I think UNC is the ultimate goal for Slive and the SEC. I would be okay with adding Duke as a tag along. It might not do much for football, but I know Slive was really upset with how bad the conference did in men's hoops. To be honest, I don't see hoops getting any better unless they bring in somebody. That is the only reason I would be okay with Kansas. I know football is driving the realignment bus, but if Slive is looking to round out the conference, then KU and Duke could do that better than just about anybody else, plus their academics are very well respected. UNC, KU, and Duke along with UK and Florida, we just became the 3rd best hoops conference top to bottom, and their probably aren't any leagues that could match those 5 schools.

Texas- I just don't ever see them going to the SEC. I don't think they want the SEC recruiting in their backyard, and to be honest, I don't think they want to play in the SEC on a week to week basis. I think Texas would rather see how being an independent worked out for them before going to the SEC.

Notre Dame- I think you hit that nail on the head in just about every way possible. The biggest thing is they just don't fit culturally.

Virginia- They have not been good at anything since the mid 80's. I think that is probably being generous. I think the last time they were good in football, George Welsh (I think that was his last name) was their head coach. Herman Moore was playing WR and Barry Word (tag team partner with Christian Okoye, the Nigerian Nightmare, on the Kansas City Chiefs) was playing Running back. I think Va Tech fits in better with the SEC culture. Plus they have been to the NCAA tournament in the last decade. Not sure if Virginia has.

Oklahoma- My boyhood team. Would love to see the Sooners in the SEC. But I don't think their administration wants to come this way. I believe they want to be out west. Let me ask this, if the Pac 12 and the SEC were willing to take OSU, and OU felt like they had to move, (Texas went independent or something like that) which conference would OU prefer?

As far as the FSU's and Miami's I think you are correct. I think there is a block of schools in the SEC who will always vote to protect each other. Is Texas A&M in that group? Would they veto Texas if the Longhorns did come calling?
I don't see the SEC worrying about the BIG recruiting in the south. They have been recruiting in Florida for years and it hasn't made that much of a difference. I just can't see that many kids from Florida or Georgia getting all that pumped up to go to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue, Indiana, or Iowa; especially if they take their recruiting trip in December or January.

Good to see your comments, Hendu.
On the Texas question first, and this is just my observation. Unlike Notre Dame, Texas does not seem to have any particular problem about playing conference fb. They want to protect their lucrative complementary revenue as it relates to the LHN enterprise and other distributions. Also, Texas wants to keep their baseball, basketball, women's sports, etc. in a strong, traditional conference. Going independent, could impact this. Also, even a very strong name as Texas is, future fb scheduling could be real tough as an independent given the trend. Scheduling late-season games offers little flexibility in such a situation.

Would OU prefer the PAC12 or the SEC.....or the B1G? I believe it would be a situational decision based on what is happening around them. In terms of proximity and some old rivalries, the SEC looks as if it would have a distinct edge. In terms of certain strategic interests, the PAC12 could be preferred. I don't believe OU is so tied at the hip to Texas to prevent them from ultimately taking a great offer, but what Texas does or doesn't do would be a factor in the decision. Both OU and UT want to protect the RRR game for each year. The PAC12 offered certain B12 schools, which included UT and OU, a package deal before that didn't materialize. And, since the PAC12 has greater room to expand, they could renew a revised version of the earlier deal offered which perhaps could still include OU, OSU, UT, and probably TTU. There's even the Kansas schools that could be involved in some way with some kind of mass move.
It's not that Oklahoma State is an undesirable entity, but the SEC expending capital on taking two from the State of Oklahoma would not be a conference objective if the SEC decides to expand again. Such would be controversial, given the SEC's recent position about taking new additions within the current footprint. Why use two slots in one state to the west that is not even Texas? Conferences have to make their own members accepting of new additions first before new changes happen, and who, where, and how many, gets engulfed in immense politics and not all conference members are always on the same page about it when the initiatives start. The ACC made some mistakes in not getting a 'consensus of happiness' with some of their expansion endeavors.
The B1G, if they tried to reach to Texas in some contiguous or strategic way, would have even greater complications to cope with if they head in that direction.

IMO, the short answer as to the most feasible and wishful option....the PAC12, based on current circumstances.
The immediate, and perhaps long-term, reality? Hang in the B12.

As far as women's sports are concerned, doesn't the SEC do pretty good in that area. Women's hoops is pretty strong. Gymnastics, Volleyball, Softball, Soccer, and Track and Field are pretty solid. I think the SEC has been pretty good at baseball. Basketball hasn't been great, but we got Kentucky and Florida. Mizzou is usually pretty good and Vandy is no slouch.

