The Alliance T.B.A. Next Week (?) and May Delay CFB Playoff Expansion
The Athletic's Auerbach reports an alliance between the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC could become official as early as next week. Auerbach: "Schools within the three conferences believe they are like-minded, that they want to continue to prioritize broad-based sports offerings and that the academic profile of their institutions matters — as does graduating athletes. [...] There are many administrators in the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC who believe in the collegiate model and want it to continue; even those who have enthusiastically embraced name, image and likeness reform don't want to see college football become an actual minor league system for the NFL with a draft, player salaries and the like. [...] There is hope within all three leagues that their commissioners will align to delay the implementation of an expanded College Football Playoff." (link)
H/T: the D1Ticker news letter
August 20th, 2021 at 8:47 AM ^
Damn it Jim!
August 20th, 2021 at 9:08 AM ^
You did it you crazy son of a bitch, you did
August 20th, 2021 at 11:28 AM ^
always a fun photo to include
August 20th, 2021 at 2:06 PM ^
I'm a doctor, not a comedian/masturbator!
August 24th, 2021 at 3:00 PM ^
I'm not a masturbator/comedian - but I play one on TV!
August 20th, 2021 at 3:24 PM ^
Never gets old ??
August 21st, 2021 at 10:03 AM ^
My wife, passing through the room and glancing at my screen: "What's he looking at and where are his hands?"
Me: "I'm not sure we want to know!"
August 20th, 2021 at 8:52 AM ^
I think it’s silly for the “Alliance” members to think that an expanded playoff is incompatible with their professed values about the importance of the academic side of college athletics. Allowing the SEC and Clemson to dominate the playoff spots doesn’t aid the “Alliance” at all.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:05 AM ^
It does if you secede from their playoff and just make your own.
The Alliance needs to brand itself as "real college" football and compare and contrast that with the SEC's cheating and semipro football. That's the best path ahead. This is a good first step.
The likely future state of all this is going to be a semipro league of non- or barely-students under SEC domination and then Alliance real college football. Certainly the former for sure, and then the question is whether you sell out and join, or do something else. Doing something else is the way better option.
I would expect Ohio to eventually join the SEC. Given its brand and TV eyeballs, Michigan will likely be asked, too -- but their answer will almost certainly be "no."
August 20th, 2021 at 9:18 AM ^
I guess you could end up with an NFC-AFC kind of thing with the winner of each group meeting for the national title.
August 21st, 2021 at 12:18 AM ^
Ok, Alabama vs Ohio St, same as we have now.
Honestly, I didn't like the Alabama vs Georgia, or the Alabama vs LSU, National Championships anyway.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:49 AM ^
LOL, I appreciate the amount of denial necessary to assert the "Alliance" isn't already a semipro league. I'm sure these discussions aren't in any way concerned with economics, strictly just the sanctity of the game.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:50 AM ^
Agree. It probably won't happen, but i'm all for the SEC being minor league football and everyone else joining together in a scheduling alliance based on location. That sounds awesome. Squeeze out the SEC and let them do whatever and just have your own playoff/post season.
I just need KSU to get involved somehow in there. Seeing the Big 12 commish getting pantsed again, isn't a great feeling.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:00 AM ^
If this happened, wouldn't the best players all go to the SEC then? It seems that the alliance would become a layer between SEC and group of five. It may take years to get there, but the talent would probably choose the SEC if that's where the money is. Most high end players seem to talk about college as a stepping stone to the league.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:11 AM ^
Yes it would. And to add to the problems of the "Alliance" washing their hands of the SEC as a semi-pro league, this further encourages the SEC to treat their athletes less like students and more like employees.
Probably 80% of SEC (football) athletes don't play in the Pros afterwards, and almost none of the other sports do. What do those athletes do without any attempt to get them a degree to fall back on.
And honestly, unless this "Alliance" is mandating 2 of the 3 non-con games be against other leagues, it's a waste of time and worth about as much to the B1G as the paper it's printed on.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:52 AM ^
What you're suggesting is a return to the days of disputed national champions, which we occasionally had back in the Bowls & Polls era, most recently in 1997.
Personally, I wouldn't mind that, but the public pressure to have an ultimate championship game between the SEC and the "Alliance" would be irresistible, and eventually we'd be right back where we started.
I don't believe it's sustainable for the "Alliance" to secede from a large portion of the college football landscape.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:36 PM ^
Lol that is a terrible path forward. This Alliance thing is a joke, both because its all a bunch of meaningless words that none of them believe and also because it makes no damn sense
August 20th, 2021 at 3:33 PM ^
After I read your 3rd para the thought came to my mind that Ohio would end up leaving the Alliance, just a matter of when. Then you nailed it. Hope Michigan says no thanks.
