WVU pulled all the strings they could to get into the Big 12, and is making more money, and will have a harder time leaving if not impossible...no chance of this happening.

Big 12 has better bowls, better football and better TV money, the ACC only has better basketball and geography. The ACC knows its in danger anything they can do to make themselve look better is a plus or else the Big Ten/SEC and Big 12 will pick them apart.

_________________
Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

Article out of Kansas City with comments from Big 12 Commish regarding league realignment and bowl situation at http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/29/40 ... xpand.html

...after first going to the ACC, then second to the SEC...pulling out all of the stops against the gargantuan...University of Louisville.



...for now...



I don't believe the ACC will double-back, so I agree. Again, the ACC doesn't have the right administration to really "go yard" in this conference Royal Rumble, but it's sitting on pocket aces. If they don't realize their potential and market, they deserve to be eliminated. And really, only just now starting to "investigate" a conference network? Good lord. But, trying to pull the wool over our eyes about the Big XII's strengths is a PR job Bowlsby and the AD's know better not to make. Those in the know can count, and they know how small the Big XII's reach is, the respectability of these institutions, alumni, and programs, and why going to conferences with larger population footprints can maximize their potential.

Ok while we wait until the Maryland law suit with the ACC is settled, the Big 12 has created a plan to expand once the Big Ten comes back for more ACC teams.

The Duke basketball coach should be worried because the ACC primarily stated this conference shuffle in 2003 with raids on the Big East.

I do not see anything the ACC can do to strengthen itself because the conference already was revaluated for TV contracts with the addition of Pitt and Syracuse.

Short of full membership by Notre Dame, every ACC school is most likely in play for one of the future four super conferences.

I am not sure Notre Dame membership would make much of a difference for the ACC since the new contract reflects the issues of the ACC when it comes to football.

Football is driving revenue and the ACC has not been close to a super conference in football over the last decade. It not just a cycle when you go through a decade of bad football performance.

Expansion decisions both in the past and current have and will come back to haunt the ACC.

Lash -

Do you really beleive the conference alignment would still be the same as it was in 2003, had the ACC not gane after Miami, BC and Syracuse ?
Nobody can prove that theory is incorect, however the ACC might be that much more vulnerable today if they sat still at 9 members.
For all we know, the SEC might have taken in everyone but Wake, and gone to 20, and there would be no ACC today
(I'm not suggesting that 's necessarily a horrible outcome, either).

The big driver has been this huge influx of TV money, and cable company's willingness to pay outrageous subscription fees to these conference networks.
I say outrageous, because if it were up to the individual subscribers, very few would subscribe to a network with such limited content.
The cable and satellite companies have allowed themselves to be bullied and manipulated into loading up the BTN, LHN, PAC12Network, etc., and then this huge windfall
allows the conferneces to go on sprees of "plunder thy neighbor". About the only way this will stop is when all the schools of decent value have roughly equal incomes,
so their incentive to jump is minimal.

DING DING DING

IF the ACC adds UConn and Cincy does that increase their value? Not much and probably would be a drag on the conference as everyone would get a smaller piece of a slightly larger pie. So outside of raiding the BigTen/SEC or adding ND in fb or Texas/Oklahoma the ACC has no other way to improve its value.

I agree that the ACC should have a better TV deal and get more respect but when your biggest programs have been disappointing and all your schools are a decade out of even playing for a MNC then its easy to see why the nation cares more about the Big 12, PAC 12, and Big Ten over the ACC and why they all get paid more.

_________________
Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

tute79,
Since I live in Pac 12 country and would have more easy access to smoke on expansion in this part of country, the Pac 10 always resisted expansion for years. The argument for expansion was always for the need to expand to 12 to be just like other major leagues and play this so called magical conference championship game.

This was the seed that helped the new Pac 12 commissioner gain traction to think in more bigger terms; if you going to expand why not go really big by expanding with 16.

In the end it was determined the Pac 10 was so undervalued the league would have resulted in about the same revenue with 10 verses 12 schools.

Maybe 16 with Texas inclusion would have resulted in much larger revenue shares per school, it was not the driving factor that help get the Pac 12 to think about expansion. The we got to be just like the other leagues was the major driving force.

So yes I do believe had the ACC remained with nine or ten schools would have made a difference in the Pac 12 decisions.

Smart schools like Duke, North Carolina, Stanford, and California never wanted these super leagues that brought in less desirable conference mates.

All this conference alignment decisions is much about keeping up with the Jones. The issue is the football schools far outnumber the smart schools. Results have Missouri playing schools in Georgia and Florida and dropping nearby and 100 year old rivalry game with Kansas.

In the end the ones laughing all the way to the bank are the overpaid coaches and assistant coaches making far more that the primary folks teaching the students.

The overbuilt cathedrals of colleges sports that host 6 or 7 games a year while hospitals layoff staff they can longer fund.

If we value entertainment and sports more than education and health, then expansion for football purposes was well worth the effort.

So yes I do think Duke and North Carolina tried and would have made a major difference if they could have kept the ACC from bloating itself into the mess it is today.

