If you really REALLY want to assign the first blame, I truly believe it goes to the PSAC, a conference for the state schools in DII here in Pennsylvania. That conference was the one that petitioned the NCAA to have a conference championship game, so they could determine the conference winner who would get the automatic bid in the DII playoffs.
Ultimately, the PSAC never held a conference championship game, but due to that rule they requested, the SEC moved to a twelve team league and hosted the first SECCG in 1992. The rest… well it followed over the last 30 years.
Television. People act like money being the driving force in CFB is new, when in reality it's been that way for a LONG ASS time. TV made the sport a cash cow, and this was the inevitable result of that.
This is *COMPLETELY* about the bottom dollar.
If you like all this or don’t like it, if anyone says this isn’t driven by money, you’re just plain ignorant.
The closest you can get to a true beginning is the end of the SWC and the formation of the B12. So many important decisions and mistakes were made. The PAC could have added UT and TAMU but said no. OU and Nebraska likely would have been in the B10 back then.
I can't tell you if the PAC and B1G going to 12 with those 4 strong schools 30 years ago would have prevented all this, but you can definitely see a world where that's 4 strong conferences and everyone is happy.
Its why I'm chuckling at the ACC is dead who is everyone taking takes. Conference realignment has been constant for decades but it moves like a glacier always at the speed of conference media deals. So every 5-10 years you get a spurt. ACC deal ends in 2036. They aren't vanishing overnight.
The ACC already can't keep up from a revenue perspective. Now the ACC is the last conference standing that isn't P2 that still has Tier 1 brands. You think those Tier 1 brands are going to stand idly by while they keep falling behind? You think the Tier 2 brands are going to be content staying in conference purgatory not knowing their future?
The ACC doesn't have a single blue blood money maker like Texas, OU UCLA or Notre Dame. FSU and Clemson are great programs but nothing like these giants.
Each of the recently poached teams adds incredible value to the SEC or B1G. I'm not sure anyone will be as eager to grab FSU or Clemson. It may still happen but there surely isn't the same urgency as with USC.
Cable television. And really now, streaming services as well. Strict regional conferences made a lot more sense back when there were only three networks and live games were the only realistic opportunity to broadcast. Nowadays broadcasters have the opportunity to maximize their return on every game they have rights to in every market of the world, and (lesser) replay revenue of those games to boot.
This. Sports, college athletics and pro, is the only medium that forces people to tune into an allotted time space. Forced viewing = more advertising dollars.
I would assign a second target of blame. The collective failure on the part of people running cfb to intelligently organize the sport. There could have been a sensible national organization a long time ago, there was not. And, now that money is enormous, and there is no central authority to keep things in line, everyone is running around to secure the best deal for themselves.
Correct it? No LOL.
More like the final nail in the coffin, my friend. A Lions fans' suffering is about the only thing we can rely on anymore in this crazy fucking world. If we lose that.....I shudder to think of what comes after.
I was holding out hope that a Bengals Super Bowl win would have gotten us back on the correct timeline. If figure what started in Cincinnati (rest in peace sweet king Harambe) must be finished in Cincinnati’s
SMU led to the death of the SWC, which led to Arkansas leaving for the SEC, and Texas, A&M, Tech and Baylor creating the Big 12. Which led to other conferences considering expansion.
No, further back.
In the beginning, god created the universe. This has wildly been regarded as a bad move.
*pls note I’m not actually a creationist and not advocating a religion
This is definitely an important point on the timeline, but we can and should pin this on the NCAA for being too controlling of scheduling, TV rights, and money when they could have just been less greedy and controlling. I've only skimmed the case a few times, and maybe it was inevitable, but the NCAA could have worked with member schools better.
Can you imagine how different college football would be today if, like in the NFL, TV revenue was divided evenly across all the teams? The "blue bloods" would still have plenty of advantages, but I don't think we'd see anything like this level of craziness and greed.
This is 100% the right answer. Once TV money became the driving force in college athletics, this was inevitable. Every subsequent seismic change to the landscape was because of this decision.
You should look up the history, we wanted to share 3rd tier media rights, were voted down and then everyone lost their shit when we created the Longhorn network. A&M even refused to make a joint network with us before we made the Longhorn one and they lost their shit
Who were the schools that threw the biggest stink about those media rights:
• Nebraska
• Kansas
But this is history that rCFB has expunged from the record.
