I've asked this before, but if it's Mizzou that ends up using the buddy system with A&M as a path to the SEC, what do you do with the divisions? Of the SEC's many great strengths, one is that just about everybody loves the way the divisions are set, particularly the West. If you add two western teams, the most reasonable thing to do seems to be to move Auburn east and make Alabama their dedicated cross-divisional scheduling partner. So you get:
East: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and now Auburn
West: Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, LSU, Arkansas, and now Texas A&M and Missouri
pros: Auburn is actually east of Vanderbilt. Auburn regains a yearly matchup with Florida, who was actually their second dedicated scheduling partner in the first decade of the. Auburn regains Georgia as a divisional rival, so that makes space in their schedule for a cross-division matchup in the Iron Bowl. Missouri-Arkansas and LSU-Texas A&M make sense for new rivalries. A&M regains its old SWC foe Arkansas. Conference gets new media markets all over Texas, plus KC/StL markets and all the rest of Missouri as well, a medium-sized state.
cons: You damage the coherence of what, I'd argue, is the tightest, most coherent division in college sports, the SEC West. Auburn loses annual matchups with Ole Miss, MSU, and LSU, which in my mind more than offsets the good of getting Auburn-Florida back. And people are watching the Mississippi schools, Alabama and LSU play Missouri for some reason.
At least throaty could pop over to Columbia every year to see Mississippi State. Whee.
I like Missouri just fine, but seeing those schools in a list just looks really weird. Saturdays Down South mentioned both Mizzou and WVU as possible entries to the SEC.
I for one would love to see WVU in the SEC. (I'd love to seem them in the ACC too, but that's a different discussion). They'd slide into the east nicely, right next door to Kentucky, and would counterbalance A&M in a 14-team league. They're fun to watch. Hopefully the rivalry with Pittsburgh would be preserved. Sadly, when Penn State entered the Big Ten, they shed their historical rivalries with Pitt, WVU and Syracuse. I still don't understand why they didn't continue to schedule Pitt a la UGA-GT, UF-FSU &c.
WVU has already played home-and-homes with Mississippi State and Auburn in the last few years.
The problem, of course, is that there aren't a lot of televisions in West Virginia. It's amazing what they've done in football, not as good as Nebraska, but still pretty sweet for a state with just 1.8M population--they're both right around 1.8M. And Nebraska doesn't have to deal with a Marshall-type school stealing a few recruits, or a neighborhood that includes OSU and Penn State. I don't think it's as crazy as it might sound though, because West Virginia fans are a lot like Steeler fans. Oodles of them have moved away and still follow the team. (Just about every time I wear a WVU shirt in a crowded place, interested expatriate Mountaineers ask me where in WV I'm from, and this is here, and we're not exactly next door to WV). Indeed, there are a bunch of WVU people in the DC metro. Say the SEC wants a piece of the DC television market, but doesn't want to steal VT or Maryland to get it. WVU is the next best thing.
It is weird to think of A&M-WVU as a conference game though. I'm trying to remember how long it took for Arkansas and South Carolina to feel like naturalized citizens. Now, they totally feel like SEC members, but that really wasn't the case at first, particularly since the SWC survived Arkansas' defection for a few more years. But you give anything a couple decades, and then it seems like SOP. For some reason, eight years on, VT and even Miami "feel" like ACC teams to me, but Boston College still doesn't.
Obviously the talk radio here is off the chain with all the Mizzou/SEC/B10/B12 chatter. The only definitive thing you can say is that there's nothing definitive to say. No one really seems to know what'll happen.
ETA: I just read the Wiki for the old SWC, and apparently Ole Miss and LSU were invited in the 1910s but declined. I wonder if they had been members all along if that would have been enough to preserve the conference.
A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
---Roger Ebert
Some questions cannot be answered
Who’s gonna bury who
We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
---Over the Rhine
Hi, A-Tex. I suspect the ACC talk is just a stalking horse for PAC-12 negotiations. The ACC needs to listen to any and all schools, but I really hope that the situation doesn't get so weird that we scoop up Texas and Texas Tech. I remember both well from my graduate school days at Rice in the old SWC. It is hard to even conceive of them in a conference with Duke, BC, Miami, etc. And whose to say the Longhorns wouldn't be a home wrecker there as well as in the SWC and the Big 12.
You have resolutely defended Texas's honor in these discussions, which I respect. And while I have been critical, I don't impugn their motives: getting the best deal for Texas is fine and dandy, I agree. But when A&M wants to flee to the SEC away from its historical alignment in its home state and OU and Oklahoma State want to be anywhere but the Big 12, I hope you agree that Texas has contributed to the -- uh -- instability of the current conference arrangements.
Now, would the PAC-12 want Texas? Or, for that matter, Oklahoma U and Oklahoma State? I dunno, but I don't think the PAC-12 needs to expand to defend its turf against raids from other conferences. I don't see any of its current schools going anywhere else -- those are high mountains and long distances.
sagegrouse
I agree that the ACC is a stalking horse. Texas needs some leverage right now and the ACC could be it. I am afraid that if Texas' bluff was called, it would go ACC before independence, but I'm even more afraid that it would be a temporary move, which really would make Texas a villain and justifiably so.
