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Conference Realignment 2021


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On 7/4/2022 at 11:12 AM, Keenan Henderson said:

Wondering what the guys and ladies on the forum think about the Super conferences that seem to be coming down the road.  USC and UCLA going to the Big Ten and maybe some other PAC-12 schools going to the Big 12.  It seems college sports is heading to a three headed monster: Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 as the super conferences.  It is a big move for football but will also affect basketball.  My concern is that these super conferences will take over the NCAA tournament and the 275 plus mid majors (ORU) will be left out in the cold.  Meaning that only the big-name schools will be eligible for the NCAA's and the Mid Majors will maybe have their own championship, such as an NIT or Basketball Classic tournament.  Any thoughts?

Enjoy being on the forum and hearing everyone one's input.  Happy 4th and God bless

What about the ACC?  Does it get merged in with the SEC?  Does it remain a "power conference"?

It would be interesting if the Summit were to merge with the Horizon or MVC to make a super mid-major conference.

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What I heard is that Florida State and North Carolina would move to the SEC and then the leftover ACC teams would have to decide what to do next, maybe some join the Big Ten.

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  • 1 year later...

It seems like a good time to return to this topic.  The Pac 12 teams have basically left for other conferences and the ACC is just a matter of time before the same thing happens.  It comes down to football and big contracts with tv or streaming channels.  The Big 12 has stayed alive but the SEC and Big Ten are basically taking over college football.  Will it work?  Yes, for a few elite teams but many schools will be left out.  It will be interesting to see how it changes college basketball.  

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The PAC-12 will pick up teams to join them (i.e., San Diego State, Nevada, UC-Irvine, etc.) that will blow them back up to 12-16 teams but maybe not to P5 status.  I think we are headed to a P4 or P3 conference alignment with super conferences of up to 20 teams that will create their own "NCAA".  The money will follow them because the eyeballs will follow them.  This will create a market for the mid-majors of the world and those that thought that they were big dogs (i.e., Tulsa, Oregon State, Washington State, etc.) will be wounded and those that have been a mid major (i.e., Butler, UALR, Marshall, etc.) will be bigger fish in a smaller pond.

For those of us that are 1-AAA schools (those institutions without football), our lives will be more difficult to navigate because the dollars will not be there for us if we are not part of the "NCAA" tournament.  Someone will make a tournament for us and there will be some dollars involved, but nothing like the billions of dollars associated with our current NCAA basketball tournament.

Alternatively, maybe football is separated from all the other sports and there is a super football format and the basketball format (with the David v. Goliath) possibilities, that everyone seems to want to discuss and see play out on the competition court, will continue with their big contract for all D-1 schools to share as they have.

It's a complicated time in college athletics - conference realignment, NIL, transfer portal, admission of kids not prepared for college, etc. - and it will be some time before we get through all these matters to a satisfactory conclusion with set of rules that everyone can follow.

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As conferences further ebb and flow, Chip Kelly has an interesting idea.  He suggests effectively what Bogus has said above.  Create a P5 football league that plays for a championship.  It could look a lot like the NFL with 2 conferences and some divisions with each conference.

For that other sports, revert back to the conference model before all this dramatic alignment.  In that scenario, you aren't asking the UCLA women's volleyball team fly all the way across the country to play Rutgers.  Better for the athletes and better for the athletic department budget. This will never happen because the most powerful force in college athletics, the SEC, would not support it as it goes against their unstated goal of running Division I athletics.

It is entirely possible that this is the first time a Chip Kelly idea has made sense to me.  @theeagleman5 I sure wish he was still coaching the Eagles.  🤣

https://247sports.com/article/ucla-coach-chip-kelly-calls-for-conference-extinction-why-arent-we-all-independent-for-football-213998519/

 

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Chip Kelly??? 🤮🤢🤮

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  • 3 weeks later...

Any thoughts on Cal and Stanford joining the ACC?  Of course, the PAC 12 is basically over as a conference.  I thought it was a move of extreme desperation.  So, they are joining a conference where every team is about 2500 miles away from them?  They are going to be traveling around 5,000 miles round trip just to play one football game as much as 4-5 times a year.  No way!

