The PAC 10 expansion groundswell

[BigPiney]

http://awfulannouncing.com/2011-arti...-12-video.html

what was Fox Sports thinking?

What was the student body of UC Irvine doing on the USC campus?

[myboynoah]

Get ready for sudden, dramatic change.

“We’re not quite there yet,” said a highly placed source involved in the process. “But the trend is moving there.”

Which means only this: Get ready for sudden, dramatic change. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are set to go west. No one should be surprised if Texas and Texas Tech come along, too.

[Portland Ute]

I think 9 is ideal and 12 is the max.

I actually think 10 or 11 is ideal so long as everybody plays each other and every conference has the same number of in-conference games.

I think 8 conference games is too few. 1/3 of the season spent on OOC games seems excessive, to me.

I'm also not a fan of the system that the PAC12 is using. While it benefits Utah this year, I think it's lame that you essentially compare apples to oranges to determine a division champ. It's dumb that one program plays, for instance, USC, Stanford and Oregon while another one plays USC, WSU and OrSU.

Again, I realize it benefits Utah this year, but I think it's lame.

I like a true round robin format where everybody plays everyone else. I'd actually rather have 11 conference games and one warm up than do it the way it's going to be done.

[LA Ute]

Get ready for sudden, dramatic change.

I don't think so. Wilner persuades me:

I’ve talked to two sources in the past 36 hours who have a keen understanding of the realignment puzzle in general and the University of Texas culture in particular … and neither believes UT will join the Pac-12. Ever.

Yes, football pride and power are part of the equation:

Texas is used to being the big boy on the block. In the Pac-16, it would have the same revenue cut and the same voting power as Texas Tech (and Washington State, for that matter).

If anything, the Longhorns would be in the minority, an outsider — the power center of the league being … as it has always been … in California.

And UT would have to fold The Longhorn Network (four years of work) into the Pac-12′s regional network structure, allowing plenty of Texas Tech programming on the airwaves.

None of that seems desirable for the Longhorns.

But sources believe there are larger issues at play that will keep Texas out of the Pac.

“It has a different culture,” one source said.

Another suggested UT’s future conference affiliation is more about state political aims than football revenue. And the Lone Star State’s true power-brokers have always looked east — to the halls of Washington in particular.

This is the state that produced LBJ and the Bushes … and now has another presidential candidate, Gov. Rick Perry.

The university, which has one of the nation’s finest law schools, considers itself the academic equal of the Ivies, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins.

(Not that Stanford and Cal aren’t academic powerhouses. It’s just that they aren’t east coast academic powerhouses.)

Would the state’s power brokers — and that includes Perry — really allow the state university to move its center of gravity to the west coast?

That, not The Longhorn Network, could be what keeps Texas out of the Pac-12.

One source believes UT will do whatever it takes to keep the Big 12 breathing, even if that means making fiscal and Longhorn Network concessions to Oklahoma.

And in the event of departures by Texas A&M and Missouri and the Oklahoma schools?

The Longhorns — with the aid of ESPN, which wants the Big 12 to survive — would attempt to reconstitute the conference with Texas Tech, Baylor, Kansas and Kansas State, Iowa State and a handful of newcomers (Houston? SMU? Pittsburgh? Louisville?) before throwing in the towel.

And then? Then they’d pack up their bags and head down the road to football independence, perhaps placing their Olympic sports in the ACC, and maneuver to gain the same Bowl Championship Series access as Notre Dame.

They’d do all that before they’d cast their athletic, academic, cultural and political lot with a conference on the “other” coast …

… Anyhow, just something to chew on as we watch the future of college football unfold over these next few weeks.

[Coach McGuirk]

Get ready for sudden, dramatic change.

Second time in two years the PAC is being played and apparently they have no idea.

[myboynoah]

I don't think so. Wilner persuades me:

Wilner.

Once again, no mention of BYU. Why am I not surprised.

[Portland Ute]

Wilner.

Once again, no mention of BYU. Why am I not surprised.

Do you think Wilner is picking on BYU?

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/college...y-boise-state/

[Hsaru]

So in the Pac-12 non-division games affect ability to play in the CCG? That seems like a bad idea if true.

[BoylenOver]

So in the Pac-12 non-division games affect ability to play in the CCG? That seems like a bad idea if true.

It isn't true. The divisional tie-breaker is head-to-head.

[LA Ute]

Second time in two years the PAC is being played and apparently they have no idea.

[myboynoah]

Do you think Wilner is picking on BYU?

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/college...y-boise-state/

Just an ongoing joke with LA about Wilner's penchant for leaving BYU out of the expansion conversation. He was right when it came to the Pac-12, but to miss this in the Big 12 discussion makes one wonder.

[BoylenOver]

Just an ongoing joke with LA about Wilner's penchant for leaving BYU out of the expansion conversation. He was right when it came to the Pac-12, but to miss this in the Big 12 discussion makes one wonder.

I wonder what makes you say that.

[myboynoah]

I wonder what makes you say that.

I'm confused by your . He was right when he projected about BYU not being considered, and that was confirmed by the reporting at the time. Rarely was BYU ever mentioned, if ever after the process got started. Conversely, BYU is mentioned often when Big 12 expansion is considered, yet Wilner misses it.

[OrangeUte]

Here it comes. PAC 16. I'm going to force myself to be okay with this - excited even. If Larry Scott announces that the LHN remains but that it is not going to give Texas extra revenue, I'll be fine with that. If Texas gets an unequal share, then this thing is doomed from the beginning.

[LA Ute]

Here it comes. PAC 16. I'm going to force myself to be okay with this - excited even. If Larry Scott announces that the LHN remains but that it is not going to give Texas extra revenue, I'll be fine with that. If Texas gets an unequal share, then this thing is doomed from the beginning.

I can't believe Scott would let that happen. We'll see. I hate the superconference thing.