What if the Super Conference isn’t the next step?

by afat on Aug 8, 2007 2:44 PM CDT Comment 11 comments

Bumped from the diaries. --PB--

All this talk of Texas/Nebraska/Missouri leaving for the Big Ten has me thinking. I agree with many of the reasons folk have given for Texas not going. I think Nebraska or Missouri would jump at the chance. This leaves the Big XII in quite a bit of trouble. I think there are a few different scenarios that could play out.

I. Replacing TVs

If the Big XII wants to remain strong it needs to add eye balls on tv sets. Adding TCU doesn’t get this done. If they lose the whole state of Nebraska or the whole state of Missouri, it is going to be tough to replace them.

I like the BYU/Utah option. It gets eyeballs. Mormons : BYU :: Catholics : ND. It is doesn’t play out totally, but you get somewhat more of a nation wide following if you add a Mormon based team.

Solution:
North
Nebraska/Missouri
Colorado
BYU/Utah
Kansas
Kansas St.
Iowa St.

South
No Change

II. Adding TVs

The defection of one member may give the Big XII an opportunity to add even more eye balls. You wouldn’t look in the current covered area because it gets you fewer TV sets. Again UTEP, Rice, TCU, Houston and Colorado St. are out. Beside the BYU/Utah option you could look to the South or Mid-West to build strength. I think SEC and Big 10 money is too powerful to pull any of those teams out. You need to go to the mid majors and look for growth opportunities.

Memphis gets you some Tennessee eye balls and they have a pretty good Basketball program.

I’m not sure Tulane is strong enough to hang in the Big XII, but the Louisiana connection would be great. La Tech might be a better option, but again they are small.

The Big East is still a mess and Cincinnati would be a real catch for those Ohio eye balls.

South Florida wouldn’t make much sense regionally, but just about every team in the conference would vote for them for the recruiting advantage going to South Florida would garner.

If you want to go the other direction, San Diego state might be a California avenue.

Thinking about what just feels right I’m going to go with BYU, Cincinnati, and Memphis.

In the process a conference game is added so that you still play everyone in your division, two teams from the other division, and a traditional match-up(to keep Texas/Texas A&M,etc).

Solution:

West:
BYU
Colorado
Texas Tech
Nebraska/(Baylor if Nebraska leaves)
Kansas St
OU
Texas

East:
Cincinnati
Memphis
Iowa St.
Missouri/(Kansas if Missouri leaves)
OSU
Texas A&M
Baylor/(Kansas if Nebraska leaves)

III. Taking all the TVs

I don’t like either of the two previous solutions. I’d take them and I think they’d be good for the Big XII but bad for Texas Football. Some where between the finagling to add eyeballs and the obligations to show each team in the league on regional TV at least once a year is an option that blow all the others out of the water from a cost to revenue stand point.

Some have suggested that Texas just set out on its own as an independent. I think that is folly. But there are other teams that, like Texas, could almost do that.

NBC’s contract with Notre Dame runs out in 2010. The ability for ND to command cash is even less now then it was in 2003. ND needs help. NBC needs a college football presence to promote its new Sunday night football venture with the NFL. A disintegrating Big XII could give ND and NBC a chance form a slam dunk college football spectacle that would make any college football fan smile.

Six teams. Fifteen games. One a week. Saturday in prime time on NBC. A Super-Mini Conference

Week 1: Notre Dame vs. OU
Week 2: Texas vs. Notre Dame
Week 3: USC vs. OU
Week 4: Texas vs. OU
Week 5: Notre Dame vs. USC
Week 6: Notre Dame vs. Penn St.
Week 7: OU vs. Penn St.
Week 8: Texas vs. Florida
Week 9: USC vs. Penn St.
Week 10: Texas vs. Penn St.
Week 11: Texas vs. USC
Week 12: OU vs. Florida
Week 13a: USC vs. Florida(Day after Thanksgiving)
Week 13: Notre Dame vs. Florida
Week 14: Penn St. vs. Florida

At least one Big 10 team will jump and that will open up space for both Nebraska and Missouri in the Big 10.

