New Conference re-alignment thread

[Saulbadguy]

The old one has AIDS.

Anyways, Chip Brown from Orangebloods.com reports OU may apply to the Pac-12 by the end of the month.

Oklahoma will apply for membership to the Pac-12 before the end of the month, and Oklahoma State is expected to follow suit, a source close to OU's administration told Orangebloods.com.

Even though Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Friday the Pac-12 was not interested in expansion at this time, OU's board of regents is fed up with the instability in the Big 12, the source said.

The OU board of regents will meet within two weeks to formalize plans to apply for membership to the Pac-12, the source said.

Messages left Sunday night with OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder were not immediately returned.

If OU follows through with what appears to be a unanimous sentiment on the seven-member Oklahoma board of regents to leave the Big 12, realignment in college athletics could be heating back up. OU's application would be matched by an application from Oklahoma State, the source said, even though OSU president Burns Hargis and mega-booster Boone Pickens both voiced their support for the Big 12 last Thursday.

There is differing sentiment about if the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors are ready to expand again after bringing in Colorado and Utah last year and landing $3 billion TV contracts from Fox and ESPN. Colorado president Bruce Benson told reporters last week CU would be opposed to any expansion that might bring about east and west divisions in the Pac-12.

Currently, there are north and south divisions in the Pac-12. If OU and OSU were to join, Larry Scott would have to get creative.

Scott's orginal plan last summer was to bring in Colorado, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and put them in an eastern division with Arizona and Arizona State. The old Pac-8 schools (USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State) were to be in the west division.

Colorado made the move in June 2010, but when Texas A&M was not on board to go west, the Big 12 came back together with the help of its television partners (ABC/ESPN and Fox).

If Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were accepted into the Pac-12, there would undoubtedly be a hope by Larry Scott that Texas would join the league. But Texas sources have indicated UT is determined to hang onto the Longhorn Network, which would not be permissible in the Pac-12 in its current form.

Texas sources continue to indicate to Orangebloods.com that if the Big 12 falls apart, the Longhorns would consider "all options."

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe held an emergency conference call 10 days ago with league presidents excluding Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M and asked the other league presidents to "work on Texas" because Beebe didn't think the Pac-12 would take Oklahoma without Texas.

Now, it appears OU is willing to take its chances with the Pac-12 with or without Texas.

There seemed to be a temporary pause in any possible shifting of the college athletics' landscape when Baylor led a charge to tie up Texas A&M's move to the Southeastern Conference in legal red tape. BU refused to waive its right to sue the SEC over A&M's departure from the Big 12, and the SEC said it would not admit Texas A&M until it had been cleared of any potential lawsuits.

Baylor, Kansas and Iowa State have indicated they will not waive their right to sue the SEC.

It's unclear if an application by OU to the Pac-12 would draw the same threats of litigation against the Pac-12 from those Big 12 schools.

Stay tuned.

[|Zach|]

So. The Big 12 was ready to take in WVU. They were about to travel to Morgantown and make the announcement.

We are talking about a huge decision of a large school moving to a power conference.

But then one golf buddy simply makes a call to his friend and is like. Hey, you should consider L'ville as well.

AND THE WHOLE TRAIN RUNS OF THE TRACKS.

But it wasn't shady.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I'm sure you'll be singing the same tune when Harry Reid bends over backwards to keep KU out of the PAC, especially if he just calls some former Senate pal who's now the President at USC or something.

Your rationalization couldn't sound any more obvious here.

Of course I'd be mad if that happened. I'm also aware that any school's fanbase wants their powerful people to do everything they can to make sure said schools don't find themselves on the outside when the dust settles.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by |Zach|

So. The Big 12 was ready to take in WVU. They were about to travel to Morgantown and make the announcement.

We are talking about a huge decision of a large school moving to a power conference.

But then one golf buddy simply makes a call to his friend and is like. Hey, you should consider L'ville as well.

AND THE WHOLE TRAIN RUNS OF THE TRACKS.

But it wasn't shady.

