(10-26-2022 10:48 AM)Mav Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 09:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  Ah, the original C-USA Virus has now infected the Big XII. We've seen it mutate and matriculate from C-USA to the Big East—it killed its host almost immediately—to the Aresco strain in the AAC. Now it seems to be in its Yormark phase in the Big XII. Keen eyes of science, pay attention!

The one constant I can think of between all of this is Cincinnati. Is Cincy the real conference killer?

Nothing compared to TCU-TIAA, SWC, WAC 16, MWC, CUSA, Big East

(10-26-2022 12:31 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 10:48 AM)Mav Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 09:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  Ah, the original C-USA Virus has now infected the Big XII. We've seen it mutate and matriculate from C-USA to the Big East—it killed its host almost immediately—to the Aresco strain in the AAC. Now it seems to be in its Yormark phase in the Big XII. Keen eyes of science, pay attention!

The one constant I can think of between all of this is Cincinnati. Is Cincy the real conference killer?

Nah, UC was one of the best programs in each of those conferences.

The only constant is the longstanding bias casted over urban public schools with ties from the Metro Conference (especially Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, and Memphis.) Those schools fell into hard times institutionally and athletically in the 1970s and 1980s but a lot of people haven't been around these campuses in recent times to see they aren't your daddy's "city school" anymore.

Houston was never in the Metro. But they were in the MVC as were all 4 of those at some point in the 60s/70s (not sure if all 4 were in at the same time).

(10-26-2022 12:26 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:13 PM)Mav Wrote:  Did the Big 12 ever really have a culture? Even at its most cohesive, it was a Frankenstein's monster of the Big 8 and the top end of the SWC. I'd say factionalism is a big part of why it's in this mess to begin with.

Will be less of that factionalism once OU and UT matriculate to the SEC

That's because the conference is going to be an AAC-style Island of Misfit Toys, offering brands and recruiting territory rather than anything of substance. You could make the argument the B1G is going in the same direction, but the old guard is still 10 teams, so it's going to be hard to get to a point where it's as bad as the AAC or XII.

Yormark: "As I've said all along, we do want to expand our geographic footprint ... if it's additive." - From interview with David Smoak on 365 Sports.

https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status...vvhIAsAAAA

(10-26-2022 12:46 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  IMO, Yormark’s comments about “going national” will not go over well with most B12 university presidents. Thoughts going through their minds…

1) He’s thinking that the B12 may need to further expand with schools further outside the current footprint (e.g., San Diego State, Boise State, Temple or Navy).
2) He’s thinking that the B12 will be building brand value around universities with national profiles (like BYU or Baylor?). Tone-deaf to the fact that the B12 consists mainly of public universities serving their communities.

The B1G can go “national” because it has state-flagships with massive enrollments and prestigious research reputations. Possibly, the ACC could try to go “national” because it has a lot of elite universities that purposely compete nationally for students. Going national has not helped stabilize membership in C-USA, nor the AAC. IMO, the AAC is somewhat unwinding its national aspirations by disproportionately inviting new schools from Texas.

The Big 12 schools are bigger on average than the ACC schools. UCF is the biggest school in the country. Texas Tech, Houston and Cincinnati are all the size of Big 10 schools. The remainder are pretty good sized other than TCU which is private, but its still bigger than Wake Forest.

(10-26-2022 12:31 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 10:48 AM)Mav Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 09:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  Ah, the original C-USA Virus has now infected the Big XII. We've seen it mutate and matriculate from C-USA to the Big East—it killed its host almost immediately—to the Aresco strain in the AAC. Now it seems to be in its Yormark phase in the Big XII. Keen eyes of science, pay attention!

The one constant I can think of between all of this is Cincinnati. Is Cincy the real conference killer?

Nah, UC was one of the best programs in each of those conferences.

The only constant is the longstanding bias casted over urban public schools with ties from the Metro Conference (especially Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, and Memphis.) Those schools fell into hard times institutionally and athletically in the 1970s and 1980s but a lot of people haven't been around these campuses in recent times to see they aren't your daddy's "city school" anymore.

It was a joke. What Cincinnati's been able to accomplish both academically and athletically is pretty incredible, and you don't hear anything about them being a Texas-type "locker room cancer." They earned their way up to this point, for sure.

(10-26-2022 12:46 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  IMO, Yormark’s comments about “going national” will not go over well with most B12 university presidents.

University presidents will move in whatever direction they're swayed, e.g. Swofford and ESPN bamboozling those at football-first ACC schools to go along with a lowball 20-year media rights extension.