Penn St. probably has the least allegiance to the Big 10 as they are recent additions. The suits at Michigan and Ohio St. are savvy though so you could easily replace Penn St with one of those schools.

Texas, Florida and USC are all programs that could go independent today and survive. Together they’d excel. OU gets the good fortune of both being the bad guy that everyone roots against and being first to the table due to the crumbling Big XII.

The new Power 6 conference uses its power to procure 2 guaranteed BCS slots along with a possible 3rd at large spot.

Texas A&M finds a home in the SEC. The rest of the Big XII disperses its self across a suddenly more exciting WAC and Mountain West.

Where does this put Texas? In a great spot. Coupled with our Game against A&M we have 6 guaranteed Nationally Televised games a year. That is big bucks and big exposure. The boo-hooing about our OOC games being Rice and North Texas subsides as we have USC, Florida, ND, and Penn St. added to the list. We probably keep the regional rivalries with Tech and Baylor.

And talk about exciting football.

All comments, FanPosts, and FanShots are the views of the reader-authors who create them.

0 recs | Comment 11 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Exciting, but flawed

I think everyone would agree that the proposed "mini conference" match ups would be an amazing thing to watch. Unfortunately, this turns into an SEC-like disaster, but on a larger scale. Essentially, all the teams beat the crap out of each other, all probably ending the year with a national championship hopes-crushing 2 losses or more. This opens the door for other programs that have in turn gone undefeated or only suffered one loss (i.e. West Va, Oregon, etc).

The reason many of the selected schools are nearly autonomous is in part because they're a product of their conferences. The teams are routinely at or near the top of the conference, thus gaining more money, recognition, recruiting, etc. In addition, the amount of travel these teams will be doing is more than any coach would like to see his players make.

There's more to this, but I'm having trouble putting any more thoughts down at the moment. I'll try to get back to this when I've got more time to think.

From the desk of your self-proclaimed resident gamer.

by Ramzlita on Aug 8, 2007 3:43 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Not a long term solution

I agree about the beating each other up issue...although I think it is subdued somewhat due to the small size of the conference. 5 losses does not a season decimate. A team that goes 0-5 in the mini conference still has solid chance of ending the season 6-6 and going to a nice bowl.

I think that the computers and humans are smart enough to adjust for the increased compitetion level when it comes to selecting the MNC game. You're also looking at this not starting up until around 2011 when a +1 scenario starts looking probable.

In the end I think that this would so upset the balance of power in College football that it would probably only last for 5 years or so. At some point the NCAA will step in with an alternate solution. Most likely spliting D-IA into two groups.

by afat on Aug 8, 2007 4:21 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's certainly interesting

Very original, and very intriguing. I like it. I'd like to see Michigan or tOSU in the conference instead of either PSU or OU, due to the former having more national appeal than the latter. It would also benefit UT's recruiting to not have OU in the super-conference.

by Old Tex29 on Aug 8, 2007 5:02 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

After reading this

we really, really need futbaw to begin. These posts are just like stewie mandel's dreck of top 10 lists he posts that seem to pass as journalism.

Just time fillers until our beloved team takes the field I guess.

Street level

by UT2001 on Aug 8, 2007 6:19 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

oh, lord.

I'm with you.

Jim Delany throws out a red herring about expansion and everyone starts talking about it as if it's real. Stop thinking of these guys as running football and start thinking about them as politicians and you get the idea. A lot of what they're saying is about deflecting from an issue more than reality.

Delany did this crap so that people would start talking about it and stop talking about him being a fool for starting the B10 network.

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Corn Nation - Graduating more of our players than you are!

by cornnation on Aug 8, 2007 10:49 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Not quite there yet

Hello there, long time reader, first time poster.

