Nebraska to Big10 done deal?

[ponyte]

If all this realignment comes to fruition, I hope we are fortunate to join a state school heavy conference. Nothing against TCU, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane or Baylor, but the real opportunity for exposure is with the large state funded schools.

Tulane will not fill Ford Stadium, KU will (we have definitive proof). TV audiences have not supported the private schools like they have the public universities.

I don't have a clue what will or will not happen. I hope Orsini and his insight, connections and wheeler dealer opportunism has us ready to join a conference with some bigger schools with good traditions and followings.

[East Coast Mustang]

So Nebraska and Mizzou (presumably) leaving for the Big Ten. I'd say that seals Colorado's Pac-10 fate as well. I really don't think the proposed 16 team Pac-10 with six Big 12 schools is going to happen. TX pols are going to insist on Baylor over CU and the Cali schools will tell them to take a hike. Also, the Pac-10 has always been reluctant to change, I just can't see them going to sixteen. Hell, they didn't even have a conference basketball tournament until a few years ago.

If those three leave, can the Big 12 save itself by adding some combination of BYU, Colorado State, Utah, Boise State to the B12 North, or will Texas and A&M bail for the SEC? Why wouldn't they? I've always maintained that OU could get screwed in this whole deal-

[Ponyx2]

In spite of the talk, I don't think Baylor has the juice to bust this deal. If UT, A&M and Tech want it to happen, it'll happen. And frankly, if Baylor gets screwed in the deal, I won't lose a single wink of sleep over it.

[Billy Joe]

It seems Baylor will be left out of the conference realignment with KU, KSU, and Iowa St. Does the Mountain West conference realign and take the Big 12 left overs and Boise St. to possibly get BCS status? Or does an entirely new conference form with the Big 12 left overs and some of the Mountain West and C-USA teams to possibly get BCS status? I just don't see how SMU fits in with all of this. I know SMU has tried to put more of an emphasis on athletics in the past few years but I am not sure it is enough to come out in a better position than what we are in now.

[ponyboy]

Personalities differ in terms of appetite for risk. I welcome as big a blowup as possible as the potential reward in the form of a better conference is a possiblity for us the greater the shakeup.

[ponyinNC]

Worst case scenario...BE purges some of our best teams like ECU, Memphis, UCF and C-USA is left to invite sun belt schools. I just don't see how SMU gets a MWC invite with schools like KU, KSU, ISU, CU/BU out there in the wind.

[Water Pony]

Worst case scenario...BE purges some of our best teams like ECU, Memphis, UCF and C-USA is left to invite sun belt schools. I just don't see how SMU gets a MWC invite with schools like KU, KSU, ISU, CU/BU out there in the wind.

That is true if they stop at 14, when they include Boise State. However, if they feel 16 is the new super conference size, then SMU and Houston join the expanded MWC.

[ponyboy]

I'd be down with that.

[NickSMU17]

Why wouldn't the leftover big 12 teams dictate the terms and steal from MWC...

That is our best chance

[Mexmustang]

Interesting thought--only that the Big 12 hasn't been the aggressor in any of these coversations. Regarding the Pac 10, their personality changed with the hiring of a new commissioner. He realized that the public universities were in financial problems as is the state of California, and their TV package could never improve three hours behind NYC. If the Big 12 were agressive they would have gone after the four California schools in the Pac 10, rather than see itself break apart.

[RE Tycoon]

Why wouldn't the leftover big 12 teams dictate the terms and steal from MWC...

That is our best chance

It's been mentioned multiple times...if the Big 12 gets below a certain number (I believe it is 6), the conference essentially ceases to exist. There is a continuity clause for keeping automatic BCS spot and automatic Tourney birth, that says a certain number of schools (6) must be conference mates for a certain period of times (I believe it's 5 years).

[RE Tycoon]

I may have mis-spoken as far as retaining the automatic BCS spot. I find the following hard to believe that somewhere in the BCS language there isn't a provision to re-evaluate a conference if it loses 66% of its membership.

If this is true however, it makes a great case for the Big 12 to raid MWC, CUSA, etc.

Hat tip to "ponydawg" for linking this in another thread:

http://www.thefourthbranch.com/2010/06/ ... ing-teams/

That sounds like bad news for the remaining 4 Big 12 teams, but in reality, it highlights yet another fantastic point for them: if the remaining teams can get at least 4 new teams to join the Big 12 effective the year the other 8 teams depart, the Big 12 will continue to receive an automatic berth to a BCS bowl game. The BCS rules are explicit on this point.

Through 2014, the champion of each of the current six BCS conferences will receive an automatic invitation to a BCS bowl game. While it’s true that the BCS is in the middle of a review period, few realize that the review period isn’t reviewing the current BCS conferences. It is only designed to review possible new additions to the BCS elite. A conference like the MWC, for example, could become a 7th BCS conference following the review period, but no matter how poorly one of the current six BCS conferences performs, they are each guaranteed to retain BCS status.

[EastStang]

If we end up outside looking in, then we need to assess who's out there with us. CUSA west, that's six teams. Add USM, La Tech, and perhaps UAB and you have a conference that's about CUSA level now. Or you could go to some sort of Magnolia League concept with Army, Navy, SMU, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, and two other eastern schools like Villanova and Georgetown (if they move up to 1A). Who knows if this blows up entirely, you could see schools like Duke, UVA, UNC, Vandy, Wake Forest walking the streets as well. The SEC has been remarkably quiet in all of this. If they start raiding the ACC, you might find some fissures there as well. Duke, UVA, UNC particularly, are very academically bothered by adding schools like ECU, Memphis, Louisville, West Virginia and the like to the ACC. Remember UNC and Duke voted against expansion last time and UVA only voted for it because it was forced to by the Virginia legislature to add Va. Tech.

[ponyboy]

That's why I say the bigger the blowup the better for us.

[ponydawg]

IF the big schools go to 16 and stop at a 64 team league....kiss college football as you know it goodbye.
Would you be a season ticket holder if you didn't even have the chance to play in their playoff system or a bcs bowl and you were stuck with the La Tech's and UNT's for your own "championship". A lot of schools would fold and have too. Lots of money and donors would go elsewhere. Hope for little movement or a big miracle that we sneak into the 64.