SIAP: Texas, Oklahoma formally apply for SEC membership with an effective date of July 1, 2025
It has begun in earnest. I would say the chances that they actually wait until 2025 are slim to none.
2025? If they play a conference schedule this year I sure as hell wouldnt be expecting any favors from the Big 12 officials, that's for sure.
This feels like a married couple where one announces they want out of the relationship because they've found someone new and better but cant move out because of finances.
It's a gonna be ugggggggly.
When the dust clears it is going to hard to recognize the new landscape.
I don’t think they last past this or next season. I think Texas/OU and the Big12 100% break up much sooner than people expect.
I think most people expect it will be imminent.
Apparently, new SEC team schedules for 2022 and beyond are already being drawn up.
Can you imagine the amount of non calls for the horns down sign?!
Ha, they should repeal the rule immediately.
ok, cool hook 'em
won't someone think of the children.gif
Both teams away conference games should be fun this year
Im sure West Virginia will not be too inviting to those Long Horns
We’re in the endgame now
And here it is:
The Big Ten adds 10 teams and divides into 4 six team conferences:
East:
Maryland
Rutgers
Virginia
North Carolina
Penn State
Ohio State
Great Lakes:
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Indiana
Purdue
Midwest:
Nebraska
Illinois
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa
Notre Dame
West:
Colorado
Washington
Oregon
USC
Arizona State
Stanford
The league would be awesome. The new media rights deal would be astronomical. And anything the SEC may do to counter it (Clemson? Florida State? Miami?) would only be a lame attempt to catch back up.
Kevin Warren: Be bold or go home.
Kick out rutger and add Duke. Kick out Colorado and add UCLA. Remove one of the Wisconsin’s and add a random team like Kansas? Begrudgingly keep Nebraska.
Would be great to have Duke Kansas and UCLA in conference for basketball.
Unless names have been changed, I see three teams from Indiana but, only one name belonging to the state of Wisconsin.
There is a Wisconsin in Great Lakes and Midwest (although technically only one name since they are both literally Wisconsin).
Not bad, though if we dabble on the west coast, I'd hate to see Cal left out. They may not bring much from a football perspective but you do capture a top public university.
UCLA should be added before Cal, get a blue blood basketball school that is sometimes decent in football. Expansion is about revenue and revenue only
How did you manage to put Michigan and Ohio State in different divisions? Have we learned nothing from Dave Brandon?
Putting aside the fact that this will never happen, how do you determine the conference champion? Two playoff games?
Way to give M by far the easiest pod.
Depends on which pod ended up with Wisconsin since they’re listed twice. Whichever of those 2 loses Wisconsin ends up being the easiest pod with the East being the most difficult.
That depends on which Wisconsin team we have to play
Looks like you have Wisconsin twice, so we'll need to add another team.
I'm fine with this, as it seems to be the direction we're heading, anyway.
It's a hypothetical, let him have two Wisconsins if he wants.
Two Wisconsins would stretch our understanding of physics. The mass of such would be the closest to infinity ever encountered.
"I once got my ass kicked in Wisconsin." - Russell Ziskey
Think bigger - keep the conferences intact but create a football alliance between Big Ten, Big Twelve, PAC Twelve (The Big PAC Alliance). WVU should go ACC, leave out TCU.
PACIFIC: Washington, WSU, Oregon, OrSU, Stanford, Cal, USC, UCLA
WEST: Utah, Arizona, ASU, Colorado, Texas Tech, KSU, OkSU, Baylor
MIDWEST: Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, ISU, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern
EAST: Michigan, MSU, Indiana, Purdue, OhSU, PSU, Maryland, Rutger
I don't know that the ACC will want to see North Carolina and Virginia leave. And if the rumors that are starting to crop up are true, the BIG10 is looking to the West, not to the East, and to take about half of the PAC12 into the BIG10.
It looks like Notre Dame, because of the way they've been scheduling in the past 3 or so years, will be joining the ACC. It would only be a small step for them to go in. And if the ACC wants to compete with what the SEC is doing, and with what rumors about what the BIG10 is doing, the ACC will need Notre Dame. (But I sure wish the BIG10 could get Notre Dame.)
UCLA and Cal-Berkeley are rumored to be in talks with the BIG10, not just for athletics, but because of the huge academic money they would bring to the BIG10. Oregon is said to be in talks with the BIG10 too, for sports (i.e. meaning mainly football), and because of academic money.
So apparently the BIG10 and PAC12 are talking sports AND big academic money. The academic money is far, far greater then the money from sports. The SEC is not as attractive for the PAC12 as is the BIG10 exactly because of the HUGE academic money potential. That's money into the billions.
At this point, Arizona St and Arizona are not rumored to be involved, nor is Utah, Washington St and Oregon St. Not yet anyway. It's USC, UCLA/UCBekeley, Oregon, and Colorado. But because of academics Stanford could easily fit in. It's not clear where Washington is in this yet.
As far as Kevin Warren, it looks like all this is happening with him or without him. All this is taking place in a circle of power above him.
What's more, and make of this what you will, things are happening in another circle of power in the BIG10:
Is Kevin Warren soon to be out?
All or none of this may happen. It's all rumors and talks right now. Both the BIG10 and PAC12 may want to keep their powder dry over this news about Oklahoma and Texas joining the SEC.
Furthermore, the PAC12 just hired a new commissioner, George Kliavkoff. He may have designs on putting the kibosh on all of this, and fixing all the ill will built up over the years from the poor tv contracts the PAC12 has been signing, and so keeping the PAC12 together.
