This may be the most arrogant bit of clap-trap I’ve read yet in all the realignment talk:
… The new conference would be split into divisions with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado forming an Eastern Division with Arizona and Arizona State opposite the former Pac-8 (USC, UCLA, Stanford, Washington, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State) in the Western Division.
The coach said it’s possible the Pac-16 would push for two automatic bids to the BCS, one for each division champion. That potential bonanza could open the possibility of the two division champs from one league playing for the national title, and it would eliminate the need for a conference championship game.
“The Pac-10 doesn’t believe in a championship game,” the coach said. “And coaches in the Big 12 don’t like it anyway.”
What in the hell do they even need a conference for in the first place?
By the way, I’m really hoping for a Nebraska-Texas match up in the first Rose Bowl after realignment. It’ll be like they never left the Big XII.
Get The Picture 
I agree, if you don’t have a conference champion, why have a conference?
Could it be money? I know, I know: DUH Hogbody.
Besides, more than one can play that game. Don’t forget that under the current rule a championship game invite doesn’t count as the conference’s automatic invite. The SEC could scarf up a few schools to get two bids and two payouts, and voila, Florida vs. Bama in the BC-BCS (h/t Corrine) Championship game with two out of three of Georgia, LSU, and Tennessee in other BCS games.
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It’s all about money, HB. Except for the southeastern US the PAC-16 sews up the sunbelt TV market, the fastest growing market in the country. Each school then gets a split of a much bigger TV contract. When the conference sets up the divisions along the old former PAC-8 and Big-12 South lines (probably with Arizona and ASU going over to join the Texas teams) teams still get to play who they have been playing all along for the most part. Playing 2 teams from the other side of the conference each year on a rotating basis is basically like playing 2 OOC games only changing opponents periodically.Championships are irrelevant. This is, unfortunately, what college football has devolved into. Total greed.
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I think that’s the best line I’ve seen about this yet, because it’s completely true. If you’re not going to have a conference championship game, then the two divisions essentially become two separate conferences, the Big 8 and the Pac 8. Perhaps, after they own all of us in the BCS, they can then challenge the Clingons for Interstellar Domination.
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Klingons. Jesus, get it right.
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I’m proud that I didn’t know he misspelled it.
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I would assume that the conference only has one vote at the BCS round table no matter how many teams said conference represents, no?
This is less about making a megazord conference, and more a round-about, silly way of making a revenue-sharing arrangement. The Big XII South basically lops off the uninteresting North and Baylor, and gains Colorado, Arizona, and Arizona State. They agree to share the revenue generated from a shared television network, and they’ll play a couple of “non-conference” games against the other division to keep said money in-house. Otherwise, they don’t want one division to have any impact on the other division.
This is sounding more and more like a clustercuss. And these are the guys we want creating a college football playoff? I shudder at the thought.
Smartest guy in the room (thus far) = Mike Slive.
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Do you not think they’ll have some sort of rotating inter-divisional play like the SEC? Even if they still play the full 7 teams in each division, that leaves them with 2 games. They could each get a rotating team and a permanent team, just like the SEC, couldn’t they? Leaves at least 1 more non-conference game.
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They don’t want a conference championship game because they want TWO teams in the MNC game and a championship game would eliminate all but one.
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Yep. USC (when they get off probation) goes undefeated in conference play and Texas goes undefeated in conference play. Voila! Co-champions of the PAC-16! Then they get to play in the BCSNC game and the conference gets BOTH ends of the payout instead of only one share. Did Lane Kiffin come up with this?
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The article further states that CU has an offer from the PAC10, which means Baylor is out. Wonder how that plays in Austin?
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Probably fine, I’d imagine. Reading BON, it seemed they didn’t want Baylor tagging along, either.
Anyways, why is the Texas state legislature helping out a small, private college? I can understand tying A&M and Tech to UT, but what interest does Texas at large have in Baylor as compared to, say, Houston or North Texas?
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Nothing anymore. Back when the 4 SWC teams bolted for the Big 8, Ann Richards (a Baylor alum) was governor. The current governor is an Aggie so I buy that A&M and Texas must be a package deal, but Baylor fares no better than SMU, Rice, or TCU in this current expansion talk. People who say otherwise don’t remember or know exactly why Baylor was important in the first place.
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Sooooo basically they want to be two separate conferences, but share in the TV/monies deal… Sounds a lot like what that Pac 10 proposed to the Big XII earlier, doesn’t it?
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The great thing about this new “super conference” is that it will have 9 schools that don’t really have great passion for college football (Arizona, Arizona State, Cal, Colorado, UCLA, Stanford, Washington, Washington State, and Oregon State). That’s not to say these programs haven’t had success at one point or another, but gameday just doesn’t compare to an SEC game at any school other than Vandy for any of these schools. That leaves Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, USC, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State as your marquee teams. And only three of those marquee teams have a real history of success and are considered national powers. No offense, but College Station, Stillwater, Lubbock, and Eugene are not considered significant geographic landmarks on the college football landscape.