Do you think schools secretly talking to other conferences is shady? LOL, don't be a child, Zach.

[eazyb81]

Latest article from Clay Travis. He actually makes a pretty interesting proposal on how to solve the current Mizzou-WVU logjam (#3)

http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/th...to-hook-up.php

The Big 12 and Big East = Two Drunks at a Bar Trying to Hook Up



Published on: October 27, 2011 | Written by: Clay Travis

The Big 12 and the Big East are like the two drunkest, most desperate people at the bar trying to hook up. It's never pretty. One day after it was clear that West Virginia was on the last helicopter out of the Big East Saigon, it suddenly wasn't clear at all after reported phone calls from Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell to Oklahoma and Texas Tech leaders. You knew at some point that truth would become stranger than fiction in the conference realignment mess. You just didn't expect for United States senators from West Virginia to make statements like these:

"If someone as U.S. Senator interfered after the process took place, then that's wrong and unacceptable," West Virginia's Senator Manchin said. "If a U.S. Senator has done anything inappropriate or unethical to interfere with a decision that the Big 12 had already made then I believe that there should be an investigation in the U.S. Senate."

And with these quotes the conference realignment male soap opera, turned into a script so insane even Latin American telenovellas would reject it as unbelievable.

At this point, there is only one logical conclusion to conference realignment: After a two year investigation Baylor president Ken Starr will be impeached for having an affair with an intern.

The Big 12 is the root cause of all of this mess. That conference's instability has led to every other conference's makeup changing in the past year. Consider for a moment the simple Big 12 math over this past year and a few months: 12-2-1+1-1+1 = ?

Who is the root cause of all this instability? Texas.

The Longhorns have bullied the rest of the conference so far that anyone with any power wants to leave. Only, you guessed it, no one can leave now. This conference is a bad reality show, CBS's Big Brother meets college sports. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State tried to leave but found out no one would take them. Somewhere Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri have to be reading these headlines and doubling over in laughter.

You know how the 1972 Miami Dolphins undefeated team gets together every year and cracks open a bottle of champagne to celebrate? The schools that got out of the Big 12 -- Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri -- should have an annual party where they break open a bottle of champagne and celebrate their disunion from the fundamentally broken Big 12.

Here are nine thoughts about the latest insanity:

1. How bad is the Big East?

West Virginia and Louisville are threatening to lead us into full on Senate investigations over an invite to a conference that anyone who can leave wants to leave already.

This is like fighting for an opportunity to board the Titanic.

Yep, the Big East is so unstable that people are trying to prolong their lives by boarding a ship that everyone knows is going to sink someday.

2. The Big 12 and the SEC are fighting over who is going to have the uneven schedules.

Missouri is the prize that balances out the hang-ups. I still believe Missouri will be in the SEC for 2012, but as time drags on this becomes more difficult to manage.

So the question hanging out there is this: Will the Big 12 have a nine team conference in 2012 or will the SEC have a 13 team conference in 2012? Both are problematic.

If the SEC has a 13 team conference then it has to apply for a NCAA waiver and play unbalanced division schedules that could end in disaster -- two undefeated division champs that never played in the SEC West.

Alternatively, if the Big 12 has just nine teams then every conference team has to add one out of conference game for 2012. With this short notice every school would have to pay a substantial sum -- likely $500k at minimum -- to round up opponents.

So Missouri's location in the 2012 season has become a plum prize.

3. Here's my compromise plan on behalf of the Big East, the SEC, and the Big 12.

In honor of the political establishment's involvement, we'll call it the Travis Compromise. This works particularly well since the reason I have the name Clay is because my grandfather, born in Kentucky, was named after Henry Clay, the great compromiser. So I'm following in my namesake's footsteps here.

The Travis Compromise:

a. Missouri comes to the SEC in 2012.
As a result of that departure Missouri owes the Big 12 in the neighborhood of $13 million as a buyout. (Texas A&M owes a similar sum).
The Big 12 pockets $26 million in buyout fees and the SEC doesn't have an unbalanced schedule to worry about.

b. West Virginia comes to the Big 12 in 2012.
The Big 12 gives $13 million, the Missouri buyout fee, to the Big East in exchange for the Big East waiving the 27 month exit fee requirement. That $13 million may sound like a lot of money, but when you consider that Big 12 schools would be on the hook for at least $6 million to buy games if they don't have 10 conference teams, it's actually a pretty good deal.

