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FSU to the B1G

Those two, plus FSU and Clemson gets to 22. For 24 and a nice even number for divisions and scheduling, add UNC and one other, Stanford?


Without knowing what the big picture intent of the B1G is, TAMU is not very appealing IMO. I would submit adding FSU, Clemson, Stanford and ND would be a huge step. One could make the argument that UNC over TAMU makes a lot of sense from an academic and basketball and depth in a "south" division.

But Stanford helps round out a West division.

I've had a thing for Utah for a while, I think I find them more attractive than I should.
 
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Without knowing what the big picture intent of the B1G is, TAMU is not very appealing IMO. I would submit adding FSU, Clemson, Stanford and ND would be a huge step. One could make the argument that UNC over TAMU makes a lot of sense from an academic and basketball and depth in a "south" division.

But Stanford helps round out a West division.

I've had a thing for Utah for a while, I think I find them more attractive than I should.
Stanford doesn't bring much in football, but they do in every other sport across the board plus the west coast market and academics.
 
Without knowing what the big picture intent of the B1G is, TAMU is not very appealing IMO. I would submit adding FSU, Clemson, Stanford and ND would be a huge step. One could make the argument that UNC over TAMU makes a lot of sense from an academic and basketball and depth in a "south" division.

But Stanford helps round out a West division.

I've had a thing for Utah for a while, I think I find them more attractive than I should.
lsu-v-utah.webp
 
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Stanford doesn't bring much in football, but they do in every other sport across the board plus the west coast market and academics.


Yep, exactly. The academics should make them a huge draw for any conference. Again, what is the B1G's end goal, SEC is to be a football power house at all costs and see what other sports they can do well in. I do think the B1G wants to be more balanced with "student-athletes" in mind and the full spread of sports. Otherwise, it would be easy to cut Rutgers, Northwestern and frankly Maryland, Illinois, Indiana as they bring NO football, but do bring a more balance focus on other sports plus academics.

Adding Stanford was a good move overall for the ACC in my mind, but it also continued the relegation to a second tier football conference.
 
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Yep, exactly. The academics should make them a huge draw for any conference. Again, what is the B1G's end goal, SEC is to be a football power house at all costs and see what other sports they can do well in. I do think the B1G wants to be more balanced with "student-athletes" in mind and the full spread of sports. Otherwise, it would be easy to cut Rutgers, Northwestern and frankly Maryland, Illinois, Indiana as they bring NO football, but do bring a more balance focus on other sports plus academics.

Adding Stanford was a good move overall for the ACC in my mind, but it also continued the relegation to a second tier football conference.
Stanford kills in men and women Olympic sports too.
 
The B1G had a chance to take Stanford already so I doubt they will offer now. B1G schools apparently wanted to add Stanford but FOX does not value that market and was unwilling to pay any more for either Stanford or Cal.
 
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Without knowing what the big picture intent of the B1G is, TAMU is not very appealing IMO. I would submit adding FSU, Clemson, Stanford and ND would be a huge step. One could make the argument that UNC over TAMU makes a lot of sense from an academic and basketball and depth in a "south" division.

But Stanford helps round out a West division.

I've had a thing for Utah for a while, I think I find them more attractive than I should.
The B1G didn't want Stanford before - i do not see what has changed. The B1G took what it wanted from the PAC. TAMU is attractive because it would provide a presence in Texas, just like FSU, NC, and Virginia are attractive for that same reason. We don't need another school in Indiana, but ND is its own thing.
 
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Without knowing what the big picture intent of the B1G is, TAMU is not very appealing IMO. I would submit adding FSU, Clemson, Stanford and ND would be a huge step. One could make the argument that UNC over TAMU makes a lot of sense from an academic and basketball and depth in a "south" division.

But Stanford helps round out a West division.

I've had a thing for Utah for a while, I think I find them more attractive than I should.
TAMU is a top 10 revenue producing school and Texas is the second most populous state. It's not hard to figure out why.
 
Those two, plus FSU and Clemson gets to 22. For 24 and a nice even number for divisions and scheduling, add UNC and one other, Stanford?

