. These superconferences better be careful…..

Abe – But at least they use consonants. Give them that.

BD6 and Bobby — There’s your B1G and Pac-16 experience, folks. Enjoy.

Abe -

You didn’t say anything about trains, pick up trucks, prison or getting drunk

I like the quads concept. Please stop calling them pods. Pods sound like an alien abduction movie involving an indeterminate number of entities. Quads signal four, and the term is descriptive of many campus. It’s collegiate. Quads. The rebranding starts here and now!

I could be fine with a requirement to show some PAC content on LHN, just not TT content. The key to making this marriage work in the longterm is to start forming a sense of common culture. Let’s celebrate our histories and similarities rather than our petty differences (copy paste to political thread). I’d love to watch programming that would teach me about the role of Cal in the 60s counterculture, of Stanford in creating Silicon Valley, of Oregon in creating coffee (or whatever the he’ll they’ve done). The point is, we need to quickly start to form a common culture and get off the money, or this risks becoming yet another shotgun wedding. So I’m fine having LHN broadcast some PAC content.

And Auburn over New England? Are you smoking crack? Or whatever you crackers smoke that destroys brain cells so efficiently?

Texas as a member of an Atlantic or Pacific Coast makes no sense at all.

Making money is the only thing that makes sense. There is no conference that makes regional sense for Texas in TV’s, football, and academics. East? SEC. The President would never approve it. North? Oklahoma: no TV sets. West? No football worth a shit. Nothing left but Mexico.

If you take OU and OSU to the PAC-16, you’ve already got Colorado football and some of the biggest TV markets in the country. It’s the only option that makes business sense that will also pass academic muster.

I suspect the ACC rumor was just a ploy to make the PAC-16 more palatable.

I cannot believe a bunch of lawyers figured out a way to make the offseason actually bleed into the season itself. This is worse than fantasy football.

The positives of a block move to the PAC outweigh the negatives of available alternatives. I’d be happy with the status quo as it is, but it’s the long term growth potential on many levels that has me really excited.

The stadium smack is amusing. I currently live in Portland and witness first hand how rabid the fan bases are for Oregon and Oregon State. The Civil War is intense in this state. Their stadiums are full and loud in general and at Oregon the seating capacity is typically exceeded in attendance by about 5k. The respective alumni and fans show their stripes everywhere. And they get riled up about playing Texas for some reason. Maybe it’s that both schools mine football talent out of Texas. Maybe it’s past showdowns like the Joey Harrington Holiday Bowl win against Texas or the Lukes beating Texas in the NCAA Tourney that stand out as a point of pride. Whatever it is, these fans will take an interest in playing us and latch on to past triumphs..

I suspect that adding the meat of the Big 12 football Conference will be a shot of testosterone to the existing PAC schools and their fan bases that will only build and get them more fired up.

dagga, i can show you the gravestone of a woman and her two daughters of the same name in a little family manor cemetery on the north shore of long island. only time i’ve ever come across a tombstone for three people of the same name. the husband appears to have been a real creep, if the interwebs are correct, and he died elsewhere on the island at the hands of an enraged slave he was ‘punishing’.

http://brookhavensouthhaven.org/hamletpeople/tng/getperson.php?personID=I6218&tree=hamlet

if any in that area would like to see that unusual stone, it is located approx 40° 57’ 13.78"N 73° 06’ 33.16" W on little bay of setauket harbor, between port jefferson and old field. look for the name ‘gloriana brewster’ in triplicate. the dates on the stone pretty much tell the story, but here is her page:

http://brookhavensouthhaven.org/hamletpeople/tng/getperson.php?personID=I6288&tree=hamlet

these were not inconsequential people. the tangier smith, brewster, and strong family names were critical to early new york. in fact caleb brewster, a coastal connecticut whaler by trade, was a critical link in general washington’s spy network, and a relative, anna smith strong, at setauket was his new york contact.

very interesting story there and one absolutely critical to the independence of our nation.
 
that said, though, i agree with you. i’ve lived extended periods in many parts of the country, and i refuse to go to the south because they can’t seem to let go of that war, and i refuse to go northeast, in part for the same reason. at first i didn’t notice it, but ultimately, i became absolutely sick of it.

the two most enjoyable places i lived were seattle and long island. seattle is western and isn’t particularly interested in that subject, and metropolitan new york is such a melting pot of the whole world that a texan can feel right at home after he gets used to the pace. the rest of the northeast has no attraction whatever for me.

i just wish the western states liked football and wanted us for what we are. and i wish it were a strong academic conference. it is not. it is a wimpy conference with several strong members who i assume don’t talk much with the others. we would be ‘others’.

Pistol, it’s clear that the B1G still wants Texas and ND, but DeLoss Dodds himself has put it out there that they are not interested in the Rust Belt, so that edge has been given away.

In the meantime, it’s looking like what Texas is getting out of the LHN is the money. They’re losing the name and control of the programming. Without the LHN branding and control, the money won’t be there. So the Pac eventually will get it all.

The only hope is that this relationship with ND actually means something besides scheduling. The card they have left is that Larry Scott must get Texas. There are no other prizes west of the Mississippi.

While I prefer the B1G, and don’t hate the Pac, I don’t see this as a hundred-year decision. At the end of the day — maybe not in my lifetime — they’ll be in the SEC.

yeh sad: gravestone of a woman and her two daughters of the same name

There’s a stone at the old Robert E. Lee place – now known as Arlington National Cemetery – not too far from my Dad’s, which has on it the names of a Col. someone, and FOUR sons, all with the same date of decedence… gotta wonder – at least, I did.

I can’t wait to play schools from the other divisions once every 4 years at home!

Fevrier:

So it has been in the Big 12. I suppose you’re used to it?

Deloss and the PAC brain trust running UT are so blinded by the Hollywood sign (and their distaste for Delany) that they’ve taken the Big Ten off the table, when, apparently the B1G is even ESPN’s third choice (after salvaging the B12 and the ACC) because we will be allowed to keep the LHN. I took some heat for my argument that conference ‘football passion’ is what counts and that (outside of bowl season) the PAC can’t fill a stadium. Not to mention we’ll be treated like second class citizens. And now, low and behold this article from the (dreaded) New York Times. Nate Silver, that genius, has it right.
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/?src=twrhp

If the B1G accepted the UT/ND proposal on the network, it would be a short-term survivor at best.