So you’ll have teams without a lot of tradition or success playing other teams with which they have no shared history of rivalry. Can’t wait for that Texas Tech-Oregon State matchup. What a doozy.
This is a bad fit, and it’ll be clear just how bad years from now when they break up again.
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I agree and here’s another problem: you’ve just let in a group of six schools who may not be able to make changes to the conference on their own, but will sure be able to block anything the old guard wants.
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“The Pac-10 doesn’t believe in a championship game,” the coach said. “And coaches in the Big 12 don’t like it anyway.”
The SEC netted 14.5M for its championship game last year. Guess the Pac8+8 Conference views that as not worth its time.
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When you have that many schools splitting the loot that’s less than a mil apiece–chump change to high-rollers like those guys.
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They ought to call the two respective divisions “The PAC 8” and “The Southwestern Conference”. To save on budgetary items, they should eliminate cross divisional play.
Genius!
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And if they want PAC 8 – SWC cross-divisional play, they could call them District 9 games which would probably go something like this…
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Hey guys, this is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
1. I disagree that the Pac 10/16 is going to forego a championship game. It would generate too much money. My guess is that they would like to guarantee that both participants in the championship game make a BCS game. This has not always happened to other conferences in the past. I think that happened to Missouri a couple of year ago, when they lost the Big 12 game but only had 2 losses.
2. Perhaps they are anticipating the following: the Big XII dissolves, the Big East is going to get out of the football business and Notre Dame is going to join the Big 10. You would then have four BCS conferences (Pac 10/16, Big 10, SEC, ACC) competing for the 10 BCS berths. No one has to worry about Notre Dame getting in unless they win a Big 10 division. Each conference gets two automatic berths for the division winners and there are two berths that can be set aside for the non-BCS schools who are undefeated or at large teams.
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More football teams != Better football teams
(see also: ACC expansion)
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Just an idea that I found relatively palatable:
SEC adds Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma & Oklahoma State and moves Alabama & Auburn to the East. Then, you have LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State in the might-as-well-be-the- SWC division; and Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt in the Eastern division.
Of course, from what I’ve read, Texas (with a straight face, no less) says that they are not a good fit academically in the SEC. This sounds like Texan slang for not a chance in hell we’ll compete week-in and week-out in that conference.
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We all know that Vandy is the best school (academically) in the SEC. Other than Vandy, the other school are state schools. So, I looked at the data, and Texas fits remarkably well academically in the SEC. I compared Texas, Florida, & UGA. The three are VERY similar academically.
(Sources: School websites & U.S. News & World Report)
SAT Mean (Math/Reading) of 2009 Freshman Class…
UT — 1223
UF — 1280
UGA — 1263
Nation — 1016
2009 Freshman Applicants admitted…
UT — 46%
UF — 40%
UGA — 53%
2009 US News & World Report Ranking (public universities)
UT — 15 – tie
UF — 15 – tie
UGA — 21
Again, don’t try to feed me this crap about Texas not belonging in the SEC because of academics. Their reputation may be better, but the numbers don’t lie. They ARE very much in the same category as Georgia and Florida (The SEC’s two best state research schools). Do not be deceived.
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Lew Perkins forgets to make sure the rat guards were on the fore and aft lines just because he had grand jury testimony and a conference disintegrates. Likely result? Pay raise for Lew.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20100610/NEWS/100619980#colorado-joins-pac-10
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when this deal from hell goes down myself and good number of old timers will be voting with our feet and leaving the only game we have left worth watching. thank you money grubbing regents, deans and assorted ass holes.
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You know, those sumbitches think they got me by the short hairs but I got this all figured out. Let ‘um go. We still got the TV contracts. We put Baylor in the North with Kansas, K-State, Iowa State and Missouri. We extend an offer to TCU or if they won’t do it Utah to join us in the North, too. We then offer to take, lock stock and barrel, Conference USA West (Houston, Rice, SMU, UTEP, Tulane and Tulsa). We can make them the new Big-12 South. They’ll all do it because we still will be the Big-12 and we will still be a Big Six conference with an automatic BCS bowl bid for the conference champion. Hell, Utah and TCU will probably fight each other to join us because of the automatic BCS bid. We will still have multiple teams in the major media markets in Texas (Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth) and also in New Orleans and Tulsa. We’ll be as strong financially as we ever were. Got to get on the phone with this to all the remaining schools’ ADs and Presidents pronto…….
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Hey…I got another idea. If Utah and TCU both want o join, we make the same offer to the all the C-USA West teams except UTEP. That school has always been a weak sister. Anyway, I don’t want to have to dodge bullets every time I go down there for a game. Damn drug lords.
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