USC/UCLA to the Big Ten in 2024?
Source: USC and UCLA are planning to leave for the Big Ten as early as 2024. Move *has not been finalized* at the highest levels of power.
— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) June 30, 2022
Yeah, I don't think the PAC12 has any chips to negotiate with anyway
I gotta assume that the LA teams will try to double up on their trips east like they have done in the Pac12. For example UCLA basketball will probably play a game at Rutgers on a Wed/Thur then at Maryland that weekend
Absolutely love this. Great academics, great tradition, great programs. Would take Oregon and Washington too if the Pac12 falls apart
And Stanford, great school to visit, and a fun stadium experience.
So.... Legends and Leaders can make way for Coastlines and Cornfields, right?
Coastline:
UCLA
USC
Buttgers
Maryland
Penn State(?)
Wisconsin (Madison is on four lakes)
Northwestern (only one lake, but a really big one)
Staee (their fight song references a literal river bank. This is kinda a stretch, admittedly)
Hard to keep track anymore. However this helps with the competition level.
Auerbach is reporting that one of her sources is saying they predict this will end up with two super conferences, B1G and SEC, each with 20 teams.
this is awesome. would be better if they would add Cal, Stanford, Oregon and Washington.
20 team conference. 11 conference games, play everyone in your division and 2 crossover games that rotate, play every team from the other division twice each decade. 3 non-con games.
champ of each division plays in the title game.
West: Cal, Oregon, Stanford, Washington, USC, UCLA, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
East: NW, Illinois, IU, Purdont, Sparty, Meeechigan, AN Ohio State, PSU, Rutger, Maryland
by the time this got done, the SEC would also be at 20 or so teams, and then the SEC winner could play the B1G winner for the national championship. all other schools would be G5. or could do a 6 team playoff where the top 4 G5 schools have a playoff and the two winning teams play either SEC or B1G winner in the semis
Somewhere, somehow this needs to result in Rutger, MD and Penn State leaving the conference.
No one cares about your opinion RGard. But, I agree.
i'm ok with psu being in the conference but i agree on maryland and rutger.
trade them to the acc for uva and either nc or duke
I would add in ASU (Phoenix market--#10 MSA), because this is all about TV revenue and lots of Midwesterners in that city will bring in the ratings. Same with Colorado (Denver #19 MSA).
This will make it easier for Michigan to recruit in California. Therefore it's good. That's my take
Only if the California schools bring all that sunshine with them in February. Otherwise it won't do shit.
Massive news if true. It would be weird to travel from California and back multiple times a year. I'm interested to see how well they would hold up playing in Columbus, Madison, Ann Arbor in November.
On average it's colder in Pullman WA in November than Ann Arbor, Columbus, or Madison.
Holy s*** - this is nuts but also kind of cool.
Also, I'd get up to 2 chances per year to see Michigan play out here, so I'll take it.
I don't hate it.
Sounds like it's mostly a done deal. A crazy move and definitely improves the conference on and off the field.
I do wonder if this pushes Stanford, Cal, UW, and Oregon to look elsewhere or if the Pac-12 starts trying to poach teams from the MWC (like Boise St.) and maybe even tries to pull BYU away from the Big 12.
Dante may want to wait a bit.
OMG! My concept is coming to fruition! It’s called the Big PAC 20!
MD, Rutgers, NE and Penn State take a hike and the remaining ten teams form the Big Division.
USC, UCLA, AZ, ASU, Cal, OR, OR ST, Stanford, WA and WSU form the PAC division.
Each team plays three non-conference games and the 9 other teams in their division.
The division winners play each other in Pasadena for the Big PAC 20 conference championship.
The winner gets an auto-bid to the CoFoPoff
Two other 20 team super-conferences would be formed in similar fashion to pull in a total of 60/65 current P5 schools. The champions of these two super conferences would also get auto-bids.
The non-power 5 schools would have a play-in tournament for the 4th spot.
It would be glorious
I'm down with this..."MD, Rutgers, NE and Penn State take a hike and the remaining ten teams form the Big Division."
Actually I don't care whether Nebraska leaves or not and Scott's mom can go pound sand.
this is as good as my plan above
would love to have Cal coming to AA on the regular
roll on you bears
I really don't get why people like this. At this point, fuck college sports.
Evolve or die. Take your pick.
False binary in this case. Was there some kind of existential threat to college sports before realignment madness?
rich people weren't getting richer as fast? idk
Yup. Feel like I'm sorrounded by pod people the way folks are reacting.
If you strip away the regional nature of conferences, you are just stripping away one of the few things left that make college sports distinct.
Might just switch to following the NFL at this point.
Uh...buh bye
You can watch both, actually. One plays on Saturday and the other Sunday (mostly).
