Report: OU & Texas reach out to join SEC

[tm3308]

I know it's basktball but Mark Few gets the best talent in the country to come and play Portland and Pepperdine twice a year late at night. I feel like players will gravitate towards winners.

That took Few over a decade of getting a seat at the table (NCAA tournament) and making big noise once he got there. But getting a seat at the table is a lot easier in basketball than it is in football. Campbell's a great coach, but it's not realistic to expect him to have the football equivalent level of success over the next 5-10 years that Few had before Gonzaga became a truly elite program. Especially if he's not coaching in one of the power conferences (which whatever's left of the Big 12 may not be able to claim to be, if this all comes to pass).

I believe he's as good of a coach as just about anyone in college football right now. But he would struggle to do what Few has done if his conference can't consistently get a seat at the table (make the playoff).

 

[Cyched]

Sounds like a done deal. The one saving grace here is this is happening quickly and not drug out over months and years. Minimizing agony.

Texas/OU could set off realignment dominoes as early as next week

Orangebloods publisher Geoff Ketchum and I have checked in with multiple sources on Wednesday and asked about Texas’

texas.rivals.com

The agony will be figuring out what happens to ISU

 

[Gunnerclone]

View attachment 87214

I can’t say I’d be mad if Fox disappeared from the face of the earth.

 

[brett108]

Texas an OU moving to the SEC isn’t going to hurt their recruiting. If anything it might help.

Outkicks proposal of 4- 4 team divisions is compelling. A division that is the old SWC plus Oklahoma would be a monster for rivalries and ticket sales

 

[trevn]

In the last round of realignment which major conference school got kicked to the curb? I doubt it would happen this time around either. The only thing I see happening is the gap widening between the haves and have nots in the college football world, which has been happening in front of our eyes for quite some time now anyway.

I do know that I'm glad we have Pollard leading the AD. With him in charge I think ISU will land in the best spot attainable.

 

[DSM4Cy]

In the last round of realignment which major conference school got kicked to the curb? I doubt it would happen this time around either. The only thing I see happening is the gap widening between the haves and have nots in the college football world, which has been happening in front of our eyes for quite some time now anyway.

I do know that I'm glad we have Pollard leading the AD. With him in charge I think ISU will land in the best spot attainable.

UConn
USF
Cincinnati

 

[StLouisClone]

I don't understand why OU would want to leave the Big 12. How could things get any better than what they have now?

 

[JP4CY]

This is going to be a weird 4 years with them still in the conference.

 

[NoCreativity]

That took Few over a decade of getting a seat at the table (NCAA tournament) and making big noise once he got there. But getting a seat at the table is a lot easier in basketball than it is in football. Campbell's a great coach, but it's not realistic to expect him to have the football equivalent level of success over the next 5-10 years that Few had before Gonzaga became a truly elite program. Especially if he's not coaching in one of the power conferences (which whatever's left of the Big 12 may not be able to claim to be, if this all comes to pass).

I believe he's as good of a coach as just about anyone in college football right now. But he would struggle to do what Few has done if his conference can't consistently get a seat at the table (make the playoff).

How would the Big 12 champion not get invited to a 12 team playoff? This would actually make it much easier for a school like Iowa State to make the playoffs than the current setup.

 

[CYdTracked]

I haven't read through this whole thread but I it irks me that the Big 12 bent over backwards to keep Texas and OU happy last time and Texas especially gets plenty of special treatment with the Longhorn Network and now this stupid "no horns down" rule. Screw that, I would rather give them all the middle finger at this point.

Texas is not the powerhouse they were back when the Big 12 nearly blew up last time. They are on their 3rd FB coach now since pushing Mac Brown out the door after 2013 and have gone 48-39 since then which is hardly powerhouse FB when they've stacked the deck in their favor for so long in this conference. Did not make bowl games 2 of those years and have been to the Alamo bowl twice, Texas bowl twice and the sugar bowl in their 1 good year in 2018. Basketball hasn't been any better as the last time they finished a season ranked in the coaches poll was 2010-11 and have not been to the Sweet 16 since 2008. I don't know how a move to the SEC makes their life any easier when they will have to recruit harder against the big programs there.