I tend to agree with you that OU would rather choose the Pac 12 over the SEC if they had to choose. I think they could make more money in the SEC, especially with the new SEC network.

I think the better choice for the student athletes would be the SEC. Think about a game ending on the west coast at 9 vs a game ending at 9 on the east coast. I know a flight from the Orlando area to Tulsa is about a 2 1/2 hour flight. But being that you cross the time zone, it works out to be an hour 1/2. Flying back from Washington State, well that's a longer flight, and you add two hours because of the time difference. You make it harder on the student athletes to keep up with their grades if you are flying out west.

And that time zone difference is a major reason that Texas prefers the ACC to the PAC if the Big 12 were to dissolve. Texas has worked very hard to keep the Big 12 together. I have a hard time believing that they will be the cause of a dissolution. Texas won't go independent in football. They prefer to have all their sports in one conference. In 2011, OU learned that they can't coerce UT to go west, so OU won't be going anywhere, either. I don't see any of the other schools having any option but to remain in the Big 12.

I think if the Big XII expands again, they will look east. There is too big a gap between West Virginia and Iowa State for the Big-12 to look towards BYU, Colorado State or Boise State. I think they are much more likely to take a stab at stealing Pitt or Louisville, or to go after another large state school in a market that they don't yet have.

Don't laugh, but I could see them cherry picking one of the three HUGE state schools from the very competitive MAC - Ohio U (26k undergrad), Toledo (23k undergrad) or Bowling Green (18k undergrad). The only other move that could make any sense at all to me would be to expand in Texas, but I sorta doubt that (SMU, Houston).

It's been a while since I weighed in on the Big 12 so here are my latest thoughts:

When the GOR is up I think the SEC, PAC 12, and Big Ten are going to all make pitches to Big 12 members in hopes of turning the 5 conference system into a 4 conference system. I can see them making pitches for conferences containing any where from 16 to 20 members. The SEC and PAC 12 are probably looking at just the 4 Texlahoma state schools but the Big Ten could make an interesting gambit that could include Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and perhaps a couple hanger-on schools like Iowa St and Kansas St. If the Big Ten doesn't get Texas and Oklahoma I still see them doing some adding simply to save face. If the SEC fails to secure any of the premier Big 12 schools I see them turning on the ACC.

As long as the college football playoff is only 4 teams I don't see the 5 conference system being viable because at least one champion from a major league will be left out each year. This tips the balance of power towards conferences like the SEC and makes it even more likely that schools from the ACC and Big 12 will be looking to jump ship to a better league. I think the only way to make the status quo of the 5 conference system stable is to expand the playoff to 8 teams--the champs of the Power 5 and the 3 highest ranked teams who didn't win their leagues as at-larges.

So I honestly see the PAC12 deciding to grab 6 from the Big 12 once the GOR is up.

Obviously they need the 4 from Texhoma (not Texlahoma ) because if those go to the B1G or SEC then the PAC12 becomes a lesser conference (possibly worse than the ACC who has the potential to add WVU/Cincy/UConn/NDfb), and with the Big Ten talking about a 20 or 24 school conference, the PAC12 even with the 4 Texhoma schools will still be in a bad place in regards to future expansion (compared to the Big Ten and SEC who can pick from the ACC).

The PAC12/16 has no major schools really available. Baylor, TCU, SMU, BYU won't make it due to religious ties. Boise won't make it due to really poor academics. SDSU/SJSU/Fresno won't get a look with already 4 Cali schools in the conference. That leaves them with Hawaii, UNLV, UNM, CSU, Houston, Rice, Tulane and Iowa St which would only bring down the perception of the conference (1 might be okay if they need a filler).

KU and KSU seem like an easy 1, 2 punch that can get them two nationally recognized universities which bring great bball some some fb success (though not this year) and keeps them from falling to the Big Ten or SEC, which in turn would be forced to take from the ACC for any expansion opportunies.

Even if they only grab 4 from the ACC, that would once again solidify the ACC as the clear/cut #4 conference and the PAC12/16/18 in the Big 3.

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

You guys are not following the money trail and keep on believing we are heading to a four super conference format for major college football. First rule of thumb, money will dictate the future for college football alignment. In reality money has been the rule of thumb all along in college alignment.

The four team super conference idea is basically a take on the plus one format the Big Ten favored which would have most likely always provided in most years the winners of the Rose and Sugar Bowls advancing to the college football championship game. “Plus one was a nice tidy neat little idea for a system to determine college football final four playoff teams!”

This would have been a social type of fairness to provide everyone in a four big boy conference format an equal share of football revenue.

Well guess what the SEC did not want a social type system and got the Big 12 to go along with squashing this idea.

The SEC believes and for the most part should always have multiple teams to play in the future college football playoff system.