August 20th, 2021 at 6:16 PM ^
I have had the same thought. It’s time for the SEC to go do their own thing and just have another professional league. No sense even pretending the players are going to school. Then schools that still believe in the academic side and want players to also get a valuable education try to keep college football like it currently is
August 20th, 2021 at 9:18 AM ^
Can someone explain to me why the alliance would be against playoff expansion? I just don't get it unless they are concerned about it being dominated by the SEC. But under the existing expansion model, it doesn't seem like the SEC would get more than two (maybe 3) teams in the playoffs, which would still leave plenty of room for, say, the B1G to have two teams in as well. Michigan would have made an expanded playoff at least two times under Harbaugh.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:36 AM ^
I assume the thought process is that, if you keep the playoff at 4 teams, the SEC will get locked out of 2 of them. One simply won't take 3-4 SEC teams when OSU, Ore, USC, Clems, FSU, plus 1-2 others have one loss or less. With UF, Bama, UGa, Tex, OU, among others in the SEC that's really choking 3+ SEC schools out of the CFP every year.
Conversely, expanding to 12 will open up the SEC to having 4-6 schools potentially.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:39 AM ^
Well put. Going to 12 is way too much, 8 is fine although I'm not really sure we even need to do that. You're right - a 12 team playoff will just allow the SEC to overwhelm it. It will be insufferable. Eight will be plenty, but a 12-team playoff also puts almost no emphasis on the regular season or even coming close to winning your conference. Also, watch down-year 8-4 Georgia, Florida and Auburn teams get into a 12-team playoff while the playoff also still finds ways to exclude undefeated or one-loss UCF/Boise State-type teams.
August 20th, 2021 at 3:37 PM ^
This. It will become more NFL-like where a couple of losses don’t matter. One of the reasons I love college ball is every game matters and a 12-team playoffs will ensure teams like Alabama get in every year, even if they lose to Auburn they can rest starters and tank the SEC title game because it won’t matter.
August 20th, 2021 at 1:53 PM ^
No. The thought process is actually that 3 conferences can vote as a block to keep the playoff at 4 in order to stall until the current TV deal is done for the playoff. That way other bidders can be in on it, including CBS, FOX, and possibly Amazon as well as any other tech company that wants to get in on it by then. In the meantime, with only 4 conferences left and 4 spots available for the playoff, there is probably only ONE representative for the SEC instead of 4-6 in the expanded 12 format. Additionally, it has the secondary effect of possibly breaking up the Big 12 faster as the other teams scramble. That would make it possible for UT/OK to enter the SEC faster which absorbs both of those schools and makes it a scenario where OK doesn't get an easy road to a playoff spot. All of those things are better for the alliance 3 conferences.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:13 AM ^
"For example, Big Ten schools sponsor an average of 24.8 sports per campus, with the ACC (23.8) and Pac-12 (22.9) not far behind. SEC schools offer an average of 19.9 sports." - from the piece on The Athletic
So, across the board scheduling arrangements? Interesting.
I actually didn't realize that SEC schools host, on the whole, a slightly narrower variety of sports than schools in other conferences.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:56 AM ^
It's a big disparity when you figure the cheapest sports are probably a minimum of ~500k a year to support.
Also, schools within conferences don't even have the same sports. For example - Wisconsin doesn't have a baseball team
August 20th, 2021 at 3:39 PM ^
Gotta pay for waterfalls in the locker room somehow.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:03 AM ^
Most SEC schools don't have wrestling, men's or women"s lacrosse and field hockey.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:15 AM ^
I thought I heard somewhere the collegiate gymnastics was being extinct...with like 10 or so programs that still have gymnastics?
August 20th, 2021 at 1:14 PM ^
Men's gymnastics - yes. I think there"s still a decent amount of schools which have women"s gymnastics.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:09 AM ^
One thing I learned recently is that "Equestrian" is an SEC-sponsored sport (but not NCAA sport) and a handful of SEC teams have equestrian teams. Equestrian is a women's sport (I think?) but it's weird to look at the roster of sports these schools sponsor. Football eats up everything; there are basically no wrestling, men's gymnastics, soccer, lacrosse or volleyball teams (and of course no men's or women's ice hockey programs) in the entire SEC.
A more powerful SEC is not good for the future of college sports, especially ones that are not football [full disclosure: I am a big advocate/crank for non-revenue sports].
August 20th, 2021 at 10:38 AM ^
Yep, given the money they make, it's laughable that any of these schools have so few sports.
FWIW, this is a big reason I don't want KU in the B10 (and that they aren't a goot fit). I think KU has only 16 D1 varsity sports, the minimum the NCAA requires for D1 schools. Last I checked, anyway
August 20th, 2021 at 9:16 AM ^
This is exactly what I was hoping for.
Playoff is what matters. They need to isolate SEC as much as possible.
The first shot across the bow should be to move the baseball to summer, just to piss off SEC.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:34 AM ^
This comment is from reddit, not mine
"
The ACC-Big1G-PAC12 alliance will have disproportionate say in how the playoff is constructed and the TV rights. The three new commissioners aren't going to sign off on any playoff expansion they didn't have input.