The mega-conference scenario is interesting and creative, and I think we might be heading that way . . . three rounds of realignments from now. I don't think it's feasible quite yet, but it might be the reality come 2020 or so. Particularly if a playoff system is in place by then so that a Texas, USC, etc. doesn't face week after week of must-win games to stay alive for a championship game. The BCS as it exists discourages such scheduling creativity (see: Texas, future non-conference schedules thereof).

The first two scenarios actually illustrate to me why the Texas-to-the-Big-10 rumors make a lot of sense to me. Would any Texas fan truly be excited about the addition of a BYU or a Memphis to replace a departing Mizzou or Nebraska. And don't even get started on the academic credibility of adding a Memphis or a Cincinnati to the Big XII. I'm not sure that's a neighborhood Texas really wants to be hanging out in.

I'm becoming convinced that Texas is grudgingly OK with the status quo and would rather see no realignment at all. However, if it has to happen, I think Texas, from a defensive posture, will react pro-actively (yeah, an oxymoron, but you know what I mean) to get the best deal possible to make sure it's in a conference with Michigan, PSU and Wisconsin rather than KSU, Okie State and Memphis.

by novahorn on Aug 8, 2007 6:27 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Interesting thought

And one I hadn't considered strongly enough. If Texas officials were to come to believe that some sort of change was inevitable? They very well might be proactive.

It's something to consider, because I think your characterization that Texas is "grudgingly okay" with the status quo is exactly right.

(Thanks for registering to post. Welcome.)

--PB--

by Peter Bean on Aug 8, 2007 8:08 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

. . . and just a bit more

Thanks for the welcome! I guess the big issue is how "inevitable" realignment is. I tend to think it's very inevitable, and in the near future. The Big 10 already would have gone to 12 had it been able to snag Notre Dame in 1999. With its new TV contract, it has even more incentive to expand regardless of whether ND wants to join. I think it happens within five years.

The Pac-10 seems less interested today in expanding. However, the league commissioner appears to be about 127 years old, and presumably newer blood with more of an eye to the bottom line than to tradition will take the helm one day. Also, some of the Big 10's resistance to a championship game has been weakened in good part to listening to Gary Danielson's pro-Florida rantings during the SEC Championship Game and believing that they helped the Gators leap past UM in the polls. If a UCLA loses a spot in a championship game because a team from a conference with a conference championship game had the last chance to impress the voters, perhaps Pac-10 resistance to expansion would weaken as well. (Note that I didn't use USC as an example as the idea of voters being impressed with someone other than USC is of course absurd on its face.)

With this, the "inevitability" I see comes from the fact that the Big XII is in the perfect geographic location to have its members poached by the more stable and, frankly, desirable conferences to the west and east. As I said above, I think Texas would do whatever it could to move to the front of the line if it appeared that the Big 10 was looking to poach Mizzou or Nebraska (although I don't think it would get to that stage since I assume Texas would be approached before either of those schools). What isn't so clear to me is how Texas would react if the Big 10 looked like it was heading east (Rutgers is the best guess) for its expansion. Would Texas proactively try and cut in line in that case?

by novahorn on Aug 8, 2007 8:43 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I enjoy

how both these scenarios actually include Iowa State, which is usually left for dead in any other scenario.

by CrossCyed on Aug 8, 2007 7:37 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Sorry Afat

After reading my previous post it sounded prickish. Nothing against you or the post, just an SI and Mandel sucks thing (for me personally). My intent was not to crap on your ideas. College futbaw/NCAA/WWL/Disney need some original content.

Street level

by UT2001 on Aug 8, 2007 8:30 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

No Problem

I enjoy thinking about this kind of stuff and throwing it out for discussion. I too am looking forward to the start of real games so we have something to talk about.

The practice reports from the last two days have been a breath of fresh air in the oppressive August heat.

Someone mentioned things being all about money and this post came from taking that line of thinking out to a logical conclusion.

by afat on Aug 9, 2007 8:55 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs