Washington and Oregon to Join the Big Ten
Looks like we finally have confirmation that they'll be joining in 2024. My understanding is that McMurphy has been a pretty solid source on realignment.
https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/oregon-washington-join-big-ten-leave-pac-12
And they wanted to block Oregon for the same reason.
And A&M wanted to block Texas from the SEC.
And back in the day, UM wanted to block Staee.
Never goes well.
Speaking of that, there is a very dumb article wrtiten by MSU alum Chris Vanini about this based on the book "Arrogance and Scheming in the Big Ten" written by butt hurt MSU alum David Young.
OSU has always blocked other Ohio schools from joining. How has that not gone well for them?
As if there is any other Ohio school the BigTen would be remotely interested in adding? Cinci? Toledo? Akron? Dayton? ... Insert "not sure if serious" meme.
Not now, but there was a time when MSU's profile as a school was no higher than the Ohio MAC schools'. It was not a historical inevitability that our state would have two Big Ten schools and Ohio and Pennsylvania one apiece.
Pitt has had a strong case for Big Ten membership all along, but PSU doesn't want them in. That doesn't seem to hurt PSU any (although they did lose their rivalry game).
They also wanted to block Oregon and UW so I'm not sure how much sway they have. Again, they're going from being the premiere brand in a league (even if Oregon has been better over the past decade+) to being one of many good schools in a better conference. The Big 10 doesn't need to cow-tow to their dumb demands.
Is USC technically a member of B1G right now? I think not, so they don't get a vote in a decision made by member schools in 2023.
They aren't yet, but there have been persistent rumors about them not wanting those teams to join the conference and even being annoyed UCLA came along.
Yeah they gave up the ability to swing their dick around when they left the conference that depended on them for their existence.
It's going to be interesting to see schools like USC and Texas, and to a lesser extent Florida State and UNC, who are used to being schools in their conference that conference leadership bends to move on to other leagues where they're not even close to the biggest dick at the table and where they're just 1 of Many instead of the ass that has to be kissed hardest.
I wonder how many recruits come down to a decision of Stanford / Cal or USC?
Does USC really end up in recruiting battles with those two very often? All great actual schools, but I think USC is a little more, um, relaxed on admission standards for football players. Nonetheless, I think Stanford and Cal would be great additions. Football and basketball struggles aside, they're both awesome academically, they both dominate in non-revenue sports, and the Bay Area is a huge market (with a lot of Big Ten transplants) that's the center of the tech world.
Not a fan of this, as Michigan will have at least 1-2 trips out west every year and that hasn’t gone well historically. I also think Oregon and Washington add little to the prestige of the conference. They are middle of the pack programs at best.
There are reasons to not be a fan of this, but "Michigan historically has been bad out west" is not one of them. Frankly it sounds like something a ND fan would say. If Michigan can't beat those teams, they need to get better. Maybe this will give them what they need to actually contend in the playoff instead of beating on Nebraska and Rutgers every season.
Having to play games out west every year will likely change the way we approach those trips.
Washington has been a good football school for a long time.18th in all time wins. Oregon has done well the last couple of decades.
So now that this has dropped, I wonder what will happen with Stanford and Cal.
I expect an announcement that they’re coming within 6 months or so.
Not a surprise in the end but it's sort of bananas that the Big 10 will now span from basically the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. I do wonder what happens to Cal, Stanford, WSU, and Oregon St. I assume Arizona, Utah, and ASU go to the Big 12 but those 4 schools don't really have anywhere to go save (I guess) the Mountain West or try to be independent.
Big 12 could take them. I assume OSU and WSU to Big 12 and Stanford to B10. Cal hmm.
Maybe, but Oregon St. and WSU aren't rich schools and now you're asking them to foot the bill for a bunch of teams to play games at UCF, WVU, etc. all season. And the TV deal the Big 12 negotiated, even if they re-negotiate with the new inventory, isn't going to be monstrously different than the $33M-ish the current Big 12 is getting, and there's a good chance it could be a bit less just because TV networks aren't dying to overpay for mediocre product.
Stanford and Cal academically make a ton of sense for the Big 10 and one of them gets you NoCal but both feel somewhat redundant. I guess we'll see.
The Big 12 negotiated a linear contract TV rights deal, meaning they can add schools at the same $ payout level, as long as the schools are from a Power-5 (or what is left of a Power-5) conference.
The offset would be the extra travel expense. That was supposedly what gave Oregon and Washington pause in the reduced $ Big Ten deal - $35MM payout, but an extra $10MM in travel expenses across all sports brings the net down to around what the Apple TV deal would pay out. The upside of joining the Big Ten however, with a new TV deal and higher payout once the current deal expires probably makes moving worth it in the long run.
More than anything I'm just upset this conference is saddled with Rutgers and Maryland. At least the Rose Bowl ties us culturally with the West Coast and the schools added are competitive. Worse still our conference is cluttered with way too much red. Can we kick them out pretty please?
