Ready to plunge into chaos? Per Ted Miller last night, it’s already begun, as Colorado reportedly has an offer in-hand from the PAC, and the five others are ready to fall into place. In case you have been living under a rock, the other five are Texas, Texas A & M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. And if the Colorado story is done, well, it appears that the Denver market has won out over Baylor at the end of the day. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see once the dust settles.
Some interesting tidbits from the ESPN.com article:
- As speculated pretty much everywhere, “Nebraska is the key” according to a Big 12 head coach who was briefed on everything yesterday. Once they go, the dam breaks, and yep, today should be the day it’s official.
- Maybe there WON’T be a Pac-10 championship game after all, and the two division winners would get automatic BCS bids? Hmm. Interesting. I thought that the idea behind some of the expansion, at least beyond the piles of cash that will come to each school, is that a championship game could be a centerpiece to it all. Perhaps that isn’t the case? Per the Big 12 source:
“The Pac-10 doesn’t believe in a championship game,” the coach said. “And coaches in the Big 12 don’t like it anyway.”
- While this has all come down rather quickly, we still might be a couple weeks away from any type of announcement from the Pac-10. And in case you were wondering, yes, almost half the conference would have a presence in seven of the top 16 media markets in the country! Per Miller:
It would take a week to 10 days to finalize the details of a Pac-16. The blockbuster deal would add the nation’s No. 5 (Dallas), No. 10 (Houston) and No. 16 (Denver) TV markets to the conference, which already includes No. 2 Los Angeles, No. 6 San Francisco, No. 12 Phoenix and No. 13 Seattle.
- Is there still a chance this won’t go down? Sure. Miller floats the idea that Nebraska could still get left at the altar, which would be a major 11th-hour screw job of epic proportions by the Big Ten. But it now appears very, very, verrrrrry probable that this thing is happening.
But, even with everything starting to break, there are still some questions about how this is, you know, actually going to work? And many of you have floated some very good questions in the comments section. And let us also add a thank you for your input on all this stuff. We know you can get your information on this type of thing pretty much anywhere/everywhere, so we are grateful you have hung around and weighed in with us on all this. We know you have options.
That said, let’s review some of your comments and see if we can’t figure out some of the details together, shall we? Read on…..
First, Cougar Jen in Pullman writes:
“Dear Casey,
My little dog Snuggles has been ill. Could you please play “You Raise Me UP” by Josh Groban?”
Note that the language isn’t safe for work. But as someone commented on Youtube, “I’ll never watch Scooby Doo the same way again….”
Anyway, some good comments lately.
A question…
written by Cyberhwk, June 09, 2010
Dear Cyberhwk,
Longball and I both kind of jumped in on this one, but to summarize the best we can without internal sources in the Big 12, put it this way – there have been some disgruntled members of the Big 12, and it has been that way for some time. Part of it has been Nebraska not exactly loving the relationships with Texas and even Oklahoma to some extent. And they aren’t alone, and there are other reasons. Per a recent ESPN.com article:
Nevertheless, the Huskers and Missouri could make more money as Big Ten members and both have been unhappy with many things in the Big 12. Missouri does not like the unequal revenue distribution that favors schools making the most football television appearances.
Nebraska is resentful of the apparent drift toward making Dallas the permanent site of the conference football championship game. That’s a long drive for Husker fans who would like to see the game alternated between Dallas and Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium.
So, it’s money, of course, but there have been other things as well. And let’s also remember that the Big 12 only formed late in 1994, when the Big Eight added the four Texas schools that used to be in the Southwest Conference. That’s just a little over 15 years of history as a conference, nothing like the long history of, say, the Big Ten or even the old Pac Eight (prior to the AZ schools joining in the 70’s). So, you add it all up, and it looks like all these things are going to sink the conference.
And on Qwest Field, we’ll have to see. There are strong rumors out there that WSU is close to announcing something, and per Cougfan recently, Moos loves the idea of Oregon and WSU in Seattle. Not that UW would love this, in fact to them it would be like watching Saddam and Bin Laden fight in their back yard. You want to see a whoopin’, but you would prefer they both somehow lose, I guess?
Cyberhwk also asked the following question, on how in the world are they going to schedule this thing out for football?
I also wonder how scheduling would be hashed out in an expanded PAC-10. I can see 7/2/3 be most logical (intra-, inter-, non-). But that would mean only one home/away a year against our new friends, and a return trip only once every EIGHT years. (Still not unreasonable IMHO). A 6/3/3 would mean you play more inter-division, but you’d have one HELL of a lot of pissed off fans when it’s time for Oregon’s 6 to not include the Beavs, or our 6 doesn’t include the Dawgs.