I know Notre Dame would love to have one or more of their three easy traditional “rivals” (Stanford, Boston College or Navy) in as a partner. But 1) Eff Notre Dame, I’m tired of them throwing their weight around, 2) I would want more than 3 “Southern” teams in the Big Ten both for FSU individually and for the Big Ten to have a real presence in the region and 3) I don’t think it’s realistic for aTm to leave the SEC, why spend all that money to essentially be in the same or very similar spot?

So IF your scenario happened and Notre Dame and aTm came in, I’d want the Big Ten to bring in FSU, Miami, UNC and one of Clemson, Virginia, Tulane, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, NC State, Louisville or Memphis in that order.

On the other hand if the Big Ten doesn’t bring in aTm, I can see the benefit of bringing in Stanford along with the above four in the South to give five West Coast teams plus another traditional Notre Dame “rival”. But honestly, I think the importance of giving Notre Dame one of their weenie rival isn’t that great and I’d rather use that spot to bring in Arizona or maybe Utah or Colorado as the fifth as I don’t think anyone in the Northern California area cares about college football or even college sports in general.
 
I do think that if the Big Ten went to 24 they would almost HAVE to use my two team pod system or else some traditional ie old and irrelevant Big Ten teams are going to get upset and throw big hissy fits. I’ll give an example. Let’s say they went with my preferred additions of Notre Dame, FSU, Miami, UNC, (one of Clemson/UVA/Tulane/VPI/GT/NCSU/Louisville/Memphis), and (one of Arizona/Utah/Colorado/Stanford). Then you’re at 24.

If you did two divisions then you’d have

East ————————————West
Florida State————————Southern California
Miami———————————UCLA
UNC————————————Oregon
Maryland—————————-Washington
Clemson/UVA/Tulane/GT——UA/UU/UC/Stanford
Penn State—————————Nebraska
Rutgers (ugh, seriously?)——-Iowa
Ohio State—————————Minnesota
Michigan——————————Wisconsin
Michigan State———————Northwestern
Notre Dame————————-Illinois
Indiana (ugh, seriously pt2?)—Purdue

So I think that shows that a 50-50 split would be ridiculous, unbalanced with most of the great teams in the east (plus two teams that will never win another game other than against each other) and will anger the old school Big Ten teams by splitting them up….even though that gives teams like Iowa and Wisconsin a legitimate chance at sneaking in a conference title).

If you break it up into four 6team divisions you would have some awkward pairings as well, just not AS bad. Then you would have

West
USC
UCLA
Oregon
Washington
Arizona/Utah/Colorado/Stanford
Nebraska

East
FSU
Miami
UNC
Clemson/UVA/Tulane/GT/VPI
Penn State
Maryland

MidEast
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Rutgers
Notre Dame
Indiana

MidWest
Iowa
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Northwestern
Illinois
Purdue

In that scenario you end up with Nebraska hanging out with the Left Coasters really awkwardly and you get 3 pretty strong divisions and one really weak division that’s useless in the MidWest.
 
If you broke it into six 4team divisions then you end up with some really dud divisions and some ultra strong divisions.

West
USC
UCLA
Oregon
Washington

South
FSU
Miami
UNC
Clemson/UVA/GT/Tulane/VPI/NC State

North
Penn State
Ohio State
Rutgers
Maryland


MidEast
Notre Dame
Michigan
MSU
Indiana

MidMid
Wisconsin
Purdue
Illinois
Northwestern

MidWest
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota
Arizona/Utah/Colorado/Stanford
 
Without knowing what the big picture intent of the B1G is, TAMU is not very appealing IMO. I would submit adding FSU, Clemson, Stanford and ND would be a huge step. One could make the argument that UNC over TAMU makes a lot of sense from an academic and basketball and depth in a "south" division.

But Stanford helps round out a West division.

I've had a thing for Utah for a while, I think I find them more attractive than I should.
Yes why on earth would they want TA$M?
 
Yes why on earth would they want TA$M?


Not disagreeing with anyone on the $ aspect, but as I said to begin with "What is the B1G looking for?" Clearly they are not just looking for the schools with the most money. That conference already exists it is called the Ivy League conference.