This might be a stupid question and if so it wouldn’t be my first, but is the fact that the distribution of the LHN been very limited had any impact on the decisions being made on the future of the network.

It is some three weeks into the season and we have not heard of any increase in the distribution of the network despite UT starting off the year 3-0. he

OrangeBro: I can make a pretty compelling argument for Texas in the B1G, but it requires B1G to have interest as well. Delaney plays things close to the vest, but if he wants Texas, he can call. You think Powers or Deloss won’t at least listen? Don’t get caught up in individual soundbites, as most of them are pure leveraging in a game like this anyway.

I think Texas with OU/TT/OSU in the PAC is stronger than B1G even with Notre Dame. It’s population growth versus population decline. That impacts everything… recruiting, TV eyeballs and the resulting TV contracts… EVERYTHING. PAC with LHN modified is best of all worlds.

Nick, there have been reports (message board reports, but they seem credible) that Texas and Notre Dame have made a proposal to the B1G.

There is a news blackout there. Nobody sayin’ nothing.

But Powers has wanted the Pac. And there’s an unsourced report that said Dodds says they have no real interest in the B1G.

I think they’re gonna work it out with the Pac, which I think means essentially giving up the LHN they thought they would have.

That NYT article that estimates the size of fan bases by school is a great read. For those who wanted to put the Big 12-2-1-3+x on life support with the likes of Houston, UH has about 100,000 fans total (rank 112). Even Troy and Arkie St have 3-4 times the fan base. The big algebra conference needs a mercy bullet.

Bob, I hear ya. I think Dodds’s comment makes structural sense. I think PAC IS what they want, subject to LHN accommodations. Maybe they SHOULD be looking harder at B1G, but I think the move there would mean all traditional rivalries except maybe Rice die. There’s an argument to be made that without games against OU and A&M, Texas football is unrecognizable. That’s why I say I prefer PAC with 3 traditional rivals plus UCLA and USC.

ESPN Stats & Info Week 3 Conference Power Rankings
Conference AP Rank Computers Rank Final Rating Final Ranking
Big 12 1 1 95.9 1
SEC 2 2 93.2 2
Big Ten 3 6 62.3 3
Pac-12 4 5 61.0 4
ACC 6 3 59.9 5
MWC 5 7 56.2 6
Big East 7 4 50.2 7
C-USA 8 8 18.2 8
MAC 10 9 14.0 9
Sun Belt 9 10 13.6 10
WAC 10 11 12.7 11

 When we add four of the strongest teams from the strongest football conference to the PAC we are going to dominate. Add the collies to $ec and they drop even lower in the ratings. This will be a good move for TEXAS and I am looking forward to some awesome games at Darrel K Royal.

BigDueceSix-

I never once bitched about the snow or cold. I just said New England only has three decent months of weather. Why does this matter? People will not leave their homes in the winter. They act as if for 9 months out of the year they are confined to their homes or work. I’ve never heard of seasonal restaurants until I got here.

I’ll give one town in New England credit. Boston. Its fun to party in but not live nor work in. If you love high taxes, high cost of living, ugly women, shitty roads, bad weather, and no night life then New England is a place for you. If you go to a Red Sox or Celtics game you’re paying 75 – 100 just for parking. Astros parking was 25 tops.

For those of you that haven’t been to Auburn and are single, you’re missing out. When I was stationed in Ft. Benning our weekends were spent there. My buddy knew girls on the gymnastics team and they all admittedly love Texans. The parties were insane and the bars were much better than anything in Aggieland.

Water St. In Savannah has a great Oktoberfest and probably the best St Paddy’s Day celebration in the Country. Definitely better that Southie Boston’s St. Paddy’s.

One more thing of note. I’ve heard more racial slurs here in New England the past 3 years than I have in Texas or the southeastern U.S. The elitists here are more racist than any country boy I’ve ever come across in my experiences.

I’m wondering if the SEC is regretting inviting A&M now that they flushed OU & Texas to the PAC. They clearly do not benefit from this kind of shift no matter how many TV sets A&M brings.

I recently scored an 42 on my MCAT. Top medical school, here I come. Hook’em Case and Co.!

correction: “a 42”

I hate “pods,” but if that’s part of the cost of participating, fine.

I love the idea of PLAYOFF games more than so-called “storied rivalries.” Give me some Super-conference action, now!

Olly,

Question, why is college football so popular?

You mean does the SEC regret adding the state of Texas to its footprint, a move which simultaneously triggers the exodus of UT and OU from a conference they owned lock, stock and barrel to the Pac-12, a conference where they will have to cede equal footing to 14 other members?

Remember who got left out when Oklahoma played USC for the national title game? Auburn. The cream of the Big 12 heading to the Pac-12 doesn’t increase competition for the SEC – it lowers it. Dramatically. Oklahoma-USC and Texas-USC now becomes a conference championship game. Yeah, Slive’s weeping in his beer.

I know no one wants to hear it, but this move does not help Texas beyond preserving a financial status quo. It’s a really nice financial status quo, so I get it. But this isn’t elevating Texas in any shape, fashion, or form, and it’s not hurting the SEC (and by extension, AM). We’re just in a bigger pond with more sharks.

Here’s a good article by Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com published in the NY Times.

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

Silver discusses estimates the number of fans for each FBS school. It sheds some light on why the SEC is so interested in TAMU, and how strong the Big 12 fan base is. If Texas, OU, Texas Tech and OSU go to the Pac 12, they will have the 1st, 3rd, 6th and 7th largest fan bases in the PAC 16.

The Aggies will have the largest fan base in the SEC.

BYU has a bout 1/3 of the fan base the Aggies have.

It’s a shame that the BIG 12 is falling apart.

This website if f___d lately. Did you guys piss off a bunch of international hackers? Just wondering why all the denial of service attacks lately. Even at its best this site loads slow…now it’s ridiculous…if it even loads at all.

With regard to realignment, I’m still trying to figure out how OU/Tex/OSU/TT are going to just walk out and go to the PAC without incurring lawsuits from the havenots. Even if they find another conference home it won’t be with the kind of TV revenue they get now, wo there will still a huge amount of financial loss for them.

This website is f___d lately. Did you guys piss off a bunch of international hackers? Just wondering why all the denial of service attacks lately. Even at its best this site loads slow…now it’s ridiculous…if it even loads at all.

