All but official
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All but official
Never should have left the Big 12 in the first place. Now, it's a mere shell of its former self. Guess Neon thinks it'll be an easier conference to win. Yep!
The college football landscape is weird.
So the question is does the PAC-12 raid the AAC (SMU, Memphis, maybe Tulane) OR the MWC?
It depends on who else the Big 12 takes. The next to leave appears to be Arizona. Let’s say the Big 12 wins the “Pick 4” and they take Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah, they pick up as many as 6-8. Here are the first seven in no particular order: Tulane; SMU; Memphis; Boise; Fresno; Colorado State and San Diego State.Originally Posted by revf
The PAC 12 has a clueless commissioner in George Kliavkoff so who knows their response. Part of the problem the conference has, aside from not having good enough football programs, is their time zone. That might actually be there biggest issue. The west coast is lousy for sports broadcasting. Their games just start too late for the east coast and southern fans to watch. If they add four I would bite the bullet and take the three AAC teams and SD State. That way they are at least in the Central Time Zone.
Colorado leaving became evident last week during PAC 12 media days when Kliavkoff had nothing to offer about a new tv deal in his opening remarks. The Colorado AD immediately left the conference, went back to the airport, jumped on the plane and headed back to Boulder. I think the the PAC 12 deal will be worse than the ACC deal.
Interestingly enough Colorado’s exit fee is $0. Their tv deal runs out at the end of this academic year. Will be the same for the other three schools too if they do not sign the new tv deal. But poor San Diego State will pay double to the MWC if they leave now. If they would have honored their agreement to leave last month they would owe $17 million. Now they owe $34 million.
Whoever they take Stanford and Cal are not going to like their new conference mates academic profiles much. Which makes you wonder if the Big 10 comes in and scoops up some teams as well.
I think Arizona, Arizona State, Utah to Big 12 is a no brainer
Big 12 comes out in a great position after losing their two biggest schools. Their media deal is decent and they still have some valuable schools.
PAC-12 has to move into a different time zone. MWC doesn’t help them here. AAC does. If they go central it will have to be major airports for travel so…
SMU, Memphis, Tulane, and one more from the Central Time Zone (Rice unfortunately may benefit here).
This empties the AAC and they backfill with four from Sun Belt/C-USA…so does Tulane leaving benefit Tech or ULL? 😳
Great question. Depends on what the AAC looks for in this phase of realignment. If it is size, ULL beats us hands down. Their tv market and student enrollment is close to 40% larger than ours. But neither school would be close to the top of their list if that is the only or main criteria.
I also believe SD State gets into the PAC 12 way before Rice. The PAC 12 wants to stay in Southern California.
I'll just add to this. Earlier in this thread the MWC exit fee for schools to leave for 2024, when the Pac 12 TV deal begins, was mentioned by Bulldog Tom. It's $34 million. None of the MWC schools can afford it.
The exit fee for an AAC school to leave in 2024 for the Pac 12 would be $10 million. SMU, Tulane and Memphis have deep pocketed alums who could fund that move.
So, Forgive me for asking the obvious question about all of this. If some of these ripple effects continue to happen across P5 conferences as speculated, and changes trickle down to the other conferences, is Tech in any type of position to take advantage of this and better their conference alignment position?
Probably not…
Best case scenario is somehow the AAC selects teams for a category (successful and facilities) that it didn’t before. (Least likely)
Worst case scenario is that we end up in some weird sunbelt/cusa merger. (More likely)
Our failure over the past decade is due to incompetence at the highest levels to build athletics, budgets, fundraising, and enrollment.
The good news is two fold…
1. Our geography helps. Especially if Tulane is gone. It creates an opening in Louisiana for the AAC. ULL might be bigger but they have a whole lot of baggage (huge debt service loads right now) and bodies in the swamp. Don’t know if the AAC wants the baggage or not.
2. And we are not UTEP or NMSU…likely left out of any conference…Four to the AAC? Four to Sunbelt? No more C-USA, No more moves to FBS, and ESPN reduces their conference contracts.
Both Reneau and Guice have been failures in all of the areas mentioned above. Reneau fired Paul Miller to hire an LSU HOFer.
@JWMediaDC
The following schools have filed the paperwork asking to join the @pac12
@ColoradoStateU
@GoAztecs
@SMU
@UNLVathletics
@GreenWaveFB
@USFFootball
@TigersAthletics
@BroncoSportsFB
@FresnoStateFB
@TulsaFootball
@RiceFootball
there are more but I think you get the idea- Note to San Diego State wait to you get the invite to leave.
Yep. I could list a dozen ways that both of our Presidents have failed to "get it" when it comes to athletics and academics.
Way too reactive instead of being proactive. Neither has ultimately pushed to build something bigger at Tech, both have just tried to maintain.
A lot of people have issues with Mayor Ronnie Walker, but I will give him this at least he is going to swing for the fences every time he can to build Ruston. He is always going to push for more. I can't see that with the leadership of Tech. Good enough has always been the motto.
Why aren't we on this list? We've done western conferences before.
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