Interesting new development

Rumor from another board. It seems there is discord in the Pac 12, so much so that it is believed that the Arizona schools are thinking about jumping to the Big 12. Does anyone think this would solidify the conference enough to keep it together? I'd personally like to go to 14 teams and add Utah and Colorado back. But pretty sure Colorado wouldn't come back based on principal. The dream is to convince UCLA and USC to join.

 

Would rather the Az schools than Cali.

 

Interesting. If true, I think those 2 AZ schools would strengthen the conference enough to stay together. Were there any reasons or nature mentioned about the discord?

Yeah, I think I too would prefer the AZ schools... they are on Pacific Time, so we would have to view some away games on cable at 9 PM CDT

 

I would prefer UCLA and USC, but would be happy to take what we can get.

 

Yeah, and what if we had a new conference name like “Southwest Conference”.

 

And then maybe ditch WV as a geographic outlier.

 

That’s a great idea!

 

Hey, I second that motion!!

 

You know SMU's been doing well lately...

[just kidding]

 

With the CA pay for play law something like this could happen anyway. I'd prefer the AZ schools. CA is just too far along with the 2 hr time difference. At least it's only 1 hr half the year for the AZ schools.

No CO won't come back and good riddance. Not a single school that's left the B12 has done S&%# in football since they left and not much in other sports either.

 

A big issue with any scheme that adds more teams and creates 2 divisions in the Big 12 is that everyone wants to play us (and to play in the State of Texas as many times as possible) every year for recruiting and exposure. I seem to recall that in the past, OSU, in particular, has made it a point that they must play every Texas team every year in any alignment, else no dice.

Playing around a bit with this:

Division A - UT, Tech, Baylor, TCU, OU, OSU

Division B - AZ, ASU, KU, KSU, ISU, WV (or someone else)

I'm not sure that would be good enough for AZ and ASU, but at least they could play 2 Texas teams each year if each team plays all Division rivals and 1/2 the non-Division rivals in the conference. That would guarantee one game on Texas soil every year.

 

Cali schools also come with the baggage of the insipid legislation they passed that has the very real potential to harm more than help...conferences would do well to avoid ANY school in Cali, even if it were the University of the Little Sisters Blind and Quadriplegic.

 

WVU...where burning the shirt takes on a whole new meaning

 

Why the hell would anybody in their right mind want either of the Arizona Schools, much less both? What do they bring? They are both **** in academics. They are perennial also rans in the PAC 2. TVs? There are more in the Metroplex than the entire state.

That said, Bowelsby is a ******* moron and will probably move on it so we can split our pie 11 ways instead of nine. There won't be any more money coming in.

As for the "Southwest Conference" name, I'm not sure Deloss doesn't own the name and rights from the failed venture in the mid 80s. He was willing to take the two Arizona schools to get USC & UCLA.

 

... and where couches & sofas are always looking over their shoulders !!

 

I'll take the counter side to this. Adding the Arizona schools also brings the Phoenix market which is needed to diversify our foot print. As of right now we need a foot print that extends outside of Texas. At least when Colorado was part of the league we could claim Denver. As of right now, outside of Texas I guess we can claim Kansas City and OKC but not much else. Adding Phoenix to the mix would be perfect. Even better if we did lose WVU and added U of Utah, that would bring in the Salt Lake City Market and solidify our conference.

Of course the real prize is USC, who while a Cali school is also a private school and doesn't have to play by the states rule book.

 

The key to catching fish is bait. In this case there is no incentive for them to go to the Big 12 if they are going to extend their recruiting base to Iowa and Kansas. I'd divide it up like this.

East Conference - Texas TCU WVU ISU, KU and KSU
West Conference - blowu, Okie lite, ASU, UA, BU and Tech.

We can still have a guaranteed game against blowu every year and both can meet in the title game.

 

I'd like it.

I also like the idea of removing WVU, nothing against WVU, simply doesn't make geographic sense. But we'd want a replacement to get to 12 schools, and one that makes more geographic sense than WVU. UH? Or maybe "trade" WVU to the Big 10 for Iowa? WVU is easily in Big 10's footprint, and Iowa State gets an in-state rival. They've always seemed to be on the outskirts of the conference.

 

Just me but I’d like a trip to Phx every other year more than LA. But I’m probably weird that way.