The ACC played offense in extracting from the BE. Their superiority attitude showed in their motivations. However, they have been terrible at defense.
The ACC should have taken WVU early-on. The ACC viewed WVU as if they were the Morgantown School of Sheetmetal Work.
With the B12 having WVU in the east, it gives the B12 some foothold. It's part of why L'ville later got a call after Maryland announced their departure.
Had the ACC held to their stance of "all-in" per Notre Dame, things could have been different. The B10 got motivated to take Maryland and Rutgers due to the ACC's special deal with ND; and the ACC's failure to really wrap-up the tactical objective that the NE is a new and added core of their domain.

The managing faction in the ACC has a long history of internal favoritism, even as numbers grew. They lost So. Carolina decades back, and now Maryland, and with FSU telling 'em "get with the program or we go for something better". A couple or so of the others may feel the same. Now, the ACC shows vulnerability.

That noted, I do not believe the B12 has the power first, or alone, to take from the ACC. They could, following new and multiple successful efforts of extractions from the B1G and/or SEC. All now a question of, "is 14 enough" from the big neighbors?

Cutter is right regarding the ACC having some very good assets and don't know how to use them. There's some very high quality flag-ship and private institutions in the ACC in some of the nation's very best geography. Too bad they have made mistakes
with their strategic thinking and implementations.

Agree that ACC should not have invited Notre Dame UNLESS Notre Dame has [non-publicly] agreed to transition to being a full member of ACC.
Contractually they are agreed to play 5 ACC opponents per year, and have announced that annual games vs. Michigan will cease (after 2017 ?).
All this has led to some speculation that Notre Dame COULD be headed toward full membership, but they can't publicly disclose that, for fear of alumni back-lash.

Yes, this probably pissed off the Big Ten.

The ACC's taking of Miami, Va Tech, then BC in 2003 / 2004 DID initiate a wave of realignment that cascaded through:
ACC - Big East - CUSA - WAC - Sun Belt. Then things settled down UNTIL....

Big Ten (11 schools at the time) announced they had decided to expand (and some interpreted that as not stopping at 12, but perhaps going to as many as 16.
Missouri threw themselves at the Big Ten, who quietly said no thanks and grabbed Nebraska. Hardly a bad move.
But the PAC's botched handling (by new commish Larry Scott) of potential expansion to 16 totally de-stabilized the Big XII.
The PAC membership was not comfortable with inviting a gorilla like Texas.
This should have been fleshed out early on INTERNALLY, and had the PAC just reached out and taken Colorado and Utah,
their expansion to 12 would have been find, and the Big XII could have simply replaced Colorado and Nebraska with, say, TCU and Houston,
and the situation might have settled down... The A&M departure to the SEC started the "14 (or will it be 16) is the new normal" paradigm.
The ACC's addition of Pitt and Syracuse may have been a reaction (perhaps defensive) to the SEC's move to 14.
However I don't view the ACC as the catalyst for the craziness of the last 2 years.
They have picked over the Big East, but this was primarily due to the mismanagement of Marinatto, in whom all Big East teams ultimately lost confidence.

Great summary but...(and this is not me being a Texas fan but is just fact checking.

People seem to rewrite this history often but the PAC was comfortable with Texas but not their demands of retaining 3rd tier rights (this was before the LHN exsisted) so they couldn't have solved this internally, it had nothing to do with Texas being a gorilla (I'm sure that didn't help but the main issue between them was TV rights as in who had control and $$$), the plan was in place to limit Texas' power from the start as they limited their control by only inviting 3 Texas schools so the 4 Cali schools still had more power. In fact, they wanted Texas and Colorado above everyone else that they were the only Texas and Colorado had official invites all the other schools Tech/OU/OkSU (not sure about A&M) were on the condition that Texas joined. (As evidence by OU/OkSU not getting invited later on)

Side note: The PAC also did not decide on Colorado after Texas said no thanks because their demands were not going to be met, Colorado jumped in the middle of the discussions for the fear that Texas politics were going to force them out for Baylor (the only Big 12 South school not invited), so Colorado jumped before any was finalized thinking "This way we are in for sure and if they take Baylor we don't lose our spot." They did eventually settle on Utah after the PAC16 talks faded. This is one of the reason I find it funny that Colorado fans say they left Texas because Texas is bad (for whatever various reasons) because they honestly thought Texas was coming along with them.

_________________
Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

Yeah, I remember the history of it day-by-day.

First, Larry was all in favor of going to 16 and adding 6 Big XII teams and it was moving along.
Later after Colorado and Utah came in to create the PAC-12, there was a move to add UT, TT, OU, and OSU to get to 16, but that didn't happen either.
After this second attempt failed, much blame was attributed to the LHN, even though the PAC Network that was coming along could have made the LHN a Texas regional PAC Network,
and essentially let it be somewhat autonomous with Texas (and maybe Texas Tech) and Texas would not share in the regular PAC Network revenue (or something like that).