The point you are missing is the playoff money will be where college football makes its future big bucks growth.

Once the big boys determine how to keep the majority of the revenue for themselves, college football playoff will quickly jump to 8 and/or 12 or 16 team playoff system.

Money will dictate the playoff extension with more teams and more importantly the fans of college football will demand it and TV networks will surely accommodate this additional dollar revenue generating request.

This is why we are hearing about the new division being created in the NCAA for the big football conferences or possibly a complete breakaway from the NCAA all together. Early next year’s NCAA meetings should be very interesting to observe.

This is why we are hearing about paying college athletes for their services in playing major college football.

Once all of the above are in place, college football playoff will no longer be concerned about a college playoff extending into February and kids missing class.

We may someday end up with less major power conferences, however, it will not be four super college football conferences neatly bound together to take one of the coveted spots in the a short lived four team playoff.

The ability to complete professionally in college football will be the most likely factor that binds certain schools together in the future.

To me this should be very concerning to large market schools that have been desired in the past for expansion and now must compete in some of those same markets with other professional teams including the NFL.

The SEC and for that matter the Big 12 are already farms teams to the NFL and just wait until they can pay their athletes legally to play professional college football.

CSNBBS MB thread discussing Big 12 withdrawal procedures at http://www.csnbbs.com/showthread.php?tid=650122

Does anyone not think this? Even more than just the pursuit of television and other revenue deals, being in certain conferences or among certain schools also impact things like enrollment, or the enrollment profile in general.

I think about what happened to certain schools in PA who, when they made the jump to a certain conference, saw a distinct shift in the overall school profile. The Patriot League schools, for example, definitely gave Lehigh, Lafayette, and Bucknell something to brag about (hey, they were the schools the Ivy League institutions wanted to work with!). Villanova before the Big East wasn't very unlike St. Joe's, which wasn't unlike LaSalle. Now? Rubbing elbows over the years with Georgetown, BC, Notre Dame, Syracuse, and some of the others definitely had noticeable effect on their enrollment; you don't mistake the two anymore, and only those who've been in these parts for a long while can say the kind of thing like "Villanova isn't all that great." Well, for a good long time, that was definitely true. And I'm pretty darn sure it's why Villanova wanted nothing to do with Temple or Penn State when it came to the Big East. VU wanted students they couldn't get. There's talk that they might park their football into the Patriot (as the Patriot already approached them), and I'm sure the less competitive CAA becomes, the Patriot will provide the kind of benefits that will make Villanova more like UPenn (which is what they want).

...then, of course, there's Penn State. In the new USNWR rankings, PSU is the third highest rated Big Ten school (well, fourth, if you count Johns Hopkins), behind Northwestern and Michigan. It's now ahead of Wisconsin and Illinois. Getting that Big Ten-like rub, and the ability to shift kids away from University Park...it made the school a much more competitive institution.

More competitive academics usually mean a different, more affluent student body. That affluence...yeah, it can get you access to different coin you didn't used to get.

Where it does come back to sports...it's why I think, were they ever asked/encouraged to apply, Missouri would take the Big Ten invite in a heartbeat. It's not just the television coin. And in the Big XII? The more "alternative" schools who become more likely to the conference (those that aren't the flagships), I think it does create strain for schools like Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. What does Kansas gain with Cincinnati? USF?

I had a very similar post about this thread a few pages back...

It seems to me the the GOR could be broken because the GOR offers no hard dollar number for buy back they just flat out retain it. Legally you can't take something for nothing. The guy said it pretty well...

"Now the buyouts attached to leaving, those can have teeth. But the day you try to retain someone's rights and not pay them, as has happened in 100% of the court cases, without fail, where someone has breached the equivalent of a grant of rights and were not paid for their retention, the retaining party will lose. Every single time, without discussion. Note there is a difference between not paying, and disagreements on the value or amount, if any, owed due to calculations of how much revenue said rights earned."

Still as most of the posters have figured out, dissolution is likely the only way out and that needs 75% or 8 of 10.
PAC12+ Texas, TX Tech, Oklahoma, OSU, Kansas, K State
ACC+ WVU
and 1 more of ??? ISU, TCU, Baylor ???? thus unlikely.


Unless they stratgically add 2 more to get to 12 like UConn and Cincy. Then 75% wopuld be 9 of 12.
PAC12+ Texas, TX Tech, Oklahoma, OSU, Kansas, K State (all but K State has been rumored).
ACC+ WVU, Cincy, UConn (all three schools would jump at a chance to join a more "local" conference with their rivals)
Out of luck: ISU, TCU, Baylor.

The PAC12 and ACC would have to work together on this but the beneifts would be great.