With regard to realignment, I’m still trying to figure out how OU/Tex/OSU/TT are going to just walk out and go to the PAC without incurring lawsuits from the havenots. Even if they find another conference home it won’t be with the kind of TV revenue they get now, wo there will still a huge amount of financial loss for them.

This is my concern, I have read and believe that the PAC doesn’t get much respect from the writers in the East. Though I spend most of my Saturdays in the Fall watching college football, I rarely bother to watch the PAC games, which is probably why I have a bias against the strength of those teams.

When was the last time there was a good PAC team, that wasn’t later investigated for serious violations? Stanford? If so, Harbaugh left, and they didn’t make it to the championship game. I’m just saying what schools will be supplying the credibility? They need Texas and OU, and Texas and OU need each other to give that conference credibility with the pollsters.

My two cents.

Do you really want to ask that question about the Pac schools and not address the same type of questions about which schools in the East provide credibility without questions?

The Ohio State, Michigan, Iowa, Miami, North Carolina, Auburn, LSU, UF, and Bama. All have had issues with either boosters, some facet of the program, or players with legal issues.

The East takes itself too damn seriously and the West doesn’t give a shit what the East thinks.

There are no perfect options and this is something that can’t be rewound. What has happened started when OU and UGA won that lawsuit and it has been accelerated the past ten years. The best thing that can come from this is we drop the pretenses, stop talk about the significance academics in this and just admit this is all about money and power.

Take the NYT article with a grain of salt. It says Ga Tech has more fans than Georgia, Auburn more than Bama, Miami more than FSU, Rice more than UH… need I go on? I question that we only have 400K more fans than A&M as it asserts. If UT fans don’t at least outnumber Aggies by 2 to 1 then I’m blind.

Re: PAC – 54K attendance vs. UCLA on a perfect Saturday afternoon. Expect the same for USC if they stay mediocre and definitely Stanford/Cal. The best crowds/stadiums will be the Oregon schools and maybe Utah. We already know about CU – worst fans this side of Arkansas.

The whole “culture” argument – who gives a flip? Hats off to Scott if he cons us and OU into joining the PAC. As much as I dislike Deloss, I don’t think he’s this dumb.

As “awful” as the Big 12 supposedly is, we have won it 3 times in 15 years and represented the South only 5 times. How does joining a 16-team conference – with Oklahoma who has owned the Big 12 – increase our odds of competing for a BCS championship? It DOESN’T.
Which begs the question – is OU our of their freaking minds? They have won 7 out of 11 B12 titles, played in three BCS title games, and get more than their share of TX recruits – is there a Sooner here who can tell me how the PAC improves their suation in the slightest?

FSU is supposedly “back” now (I think I’ve heard that 3-4 years in a row), but who in the ACC has been providing credibility the last 5 years? 11 wins has been the high water mark. While that is a very good record, for the champion of the ACC (with a 14 game schedule) to not get more than 11 wins since 2005 is pretty sad. VaTech has had most of those 11 win seasons, and one of those seasons included a loss to James fucking Madison (along with a loss to Boise and destruction by Stanford).

The Big 10 has had tOSU, but no one else has been consistenly providing credibility. That may be changing now, but you only have to go back to 2007 to find a year when tOSU was the only member to win more than 9 games. Wisconsin looks like it may be taking that step to consistenly being a top performer.

Really, if OU and UT move together, THEY provide more credibility than the combination of any two other teams picked from a current conference outside of the SEC.

to briefly respond to some of the stuff written above — I lived in the suburbs of Boston and moved to the suburbs of Houston when I was 10. I would agree that white people are just as racist towards black people in the north. more racial slurs used by whites in the south. the notion that yankees still care about the civil war is just downright laughable. seriously.

and one more thing….blaming the extension of conference realignment talks on lawyers? really? it’s about money…and that involves lawyers. welcome to the real world.

re: the conference talk. we just don’t have that many options. I think I’m in the minority, but I’m not really too broke up about ending the traditional rivalries. I started at UT in 1995. I barely knew the SWC.

I think there’s things to like about both the pac & acc. mainly that we’ll be in a conference with some very cool & intelligent institutions of higher education. people like us.

maybe part of this debate is our self-identity. to me, there’s more to going on a football roadie than getting drunk in some local yokel bar before the game. I’d like to see cool stuff and do cool things. much more likely to accomplish those goals in the pac or acc than the big or the sec.

This came out of the meetings, Oklahoma says it willing to stay in the big12 provided there is equal revenue sharing to stabilize the conference. Powers has the go ahead to stay in the Big 12. He was not given any other power, other than keep his ears open to the ACC and PAC12. We will no longer have a Longhorn Network if we go to the PAC, it will become a PAC shared network Texas Brand. If we hold the Big 12 together with equal revenue sharing we can keep the brand and rivalries. I always thought the Longhorn network was about brand first, money 2nd. 300 million over 20 years is little more than a drop in the bucket for the Longhorn Machine.With Longhorn football bringing in 150 million per year and income rising so fast, it will be over 200 million in the next 4 years. Mack Brown is right, It shouldn’t be about Powers and UT snoots wanting to rub elbows with the ultra liberals on the west coast, it should be whats best for the Players/families and Longhorn Fans that outnumber UT grads by a more than considerable margin. Save the Big 12, save the Brand and grow the fan base. Make the Aggies look like fools.

Why would OU suddenly want equal revenue sharing? That would cost them.

Frankly, at this point, f* ‘em all. We should not make a move at this point out of desperation or because it seems like the best of a set of poor options. If we’re not negotiating from a position of strength – and that appears to be the case – then stand pat. Ultimately I believe these conferences want UT more than we need them. The most successful negotiations occur when you’re prepared to walk away. We might need to do just that at this time.

“Why would OU suddenly want equal revenue sharing? "

Well, NU and TAMU both proposed equal revenue sharing (after being consistently against it and knowing it would be voted down) at league meetings before announcing they were leaving. Apparently, it’s what you do to con the media into thinking you’re not just doing it for the money, and it seems to work.

If it’s all about money and UT is heading to he PAC, then might I suggest that TEXAS add the Mexican flag to their uniforms, broadcast all games in Spanish, and strike up the mariachi band at half time. If you’re looking for monetary support from liberal white dude out west, you’re barking up the wrong sequoia tree. You don’t make shit without the Latino dollar, gringo …

All this makes the Cohiba Grande look as dumb as a box of rox.