It's an eat or be eaten world right now in the top tier of College Revenue Sports. It doesn't take a take a rocket surgeon to convince anxious Big XII presidents there's strength in numbers -- especially when your knocking the competition down a peg or two via the additions

(10-26-2022 12:09 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 10:33 AM)goodknightfl Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 09:50 AM)Huan Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 09:44 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  IMO, when you have lemons, you try to make lemonade - but you call it something even more delicious, like Hawaiian Punch.

IMO, the Big 12 wishes that USC/UCLA had left for the B1G at the same time as TX and OU left for the SEC. If that had happened, I don't think they add UCF/Houston/Cincy, they wait and try to get the four-corners schools from the PAC. Schools that are closer geographically and culturally. Not "national".

But it didn't happen that way, meaning they are stuck with those three schools, which by definition makes them a "national" conference. When your conference stretches from Lubbock to Ames to Orlando to Morgantown, that is pretty darn national.

So since you are stuck with that, you work that angle, which in this case means yeah, hoping the four corners schools want to come too.

they were good adds as competitive programs and good markets. the r8 were largely in low population centers with limited market reach. the saving grace of the big 12 was a strong presence in texas.

i think the n4 are better than the c4

I think the upside is higher, not sure about the better.

I think Cincy and UCF have high upsides, but not as "Big 12" members. They will never be integrated in to Big 12 culture - WV hasn't in the past 10 years.

The B1G clearly doesn't think that is a problem with USC and UCLA. But IMO, Cincy and UCF aren't USC/UCLA and never will be.

Cincy and UCF clearly haven't been USCLA over the past 5 years, they've been far better. And as far as Big 12 culture, what makes you think you are qualified to say what that is? I'm not, I graduated before we joined the big 12, and we've been gone to greener pastures for over a decade. You could argue persuasively that texas, OU, Nebraska, A&M, CU and Missouri were the heart of the original big 12. With all of them gone or leaving soon, the new big 12 will have it's own, unique identity. I'd argue that all of the current and soon-to-be members should all be viewed as founding members of a new conference that just happens to share a name with an older version.

(10-26-2022 09:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  Ah, the original C-USA Virus has now infected the Big XII. We've seen it mutate and matriculate from C-USA to the Big East—it killed its host almost immediately—to the Aresco strain in the AAC. Now it seems to be in its Yormark phase in the Big XII. Keen eyes of science, pay attention!

Lol. Odd take. The CUSA plan---which is actually to take the best schools available---regardless of location---has actually been a winning strategy (outperforming the "stay regional" option)---with one caveat---it works well until the quality of the distant school is little different that the quality of the nearby schools. At that point, its no longer worth the downside of an over sized footprint when the nearby schools are nearly as good as the distant potential addition. Both the early version of CUSA and the original AAC both were very successful large footprint experiments--especially the AAC that vastly exceeded most everyone's expectations.

Taking the 4-corners would likely accomplish what Yormark is shooting for---a 16 team league that has around 20% of its inventory in the eastern time zone, 50% of its inventory in the central time zone, and 30% of its inventory in the Mountain and Pacific western time zones. Thats a pretty good split without its schools having to deal with regularly traveling go all the way to the Pacific coast.

(10-26-2022 12:46 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  The B1G can go “national” because it has state-flagships with massive enrollments and prestigious research reputations. Possibly, the ACC could try to go “national” because it has a lot of elite universities that purposely compete nationally for students.

Name one school the ACC would accept that'd sign John Swofford's GoR?

(10-26-2022 12:29 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  It's just not happening for Yormark. The longer the PAC10 survives, the more likely it scoops up the 3/4 Big 8 and a pair of Texas schools to complete the full house.

The Revenge of the Kliavkoff move is SDSU + 4 Big 8 plus Houston TCU TTech with eastern schools getting an ACC bid (at least two perhaps).

While I struggle to see this happening, what with all the headwinds the Pac faces matriculating relative to the big 12, it would make for a lot of fun here on the forums.

(10-26-2022 12:50 PM)Mav Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:26 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:13 PM)Mav Wrote:  Did the Big 12 ever really have a culture? Even at its most cohesive, it was a Frankenstein's monster of the Big 8 and the top end of the SWC. I'd say factionalism is a big part of why it's in this mess to begin with.

Will be less of that factionalism once OU and UT matriculate to the SEC

That's because the conference is going to be an AAC-style Island of Misfit Toys, offering brands and recruiting territory rather than anything of substance. You could make the argument the B1G is going in the same direction, but the old guard is still 10 teams, so it's going to be hard to get to a point where it's as bad as the AAC or XII.

