Update From Former AD Employee / Insider Buddy

Heard they hired the wrong Kroll

Bet!

And Texas is probably the closest peer to Michigan from both an academic and athletic standpoint. 

I have been wishing Texas came to the B1G instead of the SEC for a while. I may be biased as an Austin resident who wants to see Michigan play more often, but they fit a lot better than the West coast schools. I can't say I imagined this option, but I'd be down to follow them to the SEC instead.

University of Florida ain't bad.  WSJ declared them #1 public university

Michigan, Texas, Vanderbilt and Texas A&M would form a dynamic aerospace partnership. Vandy is huge in radiation effects research and A&M has a cyclotron for doing radiation testing. We could ask Purdue to join us to dominate the field, and then tell them on second thought, eh, never mind. They fucked themselves when they accepted the opponents’ research and didn’t immediately turn them in.

The conference is a sports conference, so no it really doesn't care about academics. But the schools in the SEC do. This ain't 1970, they are mostly decent to good schools, who will never catch schools like Michigan because Michigan has a 100 year head start money and prestige wise.

This is  one of the most perplexing elements of this entire situation proving to have many perplexing elements.

Literally every school not named Ohio State is undermining their own financial interest by gaslighting Michigan to the point where they need to consider whether or not they want to align with the member institutions in the conference. 

If Michigan leaves the B1G, the conference eventually collapses. Ohio State and (probably) Penn State would be fine. They carry enough cache that, however the void is filled in the wake of a power conference collapse, they'll have a seat at the table in the new power conference dynamic.

But for the programs that remain (like Rutgers, Purdue, Iowa, even Michigan State, et. al), making up what is currently the most profitable conference in college sports, you directly undermine the relevance and profitability for your athletic programs if you're in a profit sharing environment without Michigan. No new power conference needs Rutgers, or Iowa or Purdue. But they need Michigan. You were in the club, and you're creating massive levels of exposure to lose your meal ticket over pressuring the league to issue a jail time sentence to a flagship program over a parking citation.

It's absolutely asinine. You really dislike Jim Harbaugh and Michigan so much that you're willing to burn down your athletic department over an offense you're staff is probably doing as well? Truly crazy times we live in.

I second this.  I don't consider the SEC to be a greener pasture.  The ACC feels like a better fit and that conference would be foolish not to take this chance to extend an offer.  Michigan immediately adds substantial credibility, both academically and athletically, to the conference.  The TV revenue the conference could now demand would add stability by satisfying the unsettled schools (Miami, FSU, Clemson).  Perhaps they even gain enough leverage to tell ND to either go all in or gtfo.

If that's how Ohio State wants to play, that's the way we'll play. But unlike OSU, we can do better than hiring Third Base Investigations.