Big 16South Division: Texas Texas A&M Kansas Missouri Iowa State Iowa Illinois Indiana North Division Michigan Michigan State PSU Northwest OSU Purdue Wisconsin Minnesota Colorado & Nebraska -> PAC-12 Other Big 12 schools, combining with UH, TCU and Rice, -> new Big South
You have the Big Ten taking Iowa State over Oklahoma and having OU apparently joining up with Cougar High. That is.... interesting *ahem*
I would love to keep OU, but the deal would never be approved by Big 10 presidents because of OU's academic standing.
That does raise an interesting question - where exactly does Zero U land in this game of musical chairs? HHD
OU fears the Mountain West. Seriously, Nebraska to the Pac 10??? Nahhh, never. And that Big 16 South is horrendous - absolutely no television appeal in that group at all. If that group doesn't have Oklahoma or someone else with some teeth, it would have zero appeal
So it would be Texas and Ohio State in the Title game every year...until Michigan turns it around. Then it's a toss up.
OU fans, the three who have IQs above 80, should be shaking in their boots. If Texas and A&M leave and go anywhere and OU is not part of the Big Ten, PAC 10, or SEC, the3y will decline.
I see UT going west ONLY if aggy and okie go with us...way too many potential recruiting problems if the ags and the dirt burglars go to the SEC without us. If, and it's a big IF, there was a merger of the Pac and the Big 12 (What's left of it after realignment), it would look something like this: East UT okie aggy 'Zona 'Zona State Tech KU okie lite West USC UCLA Cal Stanford Washington Oregon Oregon State Utah BYU might get into this if one of okie lite or Tech doesn't make the cut. Nebraska WILL get in if they decide to hang with the Big 12, rather than go to the Big 16, or whatever it will be called. I'm not saying this is what IS gonna happen...I change my mind just about every day, based on the newest rumors. I'm just saying this lineup makes a lot more sense than some hypothetical "alliance" between the two conferences.
If you are not a member of Association of American Universities (AAU), an exclusive club of top research universities in North America, you are not going to be invited to join Big 10. Currently, every Big 10 school is a member of AAU. It does not matter how a school is ranked in US News, whose rankings are mostly based on undergraduate education. In Texas, only UT, A&M and Rice are members of AAU. Both A&M and Rice got admitted only recently. OU is a good research university, but, unfortunately, is not an AAU member yet. AAU AAU in Wikipedia
OK, here I'll play. Let's do a partial merger with the Pac 10, and throw in Utah for good measure. It could look something like this: EAST DIVISION Oklahoma Oklahoma State (though I'm open to Kansas instead for hoops, and Kansas City TV sets) Texas Texas A&M MOUNTAIN DIVISION Arizona Arizona State Colorado Utah CALIFORNIA DIVISION Cal Stanford UCLA USC NORTHWEST DIVISION Oregon Oregon State Washington Washington State Each season, a given team plays the three other teams in its home division, plus two teams from each of the remaining divisions on a home-and-home basis. Then rotate in the other two teams in each division every two years. If I counted correctly, that would give you 9 conference games, leaving 3 slots left for non-conference matchups/cupcakes/etc. This should also preserve most traditional annual rivalries between the various schools. The divisional structure also ensures that schools play other schools in the same region every season, which mitigates some of the travel costs of having such a geographically spread out superconference. Tricky thing here would be a conference championship. I say we take the top four teams overall by conference record, and do a two week mini-playoff. (Not sure if the NCAA would allow this, but I think it would be really fun if they did.) No benefit for winning a division since some divisions would be inherently weaker than others. Might have to institute some tiebrakers to get the top four teams.