There are 2 schools of thought -- one that Texas overplayed its hand last year by keeping the Big XII together in order to bring the network online. I think there is some truth to that, but I also think at the end of the day, the network will stay in place with some minor concessions (small amount of royalties kicked back to conference/no sharing in other teams third tier rights -- if it's the Pac XII where 3rd tier rights are shared, etc.). I've watched it. It's awesome in all the ways a Texas fan would want an none of the ways Aggies and the like feared. It's not going anywhere.
The other school of thought is that Texas and OU are playing good cop bad cop right now with OU as bad cop (and probably better described as aggressive cop/passive cop, as I don't think there is any ill intent on OU's recent public announcements). OU's announcement is what led Baylor to rattle its sword (which I'm still not sure is anything more than refusing to sign a release and waiver) against A&M. Texas does not want to be the one to break up the Big XII because of what it means for Baylor, so if it can use OU to instigate it, it can just shrug at Baylor and say "tough, but if it weren't those mean ole aggies and the SEC, none of this would have happened -- Sic 'Em Bears!"
That's a little too against Occam's Razor for my taste, but I also believe that nothing OU has done has come as a surprise to Texas.
http://www.statesman.com/sports/long...s-1851020.html
In particular:
"The ACC is willing to talk about a unique conference format that has intrigued Texas. Instead of divisions, the conference could be divided into four pods, with each pod containing four teams, to aid scheduling."
So, maybe the idea is 4 B12 teams (e.g. UT, TT, KU, and KSt) as the western pod, to go with a SE pod, an NC pod, and a NE pod.
Come on people. They're Texas. They're more important than everyone else in the entire world. We're horribly inconveniencing Texas by having a conference spread up and down the east coast.
Clearly, to accommodate the Longhorns, what we ought to do is just move all the ACC schools to Texas. They've got a lot of room out there on the Llano Estacado.
A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
---Roger Ebert
Some questions cannot be answered
Who’s gonna bury who
We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
---Over the Rhine
So how does the championship game work? A four team conference playoff? That actually would be awesome! (And here we go back into *pure* speculation):
Play a 9 game conference schedule -- 3 games against your pod, and against 2 teams from each of the other three pods, 3 non conference games. Everyone gets 12 games, that's the new norm. Then you play semis first weekend of Dec and finals on second weekend of December. That's 14 games, then 15 games with a bowl.
I can dig it. There are inherent problems. For instance, what happens when UT, as they will surely do, insists on the football semis or finals, or worse, the ACC basketball championship, to rotate through Dallas or Houston on occasion? But this four pod structure is great otherwise because you play your biggest rivals every year, and still get to see everyone else at least twice every four years.
... and just to add, the Texas to ACC rumors are apparently being brokered by (play evil entrance music) -- ESPN.
ACC is completely tied up with ESPN for basketball and football, other than some third tier football/basketball stuff on regional networks. I hate this as a reason for aligning conference, but get it from ESPNs point of view. They have potentially the most to lose in the near term if realignment runs out of control in the coming weeks, and I don't think we've really seen their influence come down on any of this yet.
Well with kansas and texas out there, I would imagine it would have to go out west every 3 years, especially since it would likely end up with kansas texas duke and UNC being the 4 schools perpetually at the top of the conference...I'd imagine a rotaiton of NC, out west, somwhere else (georgia, DC...)
April 1
I love Duke. I love Texas. But the ACC tourney anywhere but the eastern seaboard (and, frankly, anywhere but Greensboro, Charlotte and occasionally Atlanta) just seems wrong.
And if this comes to fruition, I might have to test a bold statement I once made when my allegiances were challenged -- If Texas was undefeated in football, and a medicore to poor Duke team came into DKR Memorial Stadium with a chance to knock UT out of a shot for the title, I would wear blue and cheer for Duke loudly.
It's an easier question in basketball where I've turned on UT immediately when playing Duke, but the stakes are different in football. That said, I have faith that I will act and cheer correctly if this ridiculous hypothetical ever came to pass.
having grown up in the big east, the ACC tournament never had the same ties to a location like MSG does for the BET. Now, if it were always held in charlotte or greensborough[sp?], I'd be more understanding...but since it doesn't have the history of having the tournament in one place or arena, I don't think it'd feel too much different...i mean duke might as well get some games out there before the selection committee sends us out west anyway :P
April 1
The ACC tournament is a shadow of its former self. Dilution of teams and dilution of importance have taken their toll. The ACC office is not about to rotate the site on some equitable basis. It will set the venue based on the ability to sell tickets.
BTW I still think DC is a great location. For me the high point of the last tournament, beyond the Duke victory, was sitting in a primo Spanish restaurant and tapas bar (Jaleo), next to six hulking Clemson AD officials wearing orange shirts, and hearing them puzzle over the menu. But that was six years -- heck, now there are probably six tapas bars in Clemson SC.
sagegrouse