(02-12-2014 03:02 PM)C Marlow Wrote:  

(02-12-2014 02:48 PM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(02-12-2014 01:58 PM)C Marlow Wrote:  There is a lot of hoping, wishing and praying by a few fans within this thread that GOR's can be easily ripped apart. Unfortunately, this will not be the case as indicated by a number of posters in this thread and a few other threads.

Do people really wonder why "lesser P5 schools" like Indiana, Purdue, Wake, Miss St, Iowa St, etc. are in P5 conferences while other "more worthy schools" like USF, UCF, UCONN, Cincy, etc are not? It's really, really simple. Schools like OSU, Michigan, Texas, Alabama, etc. WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH their current conference mates. Not only that, but almost every P5 school is HAPPY where they are right now!!! Supposedly GT, UVA and UNC were offered invites to join the B1G. Those schools said "no thanks", and then elected to sign a GOR and remain a part of the ACC... AFTER TELLING THE B1G NO THANK YOU.

As of today, the majority of the P5 conference schools do not want to rub elbows with Cincy, UCONN, USF, etc. These are voluntary associations. It's not like the B1G was sitting there all happy and content many years ago and some powerful, unstoppable entity FORCED them to take Indiana, Purdue, Illinois on as member schools or else... There are no conspiracies to keep schools down or to ruin schools out of fear of competition or anything like that. The bottom line is that schools are associating together in the different conferences because they WANT to be together.

Those schools, most of them, have been in the same conferences for decades and decades. Originally founded based mainly on close geographical ties.

And this statement makes my point less relevant how? Let's take the B1G as an example. Since the majority of people believes that tradition is little more than fond memories that can be discarded, then why didn't OSU, Michigan, PSU, Wisconsin and the upper half of the B1G simply break apart and work with Texas, TAMU, OU, Kansas and Nebraska to put together a brand new conference that would have been a significant upgrade - athletically - for those involved? Hell, bring Okie St and Texas Tech along for the ride in order to lock down the big dogs from the Big XII and kick this party off 5 or 10 years ago??? It's because schools like OSU and Michigan STILL WANT TO ASSOCIATE with Minnesota and Indiana. The length of time they were together in a conference is meaningless. They could have easily gotten rid of the "lower tier schools" within the B1G and created a newer, better conference and then launched the BTN. Before you try to tell me that it was a different world back when the BTN first started and that conference realignment wasn't a consideration...spare me. Everyone has talked to everyone else about conference realignment scenarios for decades.

Bottom line is this: The conferences exist as they do today because the schools are content to associate with each other.