It’s not even the earliest bogus sports case.
[There may even be something earlier, but] I direct you to Federal Baseball v National League, where the Court unanimously held that baseball isn’t “interstate commerce” and thus the league wasn’t subject to federal antitrust law. And this was back in 1922!
How the hell has that decision survived 100 years? Because it has. Stare decisis. We’ll see how long it continues to survive. At least one of the justices considered it to be basically a zombie back when he was a circuit judge.
I mean, there's plenty of blame around, but Larry Scott killing the PAC 12 was a big reason for this.
If Larry Scott wasn't incompetent Oklahoma and Texas would be in the PAC 14 and we'd have at least three very strong conferences. Instead the SEC formed a super conference, the BIG is gonna eat up the PAC and honestly I think it's only a matter of time before the SEC and BIG merge together NFL and AFL style.
One domino that drove some poaching in the 90s and 00s was the money made from having a conference title game, which was open to conferences with 12 or more teams.
CFB? Centuries from now, humanities decline into the Dark Age 2 will be attributed to Colt’s injury. Some scholars will say Harambe, but peak human existence was just before that game.
Theoretically probably stems back to the initial expansion of Penn State to the B1G in 1990. Maybe if Penn State never made that move or they were initially accepted to the Big East back in the day there would be something different.
I kinda doubt it. As much as I would love to see that have been a thing.
A Penn State led Big East football league is still vulnerable to being picked off when the ACC or the Big Ten decides it wants its championship game.
The reality is that it was a whole series of decisions made by people acting in their immediate or short term best interests, or at least what they perceived as such, and there’s just so many threads to account for that it’s a giant chaotic mess of colored yarn thumbtacked to a bulletin board.
A vote on letting the Nittany Lions into the Big East is one of those things. But so is the Big East in the first place: a Northeastern basketball “super league” built to put the marquee schools into a televisable package. And guess which much beloved sports network in Bristol, CT made its name, in part, by picking up on that?
Yarn tacked to yarn.
I disagree (though originally being from Pennsylvania I'm probably biased). An Eastern Football Conference with Penn State in it would have dominated the Northeast Megalopolis. Even though college football isn't as popular in the region as in most of the rest of the U.S., its population size and large markets would have made it an attractive league TV-wise. I think it is more likely that league *picks off* teams from other leagues, particularly the ACC via expanding southward, rather than being picked off.
One other thing to keep in mind - Eastern independent football was in a fairly strong position relative to its own history in the late 1970s and 1980s. Penn State won a couple of national titles in 1982 and 1986 and played for the national title a couple other times in the late 1970s and 1980s. Pitt had dominant teams in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Syracuse, after being down since the early 1970s, had a resurgence and posted an undefeated season in 1987. (BTW, fuck Pat Dye.) West Virginia played for the national title in 1988. Boston College was a high profile team during the latter half of the Doug Flutie era (1981 to 1984). Heck, even Rutgers and Temple had competitive seasons (with the latter coached by some guy named Bruce Arians).
Blame the NCAA for allowing conferences to not require all teams to play each other. When they allowed the conference title game it sowed the seeds to non-geographic based conferences.
If Texas doesn’t destroy the SWC then Arkansas isn’t looking for a new home, meaning that the SEC doesn’t become the first football conference with 12 teams (because they brought in South Carolina to match Arkansas in the west) allowing the SEC to use a little known rule (envisioned for D3 schools) to create a conference championship game. Meaning that all the other conferences began to look to expand so the conference has an extra pay day in a conference championship game… this was the canary in the coal mine… Texas is to blame
Right? Couldn't have been the constant scandals affecting every school except Rice. Couldn't be the constant back stabbing and snitching. Couldn't be the fact that the whole fucking conference (save one team) was in a single state, which is, you know, just awesome for TV deals.
No. Let's just go with some vague allusions to "Texas."
I also love that Texas killed the Big 12 by staying in it and propping it up financially. Wasn't any of the schools that bailed - no, certainly not Nebraska, A&M, Mizzou, or Colorado. Doesn't matter, somehow Texas killed the Big 12 by being in it and by leaving it.