Sort of. The AAC was a pretty successful proposition that was built around trying to be the best of the rest. Assuming the Big12 gets the 4-corners, it will be superior to the what remains of the Pac12 and it will be pretty similar to what the ACC looks like once its GOR expires. One big difference between the AAC rebuild and the Big12 rebuild ----the Big12 will have a much better geographic core at its center with superior branding---so despite having some representation in the east and west, the new Big12 will have a better core identity than the AAC ever did. Thats largely because the Big12 is rebuilding from a core of 8 remaining members where as by late 2012---the AAC/Big East knew if only had 3 former Big East legacy members that it would be rebuilding around.

(10-26-2022 12:34 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:17 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:09 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  I think Cincy and UCF have high upsides, but not as "Big 12" members. They will never be integrated in to Big 12 culture - WV hasn't in the past 10 years.

It seems like that is what Yomark is trying to help sell into existence: WVU, UC and UCF will form an "eastern wing" of the Big12, so instead of thinking of it as "and WVU on an island", people may come to think of it as "and the Eastern Big12 schools".

Quote: The B1G clearly doesn't think that is a problem with USC and UCLA. But IMO, Cincy and UCF aren't USC/UCLA and never will be.

The Big Ten may simply think that the problem is there but is not big enough to offset all of the advantages of adding USC/UCLA.

Yeah, I think that's what the B1G thought, and IMO understandably so. The pluses for adding them outweigh the geographical and cultural minuses - and heck the geographical burden will largely be borne by those two schools anyway, not the rest of the B1G.

If a school is valuable enough, then you throw other considerations out the window. To me, Cincy/USF/BYU were not valuable enough, which was why they were never pro-actively added. They were desperation-backfill after the league lost its breadwinners.

BYU was never selected by the Pac/big12 because of bias rather than lack of value. And that was their right as Conferences, they could do as they wished. The only reason that bias has been overcome now is that the big 12 was desperate last year and BYU brought so much value that they could no longer be ignored. I think that the Pac would also have added BYU and SDSU by now if BYU was still available.

(10-26-2022 12:53 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:46 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  IMO, Yormark’s comments about “going national” will not go over well with most B12 university presidents. Thoughts going through their minds…

1) He’s thinking that the B12 may need to further expand with schools further outside the current footprint (e.g., San Diego State, Boise State, Temple or Navy).
2) He’s thinking that the B12 will be building brand value around universities with national profiles (like BYU or Baylor?). Tone-deaf to the fact that the B12 consists mainly of public universities serving their communities.

The B1G can go “national” because it has state-flagships with massive enrollments and prestigious research reputations. Possibly, the ACC could try to go “national” because it has a lot of elite universities that purposely compete nationally for students. Going national has not helped stabilize membership in C-USA, nor the AAC. IMO, the AAC is somewhat unwinding its national aspirations by disproportionately inviting new schools from Texas.

The Big 12 schools are bigger on average than the ACC schools. UCF is the biggest school in the country. Texas Tech, Houston and Cincinnati are all the size of Big 10 schools. The remainder are pretty good sized other than TCU which is private, but its still bigger than Wake Forest.

FWIW - Per UCF’s website, less than 8% of their students are from out-of-state. Having a large enrollment doesn’t always equate with seeking national travel for athletic teams. By “going national”, UCF is likely to remain an island in the B12.

On the other hand, I believe that the B12 is a great fit for Texas Tech…but that’s because games against TCU, Baylor and Houston help build their brand with potential state students. Lubbock is already isolated, but the B12 actually helps bring the broader Texas market to the university.

(10-26-2022 12:46 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  IMO, Yormark’s comments about “going national” will not go over well with most B12 university presidents. Thoughts going through their minds…

1) He’s thinking that the B12 may need to further expand with schools further outside the current footprint (e.g., San Diego State, Boise State, Temple or Navy).
2) He’s thinking that the B12 will be building brand value around universities with national profiles (like BYU or Baylor?). Tone-deaf to the fact that the B12 consists mainly of public universities serving their communities.

The B1G can go “national” because it has state-flagships with massive enrollments and prestigious research reputations. Possibly, the ACC could try to go “national” because it has a lot of elite universities that purposely compete nationally for students. Going national has not helped stabilize membership in C-USA, nor the AAC. IMO, the AAC is somewhat unwinding its national aspirations by disproportionately inviting new schools from Texas.

The big 12 is going to give Yormark wide latitude. He's an out of the box hire who has succeeded in everything he's ever done. And clearly when he says "national" he means "we have 3 on the eastern wing and we want to add 4c on the western wing", not "omg Temple or Navy would be a great fit for us".

