Rumor Mill: ND and Stanford to the B10 (B18?)
Mates,
Two-off rumor. From a reliable buddy who has Pac10 connections, and those Pac 10 connections are saying that is the latest. These connections were correct and out front of the USC/UCLA to the B10, too. I am hoping someone can contact the Counter-Strike guy and get the real 'down low' on who is next to join our fine league.
What do you think? And if not these suggested two, then who?
I hope you are all having a dynamite holiday weekend. I did hear from one mgoblogger who is going cross-country and is having a pretty epic trip with his family. What do you have going on?
Happy Independence day, a few hours early.
XM
Should invite Navy then.
I think the real reason is they are trying to get Rutgers to self-exile.
Looking at Rutger's football W-L, I'd say they already self-exiled....
I mean, it crossed my mind that's what they may be doing so it's definitely not a stretch
That's what Dennis Dodd was suggesting the B1G might propose in order to entice ND--Stanford have become a regular opponent, and now ND would have (I believe) five traditional opponents in the B1G.
I for one would welcome this--strengthens the sense that the B1G is about being a good university as well as a football factory.
After the news of UCLA and USC, Stanford and Notre Dame were the first 2 schools to come to mind. Makes sense from an athletic and scholastic point of view.
As an alumnus of both Michigan and Stanford, I would be thrilled if we brought Stanford in. Given my proximity to Seattle, I hope ND says no and we bring Washington on instead.
Washington and Oregon will be added soon. I am most curious about who is coming from the ACC. It could go to 36 and beyond-4 nine team divisions. Evidently a lot of ground work has been done here. Good bye NCAA???
ACC is locked up until 2036. Nobody is leaving.
Leaving tomorrow morning at 4:00 am to drive down to FL for our sons wedding. Prayers for safe travel appreciated! So excited and get so surreal
not just for safe travels, but also a blessed marriage for your son.
Please don't drive tired. My friend was trying go drive from his daughter's wedding in NC to Lubbock, TX and most likely fell asleep at the wheel killing himself and his wife. Very tragic. I hope you have a safe trip and enjoy tour son/s wedding.
There's language in their grant of rights deal that says if ND chooses to join a conference in football before 2036 they are contractually obligated to join the ACC. So unless ND's lawyers find a loophole I dunno about this.
Meh. Loophole just means an extra zero.
Yep, the Big Ten could easily make up that $100mil exit fee in a year just in extra media rights revenue.
So, when the ACC dissolves to whom will ND pay their obligations???
Ahhh, the wicked double.
Yeah, that's one of many reasons this rumor about ND seems flimsy. It may well happen but the ACC doesn't need to make a move right now so I can't see why they would. Clemson, FSU, and Miami aren't going anywhere with their current media contract in place with ESPN, and if anything ND stands to lose money if they jump to a conference right now because of their own media deal with NBC.
I do think the ultimate future is for ND to join the Big 10 but I'd be shocked if it happened this year.
The danger for ND is losing opponents as an independent. There is a lot of leverage BIG can pull now with USC onboard. ND may have to choose between ACC or BIG.
Oh there's a loophole. The ACC lawyers should have boned up on their Johanno-Pauline law before signing that thing.
ND probably had a loophole built in for the B1G when they joined the ACC.
To hell with ND!
Also, if they want in you have to take them. Also, F'em.
I’m still hanging out at the annual MGoBlog 4th of July camping trip waiting for everyone to show up.
you got the firewood ready? do we need to see the ranger for permits or did you pay for those, too?
And Cal? They will not survive if they dont add them with stanford, USC, and UCLA. this is ridiculous. they are literally destroying college football programs
It's beginning to dawn on me just how fucked up of a move adding USC/UCLA is turning out to be. Cal might legitimately cut their football program, and then be forced to cut their non-revenue programs. I really hope they join the BigTen.
TBH this whole thing is horrible. Uconn suffered the same fate after the big east fell apart. What makes CFB great is watching a variety of games from every conference because they impact Michigan football in some shape or form. These moves will make watching the smaller conferences pointless similar to watching div 1-aa football. Its a damn shame.
As long as they don't cut pole vaulting. Allison Stokke made me love Cal track and field forever.
Not sure the ramifications of Cal cutting football, but smaller California schools cut their programs in droves in the 70s, 80s, and 90s culminating in St. Mary's (a program with some history) dropping in the early 2000s. There is some precedent here.
If a big school were to completely cut, I would not be surprised to see a few others being left behind in the big conference races do something similar, particular out West and in the Northeast.
Meh F Cal. They haven’t been relevant in how long so isn’t it their own problem?
Thats not the point. Upsets acorss the country are fun to tune into. When you destroy these programs that means less games to watch. They dont have to be relevant to enjoy their games. Be careful when you take pride in the destruction of other football programs. The only reason why this isnt happening to us is because we were just lucky that we were in the big ten. Anything can happen in the future. Im sure 30 years ago pac-10 fans would never have seen this coming.
I get what you're trying to say because I like upsets as much as the next guy, but college football has moved so far away from what it was in just the last 10 years. Some of this is on the Pac 12 and Big 12 for not adjusting to reality of the situation. Even when Nebraska was added some 10 years ago to the Big Ten, everyone warned that this is the beginning of super-conferences. This got even worse when ESPN/Fox began taking sides and siding with specific conferences. And even more so with limited playoffs with Pac 12 consistently as the odd one out. With the big moves of Texas, Oklahoma, USC, and UCLA, the dominoes for that are falling and falling fast. I hope for Cal's sake that it can survive this. But I think the super conferences are inevitable and anyone who is not in one is going to be demoted to a "Group of 5" status.