OU wants out. We can argue about whether that’s smart, we can argue about the legitimacy of reasons, but it doesn’t change the basic truth. Last year Aggy and OU were convinced the Big XII could work, but almost immediately after, both had second thoughts. There isn’t a sustainable Big XII without OU AND Texas, and one of them is determined to go.

We’ve been outplayed. Scott knows all he has to do is bust the Big XII to force Texas’s hand, and he’s applied the pressure beautifully, somehow convincing his presidents that expansion is inevitable, and getting them to buy OU/OSU now, with Texas as a longer term move. Frigging brilliant. Beebe couldn’t carry this guy’s shorts.

Sometimes, even if you’re Texas, you have to make the best of less than ideal options at a time NOT of your own choosing. SEC/ACC/PAC have all forced our hands here, and it’s time to move the needle.

Black Scholes: How does standing pat increase our leverage if OU won’t play along? If you can explain that to me, I’m sold.

I’m not Black/Scholes, but I think I can answer that. OU is not concerned over the LHN revenue. They are concerned over its existence and how its presence on basic cable will establish the UT brand as a 24/7 infomercial (a fun infomercial, with pretty girls and football highlights). Yes, OU is developing it own network for the state of Oklahoma. This is not about fairness. It’s about strategy.

OU wants to be in the PAC long term, and they want to kill the LHN and replace it with a PAC network that will give them equal time.

Standing pat means staying with whatever is left of the Big 12 and establishing the network while we go 11 – 1 vs. a weakened slate of opponents, finishing Top 5. After a couple of years, we join whichever conference takes us on our terms, which will be easier as there will be many more university networks by then.

“Black Scholes: How does standing pat increase our leverage if OU won’t play along? If you can explain that to me, I’m sold.”

There’s obviously plenty of brinksmanship going on by all sides (OU/OSU, PAC, and Texas). By standing pat (at least for now), Texas would force OU to show and play their cards now while forcing the PAC to figure out how to realign their 14-school conference (when it would be easier to realign with 16 schools into 4 pods/quads/whatever). Standing pat also means that Texas can receive a share of ($20M x 2?) OU/OSU’s exit fees instead of [UT] having to pay exit fees to the Big 12 survivors. And staying would allow Texas to chill while [probably] saving a ton of money on legal fees as Baylor law school grads eagerly look to practice what they’ve learned in their business law and litigation classes against the departing big heavies.

With the Big East commissioner saying he expects Syracuse and Pitt to stay the full 27 months before departing the conference, with the SEC’s conditional offer to A&M, and the fact that the expanding conferences have to renegotiate their TV deals to ensure the new revenues cover the smaller slices of the pie for each school, realignment is going to take some time. If there’s anyone that Texas needs to follow, it’s Notre Dame, not OU. When ND is ready to jump to a superconference, then the final ship is readying to set sail. Until then, Texas should have plenty of options and (as Black Scholes points out) staying put is the safest/wisest thing to do unless/until all the cards fall into place for Texas. Holding onto the birds that Texas already has (Big 12 TV contracts, LHN, clear path to BCS/Fiesta conference game, and short travel times that Mack says is important for student-athletes) is better than chasing after a bunch of birds in trees that are 1,500 miles away.

Call me “Beebee head” but I agree with TaylorT and Black/Scholes. OU wants the network GONE, it’s their first priority.

Let them leave the state of Texas and leave the network in place. It will be a soft slide, but their recruiting will weaken. Stoops thinks he can recruit California, but Norman’s a tougher sell to a socal kid, than a Texas kid. The top recruits will stay at usc, ucla, cal and oregon.

Heck add BYU and Boise, bet they would love that chance.

What, no Mondays with the Big Cigar…I think something is going on with the site between the lack of posts and the lack of access…is there a realignment going on here as well?

I think Taylor’s plan is the best move for us at this point. The ACC did us a real favor by blowing up the Big East. My only concern about it is whether or not we double down on our being tied to Tech and Baylor. Or do we ‘save’ the conference by staying and bringing in enough teams to keep the conference ‘alive’ after our departure that allows us freedom of movement with or without our little brothers.

I think that’s a proven way to wreck a program. Kids want to play in marquee games. Does anyone remember the demise of the SWC and Texas football along with it.

We were stupid not to preserve the Neb/OU game as a showcase game for the Big 12 and then even dumber to let one of the most storied programs walk out the door without trying to appease them. There is not one reasonable explanation that the Big 12 should fail. It is/was a great football conference. The blame lies sorely on the AD’s, presidents and the commissioner of the conference.

How soon people forget how great the conference was in 2008.

Solely! Sorry it’s early!

After a couple of years, we join whichever conference takes us on our terms, which will be easier as there will be many more university networks by then. [emphasis added]

Perhaps, but Texas will be limiting its options. Which conferences allow for university networks other than the SEC, the ACC?

I don’t believe the Pac-12 or the B1G will allow UT to keep the LHN, just as I didn’t believe that distributors would start coming aboard right before the Rice game, as was the conventional wisdom around here.

Collect the money, grow the LHN, win conference championships, attend multiple/consecutive BCS games(more $), let it shake out til 2014-2015 at least. If we don’t stand pat we are fools.

We were stupid not to preserve the Neb/OU game as a showcase game for the Big 12 and then even dumber to let one of the most storied programs walk out the door without trying to appease them. There is not one reasonable explanation that the Big 12 should fail. It is/was a great football conference. The blame lies sorely on the AD’s, presidents and the commissioner of the conference.

I strongly disagree. It was common sense to divide the conference along North & South divisions. If the Big 12 went to permanent crossover opponents like the SEC & ACC, other than OU-NU, what would be the other pairings? It’s not as if the SWC 4 had a lot of history w/ the other 6 of the Big 8.

And you’re assuming OU would want to play a tough South division slate PLUS NU every single year, especially when the same wouldn’t apply for Texas and A&M. OU would’ve been at an automatic disadvantage at reaching the Big 12 title game. Yes, NU got weaker, but who in the beginning of the conference expected that?

NU was handed the best situation out of anyone in the Big 12. They got to rotate games w/ Texas & OU, both schools they hate (& had difficulty beating). They wound up in what became the weaker division, thereby making trips to the conference championship game easier. They got access to TX recruits.

NU has only itself to blame for squandering its opportunities in the Big 12.