I look at how watered down the Big 10 looks after they added Rutgers and Maryland and how Nebraska has flopped there too. I think the 10-12 team conferences is the sweet spot when it comes to balanced competition because with 10 you play a round robin schedule and there is none of this "oh well the reason why this team won so many games this year is because they didn't have to play teams X Y and Z who were better." Everyone plays everyone and there is no excuses that you lucked out not having to play the toughest team(s) to get to where you finished. It pisses me off how the Big 12 has done so much to keep OU and Texas happy so we can keep this Big 12 strong and now this crap comes out just over a month out from the start of the FB season where you have 2 teams ranked in the top 5 preseason poll and somehow Texas still riding their name to a #18 ranking with a new coach and QB. Should be all kind of excitement and hype going into this fall and now the 2 biggest names in the conference are apparently trying to shop around for a better deal. Sometimes the grass is not always greener on the other side and there are some schools that left the Big 12 last time that probably have buyer's remorse. I think both Colorado and Nebraska at least from a competition aspect did not gain anything. Nebraska gained financially going to the Big 10 and I'm not sure Colorado really gained anything in general going to the Pac 12. Mizzou probably has no regrets going to the SEC but they have not been very competitive since making the move but they were also a very up and down program in the Big 12 too.

 

[tm3308]

Outkicks proposal of 4- 4 team divisions is compelling. A division that is the old SWC plus Oklahoma would be a monster for rivalries and ticket sales

What would that look like? I'm having a hard time drawing up divisions without either LSU being in a division of doormats or having a division that's absurdly stacked (Florida, Georgia and Bama/Auburn in one division).

 

[Trice]

This is going to be a weird 4 years with them still in the conference.

They won't be in that long. It will be untenable. There will be a buyout or negotiation of some kind.

 

[trevn]

UConn
USF
Cincinnati

UCONN became D1 in 2002. Cincy and USF were CUSA until 2005 and were in the Big East for a whole 7 years before going to the AAC. They were the newest of newcomers to the major conference party. I don't really consider any of those programs as left behind.

 

[rochclone]

This is going to be a weird 4 years with them still in the conference.

This conference won’t exist by 2023.

 

[NoCreativity]

I don't understand why OU would want to leave the Big 12. How could things get any better than what they have now?

They are counting on 4 divisions in the SEC, so in this scenario they only hsve to better than 3 other teams to make an expanded playoff, in the Big 12 they have to be better than 8 or 9 teams to make it.

 

[DSM4Cy]

UCONN became D1 in 2002. Cincy and USF were CUSA until 2005 and were in the Big East for a whole 7 years before going to the AAC. They were the newest of newcomers to the major conference party. I don't really consider any of those programs as left behind.

I mean, sure - but who will really care if we get left out, or K-State, or TT, TCU? Very few.

 

[CRcyclone6]

UT can't win in the big12. Good luck winning vs Bama and Georgia.

And LSU and FL and AM

 

[WooBadger18]

IF this happened, and it would be a BIG if (I’m pretty confident this is a negotiating tactic, and as much as I hate to say it, I have much more confidence in our current Commish than I had in Beebe), the P5 conference we would be most attractive to would be the Pac12.

I would agree with this.

I'd prefer Iowa State to be in the big 10 for a whole host of reasons, but I think we would be attractive to the PAC - 12. The PAC - 12 cares about academics almost as much as the Big 10 (if not more), and so the AAU school thing matters. They're also currently locked in to the west coast, we'd be a way for them to expand into the midwest.

Plus I understand this is cave adjacent (but I think it's fine in this context), but California banned state-funded travel to Texas and Oklahoma due to those states passing anti-LGBT legislation and as far as I can tell from a 20 second google search, those bans are still in effect. So why would the California schools be in favor of adding any team in Oklahoma or Texas?

 

[tim_redd]

Texas is about to become even more irrelevant than they already are, and Oklahoma is about to become the new Arkansas.

 

[werdnamanhill]

We’d take that in a heartbeat but what do we bring to that league where they’d want to take us in? I just don’t see it. I’d be ecstatic though.

I have such a hard time seeing us in the big 10. Iowa would lobby against us, there's no new TV market to be had...and $ runs everything.