Now that we are back in reality, just because TAMU has stacks of cash, what else? A footprint in Texas? Yep, but they sure seem to be happy in their new conference. So why else chase them? UNC has a better academic ranking than TAMU. TAMU has a very weak history in sports titles (20) equaling FSU with half the years. UNC has 50?. Stanford endowment is larger, ND is almost as large as TAMU. And how much of that TAMU money gets funneled to the conference?

I don't think TAMU is even an option, so why bother chasing someone off the market? If they wanted the second best school in every state, they could also go after Kentucky and Auburn while they are at it.
 
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Not disagreeing with anyone on the $ aspect, but as I said to begin with "What is the B1G looking for?" Clearly they are not just looking for the schools with the most money. That conference already exists it is called the Ivy League conference.

Now that we are back in reality, just because TAMU has stacks of cash, what else? A footprint in Texas? Yep, but they sure seem to be happy in their new conference. So why else chase them? UNC has a better academic ranking than TAMU. TAMU has a very weak history in sports titles (20) equaling FSU with half the years. UNC has 50?. Stanford endowment is larger, ND is almost as large as TAMU. And how much of that TAMU money gets funneled to the conference?

I don't think TAMU is even an option, so why bother chasing someone off the market? If they wanted the second best school in every state, they could also go after Kentucky and Auburn while they are at it.

Yes, access to the Texas TV market. Lots of eyeballs there.
 
Not disagreeing with anyone on the $ aspect, but as I said to begin with "What is the B1G looking for?" Clearly they are not just looking for the schools with the most money. That conference already exists it is called the Ivy League conference.

Now that we are back in reality, just because TAMU has stacks of cash, what else? A footprint in Texas? Yep, but they sure seem to be happy in their new conference. So why else chase them? UNC has a better academic ranking than TAMU. TAMU has a very weak history in sports titles (20) equaling FSU with half the years. UNC has 50?. Stanford endowment is larger, ND is almost as large as TAMU. And how much of that TAMU money gets funneled to the conference?

I don't think TAMU is even an option, so why bother chasing someone off the market? If they wanted the second best school in every state, they could also go after Kentucky and Auburn while they are at it.

If the academic snobs in the Big Ten are throwing hissy fits over FSU’s 53rd USN&WR ranking and Clemson’s 86th, how do you think they would react to Kentucky’s 159th, Oklahoma’s 124th and Alabama’s 170th, LSU’s 185th, and Mississippi State’s 216th?

The only SEC schools ranked ahead of FSU are Vandy’s 18th, UF’s 28th, Texas’s 32nd and Georgia and aTm tied at 47. After those genius schools the next best team in the SEC is Auburn at 93rd.

But of course I don’t seriously take the Big Ten’s snobbiness very seriously because FSU and Clemson are rated higher than Nebraska, Oregon, and Iowa; and FSU is also ranked higher than those plus Indiana, Pedo State, and Michigan State and are tied with Wisconsin. And for those Big Ten teams that are ranked higher despite a longer history of endowment, FSU is within 15 spots of Ohio State, Maryland, Purdue, Washington, Rutgers and Washington and within 25 spots of those plus Illinois, Wisconsin, and USC. Only Northwestern, UCLA and Michigan are what I would call definitively better schools than FSU. Especially since FSU is moving up and most Big Ten schools are moving down.
 
If the academic snobs in the Big Ten are throwing hissy fits over FSU’s 53rd USN&WR ranking and Clemson’s 86th, how do you think they would react to Kentucky’s 159th, Oklahoma’s 124th and Alabama’s 170th, LSU’s 185th, and Mississippi State’s 216th?

The only SEC schools ranked ahead of FSU are Vandy’s 18th, UF’s 28th, Texas’s 32nd and Georgia and aTm tied at 47. After those genius schools the next best team in the SEC is Auburn at 93rd.

But of course I don’t seriously take the Big Ten’s snobbiness very seriously because FSU and Clemson are rated higher than Nebraska, Oregon, and Iowa; and FSU is also ranked higher than those plus Indiana, Pedo State, and Michigan State and are tied with Wisconsin. And for those Big Ten teams that are ranked higher despite a longer history of endowment, FSU is within 15 spots of Ohio State, Maryland, Purdue, Washington, Rutgers and Washington and within 25 spots of those plus Illinois, Wisconsin, and USC. Only Northwestern, UCLA and Michigan are what I would call definitively better schools than FSU. Especially since FSU is moving up and most Big Ten schools are moving down.