The blame lies solely w/ Tom Osborne. His CONSTANT BITCHING (he’s STILL bitching even now) about the Big 12 ruined what should’ve been at least a top 2 conference, w/ 5 traditional top 30 programs & a very fertile recruiting base.

But Osborne knew NU’s days were numbered once he couldn’t bring in an unlimited number of partial qualifiers anymore.

• should read other 5 of the Big 8.

Nebraska fell from glory because they couldn’t field a team full of partial and non-qualifiers

What’s up with BC and the Cosm lately?

The Big Question: Will the Big 4 go 16 without Texas and ND in the fold?

B1G — Not going to 16. if ND calls, they’ll find 14, but otherwise standing pat. Best position of anyone right now; more than enough money per school to wait and see what happens.

ACC — Doubling down on basketball. Will go to 16 without ND or Texas, though they would like ND. As the Big 4 whittles away at the current NCAA distribution model for basketball over the next decade, this will look better and better.

Pac-12 — If they can land the 4 Big 12 schools, then Scott has more TV sets than anyone and as many national brands as anyone. But if Texas cedes its Longhorn Network, then basically Texas was willing to do something for a conference HQ in California that it wasn’t willing to do for one based in Dallas. Makes no sense at all and no amount of spin will recast that as anything other than a loss for UT. So LHN becomes the primary deal-breaker.

SEC — See B1G. However, Slive runs the one conference that knows it can’t get Texas or ND, so his options are limited. Adding the states of Texas and Missouri to the TV footprint gets the SEC enough households to keep it on par financially with a B1G + ND and a Pac-16.

Bottom Line: The dissolution of the Big East and Delaney’s firm position on revenue sharing leave Texas with 3 less-than-desirable choices. If Swofford, Delaney, and Scott remain adamant about their revenue models, then Texas has a very, very difficult choice to make.

Scheduling’s the ultimate weapon here. Nebraska disappeared from the national consciousness IN THE B12 simply because no one gave a crap about anyone on their schedule. Currently, ND suffers roughly the same fate – the only time they make news is when they lose or look bad winning.

My bet — Texas either concedes the LHN to the Pac-16 or moves to the SEC. Which would you, as a fan, prefer?

“I think that’s a proven way to wreck a program. Kids want to play in marquee games. Does anyone remember the demise of the SWC and Texas football along with it. "

Huh? Texas’s main problem was poor coaching and A&M and SMU buying all the best recruits. What marquee games was A&M playing that we weren’t during that period that allowed them to pull in all the best talent? TCU has been cleaning up on great recruits lately and they haven’t played a marquee game in the regular season in years. Kids want to win not get bitchslapped 5 or 6 times a year.

Texas only loses its recruiting luster in the near term if we start to lose or end up with a dick for a coach. Now if we go independent and the other conferences lock us out of bowls and the championship then that will definitely have a big negative effect, but we aren’t anywhere near that situation.

Pac-16 with Pod system – I love this idea.

1 -Great slate of local teams, (OU, OSU, and Tech) from a talent standpoint.

2 – Don’t lose in state games. We could still play as many as 7 games in the state of Texas (OU in Dallas, Tech, 3 non-con, plus the home-and-aways) which is great for recruiting.

3 – Awesome road trips to Eugene, Boulder, LA, Zona…. much better than Aimes and Manhattan

4 – Fit. I like the fit here. While I think we COULD go independent, part of me has never really liked the idea of our University practicing athletic isolationism. Part of me has always disliked Notre Dame for this same reason. And so if we have to join a conference, I like the fit of this one for various reasons across a spectrum of academics, athletics, image, and ideology.

5 – Bad fit of other options. ACC=Bad fit. Big East? SEC? The only 3 options that are even worth consideing for me are Independence, Big 10, and Total Destruction of all current affiliations resulting in some sort of “American Conference” created by me and a select group of my choosing. I prefer the latter option, but I am still waiting on the phone to ring.

Negatives

1 – Time Zone – Personally I HATE when the Pac-10 games come on late at night. I almost never stay up or stay out to watch them. Although a great many of our games in the Pac-16 will be played in the Central Time Zone, I am not looking forward to the possibility of a 10PM start time to a Texas game.

2 – West Coast Bias/East Coast Bias/SEC Bias – however you want to look at this, the West (mostly due to time zone and proximity) is just not looked at as much by the Media. Will coverage drop? Maybe our network and ESPN affiliation will combat this.

3 – Travel – not a concern for me, but it will be for our student-athletes. Not a huge concern, but a concern.

4 – Anything else? I am glossing over the obvious network stuff because we don’t know how that will play out, but that could be greatly affected. Other than that though, I don’t really see much down side here.

Huge fan of this idea.

This may shake out as favorable for aggie if they maintain a respectable record in the sec. The move differentiates them from UT culturally considerably more than being a second tier program in the same conference. Perspective may change on them among Texas recruits as they are promoted by espn and their contract with the sec.

One would think that many of the kids will clearly identify with either one or the other more by their inclusion in the west or east when viewing from a hyped perspective rather than comparing programs within the same conference and the pecking order established.

What would be so wrong with becoming independent for a while and try it out. If we let it all shake out, by the time some of the dust settles, we may become the last man standing and the most valuable asset left on the table.

I don’t know, just asking?

“Pac-16? said:
My bet — Texas either concedes the LHN to the Pac-16 or moves to the SEC. Which would you, as a fan, prefer?”

You left out the choice that Texas can anchor and hold together a weaker Big-12 (or even go independent). Texas staying in the Big-12 makes the most sense for now, while the conference musical chairs plays out. The key sticking point, everyone agrees, is the LHN. Without the LHN, Texas could have its pick of conferences, no?

So if Texas must eventually give up the LHN (and its additional revenues/exposure), why should it do so right now (in 2011-2012) when it can wait until 2013 or later? If the LHN is a total flop, then both UT and ESPN will probably want to scrap it. But perhaps its a monster network by then. The point is, it’s too early for Texas to have to decide. I mean, why is there not a ton of pressure on Notre Dame or BYU (to join a superconference)? Everyone acts like the sky is falling and that Texas has to hurry and decide what conference to join as soon as OU does, or else the Longhorns will forever fade into the annals of history.

I say Bevo chips.