The PAC12 would get more coverage in the Central Time Zone all the way to the Mississippi River geographically conecting them with the B1G and SEC and potentially building some great OOC rivalries like UT/A&M, KU/Mizzou, OU/NU which the PAC has never really had. Plus the opportunity would be there for more top tier bowl games against the SEC/ACC (the Alamo for instance is a Big12/PAC12 game, by basically dissolving/absorbing the Big12 they could add in the SEC as the opponent).

The new PAC18 adds some nice "crown jewels" to their conference network, including 2 huge fb schools in TX/OU plus everyone but TX Tech has been in a BCS game (and Tech just missed out due to the 3 way tie in 2008, so its really not a bad haul) and some major basketball schools in Kansas, Texas, and K State which they really need.

The ACC can take WVU who they missed out on before realizing their mistake and taking Lville, as well as their #2/3 options in UConn and Cincy (who they would have likely added eventually) all of which have also made BCS games. That would allow the ACC to really step up their Northern leg which is pretty spread out (BC>Syracuse>Pitt>Lville>ND) and adds great rivals/travel partners with UConn(BC), WVU(Pitt), and Cincy(Lville).

The ACC, who had some trouble getting into a BCS game, could once again join the big boys in their 1v1 matchup (Rose/Sugar) and could either take the Big 12's place in the Sugar Bowl vs the SEC#1 or turn the Orange Bowl into that type of game ths removing the stigma of being the kid who was picked last to play.

Bullet points: ACC gets 3 teams all in their geogrpahic footprint, 1 they missed on, and 2 they might have added anyways, more access to some top bowl games (no more Beef O'Brady) plus jumps the now dead Big 12 a solidifys them as a Big 4 conference; while the PAC12 get national relevancy in the Central Time Zone plus some great schools that will really help push their league from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf Coast.

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

The more I think about the teams in the XII after the inevitable XII break-up, the more confident I am about leaving teams out of the loop. I was very much into preserving who is already in a major conference, but not so much after thinking about it. Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma will find a home. All three have multiple major conferences who would be interested. Texas Tech, Oklahoma St, and West Virginia will also find homes. Then we get to the other four. Kansas St would be the next school on the list. They will likely find a home, but they will probably right Kansas' coattails all the way there. Iowa St is deep doo-doo. After thinking about it, they had a sliver of basketball greatness a while back which has been massively overshadowed by their suckiness elsewhere. They are AAU, but so is Rice, Tulane, and Buffalo, so it's not a strong argument when you consider that Iowa St is in Ames, IA while Rice is in Houston, TX, Tulane is in New Orleans, LA, and Buffalo is in Buffalo, NY. Those markets alone dwarf Ames. Next there's TCU who is a recent BCS call-up. They really don't have the pedigree to claim they should be with the big boys. Don't get me wrong, I love TCU and I believe they can compete with many big schools, but when cuts have to be made, TCU probably doesn't stay. However, they do have the DFW market which is top 10 in the country. Finally, Baylor. I really wanted Baylor to make it in my book, but they don't belong. They barely made the original XII over the other Texas schools who were left out (Houston, TCU, SMU, and Rice - Houston or TCU probably should've received the nod over Baylor). Their basketball has been pretty dang good lately and so has their football. I just don't see them making noise if they were to join the SEC, ACC, or PAC (note: none have even shown the slightest interest, I was just using an example lol). I'd say 6 for sure, but probably 7, find homes.

Plus A&M hates Baylor so SEC is out and they a Baptist school so the PAC is out and likely the Big Ten too (since they've just been interested in Catholic institutions). ACC or bust for Baylor which really sucks for them because they have really made a committment to be a good sports school.

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

It is great to read what some of you have written, whether it be in the SEC, Big 12 or the Big 10 forums. I am feeling a little depressed tonight, my UCF Knights lost a tough one to South Carolina this afternoon.

My first question is whether or not UCF has a chance at getting into the conference expansion conversation? I think if there are 5 conferences of 16 teams or more, I think we have a chance with either the ACC or the Big 12. Do you agree?

But if there are only 4 conferencs of 20 teams, I am not certain. In my opinion, UCF is better than a lot of teams that would be included in those 4 conferences (I am talking about football success here). We are talking about 80 teams. UCF is certainly better than a lot of teams when we are talking about 80 schools. We are in a relatively large market with an incredibly fertile recruiting ground. We have a huge enrollment in a college football crazy state, the average age of a UCF alumni is 35. The amount of money from alumni contributions is only going to grow over the next 20 years or so.

Tkalmsu, SEC, Bishon Cutter, fighting Muskie, and so many of the other great posters on this site, should I be worried about the future of my Knights? Don't sugar coat it for me.