 

If we keep WVU:
Southwest: Arizona, ASU, Tech, Texas, TCU, Baylor
North: OU, OSU, KSU, Kansas, ISU, WVU

If we trade WVU for Iowa:
Southwest: Arizona, ASU, Tech, Texas, TCU, Baylor
North: OU, OSU, KSU, Kansas, ISU, Iowa

If we trade WVU for Houston:
Southwest: Arizona, ASU, Tech, Texas, Baylor, Houston
North: TCU, OU, OSU, KSU, Kansas, ISU

We could still play OU each year with a permanent cross-division rivalry, much like the SEC does. In a "random" year, our conference schedule might look like:

Arizona
ASU
Tech
TCU
Baylor
OU
KSU
WVU/Houston/Iowa

Not bad.

 

I doubt Iowa would leave the Big 10 for the Big 12. Too much history and tradition.

This is all just speculation of course, but if we’re playing the game where we add more teams and drop others, how about:

Drop: WV and ISU

Add: AZ, ASU, BYU, and Utah.

Of course we add USC if they want to come over, but why would they?

 

WVU is in the wrong conference and ISU shouldn't be in a P-5 conference. Nothing against either of them, but they should be with Colorado State in the Mountain West or maybe the WAC conference.

I'd love to lose both of them and also Baylor and KSU. Add in schools that deserve a shot at a Big time conference.

My dream conference
West Division - UA, ASU, USC, UCLA, Utah, and BYU.
East Division - Texas, Blowu, Okie Lite, TCU, KU, Tech

That has 3 blue blood programs, lots of traditional rivalries, and a few spares for fun. Best of all no aggy.

 

Keep in mind, OSU and OU may squelch any plan where they don’t play every Texas team every year.

 

That would be awesome. The difficult issue is getting USC to jump ship, and maybe getting UCLA through state political problems they might face for abandoning Cal (plus lingering anti-Texas bias in California).

 

I'll never be for adding cooger high. Having a largely commuter school with less than stellar academic reputation is certainly not something the B12 needs. I can't think of another P5 division that has a school like UH. UH belongs with Memphis, UCF, USF, Cincinnati, etc.

SMU would make more sense, but I wouldn't let them back due to their cheating. They don't deserve to be in a P5 conference due to that.

 

I'm 100% for adding Rice back if we felt we needed a Houston Presents. Great Academic school and brings a good band. Who knows, maybe by adding them they can turn into a Stanford.

 

UCLA will not because of state politics. Who we want is Stanford, the other private school.

Big14 will have a coast to coast conference, academics rivaling the B1G, and a TV contract leaving the SEC crying badly. Western and Eastern divisions. TTU, UT and Baylor are in the West. RRS stays the same. And it is a permanent Goodbye to aTm. USC will probably have the Trojan Channel.

 

B12 nor B14 do not require a Houston Presence.

While Rice is an excellent school, the Stanford endowment is much larger.

 

Ah not quite........

Academics:
UofA > Baylor, KSU, TCU, TTech >>> WV and it’s not even close. UofA is an AAU school, like ISU, Texas, and Kansas, and unlike a handful of schools in the current Big 12. AAU status doesn’t mean everything, but it is a decent indicator of academic commitment by an institution. ASU is not far behind UofA (and beyond a number of Big 12 schools), and has one of the best business schools in that region of the country. If the Big 12 admins were concerned about academics, they wouldn’t have even answered the phone call from WV. PAC 12 and Big 10 conferences have very high academic standards, and have the highest membership percentage in AAU of the Power 5 conferences. If a school is good enough for the Pac 12 academically, they are good enough for the Big 12. So the academic argument is ignorant.

TV:
Regarding tv market, the Phoenix Valley is the 12th largest in the country. That’s a pretty strong incentive, and the Phoenix metro area has more TV sets then the entire states of Iowa and West Virginia combined. The state of Arizona has approximately the same (maybe a little more) population (just over 7.8 mil in 2019) as the states of Iowa, Kansas, and West Virginia combined.

Point being, there are several VERY good reasons that the Arizona schools would be good for the Big 12. Time difference doesn’t seem to be that big of a problem..... the Big 12 took a school in the Eastern Time Zone (WV). And I would much rather road trip to a game in AZ then WV or Iowa or Kansas. But that’s me.

 

All this "pie in the sky" ********, is just that. Deloss almost pulled it off in the late 80s. He got far enough in negotiations to arrange:

1) A&M being sent to SEC

2) Tech going to WAC (now MWC)

3) Being told the PAC did not want Colorado, but would take Utah because of Rick Majeris (sp) and their basketball.

South zone of PAC would have been USC, UCLA, Arizona, ASU, Texas & Utah

After a while, the South zone, bolts and joins the Big 8, which gives "The New SWC" 28% of the television market before after market addons.

Stanford, Berzerkley, & the Cali-prune-ya legislature shut that down. It'll be an extraordinary say before it gets that close again.