College Football Questions and Musings

The Game Room
21

What if those goals are in conflict? If you’re an NFL-caliber recruit would you rather go to Alabama or Florida with the expectation that you’ll start at 2-3 on the depth chart (with a two year window before starting) or start Day One at A&M? Especially if you’re going to be playing on TV every week (and often against those same teams that want you to wait your turn). The SEC will help A&M with their recruiting more than it’ll hurt.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am really hoping that when the Supers finally shake out, FSU will finally be in the SEC where we belong. If not, I may never forgive the administration of the 80s for turning the SEC down.

22

This is a pretty big deal.

The B1G did it the right way. They’ve always shared revenue equally, then set up a TV network for the conference as a whole. The Big XII never shared equally, then let Texas set up a TV network all for themselves. Guess which conference is in better shape now?

The Big XII was always dysfunctional. Adding the Texas schools to the Big 8 after the SWC imploded was a huge mistake. That step led to:
- the end of the annual OU-Nebraska game, the biggest rivalry in the Big 8 and a game with national appeal
- Texas literally sucking everything they could out of the conference, pulling the conference headquarters and the football championship game out of Kansas City for Dallas
- A bunch of self-interested schools only looking out for Number 1, with absolutely no interest in the conference as a whole. Witness MIssouri sniffing around the Big 10 last year, which really kicked off this whole mess. Then Nebraska bolting for greener pastures, Texas wanting ESPN all for themselves, and A&M whining about Texas being big bullies.

Whenever a vote would come on splitting revenue equally among conference members, look at some of the schools that always voted “No” … Nebraska, Texas, OU and A&M. So when Texas figured out how to not-share better than the rest, who got all huffy and left? Nebraska … then A&M … and now it looks like Oklahoma.

The Big 8 should never have added Texas schools without going to equal revenue sharing. This self-destruction was probably destined from the start without that.

Signed, a poor orphan Iowa State fan hoping for a good conference to land in somewhere

23

Jocko-I’d hope the B1G comes calling, setting up rivalry with the Hawkeyes.

24

Uncle Jocko, unfortunately, it really looks like that Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas St will be the big losers in the big shakeup. there doesn’t appear to be room for them anywhere. ISU does not add any more households in footprint for the Big 10 network. If Mizzou gets annexed by the Big 10, then Kansas doesn’t add that many either as Kansas City metro area would be within the Mizzou footprint. Kansas has an outstanding B-Ball program which is their ace in the hole, but aces aren’t all that good when the deck is full of wildcards.

I think the best case scenario for ISU and K-State is the MWC.

25

I think you pretty much nailed it. I think Kansas basketball could really benefit from membership in the B1G and vice versa. Maybe that will buy them a ticket. But yea, the B12 is going down the tubes. I’m sure the Missouri AD is camped outside the B1G headquarters as we speak.

26

Well, Iowa State, Kansas, K-State and … was it Mizzou? … all had an agreement in principle to join the Big East when this Big XII destruction hullaballoo hit last year. Dan Beebe gave Texas the Longhorn Network (and Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma got the lion’s share of Nebraska/Colorado exit fees) to hold the conference together. Of course, we’re seeing how well THAT has worked out.

So, many Cyclone fans are crossing their fingers that the Big East is still an option. There’s a report out of New York that the Big East would still like to offer Kansas, K-State and Baylor (Baylor? WTH?) … since with the addition of TCU they don’t have four spots at the moment. There’s also rumors of the Big East and ACC making some sort of combination to become the first of the mega-conferences.

I thought a month ago the Big XII top dogs should be thinking like that … take whatever’s left of the conference after the bailouts and just combine with the Big East. The mega-conferences are coming … might as well be first. But Dan Beebe and the Big XII honchos have been reacting to events all along. I don’t think they have a clue as to how to take control of anything.

Mizzou would LOVE to go B1G. Would the B1G love to have them? I have my doubts, just on an academics basis. The SEC would probably not mind taking the Tigers, though. That might be interesting if they become the SEC’s 14th school.