I don't think they are interested in any UK, Auburn or TAMU. But folks above think TAMU is appealing due to the money the school has. Never mind they are all the way down on 19th on the list of watched even though they are in the second largest market.

As I originally said, i don't think they are that appealing. Depending on the goal of the conference, there are a number of better options. Esp if they want to poach someone from the SEC.

If you didn't smell the snark in my post about wanting the second best school in a state, reread my post expecting with that in mind.
 
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If the academic snobs in the Big Ten are throwing hissy fits over FSU’s 53rd USN&WR ranking and Clemson’s 86th, how do you think they would react to Kentucky’s 159th, Oklahoma’s 124th and Alabama’s 170th, LSU’s 185th, and Mississippi State’s 216th?

The only SEC schools ranked ahead of FSU are Vandy’s 18th, UF’s 28th, Texas’s 32nd and Georgia and aTm tied at 47. After those genius schools the next best team in the SEC is Auburn at 93rd.

But of course I don’t seriously take the Big Ten’s snobbiness very seriously because FSU and Clemson are rated higher than Nebraska, Oregon, and Iowa; and FSU is also ranked higher than those plus Indiana, Pedo State, and Michigan State and are tied with Wisconsin. And for those Big Ten teams that are ranked higher despite a longer history of endowment, FSU is within 15 spots of Ohio State, Maryland, Purdue, Washington, Rutgers and Washington and within 25 spots of those plus Illinois, Wisconsin, and USC. Only Northwestern, UCLA and Michigan are what I would call definitively better schools than FSU. Especially since FSU is moving up and most Big Ten schools are moving down.
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One conference decided to stay regional and another conference decided to go national. Will this matter in 10 or 20 years? Yes. I explain why in this post.

The Big Ten Conference, using 2024 conference membership, will be graduating, on average per year, 203,231 more students than the SEC.

Why does that matter? More draw, more interest, more money, more power, etc, will be going towards the national conference, which is the Big Ten. Over the cours of 5 years, because of the move to becoming a national conference, will graduate 1,016,155 more students than the SEC.

The Big Ten will outpace, outgrow, out influence the rest of college conferences because of how many more graduates that the Big Ten will be putting out into the working world than the SEC.

While the SEC has correctly expanded with state flageship schools, their approach to regionalism will come back to harm them as their growth will be far surpassed by the Big Ten.

The ACC has minimal number of public schools and state flageship schools.

In order for the Big Ten to continue to grow under the same method as historically, they will want large enrollments and state flageship schools. In the ACC, that gives us Florida State, North Carolina, and Virginia. The Big Ten already took a founding ACC member that is a state flageship school in Maryland and by taking Rutgers at the same time, they prevented the ACC from growing in that region of the United States.

The challenge for the Big Ten in order to get a footprint into the Georgia, Clemson and North Carolina region is most likely going to have to come from taking a school that isn't a state flageship but still has a good enrollment size. That gives us Clemson and Georgia Tech. Obviously North Carolina too.

The ideal way for the Big Ten, IMO, to break into a new region of the country is to take Florida State as they are a state flageship university in the state of Florida, large enrollment, and then start to work the way back up to the DC region. Preferablly you would want to go from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, but you have to start somewhere in a new region. That target should 100% be Florida State.

The problem with Miami is that it isn't a state flageship school, they have a smaller enrollment, and are a private school. The Big Ten grow, again as I outlined earlier, through state flageship universities with large enrollments.

The day could come where the Big Ten goes back west to add a couple more state flageship univeristies since Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Cal are still there for the taking. Since the SEC wants to remain regional, the Big Ten will continue to outgrow, outpace the SEC. That impact will show in the future.

 
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Will UNC decide to stay in the ACC? Go to the SEC? Go to the Big Ten? That is a decision that UNC may end up having to make in the coming months or years from now.

Would UNC want to leave Duke and put that basketball rivarly at risk to the point it is only played once a season instead of potentially up to 3 times a seson?

The UNC decision is an easy one to make when all you do is look at an Excel sheet and see the money gap. But it isn't that simple.

