So as a UT alum I obviously want the conference to survive, and frankly, I’m happy to see the aggies leave to become the new Mississippi State in the SEC. Looks like it’s going to cost them, as eight of the nine remaining Big 12 schools are refusing to sign off on an agreement not to pursue litigation with A&M for fucking up the league. Ergo, the SEC won’t touch them with a ten foot pole.
Poor aggy had to cancel their celebration to join the SEC and once again look like the most incompetent morons in collegiate athletics - not easy to do.
So the question now is, does the Big 12 survive? Oklahoma is sniffing around the Pac-12 but they have to go with OSU; will the Pac-12 snobs like Berkeley and Stanford go for that? Will the Big 12 limp along for a few years with aggy resenting the hell out of the rest of the league? Boy, talk about rivalries and tensions. This is like an episode of Dallas!
Because you are a Texas alum, Hippy, what’s your opinion on Texas’ part in the story? My understanding is that UT’s actions in hogging all of the TV money led to Colorado and Nebraska both jumping the Big12 and a&m following suit. What say you to that?
The SEC unanimously voted to accept Texas A&M once TAMU’s legal situation is clear. Sooner or later the remaining Big [del]12[/del] [del]10[/del] [del]9[/del] Oops schools will be satisfied - either they’ll be bought off or they will get a better offer - and Texas A&M will move and the conference will fall apart. Right now the specific problem seems to be that Baylor thinks it will be left in the dust if the conference is dissolved and they want to get the best possible deal for themselves. It’s all self interest and it’s pretty interesting to watch.
But really, what is there besides self interest? Part of what’s going on, methinks, is that the Big Orphans conference leftovers have figured out that the only leverage they have is this threat of legal action. It’s not much leverage, mind you … but if they can convince Oklahoma to make a long-term commitment to the conference, then the conference can survive. For now.
One of the problems the Big XII faced after Nebraska and Colorado left last year, when Dan Beebe held the conference together with spit and sticky notes, was that they failed to get commitments … in writing … from all the remaining schools. Beebe said they would draw up something, with major penalties for schools leaving, but I guess they just never got around to it. Which is absolutely ridiculous for anybody paying attention whatsoever.
So you had A&M and Oklahoma and the rest of the castaways saying , “Yes, we are committed to making the Big XII succeed and we are all in for the long haul!” But those were just words. And words weren’t enough to overcome the HUGE concessions offered to Texas to keep them last year (Longhorn Network/ESPN).
Long-winded, I know, but back to my point … I think Baylor and Kansas and Iowa State and Kansas State see this threat as one last chance to get Oklahoma to really, seriously commit to staying. With Texas and Oklahoma, the conference remains viable - at least until the megaconferences actually start happening. This all might delay that, for a few years, anyway, although I fear that is inevitable.
You really can’t blame Baylor or Iowa State for playing the cards they’ve got. There’s major TV money in the Big XII that is going to go away for half the schools if this all falls apart. Texas and OU and A&M … they’ll be fine whatever happens. Look, all the big boys keep saying, “We have to do what’s right for (our institution).” Nobody’s saying they want to do what’s right for a conference. The little guys are just doing the same thing.
Considering Mississippi State is currently ranked in the top 20 and coming off a great season (unlike a certain burnt orange school), I’m not sure your grasp of current college football is much to talk about. Vandy is obviously out. Maybe you meant Kentucky?
The SECs current stance doesn’t make A&M look bad at all. It makes Baylor look opportunistic. If anything it still makes UT look bad for overplaying a good (but not great) hand.
The Big XII may survive in some form but certainly not in its current form. UT will have to make some concessions to prevent Oklahoma from leaving and taking half the conference with it.
And your mention of Berkeley and Stanford “snobs” is almost as bad. I have never encountered overly arrogant UT fans (just the regular (usually justly) arrogant kind), so I didn’t believe they existed. I may have to change my assessment of UT alums. This is the kind of post I’d expect from an Aggie, not a Longhorn.
And I don’t think there is any way they can do that. Oklahoma and OSU seem to have at least one foot out the door. Baylor (and any other worried leftovers) will get whatever it thinks is the best conceivable outcome individually, whether that’s money or an invitation from another conference or whatever, and then the objections will be dropped. It’s about arranging the softest possible landing.
And that certainly may be. While I am certain these schools are working as many back channels as they can, I don’t see why this legal threat against A&M/SEC is a necessary step to arrange any sort of landing - which is why I think it’s a long-shot effort to hold the conference together. I can still be Grandpa Simpson, yelling at that passing cloud. I like tradition, darnit!
There’s the possibility of too much cash out there that means megaconferences are likely coming. There’s some good aspects to that … I mean, if you’ve got four conference champs coming out of a group of 64 or 68 schools, you’ve certainly narrowed down the possibilities for a national champion, for instance. And the schools involved might well be rolling in piles of cash so huge they’ll make Scrooge McDuck’s stacks of gold coins look like molehills.