It also sets a precedent for the Big East -- if Pitt and Syracuse can come up with $13 million each, they can buy their way out of the 27 month exit fee as well. But that's in addition to the $5 million buyout. So each school would need to come up with $18 million to leave. If Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia all pay $18 million to leave that gives the Big East a windfall of $54 million which it can redistribute to the remaining Big East schools. As a part of the receipt of these distributions each remaining Big East school would sign a ten year guarantee to the league, which the league could then use to add new members.

South Florida, Cincinnati, Louisville, Connecticut and Rutgers would each receive $10 million and a guarantee that they'd remain in a BCS league alongside the new additions.

c. The SEC and the Big 12 agree to vote in favor of preserving the Big East's automatic bid when the next round of BCS negotiations arises.

Voila, an elegant compromise saves the day.

Congress is removed from the equation and everyone is happy. (The payments could be negotiated, but all three conferences win under this scenario.) You can easily see a way the Big East could extract the same promise to help protect its automatic qualifying bid from the ACC.

Remember, the single most important asset the Big East has is the automatic qualifying bid in the BCS. If the conference loses that it loses the ability to bring on new schools. So protecting that bid is the primary objective of the Big East.

4. For those of you who are surprised the Senate got involved, a Congressional anecdote.

I spent four years working in the Capitol while I was in college in Washington, D.C. One of my roles during those four years was giving tours of the Capitol. I'm a history buff so I picked up all the anecdotes I could to make my tour sparkle. One of them was this:

Just after the Civil War, the dome was completed and a massive chandelier was added to the Capitol. When they returned from recess and Congressional members saw it hanging there, the chandelier provoked an outrage. Member after member derided it as too ostentatious to hang in the Capitol. The scandal grew. Until an enterprising reporter found out where the real outrage was coming from:

Congressmen recognized the chandelier because it used to hang in D.C.'s highest end brothel.

So am I surprised that Senators are getting involved in realignment?
Nope.

5. Adding more than ten schools isn't an option right now.

Some of you are already emailing asking why the Big 12 can't add both Louisville and West Virginia. The answer is simple -- the TV money isn't there right now. Going above ten members means that every school in the Big 12 would make less money. Going to 11 also means you have to go to 12.

Unless ESPN and Fox agree to pay more money -- which ESPN certainly isn't going to do and I doubt Fox would do -- then the TV money is set. Recall that ESPN is already paying for a 12 team conference and agreed to pay the same amount for a ten team conference. So do you really think ESPN is going to agree to pay more money for an 11 team conference when it already bought a 12 team conference?

Nope.

Now, when the ESPN deal comes up in a couple of years expansion beyond ten may become viable. But not now.

Ten is going to be the number. Especially when you consider that in the past year the Big 12 has lost four of its six top television draws: Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri have all been replaced by a quartet of vastly inferior television draws.

6. Why isn't the Big 12 considering Memphis?

I understand West Virginia, but I have no idea why the Big 12 would rather be in Louisville than Memphis.

It makes no sense.

The cities are roughly equal. (I'd give the nod to Memphis personally, but there's no great separation between the two).

Both are great basketball programs. Granted, Memphis's football program is presently awful, but it's in an incredibly fertile recruiting region. Lots of schools, I would think, would love to be able to recruit in Memphis. There are zero recruits in Kentucky for either football or basketball.

Plus, getting in to Memphis gets the Big 12 inside the SEC's footprint and limits the travel to a great degree. Every school would still be in the central time zone

It seems like a no brainer to me.

7. The Big East would give up Louisville in a heartbeat if it meant they got to keep West Virginia.

That's why half of me thinks that the Big East is actually encouraging this Louisville to the Big 12 talk. Anything to keep West Virginia, the only football program in the conference that anyone pays any attention to at all.