Will the money gap be the final decision point? Will realizing if UNC leaves will "kill" the ACC be too much to leave and just deal with the money gap through donations from donors?

Random idiots on YouTube will say "of course you leave." That is talk from people who have nothing at stake for such an impacful decision.

The USC decision to leave the Pac-12 predates the public words stated in 2019 "all options are on the table." That process was many years in the making and once they decided to leave, it ended up killing the conference in the end. If UNC leaves the ACC, it is highly possible the same result occurs with the ACC.

I can respect and understand why there is no action coming from UNC and frankly they would be smart to hold off for a couple of years and not make any quick decisions that they may regret in the end.

 
One conference decided to stay regional and another conference decided to go national. Will this matter in 10 or 20 years? Yes. I explain why in this post.

The Big Ten Conference, using 2024 conference membership, will be graduating, on average per year, 203,231 more students than the SEC.

Why does that matter? More draw, more interest, more money, more power, etc, will be going towards the national conference, which is the Big Ten. Over the cours of 5 years, because of the move to becoming a national conference, will graduate 1,016,155 more students than the SEC.

The Big Ten will outpace, outgrow, out influence the rest of college conferences because of how many more graduates that the Big Ten will be putting out into the working world than the SEC.

While the SEC has correctly expanded with state flageship schools, their approach to regionalism will come back to harm them as their growth will be far surpassed by the Big Ten.

The ACC has minimal number of public schools and state flageship schools.

In order for the Big Ten to continue to grow under the same method as historically, they will want large enrollments and state flageship schools. In the ACC, that gives us Florida State, North Carolina, and Virginia. The Big Ten already took a founding ACC member that is a state flageship school in Maryland and by taking Rutgers at the same time, they prevented the ACC from growing in that region of the United States.

The challenge for the Big Ten in order to get a footprint into the Georgia, Clemson and North Carolina region is most likely going to have to come from taking a school that isn't a state flageship but still has a good enrollment size. That gives us Clemson and Georgia Tech. Obviously North Carolina too.

The ideal way for the Big Ten, IMO, to break into a new region of the country is to take Florida State as they are a state flageship university in the state of Florida, large enrollment, and then start to work the way back up to the DC region. Preferablly you would want to go from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, but you have to start somewhere in a new region. That target should 100% be Florida State.

The problem with Miami is that it isn't a state flageship school, they have a smaller enrollment, and are a private school. The Big Ten grow, again as I outlined earlier, through state flageship universities with large enrollments.

The day could come where the Big Ten goes back west to add a couple more state flageship univeristies since Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Cal are still there for the taking. Since the SEC wants to remain regional, the Big Ten will continue to outgrow, outpace the SEC. That impact will show in the future.


I don’t know how they made up that “State Flagship” graphic because it’s not made up of actual facts because it says the ACC has 5.

If you take “State Flagship” to mean only the oldest, biggest and best state university in each state then the ACC actually only has two in UNC and Cal. UVA isn’t the oldest (UVA is from 1819 while William and Mary is 1693, so UVA was founded over 100 years later by a W&M alumni and UVA is only the fourth oldest university in the state), it isn’t the largest state college (UVA is fifth largest and almost half the size of George Mason and Virginia Tech) and arguably isn’t the best (it is the research focused school, best for graduate schools and is slightly harder to get into but William and Mary has smaller classes, better professors and a better traditional liberal arts college environment and focus leading to a better education). So UVA definitely is not THE “State Flagship” university like Cal and UNC are for their respective states. Instead it’s one of two smaller “Honors Colleges” that the state has along with William and Mary albeit the one focused on research and graduate studies rather than fostering the best learning environment. Virginia doesn’t really have a true state flagship as instead it has a lot of schools that lead in individual niches, but if it were to have one I would say it was Virginia Tech not UVA as that’s the much bigger school that lets in primarily students from the state. UVA is more like Georgia Tech than it is like UGA.

Now if you expand the term “State Flagship” to mean generically the top 2 to 4 state universities in each state then not only would I include UVA in the mix, but now you also would have to add FSU, Georgia Tech, Clemson, NC State, Virginia Tech, and Pitt. So then the ACC would have 9 State Flagship schools.
 
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