Swim, why do you think the ACC is a bad fit? Its better for BBall and and Baseball. It certainly isn’t much worse for football, if at all, considering the current state of the Pac programs. There isn’t a team in the Pac that would have held OU to 23. The travel destinations probably aren’t quite as broadly appealing, but again they are better than Ames or Manhattan, KS. It’s overall a better academic conference.

The only real important factor that is appealing about the Pac is that they are willing to take OU, Tech, and OSU. Everything else about it is ‘meh’ unless you live on the West Coast.

I still prefer staying in a revised Big 12 (hopefully with Big East pieces and not SMU and UH) for at least a couple of years until the other players start to make their final moves. If the Pac wants to prematurely shoot their wad and take OU/OSU/KU/KSU then go ahead, but the Pac will have cemented its spot as the weakest superconference.

i agree that we should do nothing. well, except for collecting our fair share of the exit fees.

the fit that ou and the ags are pitching over lhn is all the evidence i need to dig our heels in and keep it first and foremost.

"Why would OU suddenly want equal revenue sharing? "

Well, NU and TAMU both proposed equal revenue sharing (after being consistently against it and knowing it would be voted down) at league meetings before announcing they were leaving. Apparently, it’s what you do to con the media into thinking you’re not just doing it for the money, and it seems to work.

Bingo! Recall that David Boren used to be Oklahoma’s U.S. Senator for the Debtocrat Party and that tactic is straight out of their playbook.

Speaking of idiots, it is ‘useful’…

“Debtocrat Party and that tactic is straight out of their playbook.”

Jesus! (Seriously why hath thou forsaken us?) The walls are crumbling… this place is going to turn into the hornfans “westmall” circa 2004 right quick.

Or is this a new feature? “History, a look back at the way things are. A fair and balanced view of the Big 12” by Media UsefuLL Idiots 101.

Poofy,

ND is able to stand alone because they have the best of both worlds. They are an independent in football with basically their own network and their non-football sports are in the Big East which has one of the most profitable basketball contracts. They also have established rivalries with Michigan, Michigan St., Purdue, USC, and have played the military academies which is a 6-7 game schedule. The topper is that they are negotiated into the BCS arrangement so that if they win a certain number of games they are guaranteed a BCS slot.

Texas has the LHN and what else if they go independent? Where do their non-football sports go for revenue? What about the BCS?

As far as BYU who really gives a damn? There program has not been on an elite level for years, hell they haven’t competed for the MWC title in four years, and for some reason they are given this status as being some prize.

In regards to keeping the Big XII together if the conference loses A&M, OU, OSU, and Tech Fox is going to renegotiate the contract.

Unless the P12 or B1G are willing to compromise sufficiently on the LHN, or the B1G or SEC successfully raids the ACC to get to 16, I think there’s a strong chance we stay in the B((12-x)(BEast-y)z) conference, at least for a couple of years. Either Fox, ESPN, or both have said they won’t pay the same $ to the B12 if UT, OU, and aTm are not a part of the conference, but they still would pay something for a merged conference. Too many decent teams left out until the B1G and SEC reach 16, and schools desperate to not be left out of the BCS AQ club would approve uneven revenue sharing, individual school channels, and other items that could keep UT and an affiliation with ND.

For example, a 12 school conference would only need 5 division games, 6 for 14. Leaving 6 or 7 OOC games could be tempting to ND and allow us to boost our schedule strength and # of nat’l TV games. A slate of OU, aTm, Wisconsin,Miami, ND, BYU, WV, and TCU would be as strong a schedule as any in the country, and beat teams from all 4 other conferences and you’re a shoe-in for a playoff berth in the +1 BCS system likely to emerge from the next round of negotiations (which, OBTW, UT is one of the schools leading that negotiation.) Virtual independence for scheduling, but with most of the advantages of conference affiliation. Conference With Benefits.

Not only keep the LHN, but increase the number of games on it to 4, basically all of the breather games lacking nat’l appeal. Can have a provision to upgrade any of those become high-profile games (such as Baylor being ranked.) Nice cross-promotion with the LHN broadcast and emblems showing on ESPN2 for some games.

Say the P12 does take OU and OkSU, but the SEC stops at 14 and the B1G doesn’t move. 2 of KS, MO, and WV are available, along with BYU, TCU, maybe Boise and/or ND, the service academies, local travel with TTech, Baylor (plus maybe SMU or UH) and at least one school in the fertile recruiting grounds of FL (perhaps also CA in SDSU or Fresno St.) If UT can make its money on a larger LHN, then the take from the conference can be smaller, making it feasible to include decent programs that don’t have as strong media markets. The best of the rest conference may bring in a weak conference contract, but there are enough decent name programs for plenty of good TV games. Market size is only part of the equation, brand also matters, hence NE to the B1G.

Plus it doesn’t have to be forever, just buy a couple of years to maintain negotiating leverage, get to BCS contract talks, and nurture the LHN along.

@JoeTx,

I strongly disagree on all fronts. The big 12 could have gotten creative to even the playing field, but could have kept the traditional rivalries in place. OU/NEb was one of the best rivalries in football and should have been kept as a showcase TV game for the conference and it would have appeased NEB to keep their main rivalry game in tact. When this game ceased to be played on a yearly basis a part of NEB identity died with it. Nebraska wanted to keep that game and I can’t say that I disgree with them.

This is how it could have shaken out.

Neb, OU, Okie State, Mizzou, Kansas, Kansas State

TX, A&M, Tech, Baylor, Iowa State, Col.

Crossover games OU vs. TX and Neb vs A&M, and the rest fall in line. All major rivalries are stil in tact. Granted KState was much better at that time, but so were Col and A&M. Actually, this set up would have been very beneficial to Col from a recruiting standpoint. And the Neb/OU game would most likely settle the divisional title every year anyway. Or you could have kept the North and South setup and had TX play CO every year as they were a power and A&M and Mzzou play each other every year. The TX/CO game could have turned into something special, but again CO has made horrific coaching hires.

Ricky,

Yes, A&M was paying players and we had horrific hires, but the best of the best were leaving the state to play football at Miami, FSU, ND, Mich, Col and Ohio State. I’m talking the bluest of the blues. Here are few who fled from 89-95: Jesse Armstead, Clifton Abraham, Aubrey Beavers, Kenneth Alexander, Ricky Caesar, Mike Miller, Bobby Taylor, David Boston, Tommy Hendricks, Tommy Maddox, Kevin Williams, Alton Maiden, Mercury Hayes and the list goes on. And they were taking their talents elsewhere because of the lure of big games in front of packed houses. I don’t think these guys were too interested in playing in front of half empty stadiums at Rice, UH, SMU, TCU or else they would have played at A&M.

