OT: College Football Discussion (Realignment, Penn State, Other)

zambonir 2022-06-30 18:38:16 UTC #1

I'm gonna go ahead and start this in response to Andy's post in the sports media thread, been a few years since we even had an active Penn State thread.

Just got off the phone with someone who believes this eventually leads to two megaconferences — the Big Ten and SEC — with 20 or more members apiece.
— Nicole Auerbach ( @NicoleAuerbach ) June 30, 2022

andyb 2022-06-30 18:44:19 UTC #2

Maybe all those conferences that balked on the 12-team playoff proposal that guaranteed spots to the top 6 conference champions should reassess.

We are headed towards Super Bowl II - SEC vs Big 10. Everybody else can play in the Crypto.com bowl.

zambonir 2022-06-30 18:54:58 UTC #3

I don't especially like it - at this point I'd happily go back to bowls and polls - but it's probably the right thing. A new Division 1 (lower than the super conferences and higher than FCS) for the teams who get left out and God help us, maybe a few schools that even re-think the role of athletics entirely. And then the super conference drops all pretense of being anything other than professional (of course the universities still shouldn't be in that business, but...)

It would also still be better if one or two teams from that left-out level got to be in the playoff but there would not be Cinderellas going very far.

The other flaw is there will still be teams grandfathered into the Big 10 and SEC that have no business being in the super-conference.

zambonir 2022-06-30 19:05:44 UTC #4

The power of a brand over actually success. Boy it's gonna be tricky. Probably Oregon and Washington bring OSU and WSU with them into a super-conference but if it's driven entirely by football the latter two schools are still a tough sell. The Utah/Colorado and Arizona teams - which are both new to the Pac 12 relatively speaking (decades apart) probably get stuck with the left-out Big 12 schools.

andyb 2022-06-30 19:08:37 UTC #5

I don't know if these logical state pairs (Oregon/OSU etc.) will last. The SEC will want more media markets. One Arizona school and Colorado would give them Phoenix and Denver. Nike might want to make Oregon a free agent.

I think this ends with 4-6 West Coast teams in the Big Ten and the SEC moving West (while grabbing Clemson if they can).

zambonir 2022-06-30 19:37:28 UTC #6

The political pressure will be huge to keep those state schools together. And Nike is pretty entwined with Oregon State too. But the power of money and TV may prevail. Texas politicians made sure Baylor and Texas Tech were still with UT and A&M the first time. They didn't this time. But until now all these teams were still at the same level. This would be a much bigger drop-off.

Does Colorado or Arizona State even get good ratings? Granted, if they are playing Ohio State or Alabama everyone's happy.

Philsmania 2022-06-30 19:51:57 UTC #7

Turning to basketball, UCLA & USC moving into a conference with multiple Eastern Time Zone schools would probably be the green light Gonzaga needs to move into the Big "East".

phillychuck 2022-06-30 19:54:14 UTC #8

Where does Nova end up for hoops? Staying in the Big East?

Philsmania 2022-06-30 19:55:32 UTC #9

Yes, unless they upgrade their football somehow. People have been saying for years Gonzaga belongs in the Big East if not for geography.

zambonir 2022-06-30 20:00:47 UTC #10

Yeah it will be wild to see what this does to the NCAA basketball tournament too. Do you give a 20-team Big 10 four auto-bids, or do they just get 14 teams into thing regardless? But other than that issue, the basketball conferences that don't have D1 football shouldn't be affected too much.

Unless, of course, this kills the NCAA as an entity and the conferences start running basketball too.

Yeah I suppose it's possible that once the existing FBS schools sort through the wreckage they will try and get FCS schools to come on, rather than vice-versa. I mean, Temple would be just fine as an FCS school, and Nova would be irrelevant as an FBS school.

Philsmania 2022-06-30 20:15:42 UTC #11

zambonir:

Yeah it will be wild to see what this does to the NCAA basketball tournament too. Do you give a 20-team Big 10 four auto-bids, or do they just get 14 teams into thing regardless? But other than that issue, the basketball conferences that don't have D1 football shouldn't be affected too much.

Unless, of course, this kills the NCAA as an entity and the conferences start running basketball too.

Philsmania:

Yes, unless they upgrade their football somehow. People have been saying for years Gonzaga belongs in the Big East if not for geography.
Yeah I suppose it's possible that once the existing FBS schools sort through the wreckage they will try and get FCS schools to come on, rather than vice-versa. I mean, Temple would be just fine as an FCS school, and Nova would be irrelevant as an FBS school.

I don't know what is going to happen. Part of the appeal of the NCAA basketball tournament is the David defeats Golliath moments it has every year and I suspect the big boy schools who control the NCAA don't want to completely get rid of that. What I likely see is that all non-P5 at-large and automatic bid teams will be forced to play play-in games before going to the P5-dominated field of 64,.

zambonir 2022-06-30 20:19:50 UTC #12

That is probably not unreasonable. Nobody believes the small schools can win the thing, they just want that first weekend and the occasional Sweet 16.

Here's one first hint/rumor

Big 12 Source:

In the wake of USC and UCLA to the Big 10 rumors, Kansas University has had talks internally to try to make a push to join the Big East as soon as 2025, presumably going independent in football.

Would be a very large domino.
— Marc Fiscarelli ( @MarcFiscHoops ) June 30, 2022

Philsmania 2022-06-30 20:50:13 UTC #13

I am no Nostradamos, but I can see the SEC wanting a piece of the Pacific Time Zone action and poaching Arizona, ACC gets raided with both the Big Ten and SEC trying to take the cream of its crop and UNC possibly being a part of a bidding war between the two.

zambonir 2022-08-29 19:33:42 UTC #14

Well I guess this could also be our (likely fairly quiet) Penn State season thread. They play Thursday night.

phillychuck 2022-08-29 21:09:14 UTC #15

How fast will Christian Veilleux be in the transfer portal?

zambonir 2022-08-30 00:08:06 UTC #16

Guess that depends what, where and when it gets him.