I don't really get why people are that mad about this, but to each his own. If your argument is that it makes scheduling more logistically challenging and increases the carbon footprint of the conference due to traveling then I agree but if the argument is "tradition" then I'm not swayed.
Scheduling is someone else's problem, not mine. Schedules will appear just as they always have. I didn't even think about carbon footprint but it does make me chuckle a bit, the idea that universities are some of the most left-wing, almost militantly anti-carbon institutions in the country (and U-M, Wisconsin, and the California schools stick out particularly strongly in this area) and yet they're happy to drastically increase the number of five-hour flights they require. I'm sure they'll "offset" it with some carbon-credit voodoo, though.
Tradition and regional common sense matters to me the most, though. College sports try to peddle tradition all the time to appeal to our nostalgia while at the same time taking away the Little Brown Jug. Yes, it matters to me that we play Minnesota and Illinois more, and USC and Maryland less. And constantly matching up super-schools will eventually turn some of them into also-rans. They can't all go 11-1 all the time if they're all playing each other.
Tradition mattered to all the soccer fans who put the Euro Super League into history's garbage can. Wish it mattered here, too.
I don't get the scare quotes around "offset" here because that's an accepted part of reducing carbon production, but that's neither here nor there. I also don't really want to get into an argument about the relative wing-ness of schools.
The little brown jug is fun but it's a trophy that UM has won the vast majority of for decades now. You care about the Jug so it matters to you; I never particularly cared about the Jug because Minnesota is not remotely in the same weight class anymore as UM and so it has felt like a vestige for blue hairs to wax poetic about far more than something meaningful. And traditions can be created when opportunities arise - MSU-PSU's Land Grant trophy tradition means something to them, as Minnesota-Nebraska's $5 Broken Bits of Chair is sort of fun and organic. Michigan and OSU have history with USC, and UM-UCLA has always been a fun matchup; we'll get more of that and while it makes the conference a bit more top-heavy it's not like the SEC hasn't shown that a 2-loss team can't make the playoffs with a strong overall season.
Again, my larger point is that if you're going to point to "tradition" as the reason this move is beyond the pale then it feels like you're actively ignoring all the other changes that have gone on in college athletics for the past 40+ years.
But again, I don't know why you assume I've been ignoring all those other changes and thinking they're just peachy. I still bitch about Rutgers and Maryland. I bitch about NIL. I bitch about playoffs. I bitch about SEC schools in the Rose Bowl. I bitch about March Madness expansion, when it's discussed. I bitch about blue pants. I bitch about almost every conference realignment wave that happens. I may be a grouch yelling at a cloud about tradition, but the one thing I'm not is inconsistent about it. Each one of these things has made me a little less interested in the whole deal.
So you bitch a lot. We get it. Maybe the problem is you and not college football in that case.
He's not the only one.
Imagine the B1G championship game being played at SoFi Stadium and/or the B1G conference tournament in Las Vegas.
Is that supposed to get us excited?
Big12 is probably pissed right now. If UCLA was willing to break away from the Cal-system, they could've poached these two schools before OU and Texas bolted for the SEC.
The Big 12 didn't have the money behind it the B1G does.
It sounds very appealing. I'm not going to lie. Although a couple minor concerns nag me.
Let's say with Michigan coming to town, UCLA or USC decides to make it a night game. We'd have to wait to roughly 10:30 p.m. our time for the kickoff.
Also, would this mean we now go to playing for the Little Brown Jug once per decade? We already don't play each other enough even in a 14 team conference.
IMO if USC wants to play in the Midwest then they can be required to kick off at 9 AM local time for all I care.
I know it won't actually work that way but I can wish.
So you’re the one guy who really cares about the Little Brown Jug? Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, too, mackbru. As the original rivalry trophy, the Little Brown Jug is an important college football tradition.
That’s already happened before in the 1980’s when we played a home & home with UCLA. Our trip there was a night game.
Let's say with Michigan coming to town, UCLA or USC decides to make it a night game. We'd have to wait to roughly 10:30 p.m. our time for the kickoff.
Do you actually believe that the schools set the kickoff times? Michigan traveling to LA to play USC or UCLA will have a kickoff time that brings in the largest television viewership which will be set by (insert network).
After the news last year of OU and Texas to the SEC, I thought adding USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Cal to the Big 10 West was very plausible -- Alliance or no Alliance.
Seriously might stop caring about college sports if this is the case. Between this and Michigan still acting like its 1999 on the NIL shit, what is the point? It's just turning into a junior league version of the pros, except without the things the NFL has to induce at least a little parity.
I'll always hope Michigan does well, might even still watch some of their games, but absolutely gonna downshift my emotional investment in a major way.