I got yer theme song, right here:

Runnin’ to-and-fro – hard workin’ at the mill.
Never fail in the mail here come a rotten Bill!
Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Salesman talkin’ to me – tryin’ to run me up a creek.
Says you can buy it, go on try it – you can pay me next week,
Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Blonde haired, good lookin’ tryin’ to get me hooked.
Want me to marry – settle down – get a home – write a book!
Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Same thing every day – gettin’ up, goin’ to school.
No need for me complainin’ – my objection overruled!
Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Pay phone – something wrong – dime gone – will mail
Ought to sue the operator for telling me a tale!
Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Been to Yokohama – been fightin’ in the war.
Army bunk – Army chow – Army clothes – Army car!
Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Workin’ in the fillin’ station – too many tasks.
Wipe the windows – check the tires – check the oil – dollar gas!
Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.
Don’t want your botheration, get away, leave me!

Breaking News: Garret Gilbert has shoulder surgery. Out for rest of the year. Will he apply for medical red-shirt? Might he transfer to play elsewhere for two years? Either way, best of luck to him and a speedy and successful recovery.

TTR and Poofy: Why does OU want LHN dead? They just signed a $75M deal for their own network (called ONE). So why does OU think THEIRS can be folded in to PAC but UT’s can’t?

This is the weird part that’s never made sense to me, and I hope someone can explain it. OU’s interests here should be aligned with Texas’s perfectly, where these 3rd tier network rights are concerned. Sure, their deal will never be as lucrative as Texas’s, because of simple population numbers, but that doesn’t mean that in principle, their 3rd tier rights aren’t a lucrative asset. So why are OU and Texas at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their desires?

Folks, the Big XII simply isn’t sustainable, because it’s not operating in a vacuum. Even if UT/OU cobble something together to hold off the vultures for a few years, it doesn’t change the basic analysis. There are other valuable commodities in this conference, commodities that can and will explore their options with a revitalized ACC, a newly hungry Big East, and the sleeping giants of B1G and SEC. And if the watchword is “stability”, there’s nothing you can do to the Big XII to inject any at this point.

What’s really interesting is seeing the interplay between the Mountain West/CUSA and the Big East and Big XII (prospective) remnants. They seem to have figured out that maybe 4 16-team conferences would ice them out of BCS games, and they’re looking to create the 5th or 6th superconference that will keep the status quo where BCS berths are concerned.

This takes me to my larger point. The minute the superconference discussion started, a proactive commissioner of this conference would have started looking into how to create one. Did the Big XII have nothing to offer programs like Boise State, UConn, BYU, Pitt, TCU? No matter what happens, please, somebody fire Beebe. Like NOW.

I don’t buy it Groundhog. If Texas were strong during that period some of those guys likely would have stayed. I think you are conflating the effect as the cause if the numbers of elite guys leaving the state were really that out of the ordinary. The state has watched at least one elite, Top 10 guy leave the conference or state almost every year during this period when Texas and OU have been at their best.

There are always going to be a couple of Top 25 guys who leave for another state and conference. Guys like Russell Shepard, Craig Loston, Ryan Mallett, Andrew Luck, Matthew Stafford, Lache Seastrunk, Darryl Stonum have all left the state in recent years. If Texas goes into a long losing spell then those numbers will likely increase (and if OU leaves then of course they will still get guys but that would be an artificial rise unless OU increases their Texas haul), but I don’t think us staying strong in a weakened Big 12 for another 4 or 5 years, which is probably the max the conference survives in weakened state with Texas as a member, will effect our recruiting too much.

Too much monkey business, indeed. Chuck Berry! The Man himself. Studied TBone and the Wolf, made it sing!

My fave Chuck story:

Not long after he got out of prison one time (Chuck liked his girls a little too young – and a little too white – for the O-thorities, so he wound up in the slammer once or twice), he was interviewed by some pencil-neck from a “music magazine”, who introduced himself as a musicologist and claimed to have a Fine Arts degree in Music. He asked Chuck if he’d written any new tunes while he was in prison. Chuck gave him a quizzical look and said “Didn’t you just tell me you studied music in college?”. The guy admitted that was true. Chuck shook his head and declared “They musta notta taughta lotta music to you, then, because you wouldn’t ask me that question if you knew much about music.” The interviewer asked why he thought that, and Chuck replied “‘Cause if you know anything about music, you know that there ain’t any new tunes, and even if there was, you’d know I don’t write tunes, I write songs.” The interviewer clearly had no idea what the hell Chuck was talking about. Chuck said, “See, a tune is a piece of melody, a number of notes strung together. Now, there ain’t but seven notes, and there ain’t but so many ways they sound good together. Mosta the tunes got written long, long time ago, and the only ones that was left all got written by a cat named Mozart. And if there was any that he missed, why, old Beethoven finished ‘em up. Ain’t nobody writes no new tunes on account of they all been written already.” The interviewer looked stunned. Chuck continued. “Now, a song is just a poem, a story, set to a tune, played at a certain tempo. Me, I like the tempos you find in rock and roll, so I write poems that can be sung to tunes played in those tempos. Would you like to know if wrote any new songs?”

Why does OU want LHN dead? They just signed a $75M deal for their own network (called ONE). So why does OU think THEIRS can be folded in to PAC but UT’s can’t?

OU doesn’t give a damn about the money the LHN will generate — it cares deeply about the LHN becoming ingrained on basic digital cable in Texas and further enhanching Texas ability to recruit (and keep just a few more elite players from crossing the Red River).

Ricky – I don’t know if you were actually around at the time but I have the painful memories of it and Groundhog Day is remembering pretty much on target. It wasn’t just 2 or 3 of the top 25 players leaving the state. It was not unusual back then for 3 or the top 5 and 6 of the top 10 players to go to ND, Michigan, Ohio St, Tennessee, UCLA, Florida State and others. The list was endless and it was painful watching all these other schools winning with Texas kids who didn’t want to play in a dying conference. A&M did bring in a good number of top players, but not as many as you might think and it showed when they played OOC or in bowl games. Yes A&M was good enough to cleanup in the comatose SWC but they were a pretender in terms of being good enough for national contention.

