Agreed.
Why is it embarrassing? OU and UT are leaving because of money. Seems to me that the B12 was at least trying something to keep the conference from imploding.
If you think of schools that have perennial advantages, two schools come to my mind immediately, and it’s not Alabama, as great a program as they have had over the years. When I think perennial advantage, I think of Ohio State and Texas. I don’t have data but it seems to me that they have the widest and most active fan and booster bases in the country, which makes it all the more perplexing as to why Texas has at times flopped as badly as they have. A “bad” year at Ohio State is, like, losing two games. Lose two games and one of those losses is to Michigan, and that coach gets fired, lol.
Moreover, Texas should have a recruiting advantage considering all of the great football talent that is within arm’s reach. And yet, OU pretty much outcompetes them every year. Occasionally even Ok State does so. Texas A&M beats them out. Sometimes even the University of Houston gets more talent than the Horns. What - the - hell, Texas?
That bit of snark and smack out of the way, if you give them a Saban-esque coach, I could see Texas dominating football for a good decade the same way Alabama has. As an LSU guy, I don’t want to wake that sleeping Bevo.
Because, in theory, all members are supposed to be in equal standing. They all share bowl and TV money equally. They might has well offered to rename the league “The Big 2 et al”.
Well, I guess it depends on your perspective.
The other 8 schools were scrambling then and are scrambling now. At least they’re trying something.
Was it a last-ditch, probably futile, effort to keep the league from breaking apart? Certainly. But embarrassing? I don’t think so. Obviously, YMMV.
Peter King once wrote about his college years at one of the MAC schools (Kent, maybe?) that on Saturday afternoons all the guys were in the dorm watching Ohio State instead of attending their own school’s game. Yeah, they own that state and it’s still pretty good at producing talent.
The UTexas ongoing mediocrity is fascinating. The flagship program in the nation’s talent center and all that money to back it. How could they not succeed?
Cute sentiment, but not sure it is supported by evidence. I looked and had to go back to 1945, when OSU went 7-2-0 and lost to Michigan. Coach Carroll Widdoes chose his offensive coordinator to succeed him and moved back into an assistant coach position, (not fired).
Part of that lies with Mack Brown. The guy was a softie and didn’t instill discipline, and UT has long had a reputation of being akin to an NCAAF equivalent of the Dallas Cowboys - a team that has too much glamor and too little grit.
As for how Brown managed to win a championship with the Horns, I’m not fully sure. But the team deteriorated into unfocused mediocrity by his last season in 2013.
And finally, as people’s expectations slid lower and lower, the Horns began patting themselves on the back for lower and lower achievements. Even beating a No. 10 ranked Notre Dame had Horns fans screaming, “Texas is BACK!!!”
BTW, if anyone feels like sticking a hot needle into their eyeballs, spend a few minutes at Texags forums, where one can observe college-educated Trumpkins in their native habitat. Their pet nickname for UT fans is “sips,” as in those “champagne-sipping liberals in that shithole town of Austin.”
Well, it’s actually tea-sipping. But you’re right, Texags is full of morons and fools. So is Burnt Orange Nation though. And Tidefans. And every other university sports centered web community.
Fundamentally the issue is that UT is used to running things their way- they ran the SWC that way, then when they were thwarted in their ambitions to go to the PAC-10, and got thrown into the Big-12, they threw their weight around there as well. To the point where in 2010, UT was looking to go to the PAC-12 again, and when the A&M president asked him what was going on, he told him “don’t worry about it, we’ll take care of you.” WTF? That’s not how presidents of a couple of the largest universities in the country and definitely in Texas talk to each other. And it’s indicative of how UT does business; they do what they want for UT, and to hell with everyone else. That’s what they were doing there, that’s what they did with the Longhorn Network, and that’s what they just did to the Big-12. If they’re coerced into it explicitly or through fear of legislation, they’ll throw other schools(A&M) some scraps like getting to go with UT into the Big-12, or time on the Longhorn Network, but that’s about it. They probably only brought Oklahoma along because they needed 2 schools to keep the conference even.
That’s easy. Until A&M bailed to the SEC, in-state recruits who wanted to stay in state basically had the option of UT, A&M, Baylor, Tech and TCU for major programs. And back then UT was the top of the heap, so they basically got their pick of the recruits, with the rest being fought over by the other four schools.