But I think you’re going to lose far, far more. Tradition and rivalries, for one. It’s a sad comment about how much money is influencing big college sports to hear Bob Stoops shrug off the possible loss of the Oklahoma-Texas game as no big deal. They’ve played for over 100 years! And yet one of the participants is willing to just let it drop, if the money is right? While that may be the right thing to do for Oklahoma’s pocketbook, it’s absolutely the wrong thing to do for the sport.
Also, if you end up with 16 or even 18 team conferences, you’ll barely see half your conference on the field from year to year. It’s more like dual conferences under one name, and you’ll be losing more traditional rivalries there. You’re setting up an additional layer of FBS-Haves and FBS-Have Nots, and there’s not going to be many games set between the two.
And then what about the schools who think they’re hot shit in their current conferences, but find themselves at a different level once they get thrown into a megaconference? A few straight years of 4 or 5 years and no bowl trips, fans and boosters are going to start wondering what they got themselves in for. I don’t think piles of cash from the SEC-16 would be much solace for the fans of, say, Mizzou if they could only manage one or two conference victories every year.
I love college football. It’s probably my favorite sport to watch and talk about. But all this crap … it’s sucking a lot of joy and happiness and love of the sport out of it. I know money has to be a factor, and we can’t go back to the days of Knute Rockne and Fordham and Red Grange and Joe Paterno - oh, wait, Paterno’s still around - but it’s sad how money has so vastly outpaced everything else to do with the game.
And I hate this attitude, too. It’s like Steinbrenner saying the Yankees should keep all the revenue from their games, because that’s who fans are coming to see. Well, they wouldn’t be coming to watch a Yankee intrasquad scrimmage, you know. You need opponents!
Conference relationships should mean something … the Texases and the Alabamas and the Ohio States have to find opponents, and they damn sure don’t want to play the likes of Auburn or LSU or Michigan every single week. You need the teams that are aspiring to get to the top, who can get an upset here or there and even a conference title once in a while.
As a Berkeley snob, let me address the snobbery wisecrack:
There is much loose talk on the Cal discussion boards about expansion, and who the Pac10/12/14/16 should accept. Part of that discussion is indeed on “worthiness”, and part of that is based on how that University rates as an academic research institution – that any new member should be on a par with Cal, UCLA, Stanfurd and UW (and the rest, to a lesser extent).
But we let ASU in anyway, so we’ve got no leg to stand on.
The legal action seems to be less about stopping A&M leaving, which is already a foregone conclusion and more a warning shot across OU’s bow that the orphans will make them leaving as costly as possibly to coerce them into not jumping to the Pac-10.
Of course other teams need opponents, but the difference in college football and professional sports is the abundance of teams to choose from. Texas A&M should share their revenue with other teams, but I see no reason why that other team should be Baylor and not Vanderbilt.
Or…the Big XII could replace TAMU, OU and OSU (presumably) with all the BCS busters: TCU, Boise State, BYU. (already well-situated geographically.) Of course, the Mountain West would then have to scramble.
TCU is already leaving the Mountain West for the Big East. I don’t know if Boise State is going to switch conferences again. And at this point, why would anybody - especially anyone with stature - join the Big 12?
Stature is nice, but it pales in comparison to automatic qualification to a BCS bowl (assuming that a Big XII that holds together would retain its AQ status).
I’d forgotten about TCU’s jump, and could understand BSU’s reluctance to move again. Although there is precedent – TCU. Didn’t they win like 3 different conference championships in the past few years?
If the conference replaces Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State with four Baylor-sized schools, it seems to me the conference’s TV revenue will shrink by a great deal the next time they have to renegotiate. Few people would be interested in watching that league on TV, and I think that’s really what the leftover schools (meaning not Oklahoma and Texas) want to avoid. They want to make sure that whenever the conference goes kerflooey, they retain as much revenue as they can. Holding the Big 12 together with a bunch of schools with smaller followings than UT and OU would probably be less adequate than finding a new conference.
I’m not sure which years they won, but since 2001, they’ve moved from the WAC to C-USA to the MW to the Big East.
I live in Missouri, but very close to Big 10 and SEC states. Big XII football is virtually not existent on TV here on the network affiliates. Fox Sports Midwest carries a game every week, but IIRC, only one game. I usually have 4-5 SEC ballgames every weekend to watch. Through the SEC network, CBS game of the week and the ESPN networks. I think I have a chance to watch every intra-conference matchup. I know if Baylor plays Iowa State, it is not going to be on TV here. While a Ole Miss/Vandy matchup will be on TV here.
Actually that seems like it would really put BYU and Boise State far away from the rest of the Big 12. The closest school being Kansas State or University of Kansas (not sure which would be closer). I’m not saying they wouldn’t do it, but geographically at least it makes little sense.