Upon further review, there were at least 3 college presidents (speculation is that it had to be schools that were going to wind up in the PAC 16 East (AU, ASU, CU, UU) weren't crazy about it,
since they really wanted to be in a west coast league and not one dominated by Big XII South scchools.
Larry figured all 12 PAC schools were on board with where the negotiations were heading, and was a bit blind-sided by this...

Ehh...Colorado's PAC spot was never actually in jeopardy. Would they have won were they up against just Texas and Oklahoma? No. But it was NEVER just those two competing with Colorado. The +1's made UC far more attractive. Plus, it's true...UC was a PAC school in a Great Plains conference...there's a west coast sheen to the school that no other in the Big XII were close to having. We can spin the closeness of the potential snub many ways, but Colorado was always a coveted target. Heck, didn't the B1G approach them AND Nebraska in the 90's?

I'm certain the PAC would have laid out all five schools (UT, TT, OU, OSU, and CU) and made the case to "the chasers" that one +1 was fine. Both +1's and no UC was a non-starter.

Utah is the real boobie prize. If it comes down to the Texahoma 4 and Kansas in the future, I wonder if Utah gets the boot if they don't demonstrate any value to the conference. Ironic, considering had Utah and BYU been absorbed in the original Big XII scheme, it may have kept UC around. Maybe even Nebraska.

If Texas had said yes but the state of Texas was saying you have to bring Baylor along then YES Colorado's spot was in danger, the current and future value of Texas and Oklahoma versus the value of Colorado is laughable. I did a quick google search and BOOM.

http://www2.registerguard.com/cms/index ... -a-pac-16/

Now I agree that Colorado made the most sense, but Colorado is no Texas nor Oklahoma, anything they had to do to get them would have been done IMO if they had gotten Texas to buy into the PAC12 network over the LHN. Colorado and the PAC took the Baylor option away by taking Colorado so that there was no room for Baylor (though when A&M said no Baylor once again tried to push their way in).

Also Utah will not get the boot...if the PAC12 goes to 16 w/ Texas, Tech, OU, and OkSU you got easy divisions with the old PAC8 and the new guys but those 4 votes AZ/ASU/CU/Utah would kill the expansion.

If they go to 18 with Kansas and KSU they'd have to put Utah w/ the old PAC8 and the Arizona's+CU with the Big 12 schools for that to work. And those three votes from the Arizona's and Colorado would kill any expansion.

That's why I've come around to thinking that IF the PAC12 expands with Texas and company in the future they'd have to go to 20 and the PAC10 would have to be unanimous to override Utah/Colorado's votes. That would create an Eastern division including Utah/Colorado and they would need just two more schools to have the old PAC10 in the West and basically the old Big 12 in the East.

Options for that would be BYU (maybe they get in if in another division than the Cali schools and may put pressure on Utah to vote on expansion) Colorado St (good school, and could possibly put pressure on Colorado to vote yes too), and the remaining Texas school Baylor/TCU could possibly get included too, and I also have New Mexico as a longshot option.

Personally I like how it looks w/ BYU/CSU.

PAC20 West - Washington, WSU, Oregon, OrSU, Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Arizona, ASU
PAC20 East - Utah, BYU, Colorado, CSU, Kansas, KSU, Oklahoma, OkSU, Texas, TXTech

_________________
Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

I always liked the "paired" structures in the PAC10/12---Cal-Stanford, USC-UCLA, UO-OSU, etc. Adding Utah & Colorado broke the mold a bit.
Your design above, Tkal., thinking maybe a quarter century into the future, could be the thing; but instead of BYU, uhhh-- Utah State.

BYU is the school that on some basic levels, should be there; but doubt we'll see much give and take for a very, very long time for that to ever be accomplished.

I think a Larry Scott recent interview (in this thread ?) mentioned that the PAC had some brief internal discussins about expansion and expansion candidates.
Main points:
1) Nobody felt any urgency to expand.
2) When the topic came to candidates, two schools prominent in discussion were SDSU and Boise St.
3) BYU was not mentioned as having been discussed.

From this we might conclude that the PAC has no interest in grabbing schools from the Big XII, or oging that far east.
Their focus seems to be restricted to Pacific and Mountain time zones.
At the top of the list are schools in large markets and / or that have prominent athletic programs.
BYU has a prominent history and is somewhat close to Salt Lake City, but did not garner much consideration, since the PAC has Utah and BYU has "issues".

Nobody currently has the market size, the following, or new market penetration to increase PER SCHOOL revenue for the PAC,
unless they decide to go after Big XII teams on the other side of the Rocky Mountains.
If ever the PAC felt determined to expand, I would expect they might consider:
SDSU (big Southern California market),
UNLV (largest western city not affiliated with PAC),
UN-Reno (companion school for UNLV, state flagship, not that large of a TV market however),
Boise St. (prominent football, rabid following, not that large of a TV market, Idaho would be a new market...).
New Mexico (decent basketball, nothing special in football, state flagship, New Mexico would be a new market).

Conclusion... nothing likely any time soon, unless somehow they feel froced to expand, almost for expansion's sake.