But when A&M bailed to the SEC for the 2012 season, several things happened- suddenly A&M wasn’t a direct comparison to UT- recruits who went to A&M were playing in the big leagues, not the Big-12. And Baylor became good with RGIII. TCU joined the Big 12 after being very good in their previous conference. And UT had a couple of their worst seasons in 13 years- the first seasons since 1997 without at least 9 wins. And A&M started their current upswing with a 11-2 season.
Suddenly UT wasn’t the only game in town, and their recruiting shows it. Meanwhile, Charlie Strong was brought in to try and stop this, but he wasn’t superhuman (nor was Tom Herman), so he didn’t pull it off. And all the other programs have been doing pretty well in the interim (A&M, Baylor, TCU in particular).
That’s why A&M would be so against UT being in the SEC; all of a sudden recruiting becomes a direct comparison again, and A&M doesn’t reap benefits of being in the that UT doesn’t have.
Ohio State has consistently been good at recruiting within the region and well outside of it. They have a very strong network of boosters and recruiters. They’re probably less able to pull recruits in the Gulf Coast but they more than make up for it by what they get from the Rust Belt, East Coast, and elsewhere.
This is completely detached from reality.
Oh, I don’t know. Other than the bit about not seeing how Brown won a championship, the rest seems 100% on the money.
I predict that if Sark doesn’t end up getting a 10 win season in his first 3 years, he’ll be on the chopping block, SEC or not.
I don’t think anyone updated this thread so I’ll do so:
Not that it’s a surprise to anyone but both schools formally applied to join the SEC.
…And I just see that they were approved to join.
Somewhat surprisingly, it was a unanimous decision, which means that even Texas A&M approved. However…
A source told Horns247 the Aggies were “seeking some form of concession from the SEC” in exchange for their support of expansion.
So it looks like there was some deal that was made to make that unanimous.
This seems strange to me. They play 4 more years before moving. I certainly could see not starting in 2021 or even 2022, but four years seems so long.
Maybe to prevent existing players and recruits at the left-behind schools from claiming bait-and-switch and a massive wave of transfer requests? Four years gives any current players time to use up their eligibility and graduate.
It’s only 2025 because the Big XII Grant of Rights runs through the 2024-25 school year. If Texas and OU actually leave before then - and the Big XII continues to exist - they’ll owe massive penalties to the conference, PLUS their media rights stay with the Big XII (so for any games they play on TV before 2025, even if they’re SEC members, the TV income from those games goes to the Big XII).
Obviously that will never happen. Texas and OU and the SEC are all announcing 2025 because they have to, anything sooner would be a violation of the school’s contracts with the Big XII. What they intend to do, of course, is negotiate some kind of buyout of that contract so the two schools can traipse off to the SEC by next year (probably).
Or … the other outcome they’re crossing their fingers for is that the Big XII will fall apart without them, with the other schools jumping ship for landing spots in other conferences, which would let Texas and OU off scot-free since there’d be no Big XII for them to pay their penalties to. This is also the reason why the Big XII is accusing ESPN of illegally meddling in their affairs - this letter claims the conference has proof ESPN tried to get the AAC to grab the Big XII leftovers.
Here’s the theory - Texas and OU announce they’re leaving for the SEC, but legally they can’t go until 2025. ESPN and the SEC desperately want that move to happen sooner, for $$$-related reasons. ESPN - which gets a portion of the Big XII broadcast rights, but has almost 100% of the AAC’s - decides to interfere with the Big XII’s contracts with the remaining schools, secretly trying to broker a deal to get the refugees to join the AAC. That means 1) Texas and OU can join the SEC sooner without any buyouts; 2) ESPN gets out of their rights fees with the now non-existent Big XII; and 3) ESPN now gets almost all the rights for the leftover Big XII teams at a huge discount, since the AAC rights are much cheaper than the Big XII’s.
It’s to avoid paying $75 million.
The Big XII holds their media rights and UT and OU can buyout of that but only for that $75 million. Each.
That makes more sense. How naive of me to speculate it was anything other than $$$$$.
I just want to add that ESPN situation I’m talking about is the very definition of tortious interference, which - if Bowlsby actually has the receipts on ESPN conspiring to dissolve the Big XII by having the AAC raid the leftovers - ought to result in some major financial penalties for ESPN, and perhaps Texas/OU/SEC if there’s a paper trail involving them, too (and considering both Texas and OU were privy to Big XII broadcast negotiations and bargaining positions all while they were secretly talking to the SEC, that’s possible).