"Academic money" is not shared between schools, nor is it derived from conference payouts to its members, so I'm confused as to why it would be relevant to conference realignment. USC, UCLA, or other "big academic money" schools joining the Big Ten would not affect Michigan's -- or any Big Ten school's -- academic budget in any way. Of course, academics are an important factor for Big Ten expansion for cultural/fit reasons, but the relevant metric there is AAU membership, not amount of academic money.
That said, I agree with your general premise that the Pac 12 is the more realistic target than the ACC. The ACC's media deal had each ACC school grant the ACC its media rights until 2036. And the media deal also contractually obligates Notre Dame to join the ACC if it joins a conference before 2036. I suspect if the Big Ten does raid the Pac 12, they'll probably go to 20 schools and pick up USC, UCLA, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, plus one more. Maybe Kansas gets the 6th spot instead.
The last 2 schools that bolted the BIG 12 and joined the SEC started play in the conference the following season. Probably worth it for the schools to pony up and pay it's way out. Joining the SEC next season for example will likely cause negotiations to start early...instead of a year AFTER the Big Ten, to a year BEFORE the Big Ten.
It would cost about $75 million each for Texas and OU to leave right now.
Is that $75 million today, or before the 2022 season?
If nothing else, the Big 12 will be dead as a major football conference once Texas and Oklahoma move to the SEC. Adding, say, Boise State and Houston won't change that.
I don’t know why, but my heart (and a bit of my gut) tells me that the Big 12 becomes a very watered down SWC-like regional conference, with mostly Texas teams like Houston, SMU, TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech and maybe even some low level teams like Texas State, Rice, and UTSA. Could see Tulsa, Tulane joining too.
It just feels like if you're a G5 program with hope for the playoffs, you want to be in the AAC or Mountain West playing the best schedule you can so you can make the playoffs as a conference champion.
If I were the remaining Big 12 programs I'd be looking hard at inviting BYU, Boise St. and Colorado State to join.
I like that idea and I think they would be decent fits for the Big XII. In fact, the Big XII should've had their eye open for new additions all this time. The writing has been on the wall for them for a while now. I'm surprised they let it get to this point. They probably could've added a BYU who has been independent and maybe been able to poach old members Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri from their new conferences.
I mentioned this in another thread yesterday, but I can't imagine the down-ballot SEC schools are happy with this. And I can't imagine they would want to stay. Everyone is assuming the SEC will stay intact following the addition of Tex and OU but I don't see why. Someone will want to move. I don't think Missouri, Arkansas and certainly Texas A&M get anything out of this (and to a lesser extent, Tenn, Vand and the MS schools). I bet the vote to admit the new members won't be as clear and easy as everyone thinks.
I don't think any SEC teams would want to leave because their alternatives aren't much better anywhere else, and the $ is obviously the biggest motivating factor here.
The only other place they could go that would be good for them is the BIG10. The ACC would be less attractive than the SEC. But would the BIG10 want any of those except Texas A&M? I don't know how Texas A&M would endure a travel schedule with BIG10 games.
FWIW from Adam Rittenberg on twitter:
"Heard today from several people that B1G only would be interested in adding schools from the AAU (Nebraska no longer, but was when it joined league). Texas is AAU member, along with Pac-12 schools like Cal, Washington, Colorado, USC, UCLA, Oregon, Stanford. Oklahoma is not AAU."
That feels like people in the Big 10 knowing OU has no interest trying to make it seem like the decision is mutual, not that OU just doesn't want to join a league that would obviously be happy to have them. If the Big 10 genuinely didn't want OU, they're insane.
It feels like that's the future though, whether it happens tomorrow or happens in 10 years, eventually the Big 10 raids the Pac 12 programs that matter and turn the Rose Bowl into the conference championship game.
"If the Big 10 genuinely didn't want OU, they're insane."
The Big Ten presidents value the academic profile of its members—major research institutions with $10 billion in yearly research activities collectively—every bit as much as they do athletic power.
Conferences are for sports, first and foremost. Ok the research side, Michigan is partnering with plenty of non-B1G institutions currently, and will continue to do so. Michigan’s academic reputation will not be effected by who it plays sports against.
If the Big 10 thinks of things that way then Iowa should have been kicked out of the league decades ago. If people in the Big 10 can tolerate Iowa, they damn well should be able to tolerate a better academic institution that has also been the most consistently good football program in America other than Ohio State since WW2.
If people in the Big 10 can tolerate Iowa, they damn well should be able to tolerate a better academic institution
In 2018, the total amount of research funding for Iowa was $434 million.
In 2020, the total amount of research funding for OU was $218 million.
FWIW, USNews ranks Iowa #88 in national universities; OU is 133.
https://www.ou.edu/research-norman/news-events/2020/ou-shatters-record-for-sponsored-research
https://research.uiowa.edu/impact/news/federal-funding-research-increases-university-iowa
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities
Does this mean OU is a bad academic institution? Not at all, but these numbers do suggest that Iowa is a better fit for the Big Ten's preferred academic profile of its members than OU is.
Bigger question is why does the B1G have a "preferred academic profile"? I've heard this before but I have no idea what it gets you. Bragging rights amongst the nerdiest among us?
Bragging rights amongst the nerdiest among us?
Athletic directors don't run the conference—the Big Ten Presidents do, and all of them started out in academia. All of them sit at the top of a huge amount of research dollars that dwarf anything their athletic departments bring in.
Right. I get that. But your conference affiliation has absolutely nothing to do with how much research dollars your institution receives. Whether Michigan is in the Big Ten, SEC or Missouri Valley Conference has no bearing on the academic standing of the school so I don't understand why the Presidents and especially fans would care whatsoever about AAU status.