June 14, 2010 · 6:30 AM

Tech delenda est.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of SEC expansion, but I’ve got to admit that Travis Fain’s proposal may win me over.

11 Comments

Filed under Georgia Tech Football, SEC Football

11 responses to “Tech delenda est.”

  1. Charles D.
    June 14, 2010 at 9:27 AM

    I seriously do not understand the TxAM thing, unless we would use them to bring Texas in. AM brings a shit-pile of money, for sure, but they have have been on probation as many times as Auburn and haven’t won anything in years.

    The other part is that bringing them in would create an odd number of teams in the West. So, would the SEC have to bring someone in to the East? Would the FedEx guy’s money spend well in the SEC? South Florida? West Virginia? What do any of them add?

    Is the entire AM news simply grandstanding by one group or the other to make Texas listen?

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    • Will (the other one)
      June 14, 2010 at 1:18 PM

      I see it as opening up the TV market to TX, keeping revenues up as a Pac-15 or whatever tries to wrest the “best conference” crown away from the SEC.

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      • Dante
        June 14, 2010 at 3:49 PM

        We already have a way to keep that “best conference” crown. It’s called winning national championships.

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  2. Dante
    June 14, 2010 at 9:58 AM

    I get the money angle, but I really have a bad feeling about this. This is the abject delusion we add to our conference if we take in the Aggies: http://www.iamthe12thman.com/2010/6/14/1516986/the-possible-loss-of-the

    Read that piece and think about the team being talked about. You should realize this guy is rabidly insane by “While I will be disappointed to lose the opportunity to beat the hell outta texas in all sports every year, not just football…” read on and see how bad it gets. A fanbase for a team that hasn’t sniffed a national title since 1939 and just recently upgraded from train wreck to fender-bender thinks it’s going to play in any BCS bowl much less the title game in the near future? What’s sad is this guy isn’t an aberration. This is the way most of them actually think. They think they’re Florida but they play on par with Kentucky or on a good year Arkansas. I just don’t think the money is worth it to add a team whose fans make Georgia Tech’s fans look completely and totally rational.

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  3. Comin' Down The Track
    June 14, 2010 at 10:08 AM

    Dear N.A.T.S.,
    One does not get to wuss out of a league claiming righteous indignation, and then get invited to rejoin that league after it has already become the premier league in the country. Your fate is sealed.
    You think life sucks in the ACC… uh, Coastal? Atlantic? Top? Downward Division? Whatever?
    Just wait until you’re battling for the C-USA title…
    On second thought, maybe you could sell that one all the way out for a change.
    Love,
    Your Evil Overlords To The East

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  4. Mayor of Dawgtown
    June 14, 2010 at 1:54 PM

    When this expansion talk started I have to admit that I was 100% for the SEC going to 16 teams, particularly looking to the west. I’m not so sure after having a chance to think about this. Some of the points made by John Feinstein in his piece linked above seem to make sense. We have a tremendous amount of tradition in the SEC, perhaps more than in any other NCAA D-I conference, and not only in football. What does expansion mean to SEC basketball and baseball teams? And what about the so-called non-revenue producing sports? If we expand west (Texas A&M) the transportation costs for those will expand dramatically. Girl’s volleyball and basketball? Gymnastics? There are others. College station is 1000 miles away. Missed classes would undoubtedly increase and this is supposed to be competition between student athletes who, after all, “almost always go pro in something other than sports.” If we reshuffle the East and West as well as add schools something has to give in the football schedule, too. Does UGA not get to play Auburn (the oldest football rivalry in the south) yearly anymore? (That’s what some say lead to Nebraska leaving the Big-12, the loss of the yearly Nebraska-Oklahoma game). Every SEC school has rivalries which would be in jeopardy. Also, I have not heard very much about the fans in all this. As Feinstein points out about the “new” PAC-16, maybe Texas fans won’t be all that fired up about journeying to Pullman in December for the Texas-Wazzu matchup. Likewise, the Cal-Berkley and Stanford faithful probably will not be too thrilled facing a trip to Lubbock. I also don’t see a lot of excitement generated among the Auburn, Bama, UGA or Florida folks for a trip to College Station. The SEC as presently constituted is made up of schools within a reasonable driving distance from one another (Columbia to Fayetteville is probably pushing it a little) so fans can go to the games without breaking the budget for airplane tickets each week. What does adding A&M and maybe VA Tech do to that, particularly to the fans of A&M and VA Tech when THEY play each other? Expansion to gain market share for TV contract negotiations is fine as far as it goes but we had better be careful. We just witnessed what happens when a conference puts money ahead of everything else. Ask the Big-12 schools, what’s left of them, how they feel about it.

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  5. Dawgy45
    June 14, 2010 at 2:48 PM

    If forced to play SEC teams, how would the nerds manage to “balance the schedule”?

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  6. Dawg 39
    June 14, 2010 at 2:51 PM

    The Mayor just said what I have also been saying. He makes sense to me.

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