Srr50, I’m not sure I get what you mean. If LHN was on some kind of extra-cost sports tier, rather than basic, OU wouldn’t be bothered by LHN at all? Is that what you’re telling me?

My basic point is OU would like to have THEIR network right alongside LHN, basic cable and all. In other words, Texas and OU’s interests should be aligned as far as maximizing the impact (financial and otherwise) of these 3rd tier rights. But OU is apparently convinced that PAC membership either outweighs the benefits of the 3rd tier rights, or doesn’t negatively impact it at all. Texas, OTOH, feels that PAC membership would structurally alter the LHN relationship to the point that the benefits of LHN outweigh PAC, unless an accomodation can be made.

Is this difference of opinion merely the result of the difference in apparent value between Texas and OU’s respective 3rd tier rights? Or are they just fundamentally talking past each other? Are you saying that I’m wrong about UT and OU’s interests NOMINALLY being the same?

Yes, you’re wrong. SRR spelled it out.

Yeah, I can remember Texas being a second-tier program to Texas talent. I think the lightbulb went on when someone recommended Michigan’s DC to Mackovic, and he reportedly said “why would he come here?” Everyone knew Texas’ facilities, schemes, and program were twenty years out of date.

Those were very different times, and I would not want to revisit them.

Spider, those were the days of my youth. I grew up in a world where Texas (writ large) college football was a joke and all of the teams that kicked our cans were stocked with Texas high school talent. I moved to Colorado during high school in ‘89, ’90, & ’91 and had to endure the Buffaloes glory years and the ridicule of Texas college’s stench which were at their lowest (as well as the cowboys). It sucked. Mack Brown was my messiah.

+ 1 for what Media Useful Idiots 101 said.

There is no rush. This scenario will take a few years to play out. Lets keep the Big 12 together (no matter what, even if weak with new schools like TCU, Houston, SMU), grow our LHN to the monster recruiting and branding advantage that it will become and then reevaluate the scene in 2015. Sticking with Notre Dame’s timeline sounds best.

Please do not give up anything on the emerging LHN.

SWC2 where the LHN has full rights to all non-conference OOC home games is perfect because finally we would get some incredible OOC games like Notre Dame, and of course even OU and A&M if we want.

Can you imagine how funny it would be to to have a home game vs A&M as a non-conference game where LHN would control the distribution rights? Aggie would have to watch the Longhorn Network to see the game! Same for OU. Priceless. This can only happen if we are independent in football or we renegotiate for full rights to OOC games as a reward for keeping the Big 12 together. Or at least that is how I understand it.

I moved to Colorado during high school in ’89, ’90, & ’91 and had to endure the Buffaloes glory years and the ridicule of Texas college’s stench which were at their lowest (as well as the cowboys).

At least you got to endure them in one of the most glorious places to be. Wish I could find a way to live there.

TTR: Your words from earlier:

“OU wants to be in the PAC long term, and they want to kill the LHN and replace it with a PAC network that will give them equal time.”

“Standing pat means staying with whatever is left of the Big 12 and establishing the network while we go 11 – 1 vs. a weakened slate of opponents, finishing Top 5. After a couple of years, we join whichever conference takes us on our terms, which will be easier as there will be many more university networks by then.”

On the first, why does OU want to jettison there own network deal, just signed, to sign on to a PAC-owned, PAC-shared regional one that will essentially provide the same content? This is my way of asking, why are Texas and OU at cross-purposes here? Wouldn’t OU ALSO want to keep its network deal? Or would they sacrifice their own to kill LHN?

On the second, why do you assume that in some later round of realignment, “there will be more university networks by then”? As of now, only the ACC and SEC allow for 3rd tier rights, and then there’s Notre Dame. Now, the ACC looks positioned to form a conference network with pooled 3rd tier rights. So that would leave just the SEC, and the reasons we wouldn’t want to join the SEC have been debated her ad nauseum. So what other universities are you saying could even support their own network, much less of have the contract freedom to do it?

The way I see it, unless you’re seriously advocating independence as a viable option (and we’re not talking independence today, but in a superconference world where programs will not have the current scheduling freedom due to conference commitments), then you’re talking about having to alter LHN at some point to fit into whatever conference we decide we want to be a part of, or receive some kind of accomodation like PAC wants to do now. Now, I’d rather modify the thing today, while it’s a fledgling network, then try to do it in 3-5 years, when it’s a true revenue generator, and after a few years of playing in some ass-end, watered down conference.

And the entire idea that we’ll have leverage in a later round of alignment that we don’t have in the current one presupposes that there are no other moving parts, which just isn’t true. (see expansion; ACC.) If Texas turns its nose up at the PAC this time, there legitimately may not be a landing spot that gives us the LHN freedom we want, anywhere. There will always be a landing spot, yes, I agree. But a landing spot for LHN? Why?

Always thought I wanted to live there when I was a kid, Nunna. I got my chance. I lived at about 9000 ft just beneath a bankrupt ski slope in the woods at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Had bears and elk run through the pines and aspens right outside our house. It sloped right behind the house down to a crystal clear brook. It’s all within a national forest. It was beautiful and a wonderful experience. Guess what. I missed Texas desperately. Came home as soon as I graduated. Texas may not have the classical beauty of Colorado, but it more than makes up for it with it’s unique landscapes and culture. 20 years later and I still wouldn’t move back.

Donde esta Big Cigar?

Big Cigar? What’s happened to this site? The load times are ridiculous. Hey BC moderators, trying letting us know WTF is going on? We’ll be less apt to go running to a different site. Right now, $9.95 doesn’t look too bad…

Jesus, Scipio, et. al. must be renegotiating their BC/Fantake deal. Either that or they’re negotiating with the LHN. Seems as if everyone is on that deal.

TexanNick – Well expressed, well thought out points.

TDL – You’re probably right about missing Texas, but I’d still like to give it a try just to see.

one tool: go pay your 9.95 you snivelling turd. it’s been a day and half. your adhd might be better suited for the ob mouthbreather board.

also they said on twitter they got hit w/ some spambots. settle the fuck down.

On the first, why does OU want to jettison there own network deal, just signed, to sign on to a PAC-owned, PAC-shared regional one that will essentially provide the same content? This is my way of asking, why are Texas and OU at cross-purposes here? Wouldn’t OU ALSO want to keep its network deal? Or would they sacrifice their own to kill LHN?