Realignment

[Dooby]

One of the things I love about this board is that a lot of it's members' knowledge of the college football landscape died when SMU football died in the early 80s. Here are the facts.

The Pac-10 IS going to expand. The guy they hired as the new commish was hired to increase awareness and increase revenue. Couple that with the Big-10 expanding and adding a championship game, the Pac-10 has no choice and will add two more teams. Their dream would be Utah and Colorado. Decent TV markets, decent teams in the revenue sports, both fit academically and culturally with the Pac-10. If they can't get Colorado, they will take BYU. And they will have no problem getting Utah or BYU and have an excellent shot at getting Colorado.

It is a fact that Colorado will take a long hard look at the Pac-10 and it is a move that makes sense for them. The can recruit more compeitively with the Pac-10 and the majority of their alumni are from the Pac-10 area. Darian Hagan, Eric Bienemey, Rashan Salamon.....aka their of their best players ever from their best days in the late 80s and 90s....all from southern california.

So CU seriously looking at the PAC-10 has made Texas be proactive. Texas is a huge get for anybody. The own the DFW, Houston, and SA TV markets, have top 10 football and basketball....so they are saying, we want t be the ones who determine expansion. If CU leaves....we want a say it it....they basically are saying to the Big 12....no movement with out us and if there is movement without us, we are going to move.

I think Dwan has it exactly right.

[SoCal_Pony]

so much talk of realignment includes Colorado State as a potential BCS invitee.

Personally I don't see it.

Academic reputation on par with Coog High
Endowment of under $200M
Inadequate facilities
Largest home crowd ever was over 15 years ago and still under 40,000
Really no BB history to speak of

[East Coast Mustang]

so much talk of realignment includes Colorado State as a potential BCS invitee.

Personally I don't see it.

Academic reputation on par with Coog High
Endowment of under $200M
Inadequate facilities
Largest home crowd ever was over 15 years ago and still under 40,000
Really no BB history to speak of

I agree. I think it all hinges on the Denver market, especially if CU bolts for the Pac-10. But I still think Utah/BYU would be much more attractive to the Big 12 than CSU

[SMUstang]

The more I think about it, the Big 10 could go to 14 teams by adding Missouri, Pittsburg, and Rutgers. And the PAC 10 could go to 14 by adding Texas, Texas A&M, Utah, and Colorado. This would be devastating for the Big 12 who would struggle to remain BCS. And the MWC would all but disappear assuming that BYU and TCU left, along with Utah. The Big 12, having accepted TCU and BYU would still have to go after Boise State and Houston and would end up a much weaker conference. The Big East would probably go after Army and Navy and would probably be turned down. Houston could be replaced by La Tech in C-USA. The WAC would probably merge with the remaining MWC if they could forget being orphaned by them in the past.

[East Coast Mustang]

The more I think about it, the Big 10 could go to 14 teams by adding Missouri, Pittsburg, and Rutgers. And the PAC 10 could go to 14 by adding Texas, Texas A&M, Utah, and Colorado. This would be devastating for the Big 12 who would struggle to remain BCS. And the MWC would all but disappear assuming that BYU and TCU left, along with Utah. The Big 12, having accepted TCU and BYU would still have to go after Boise State and Houston and would end up a much weaker conference. The Big East would probably go after Army and Navy and would probably be turned down. Houston could be replaced by La Tech in C-USA. The WAC would probably merge with the remaining MWC if they could forget being orphaned by them in the past.

There's really not a whole lot of benefit in going to 14 as opposed to 12, though. There's some NCAA rule that mandates you have at least 12 teams to stage a football conference championship game and reap all the cash that goes along with it. Why go to 14 and add two extra mouths to feed when you can achieve the same benefit with 12? Trust me, if it was worth it, the SEC would have offered FSU and Texas a long time ago.

[East Coast Mustang]

I think when Big Ten goes to 12, they will add Mizzou. Penn State already gives them a share of the Pittsburgh market, while Mizzou opens up a whole new market with St. Louis. So I guess we'll see some breakdown like this:

East- OSU, Michigan, MSU, Penn State, Indiana, Purdue
West- Mizzou, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern

If Pac-10's expansion to 12 were to include Colorado plus BYU or Utah, then the Big 12 would be in an interesting spot. For reasons mentioned on this board before, I think the other TX schools would oppose TCU because that would be another major recruiting competitor. And as a private school, TCU doesn't have as much political leverage. Plus, the two schools lost would be from the North division, so I could see either Utah/BYU (whichever the Pac-10 doesn't choose) plus Colorado State getting picked to at least partially reclaim the Denver market.

Or perhaps, OU and OSU could move to the North and join their original Big 8 schools, and thus two more TX teams could be added to the South. Arkansas would definitely get a call as well, but it would make no sense for them to leave the juggernaut SEC for a depleted Big 12. In this case, TCU's in for sure, and the other spot is between UH and SMU. Man, it would suck to get left out on that one. However, I think this scenario is very unlikely as opposed to simply adding two more teams (CSU and BYU/Utah) to the North

[East Coast Mustang]

This is obviously a pipe dream, but just for fun how great would it be for SMU if it turned out like this:

Big 12 North- KU, KSU, ISU, Nebraska, OU, OSU
Big 12 South- Texas, A&M, Tech, Baylor, TCU, SMU

We're gonna need a BCS appearance or two and several games on national television at Jerryworld before that's a possibility, though. And at the rate realignment is moving, we may not have enough time to establish ourselves for position in a major conference.