Great idea! Duke takes a leadership role recognizing the future landscape of college sports. Sixty teams will not continue to compete for the expanded twelve team CFP. It’s too expensive. We all know the names of the national universities that can form a new alliance outside of the CFP. Frankly, it is Duke’s responsibility to design and sell this to similar institutions. Reach out to UVA to demonstrate that this includes private and public universities. Do it now.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Oops I should have known that since my son just graduated from Coastal. I don’t keep up with football much obviously. The Gamecocks have struggled against the SoConn and the Sunbelt lately so maybe that’s how I got confused.
Duke football would have their hands full in the Sunbelt but I’d prefer a modified A10 if it came to that.
And a lot less margin for error way up high in the sky at 30,000-plus feet while flying at 600 mph!
And if you prefer to not use the self-driving feature you could simply — get this — NOT USE IT!! Teslas perform admirably well with or without using self-driving mode. It’s all a matter of personal preference.
There aren't that many things that would get me to drop a multi-decade relationship with the Iron Dukes, but joining the SEC would surely do it. An absolutely horrific idea. Arguably the weakest aspect of Duke (football) dictating conference alignment? Seriously Jay?
Well, Duke isn't choosing the driving powers here. Football is in the driver's seat, everyone else is a passenger. In the back seat. In a child's seat. Facing the rear.
If Duke makes their own path with basketball first, I'll be excited. But they won't be aligned with most other power colleges. Which might be fine too.
They need to think creatively and quickly. Much easier than building a respectable football program, but still not simple.
that's fine, but no one can convince me that the SEC is anything less than a horrific match for Duke. I'd be far, far happier with an alignment with the Big 10, it has a whole lot of very good academic instituions with whom we have MUCH more in common.
As to the speed required right now, I'm hardly convinced. Yes, the Big 12 has had the radish, but they've been on death row for years. Acting quickly now makes little sense.
Agree, I’ve thought joining Big East b-ball and letting football land “wherever” might work. But on another thread I see we are continuing the arms race by adding more athletic offices and facilities.
I doubt Duke has a contingency plan for being left out of big boy football $$.
as long as they commit to only throwing empty plastic bottles at our fans, I'm OK with it. I barf at the notion of "competing" in football with Mississippi, Mizzippi State, LSU, Auburn et al...just a totally preposterous proposition. GIve me Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State, Illinois, Iowa any day of the week. Better yet, let's stop the panic and stay where we are.
they may prove to be true, but I'd much rather align with the Big 10 if a move needs to be made...and I seriously would rather drop football than align with the SEC...talk about devaluing your brand, sheesh.
In our last five years in the ACC, our conference record is 11-31, despite more admissions flexibility under Cut than we've ever had before (not saying that's terribly bad, but how do we compete in the SEC if we can hardly compete in the ACC?)
https://rubbingtherock.com/2021/07/2...ig-ten-merger/
even a Clemson site notes that a Big 10 merger might make more sense...
You think we’d win games against Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State but lose games against Ole Miss and MSU?
Or is it that the SEC’s academics are challenged? if so take a look at recent ACC entries, and we’re now looking at Cincy and WVU, both of which have some excellent profs and excellent students but don’t have the academic chops of places like U Florida or Texas A&M.
Having said that, I don’t like any of these changes, and wouldn’t like it even if it were basketball driven and allowing us enhanced prestige/cash/control.
I’m also skeptical about the supposed profits. Even if football keeps raking in cash (and nothing is guaranteed for a sport that many parents haven’t allow their boys to play for the past 20 years), it’s already true that most college sports programs don’t make much profit, and that’s before schools have to start flying their track team from Florida to play Oklahoma.
Further, having grown up in Texas, much of the football watching was done within families, including families who attended a variety of schools that would routinely play each other. They went to UT, A&M, Baylor, SMU, OU, OSU, etc. While I was an anomaly going to Duke, it wouldn’t have remotely occurred to anybody to go to any school in the SEC aside from A&M. Okay, maybe Ole Miss. Maybe Vandy. And many of the people half-watching the games were people who didn’t care much about football but understood the social importance of, say, the Texas Tech game.
It’s very similar to Duke playing Louisville. Sure, Louisville has good sports, but the only ACC people with family members or close buddies who attended Louisville are likely to be from Kentucky. So, it makes for a more competitive league, maybe, but the human drama gets attenuated, at least to casual observers. And the family members I know from, say, Oklahoma, are far more happy about beating Oklahoma State than they’d be about beating Tennessee. And they’d almost certainly prefer to beat OSU than to lose to Alabama in a regular season game.
It’s just hard to see how these continuing realignments are good for college football, much less college athletics. To say nothing about the social aspects of college.
But I guess it’s way too much to ask for any wisdom or perspective from the guys at the apex of sports, whether we’re talking ncaa, olympics, tennis, golf, nfl...
Seriously? Literally nothing around you for at least a mile, including land. Versus being separated, probably surrounded, by feet from other speeding vehicles.
Edit: I was going to add that I'm also not completely comfortable with the autopilot, and therefore include the youtube clip from Airplane!, but realized that it is probably not appropriate for the board.
Last edited by dudog84; 07-28-2021 at 09:45 AM.