This move is entirely about running out the clock on the current deal with E$PN and putting the playoff rights on the open market with Fox, CBS, Amazon, etc."
The article can talk about academics all they want, these conferences are all playing chess now for the biggest bag.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:46 AM ^
Damn I hope this is true. Would give me some confidence in Warren.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:21 AM ^
Also from that Reddit thread, what I thought to be the best comment:
[Unstated but implied that the SEC = Nazi Germany]
B1G = USA, most money and ratings firepower, biggest long term threat to the SEC, protected on all sides by oceans of academic research funding
ACC = USSR, allied but a little too much like the SEC for comfort, most likely to be invaded and mortally wounded by the SEC
Pac-12 = UK + European Resistance, strategically important and happy to make alliances… but you just know as soon as the wars over we’re gonna underfund our defenses and support an Olympic Sports welfare state instead
Big XII = Poland
August 20th, 2021 at 10:31 AM ^
There are a lot of comparisons to the 'balance of powers' theory of international relations. I was going to write a diary about it but I had a lot of other stuff come up recently. But, it's pretty similar; nature abhors a vaccuum and when there's an imbalance, the most powerful actors will move to fill it. And in the absence of Texas and Oklahoma, there is a sizable vaccuum in Big XII country now.
Is the Big XII (or what's left of it) maneuvering to be part of this "alliance". I haven't heard them mentioned, unless I missed it.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:05 AM ^
I’l love to read this diary. Thucydides called this shit ages ago: The real cause [of the alliance]… is the growth of the power of the SEC, and the alarm which this inspired in the B1G.
Extra points will be given for references to Morgenthau, Waltz, and Mearsheimer. And zombies. Can't forget about zombies...
August 20th, 2021 at 11:21 AM ^
I fail to understand why anyone would want the rest of the Big 12. I could see them hanging around like a Big East for some time. Kind of the big brother of the G5 kids, but the lack of money will eventually take it's toll on all those programs.
One of the Kansas programs would be attractive, but the other one is toast. I'd gladly trade one of the Indiana schools for KU. Okie State has a lot of money behind them, but without a Texas school of note with them, they aren't worth much. No, none of the other Big 12 Texas schools are "of note".
If they are smart they will stay together long enough to get what they can in rights fees from Oklahoma and Texas leaving.
August 20th, 2021 at 2:37 PM ^
Would be great if they include the b12 and did some realignment (like Neb, Colorado and Utah) to the B12 to start rebuilding that conference. That way you'd have 4 conferences and could have a nicely constructed post season alliance football playoff. Also, maybe the Alliance starts their own post-season bball tourney which could include invite to non-Alliance conference winner (except the SEC of course). This tourney would simultaneously give the finger to both the NCAA and SEC, which is a beautiful thing.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:13 AM ^
Big XII = Czechoslavakia.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:31 AM ^
Need a UM bass fishing team and a wakeboard team. My 13 year old is a 4* on Rivals for fishing and a rising 3* on the wakeboard. He will play both at UM.
August 20th, 2021 at 2:38 PM ^
Maybe start a "modern" biathlon. Bass fishing while wakeboarding.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:42 AM ^
This has a little nWo feel to it.
I like it.
F the SEC.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:40 AM ^
The more I hear about this 'Alliance', the more I dislike it. I mean, I guess its okay if you want to watch a second tier game. This whole 'academics first' idea, NIL or no NIL, will send the best players to the SEC. All the TV ratings will then migrate to the SEC, and 'Alliance' sports will eventually become G5 caliber.
The SEC expansion is a power grab aimed at a bigger share of the TV market. It'll get that, which will make it even more attractive to high end croots. That cycle will repeat itself. And if 'The Alliance' fails to make appropriate changes to keep pace, it will lose the race for TV viewership/money/croots.
Personally, I think this alliance thing is a short sighted look at the future. But only because I'd like to see non-SEC football be better at football than the SEC. I guess in the end it doesn't really matter either way. I'm going to continue to watch football. Whatever.
August 20th, 2021 at 2:45 PM ^
So the SEC gets more/most high end talent? I don't think it is going to be much fun to watch 16 professional SEC teams play each other. I'd rather watch college teams, which aren't as good, but at least maintain some semblance of the "student" part of student athlete. The NFL obviously has better average players than colleges, yet people still watch college football.
August 20th, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
I wonder if a team like Vandy would leave the SEC in this scenario?
August 20th, 2021 at 11:59 AM ^
What a stupid meaningless thing that with the delay of the playoff expansion is the dumbest timeline.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:27 PM ^
So the play here is to stop the planned playoff expansion and use the ALLIANCE as leverage to force the SEC to accept a playoff proposal that doesn't allow more than one at large per conference or something?
Good luck with that!