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It is all about the money.  The Big10 paid each of it's members in 2022 approximately $58,000,000 per school.  For the SEC that number was in the $49,000,000 range per member.  The Big12 recently announced that for the upcoming year and with its new members the average would be approximately $32,000,000 per institution.  As for the ACC they paid at least $37,000,000 per school with more being paid to FSU.  The Mountain West Conference comes in at about $6,000,000 per school and the MAC also pays each of its members millions per year as well.  Therefore this is why I have been questioning what exactly the Summit pays each of its conference members per year.  I realize that the Summit is not a P-5 conference nor is it a G-5 conference but it should be paying its members something.  That is also why I have been critical of the Summit's recent TV deal.  I am not sure it will generate much if anything in the way of $$$ for each member institution.  As for the ACC and Cal, Stanford and SMU it is all about the money and survival, although with an endowment of approximately $39,000,000,000 Stanford can weather any storm.  Pitty both Oregon State and Washington State as they are apparently the odd couple being left behind and will probably end up in the Mountain West.

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25 minutes ago, ORU82 said:

It is all about the money. 

You are exactly right @ORU82, it's about money and nothing else. The next time you hear a school President or AD saying their main interest is the student-athlete just know they are not being truthful. It will be bad enough for football, but that's only 5 conference road games at one location, but for basketball to make 7-8 conference road trips is ridiculous. The typical road trip for Cal or Stanford teams (and UCLA to Rutgers, USC to Penn St., OR & Washington, or BYU or Arizona in the Big 12 going to UCF) will be get on the team bus around 6:00am for a 45-minute trip to the airport, check in for a 9:00 am 5-hour cross country flight. So, with a 3-hour time change, if no connection (unlikely for a lot of the trips) you land in Atlanta, Boston or Charlotte or wherever and it's 5 pm local time and you now get all the teams luggage, load up on the bus for a 1-2 hour ride (hopefully no longer) to Clemson or Tallahssee, or Blacksburg VA. or wherever, so if no delays and everything goes perfectly it's 9:00 pm when you check into your hotel. And things never go perfectly in the dead of winter or traveling cross country. You will play the next day then probably bus or catch a flight to the 2nd game of the weekend! Then fly back home doing the whole thing again the day after that game. It's nuts, and all men's and women's team will have to do this, baseball, women's track, gymnastics, water polo, it's just ridiculous. I'm personally sad about the PAC 12 as a kid that grew up loving the conference and the member schools and as a former player in the league and I feel sorry for the current kids in all the sports that will have to suffer through these painful trips just for the greed of the "adults" that are supposed to be looking out for their best interests!! 

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It also shows the ACC is in somewhat of a bad position.  It is just a matter of time before they lose some of their best: Florida State, Clemson, Miami to the Big Ten or SEC.  So this move covers their backside, too.  SMU?  I get that they are in Dallas and it gives the ACC a road into Texas but the Mustangs have struggled to be average in the AAC.  What do they add to the ACC?  Look for SMU to be at the bottom in football, basketball, etc. of the ACC.

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College sports is a mess and has just become a cash $$$ grab...time to blow it up and start over....🤮

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There was an interesting article recently published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the University of Pittsburgh's reaction to the ACC expansion including Stanford, Cal and SMU.  Here is the link to the story:  https://post-gazette.com/sports/Pitt/2023/09/01/acc-adds-cal-stanford-smu/stories/202309010079 .   From the link it is apparent that not everyone in the ACC was in favor of the expansion.  It also explains about how in the end, it is all about the money.  

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Those cross-country trips for league games are going to be a nightmare... still not sure they are as bad as going to the Dakotas in the dead of winter though! 

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5 hours ago, ORU40 said:

Those cross-country trips for league games are going to be a nightmare... still not sure they are as bad as going to the Dakotas in the dead of winter though! 

If the cross country flights are utilized efficiently, they should be mandatory study time for the student-athletes struggling to maintain grades. 

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