Rutgers could be kicked out but I don't get why people shit on Maryland as much as they do. It's a good school, is in a big market with lots of football talent nearby, has historically been good at basketball and not terrible at football. Hell, they've won 2 bowl games since the last time Nebraska played in one. And honestly, Cal doesn't bring anything worthwhile in either sport to the conference and they're also losing a ton of money on some poor spending decisions.
Let me guess. We're moving toward a two super-conference system. Is it fair to guess that we will be seeing names like: the Union/Confederacy; North/South; etc.
why would any sane person want to associate with the losers?
Cal, Stanford.....sigh
I hear the Mountain West is nice this time of year.
They have to revisit divisions now, right? You can’t have a reasonable top 2 championship game when the schedules will be so imbalanced.
I doubt it. Whether they add Cal/Stanford or not, there's no way to create divisions with an even number of teams and a clean West Coast division. It would be arbitrary and unfair to put Iowa, Minnesota, or Nebraska in with the West Coast teams just to have divisions.
Probably right. You could do the quadrangle of hate (WI, Iowa, MN, Neb) + Northwestern and the West Coast schools, but then you're back to the "we play teams in our 'conference' every 10 years" problem as well.
Guess we need to get ready for the "the record of teams UM beat is slightly better than the record of teams Oregon beat" non-sensical tie-breakers. It doesn't matter as much with the expanded playoff, but a conference championship is still meaningful.
For my fellow traditionalists, we may be on the verge of returning to something like the 1970s if Cal and Stanford come. That would give us the Pac 6, the OOC schedule (Maryland, Rutgers), and several games a year that resemble the Rose Bowl. The fact that those Faux Bowl games are in the Midwest half the time seems like an improvement from the standpoint of fairness. All we need is a deepfake AI Keith Jackson for play by play.
Why would we need a deepfake AI Keith Jackson?? He could just call the games. I mean, he's old, but still a living legend, right?
It feels like this should be too old to be funny by now, but it’s really not.
He’s announcing a game on BTN right now!
I feel like someone should post a "you'll never believe what Oregon said about the big 10" post... And then take you to a spyware site
I think it makes sense. I don't think it would have been good for USC/UCLA to be the sole outposts in the PT time zone. I feel like the moment they added the L.A. schools you had to add someone else out West within a few years.
Pretty soon the Big 10 will be able to send 2 schools to the Rose Bowl.
If you add Cal and Stanford, you can have 2 divisions:
West-USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
East-Michigan, MSU, OSU, PSU, MD, Rutgers, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern
This makes me sad 😞
the end of the Pac
100% agree.
I can't say the B1G would be wrong for taking Oregon and Washington. They're just doing what they need to do to stay ahead of the game.
But the demise of the Pac is a sad day for CFB and college sports in general.
Exactly, I get it, sign of the times and B1G had to do what they had to do, and Im stoked Ill be able to see UM come to Seattle and Oregon....better believe Ill be at all of those.
But yeah....sad day for the other schools.
It *is* sad... but also mostly self-inflicted by the PAC leadership (presidents, ADs and commisioners). They made numerous choices they kept taking the conference down this path. The conference tore itself apart - it was not destroyed by outside forces... yet some outside parties dud become beneficiaries.
You all eviscerated the OP who said this days ago, as first reported by Barstool.
That was that it might happen and included FSU and clemson. This is that it did happen, and only for Washington and Oregon for now.
Not a fan of this though I understand why it's happening obviously. All I can say is I hope UM has exorcised all it's going out West and not playing well demons from before because I can't remember the last win against a decent or better team playing out West.
At this point I say go all the way. The B1G should add Stanford, Cal, UVA, Duke, UNC, Miami and leave the NCAA. Form a new governing body and set of rules from scratch. Deal with the NCAA as an equal athletic association, not as a member. Implement Brian’s idea of summer baseball, develop workable transfer portal and NIL rules, create a real enforcement mechanism with common sense policies (no more suspensions for hamburgers while other schools are dropping bags)—i.e., start fresh and fix all the things the NCAA has failed to do.
I actually love this idea and it would cure a lot of ills, which is why it will never happen.
With that idea, and their close proximity, maybe start sniffing north of the border and offer the Canadian universities an invite. Travel time is great, of course border rules can cause hiccups, but Simon Fraser university football did it for a number of years, they played in the NIAI for nearly 40 years, eventually transferring to the NCAA in D2 before they couldn't find a conference and due to costs they cancelled the football program, but 18 other sports still play in the NCAA in the GNAC D2.
You can easily get half a dozen Universities up there that already have football and stadium contracts, sure they'll be Rutgers level of football for a few years but who knows what the future could hold. Not like the Canadian November is much difference than a brisk Michigan November.