I don’t think the B1G is in any hurry to add teams. If Notre Dame would come on board, then they’d want to add another to get up to 14. If the PAC 16 becomes a reality, I think the B1G would expand eventually.

Yes, things look dire for Iowa State. Kansas will find a good home, thanks to their basketball tradition. Missouri will end up okay. Kansas State might hang on to Kansas’ coattails … or they might not. It’s really Iowa State, K-State and Baylor that have to be worrying at the moment.

I hate the idea of megaconferences. With even 16 teams, you have seven division games already. Add just two cross-division games, and you already have 9 conference games. There’s teams in your conference that you’d only play every four years … and they’d be in your stadium only once every eight years. That’s not a conference … that’s two separate conferences under one umbrella.

On the other hand, it would be a de facto playoff system. If you have only one champion coming out of a conference with 16 or 18 or 20 teams … it does winnow down the field for making a national championship claim.

But I still hate it.

27

Won’t happen. Unless … this is crazy, folks … the megasuperduper conferences end up going to 18 or 20 members. If that happens, Iowa State would be shoo-in for the B1G.

I don’t see it happening, though. Talk about your wild chances.

ISU in the B1G does make a lot of geographic sense, though. Too bad geography doesn’t mean anything in today’s college sports world. (Can you imagine the travel costs of the non-revenue sports for OU making those trips to Washington, or TCU going to Boston? This is insane.)

28

I think geography does impact the decisions somewhat, if they consider the non-revenue sports. if a school is in a remote area compared to the rest of the teams, they are going to have road games in Womens B-Ball, baseball, softball, volleyball etc.

29

Not all sports are obligated to join the same conference, at least when football is concerned. It’s common in the rural west.

30

You have that a little reversed. They want the football to pull in ratings to make a mormon network viable enough to get on cable networks. Making more money is beside the point. They’d happily take less money for the football program if it aids in advancing the mormon religion.

Honestly, they might be the only athletics program in 1A where the athletics program is honestly aiding the institutional mission…

31

You may be right. But then, I tend to think that the Mormons are a little reversed. BYU going independent seemed like the absolute worst thing they could do. Notre Dame not joining the B1G seemed to me to be a boneheaded, arrogant, horrible decision especially when you consider the money generated by basketball. But then, what do I know? I’m waiting for BYU to prove me wrong.

32

True. The B1G does not have a hockey conference although they should develop one. Get Penn State’s club team on board. However, I can’t see the B1G accepting any school that wouldn’t have football, basketball, women’s basketball and probably baseball as part of the conference.

33

The Big Ten does in fact have hockey (or rather, will in two seasons time). The hockey conference alignments have shifted much more drastically than the football/basketball have in the last year.

The Big Ten also has a requirement that if a member school offers a sport which the conference supports, they must be a member. They also refuse to take auxiliary members. This requirement is the real cause of the hockey shake up. Penn State announced that they were adding a varsity hockey team last year, and that brought the number of conference schools offering hockey to six (PSU, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, MSU, OSU). Six is for all practical purposes the minimum number of schools that the NCAA will allow a (hockey?) conference to have. This past March, the Big Ten voted to support hockey, which forced all six schools to join the BTHC, whether they wanted to or not. (Rumor has it that the Gophers and Wolverines both voted no.)

ETA: As for baseball, Wisconsin doesn’t offer it, so I don’t see that as a problem.

34

I didn’t know of that development in regards to establishing a hockey conference. Good for the B1G. Put it on the B10 channel. Maybe this will inspire some other B1G teams to start a hockey program. There is plenty of talent out there. The investment wouldn’t be overwhelming and the TV exposure to fill in off-times in regard to basketball could really enhance the B10 channel.

Also, my marketing idea would be for the B1G to align with the MAC Conference. Get another channel and broadcast all games from both conferences. Yea, the MAC would be a junior conference with lesser revenue but it could benefit both conferences and expand the appeal for subscription to the B10 network.