My biggest question now is how big are these conferences going to get. If it's large enough, we may end up with sub-conferences under Big Ten/SEC which ultimately looks the same as it is now, with the different sub-conferences playing each other in a playoff system for the best spot and then having a "super bowl" of sorts with SEC vs Big Ten.
Here's where I think it might head. The B1G continues to add high academic schools with major sports programs (Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Cal, Utah, Colorado from PAC, Kansas, Pitt, UVa, UNC, Duke, GT maybe even making overtures to AAU schools in SEC (Texas, Texas A&M, Vandy, Florida)).
With potentially aroind 30 teams the B1G can take over the role of the NCAA (even hosting its own bball post season invitational) and becomes the high major college league that at least nods at the student-athlete model. SEC gets bigger, leaves NCAA and becomes semi-pro league.
B1G splits into 4 divisions in football the winners of whom playoff off at end of year. Because of the significant difference in models the B1G does not play the SEC.
Bowl games largely become intra conference affairs matching up similarly ranked teams from the same conference that haven't played each other.
The B1G could even take other conferences under its NCAA like oversight wing.
Several of the schools you mention are not high academic.
Really??? Like who?
Arizona. Utah. Kansas. Average at best academically. More like mediocre.
I think this is where we get into the distinction of "high level research university" v. Top 25 on USNWR. Utah usually holds up very well in terms of research dollars and is in the AAU, ditto Kansas and Arizona. No worse than MSU academically, at least for undergrad.
I think it's kinda funny that people think USC playing in the Big Ten would be such a colossal change in the sport, ruining it, killing programs, at the same time that high school seniors are openly promised a few million bucks to sign with a college team.
NIL/professionalization will - already has had - a much much bigger effect on the sport and its future than any conference re-alignment.
Even if all the conferences stayed the same, the arms race was always going to go in a direction where a team like Cal hoping to beat a team like USC is in the realm of fantasy in the mid to long term regardless of conference affiliation.
But has NIL increased the gap in talent? looking at the recruiting rankings the past 10 years i dont see much of change if your going based on player rankings. Even f a team gets 12 5 star qbs in 3 years only 1 can play. Theyll end up in the transfer portal. Theres only so many positions on each team. I think the transfer portal balances out the inequality with the NIL. Teams just have to know how to use the transfer portal properly.
Right now, NIL is in its infancy and many of the moves are more characterized by boldness than by intelligence. Quite frankly there's not a HS football prospect out there whose services are worth more than those of an NFL rookie. Over time these things will adjust themselves, and the elite teams will figure out ways to maximize their advantage through it.
I think the transfer portal may well play a key role in that because logically it makes far more sense to put together a team of 20-21 year old proven performers than 18-19 year old prospects. Quite logically it would make a ton of sense for a star player at Cal to move to USC if he can make a lot more money at USC. And I think that's just common sense even within NIL's original concept - your image rights are simply worth a lot more with a team that has a national reputation and will play in tons of nationally televised games.
Of course, other teams will still be able to field solid teams, sometimes very good teams. The elite will just get first pick at *everything* and can fill roster holes aggressively with seasoned star players. To compete you'll need to have a large fanbase and people willing to pour big money into athletics. College football's commercial landscape isn't the NFL, it's European soccer. Cal is Luton Town, USC is Man United. Amateurism, even the phony kind of 'old' college football, obscured these differences to a degree.
Yes, this has been my reaction to NIL as well, re: more European football than American. Big programs just have no incentive to handicap themselves with a salary cap, or even common sense if there are boosters willing to shell out the money. You'll see some teams able to hang out on the periphery of the big leagues and occasionally make some noise (IE Indiana is Everton), but the odds of a somewhat dormant brand like USC (Liverpool) being able to simply use money to be relevant again are way more likely than some middling team being able to rise up and win the whole thing.
Looks like CAL will have to coble together with WSU, OSU, UA, ASU, UT, and CU and try to get a few more teams like NM and CSU to join the PAC.
Agreed. I actually don’t like what happened with either conference expansion or NIL because it is destroying the few remaining good parts of the game for an uncharted course. But, the genie is out of the bottle. Great institutions like Cal may suffer because of it. That’s why it should behoove the universities to decide what they want to be and for legislators to decide what is acceptable for institutions whose primary missions are education and not professional sports. The contradiction will get resolved one way or another. I wouldn’t be surprised if the losers from all this bringing suit on anti-trust grounds now that college football is effectively a two conference oligopoly.
This wouldn't surprise me....but it also wouldn't excite me. I think I'd prefer Washington and Oregon in the West (give USC and UCLA some playmates) and UVA and UNC in the East. It's much more broad geographically....and is more aligned with B1G culturally (snobbish public schools instead of snobbish private schools).
I believe ND's plan is to get the SEC to let them join or they'll liquidate their student body.
who's Dante Moore going to play against when he is at Oregon?
Just cracked open a Two Hearted and headed over to the neighborhood fireworks 💥! Speaking of neighborhoods … I’ll be in yours next weekend XM. Short/busy trip but maybe stop in with wife and daughter.
yeah, well, you better stop in even if it's only for a bit. bring an empty cooler, too. leave with a farm 'care package'. profit.
lots going on at the farm so please do give me some advance notice. will be very good to see you, not mention, meet mrs. scanner and dear daughter scanner.
It makes money, thus makes cents.
Camping and off-roading in Missaukee. XM, is Missaukee your home county?
Have a great holiday.