dperry
Postdoc
Posts: 2215
Loc: Houston, TX
Reg: 11-24-04
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04-03-24 10:28 PM - Post#366944
In response to mobrien
Agree on the ACC. Clemson and Florida State are leaving as soon as they can. Every other school with any football pretensions will rush for the exits after that. Big question is what happens with Duke. Maybe one of the SEC, Big 10, or Big 12 will take them with basketball in mind, but they're not bringing much to the table for football.
I see two big questions after that. The first is whether the Big 12 is able to survive. They've tried to rebound from losing Texas and Oklahoma, but it's not promising. The second is how long the Big East is able to compete with the big boys once the football money becomes even more overwhelming. For now, they've got some of the premier teams in the country, but you have to wonder about UConn looking to leave again and Hurley potentially moving to the SEC or Big 10 if it doesn't (He'd be one of the few people UK would want to follow Cal).
Could easily end up in a situation where the SEC and Big 10 split up the rest of the ACC and Big 12 between them, and the Big East fades to become more like the old A-10, a very good 3 or 4 bid mid-major league. The two mega conferences would hold the NCAA tournament hostage, threatening to leave and start their own tourney, if they didn't get more bids and force automatic qualifiers into First Four-type games. Just a horrible result that nobody other than the people running the SEC and Big 10 want.
Again, I'm not sure that the ACC contract is going to be easily breakable. That being said, when USC and UCLA announced they were jumping to the Big 10, I immediately thought that if I was Oregon State or Washington State, I would be screaming at the commissioner and the rest of the league every meeting to merge with the Big 12, because if it became a matter of people picking over the carcass, they were going to get left behind. If FSU and Clemson do succeed in getting out of the ACC, I'm advocating exactly the same strategy for Wake and BC, because the same is true for them. I think Brett Yormark has done an incredible job leading the Big 12, given that it was a dead league walking even just a couple of years ago, but if I were him and got an offer like that, I would take it. Particularly if you could keep UNC onside, you'd immediately have the best basketball conference in the country, and you'd have enough football oomph to remain credible, particularly since most of the schools are in growing states. Again, you have to keep as many schools as unified as you can, or else the big boys will just swoop in and rend you limb from limb.
David Perry
Penn '92
"Hail, Alma Mater/Thy sons cheer thee now
To thee, Pennsylvania/All rivals must bow!!!" |
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