Personally I have heard several scenarios floated here and there, so it’s hard to know for sure right now how they’ll do it. But one thing you have to believe is that you WOULD play all your divisional opponents, so that’s seven games right there. From a WSU perspective, let’s call it the Pac-16 West, playing the LA schools, the Bay Area schools, the Oregon schools, and UW. Then, you could see them play three opponents from the other division, leaving you at 10 total conference games. However, if you do NOT have a conference title game, you could possibly add another conference game from the other division, playing four out of the possible eight from the Pac-16 East?
Where it gets dicey is the non-conference slate. Maybe with the expansion, and more conference opponents, that could lead to fewer non-conference games? Maybe just two non-conference games instead of the traditional three, since the regular season would be so taxing on any program if you have to play 10 or even 11 conference games? The thing is, everyone will still need a “paycheck” game, playing against the Portland State’s of the world (nothing against Portland State, but you know what I mean). The BCS-type team benefits from games like this as a tune-up for the rest of the year. And the lower-division team benefits by getting the $500,000 or so paycheck for making the trip. The paycheck games have to stay in the mix.
I guess they’ll have to sort it all out. But I would bet that you can put it in ink that they’ll play all their divisional opponents, plus at least three of the other eight, for a minimum of 10 conference games.
Zippo44 added the following comment yesterday:
We need something
written by zippo44, June 08, 2010Great writing and link finding. Saw this somewhere in there, a ranking of revenue should the system default to the top 64 teams. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c…ent/1.html Look at who is number 64. Yikes. We need stadium expansion/pac 16 bad.
Good find Zippo. The article in question is from SI.com, which takes on the idea of 64 teams via the super conferences and having a playoff of some kind. The article rates the teams from 1-64, not on their football prowess but instead, on their athletic department revenues from the 2008-09 year. Texas is #1, at $138 MILLION. Guess who was #64, at $38 million?? Yes, Zippo44 is right. We have a lot of work to do!
Just to add to this, we heard from a WSU “source” yesterday who said they are hearing the same things internally that are being reported in the media. No surprise there. But anyway, the source added that while yes, from a WSU perspective we are excited at the possibility of the $20 million or so per year in TV money, we STILL have to remember we are way, way behind the rest of the conference. And while the famous quote of “a rising tide lifts all boats” can be true, well, if you are adding $20 million to every school in the conference, we still aren’t gaining any ground on the rest.
Just to put it in perspective, this is how things would look in the new Pac-16, again, based on the ’08-’09 revenues:
1) Texas – $138,459,149
2) Oklahoma – $81,487,835
3) USC – $80,151,282
4) Stanford – $74,695,254
5) Cal – $73,354,967
6) Texas A&M – $72,886,100
7) Oklahoma State – $71,805,825
8) UCLA – $66,177,866
9) Washington – $60,575,780
10) Oregon – $60,283,512
11) Arizona State – $53,297,963
12) Arizona – $51,822,629
13) Oregon State – $50,211,404
14) Colorado – $49,859,693
15) Texas Tech – $46,632,263
16) Washington State – $38,293,754
Quite an impressive list….but also a sledgehammer reminder of just how far behind we really are in all this. That’s eight million dollars behind #15 Texas Tech. Ouch.
All I can say is that from a WSU point of view, let’s be happy we have a seat at the big kid’s table. But it will still be on us, as a fan base, to start to chip away at the disparity.
With Bill Moos leading the charge, and hope and momentum from the expansion and the eventual turnaround of the economy in the coming years (?), you have to believe WSU is in a position to make up some ground!….Right??
That’s it for now. Oh, wait. USC is supposed to get popped pretty good today, including bowl bans, scholie losses and probation, as well as forfeiting games back to 2004! So, that ’06 loss in Pullman, does that now become a win, giving WSU a 7-win season? I want my bowl game back please…..Really, the forfeiture of games is a rather large MEH. The bowl bans and scholie losses matter, but who cares about the wins/losses over that period. What’s done is done.
That’s really it. Enjoy your Thursday, and as always, GO COUGS!
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My question, though, is ‘Why the Big XII?’ With teams like Oklahoma and Texas and Nebraska I’d think it would be one of the STRONGER conferences in the NCAA, so why is IT the one being cannibalized? Is there just a lack of history or camaraderie? The Big XII breaks up because nobody would really care if they did? I can’t imagine how bad things would have to be to break up the Pac-10.