Anybody he adds will be at a minimum on the Cincy/UCF/UH level, those schools have been spending at a P5 level for years in anticipation of rising to actual p5 status, and they've had teams that are better than most p5 teams in football and basketball. If the 4c and the ACC weren't all in play now or in the foreseeable future, I could see Memphis as getting another look, but for now I think that they'll be viewed as a backfill for either the big 12 or ACC depending upon how things shake out between them next decade.

(10-26-2022 01:16 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  BYU was never selected by the Pac/big12 because of bias rather than lack of value....

I think that for the Big12, it was a combination of the two ... while BYU may have been in the middle of the pack in the Big12 as far as media value, so much of the value of the Big12 came from Texas and Oklahoma that adding another school in the middle of the pack would not have increased media value.

And of course Texas would have been against the add because they would have viewed BYU policies as blatantly discriminatory.

Take out Texas and Oklahoma, both obstacles are removed in a single step.

(10-26-2022 01:24 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:53 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 12:46 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  IMO, Yormark’s comments about “going national” will not go over well with most B12 university presidents. Thoughts going through their minds…

1) He’s thinking that the B12 may need to further expand with schools further outside the current footprint (e.g., San Diego State, Boise State, Temple or Navy).
2) He’s thinking that the B12 will be building brand value around universities with national profiles (like BYU or Baylor?). Tone-deaf to the fact that the B12 consists mainly of public universities serving their communities.

The B1G can go “national” because it has state-flagships with massive enrollments and prestigious research reputations. Possibly, the ACC could try to go “national” because it has a lot of elite universities that purposely compete nationally for students. Going national has not helped stabilize membership in C-USA, nor the AAC. IMO, the AAC is somewhat unwinding its national aspirations by disproportionately inviting new schools from Texas.

The Big 12 schools are bigger on average than the ACC schools. UCF is the biggest school in the country. Texas Tech, Houston and Cincinnati are all the size of Big 10 schools. The remainder are pretty good sized other than TCU which is private, but its still bigger than Wake Forest.

FWIW - Per UCF’s website, less than 8% of their students are from out-of-state. Having a large enrollment doesn’t always equate with seeking national travel for athletic teams. By “going national”, UCF is likely to remain an island in the B12.

On the other hand, I believe that the B12 is a great fit for Texas Tech…but that’s because games against TCU, Baylor and Houston help build their brand with potential state students. Lubbock is already isolated, but the B12 actually helps bring the broader Texas market to the university.

Lubbock feels isolated when you live in the Texas Triangle, but it's really not that far. My nephew is a fish at Tech, it's about 6 hrs to get there from SA and 5 hrs from Dallas. That's an easy drive for Major Conference foes.

(10-26-2022 01:33 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(10-26-2022 01:16 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  BYU was never selected by the Pac/big12 because of bias rather than lack of value....

I think that for the Big12, it was a combination of the two ... while BYU may have been in the middle of the pack in the Big12 as far as media value, so much of the value of the Big12 came from Texas and Oklahoma that adding another school in the middle of the pack would not have increased media value.

And of course Texas would have been against the add because they would have viewed BYU policies as blatantly discriminatory.

Take out Texas and Oklahoma, both obstacles are removed in a single step.

You're right, for the old big 12, BYU was probably not going to move the needle much, but for the new big 12 I think that they'll be very near the top of the heap (Brand value wise) from day 1.

It's not like big/pac were removing BYU for having a different vibe from the rest of the conference, they just decided to not add them. And, viewing through the lens of "pre OU/tx and USCLA moves", it could very well have been the right non-move for both of them. It's only in retrospect that we see how BYU could have been a strong addition and added stability to either Conference.

(10-26-2022 12:13 PM)Mav Wrote:  Did the Big 12 ever really have a culture? Even at its most cohesive, it was a Frankenstein's monster of the Big 8 and the top end of the SWC. I'd say factionalism is a big part of why it's in this mess to begin with.

The B12 culture is talking like a giant killer while barely being able to hold a conference together.

(10-26-2022 01:16 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  BYU was never selected by the Pac/big12 because of bias rather than lack of value. And that was their right as Conferences, they could do as they wished. The only reason that bias has been overcome now is that the big 12 was desperate last year and BYU brought so much value that they could no longer be ignored. I think that the Pac would also have added BYU and SDSU by now if BYU was still available.

Keep in mind that the question of 'bias' is as much a question of BYU's biases as anyone else's.

Most universities have no problem with same-sex married couples living in campus housing while attending grad school. It's all perfectly legal, the law of the land.

Are those students going to feel welcome at another school's campus events, if that school takes punitive measures on its own students for 'having members of the opposite sex' in their rooms?

It's a fair question to ask. Rest assured it is one university leaders do ask when considering affiliations.