If Louisville left replacing them with Memphis would, it seems to me, be pretty close to an even trade.

Basically, Memphis has to end up in the Big East.

8. Why isn't Ken Starr still threatening to sue anyone?

Remember when Ken Starr was concerned about major conference expansion? Remember his threats to sue the SEC over Texas A&M's departure? Remember his insistence on keeping conference's geographically cohesive?

Now his conference is going to gut the Big East, fly hundreds of miles across multiple states, all to play either West Virginia or Louisville.
Everyone is looking out for their naked self interest. Everyone. That's why Ken Starr, in particular, is so full of crap.

9. Funniest suggestion for how to solve the West Virginia-Louisville battle? A teeth-off.

The fan base with the most teeth gets the Big 12 invite.

Given that Kentucky and West Virginia have the worst teeth in the United States -- this is an actual stat -- this has reality show written all over it.
It's like the biggest loser. Someone steps up to a dentist with their mouth closed and we all write down how many teeth we think they have. Then they open their mouth and the tally goes up on a screen.

To the victor goes the spoils. It's the electoral college of teeth.

[DJ's left nut]

I wonder if the Big East would waive the 27 month waiting period for Louisville if it meant WVU stayed.

That would give them 2 years to get their houses in order. Meanwhile the XII can re-visit WVU as an expansion candidate in 2014 when the current TV deal runs out.

Ugh....please Mizzou - just run. Run FAST. Get out of there before this whole thing goes nuts and you can't anymore.

[DJ's left nut]

I wonder if the Big East would waive the 27 month waiting period for Louisville if it meant WVU stayed.

That would give them 2 years to get their houses in order. Meanwhile the XII can re-visit WVU as an expansion candidate in 2014 when the current TV deal runs out.

Ugh....please Mizzou - just run. Run FAST. Get out of there before this whole thing goes nuts and you can't anymore.

[eazyb81]

--Slive: "Our transition team is working on schedules for 13 and 14 (members). We’ll know when we know. There’s no timetable for us."

--Slive: "I know everybody is anxious to know where things stand with conference realignment, especially with all this activity out there ...

--More Slive: "... With respect to the SEC, I have really nothing new to add, at least at this time."

[eazyb81]

--Slive: "Our transition team is working on schedules for 13 and 14 (members). We’ll know when we know. There’s no timetable for us."

--Slive: "I know everybody is anxious to know where things stand with conference realignment, especially with all this activity out there ...

--More Slive: "... With respect to the SEC, I have really nothing new to add, at least at this time."

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by kstater

Petty infighting doesn't happen in any other conference. See Missouri to the East.

Alabama and LSU said so.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

Originally Posted by frazod

So are Pants and I.

SCOREBOARD!
ORANGES!

This shit never gets old.

B-B-B-Ballsack!

[evenfall]

WV, Louisville, San Diego State, Tulane. Boom, outta here.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by frazod

By "pretty good" I guess you mean "almost ranked"?

We beat KU. It was great. I wouldn't trade that for any overblown ESPN fruit basket.

Sure you would. Then Mizzou would have actually won something in our lifetime.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by frazod

By "pretty good" I guess you mean "almost ranked"?

We beat KU. It was great. I wouldn't trade that for any overblown ESPN fruit basket.

We did beat Josh Freeman and Jordy Nelson on the road. They were ranked (at the time, anyway).

[Pants]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

We did beat Josh Freeman and Jordy Nelson on the road. They were ranked (at the time, anyway).

That OSU team was pretty stacked as well, IIRC. I could be wrong, though, it was a while ago.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by Pants

That OSU team was pretty stacked as well, IIRC. I could be wrong, though, it was a while ago.

KSU had gone into Texas the previous week and won. It was a pretty big deal. But I think they fell apart down the stretch. OSU had Dez Bryant but no defense to speak of, IIRC. I don't remember thinking they'd be a huge threat to beat KU and they weren't. The closest they came to losing that season before Arrowhead was in Boulder.