On a stretch, the B10 could pull some of the MAC hockey teams into the B1G conference. Teams like Bowling Green and Miami of Ohio.

Just a thought. The idea will probably get adopted and I won’t make a dime off of it.

35

The plan is in fact to air the games on the network, in particular the Friday night games.

The MAC idea, while intriguing, is a non-starter. After the B10 announcement, Miami joined Denver, CC, UND, UMN, and UNO in creating the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. The conference has invited Notre Dame. If ND joins, Western Michigan will probably get invited. Bowling Green wants in as well. The WCHA invited most of the remaining CCHA schools to join, and so far Alaska, NMU, LSSU, and Ferris State have taken up the offer. The NCHC looks like it may work out to be the MAC schools plus the non-B10 western powers.

36

You’re not getting my point. From the standpoint of BYU, even if this move means the program slides backwards in every respect, it’s still a success so long as enough cable providers decide that the presence of college football (and other sports) on the schedule means the BYU Network is worth putting on the air.

If five years from now, the football team is 0-12 and losing money, you’ll have been proven right … but if those 12 losses are on nationwide basic cable. BYU will make that trade every time. They have larger ambitions than money … unlike most universities.

37

The scuttlebutt is that it was a partnership but not an equal one. It wouldn’t have been 50-50, even if both programs ponied up half the money.

Your article seems to be one side of the coin (there’s naturally a bit of conflict of interest with ESPN running LHN). The local reporting in Houston has been trying to cover both sides, but emotions run high.

There’s very much a he-said/she-said quality to the reporting. Here’s one article from the Houston Chronicle that shows just some of the difficulties piecing together a timeline.

UT might have been looking for a partner, but it wasn’t looking all that hard at other schools. The rumor mill had it that UT was also looking at the Big XII itself as a partner, with all the other schools chipping in.

38

I get your point. They are marketing the Mormon Church rather than BYU. But if the BYU football team sucks and is getting the crap beat out of them by the likes of Texas, nobody is going to tune in other than alumni and the “true believers” that never wander away from the BYU channel anyway. How is BYU going to put together a schedule that will get them into BCS bowl game, much less a NC game? Look what happened to TCU.

Maybe it will work but I’ll go on record with my doubts. The independents have scrambled to find conferences because of revenue sharing. BYU is not Notre Dame and is not Texas. I also think that if ND had foreseen the success of the B10 network they would probably be a B1G member. After all, it wouldn’t have required much of a schedule change.

The BYU move reminds me of the Osmond’s establishing their own studios in Provo. That was a miserable failure. Maybe it has something to do with all that pollution that got dumped on Provo for all those years.

39

UT is perceived as being both arrogant and greedy by most of the other Big 12 schools; what happened here, is that UT didn’t bank on A&M having enough clout and motivation on its own to split from the Big 12.

Historically, there’s been a lot of rivalry between A&M and UT; all the way back to the inception of UT, and including an attempt by UT in the 1920s to absorb A&M as a constituent college of UT, instead of a free-standing school.

Combine that with a certain historical disdain by the folks in Austin for the agriculture and engineering studying cadets at that relatively small school in College Station, and you have a recipe for animosity. UT’s always been the 800 lb gorilla in the Texas public school system, and A&M’s always been the little brother, so to speak.

In the past 30-40 years, the schools are more similar than they are different- the enrollments are similar, the student bodies are similar, etc… but UT still persists in throwing their weight around like they’re the only game in town, especially in athletic endeavors. They got the unequal revenue sharing in the Big12, they set up their own network, etc…

A&M probably assumed that the network would be pretty unequal (like everything from UT) because at the time, A&M was on a down swing, and UT was coming off a national championship, so they said no.

A&M had the ability, the clout and the wherewithal to leave the Big 12, which is certainly something that UT thought would ever happen.

40

Don’t you mean never. I’m an Aggie. I agree with everything you’ve said.