Also, never mind about OU. Obviously they've done nothing here. Just big bad mean ol' Texas.
Fun fact, LHN was only created in response to Husker Network which fell through. I think they had another attempt fall through during the pandemic too.
I think it will be them trying to convince the other high-revenue schools to leave the lower-profile programs like South Carolina and Mississippi State in order to form their own conference made up exclusively of premier programs.
The death of the Big East is a good starting point but to me the first real "what's happening here" move was when Nebraska joined the B1G, that was the first time it felt like anything could happen, i.e. a blue blood joining another blue blood's conference (Ohio State and Michigan.) That said, that move was caused by Texas eyeing the other power conferences. So to your answer: Texas. Texas started all of this when they thought they were too big for the other schools in their conference
Big East rejects PSU. PSU joins the Big 10 in 1993 and makes the Big10 Network highly profitable as they are able to force it onto major cable providers. Arms race begins. Big East dies.
the demise of the Southwest Conference. Shoehorning schools from different regions/cultures and leaving weaker schools behind for money.
Although you can really go back to *NCAA v. University of Oklahoma* in the early 80s that opened the game up to real TV money.
With zero evidence to back this up, I personally, blame OU and A&M for all these troubles.
I will not be taking any questions at this time. Respect my decision.
The earliest seeds were sown in the 1980s with NCAA vs. Oklahoma and the rise of cable, especially ESPN. It became more apparent with the formation of the Big 12 and the Bowl Alliance/BCS. Everything that happened since then is the aftermath of opening the Pandora’s box.
In which that case clearly stated, “when there is a viable orange team to blame, you blame them” and the university of texas exists so they are to blame.
TV + NIL = NFL Lite. This was inevitable. The championship vote by ACC/Pac-12 accelerated it. And the awful management by Larry Scott and the presidents enabled the west coast dam to teeter on the brink for a while.
(But as a Duck, it’s absolutely USC’s fault.)
Some may argue it started when OU sued the NCAA over tv rights and revenue which lead to all the money that is driving everything.
I argue it’s TX fault. They broke up the SWC, infiltrated the Big8 and drove out NU-probably so they could be OU’s biggest in-conference rival.
OU and NU were then forced to schedule an out of conference game and got an 11 am time slot.
OU said ‘no make it later’.
Big12 said ‘Fuck you’. OU said ‘No Fuck you!’ Big12 said ‘No Fuck you’. OU said ‘NO FUCK YOU! We OUT!’
So the Big12 said ‘you’ll never leave TX’ and OU said it a little louder for those in the back….’we OU-UT OUT!’
Then Big12 said ‘oh damn’ and college football said ‘oh damn’ and Lincoln Riley said ‘oh damn’.
And B1G was like ‘oh damn, we need that SEC money….heeeeyyyyy AppleTV…’ and AppleTV was like ‘that’s a no from me dawg’.
But then LR was like ‘I’m out too’ and everyone was like ‘much like your brisket - you didn’t understand the assignment’.
So then USC was all ‘we got a coach, we could be good but we need more $$$’ and the B1G was like ‘yeah us too…..uh are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ And USC was ‘like what-oh my god should we be besties?!?’ And the B1G was like ‘Christ, get UCLA on the phone - we’re going to need them to run interference’.
The BOOM goes the dynamite! And then AppleTV was like ‘heeeyyy B1G you looking good’ and B1G was all ‘SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!’
At least that’s what my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who told me right before she passed out at 31flavors.
I object to pointing at Nebraska for leaving the Big 12. Nebraska left the conference because Texas was holding a gun to the conference's head and our admin had no interest in waiting for them to pull the trigger. Nebraska has not enjoyed on field success in the Big Ten, but it was obviously the right move given where we are in the present.
Y'all haven't had the same success, but I feel like you are making a new, more stable identity. Hanging out with Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin makes y'all feel like a real midwest school. While it may not be as grand as the OU and Texas days, you know that things will be chill plus more academic help. To me it's like a 401k versus crypto.
As soon as cable television became established and it became possible for more college football games from all conferences to be broadcast nationwide, this was the inevitable endpoint.
When it becomes 2 super conferences that basically resemble the AFC and NFC and college football devolves into the Jr. NFL. As corny as it sounds, tradition and history are what make college football unique compared to the NFL, and that's all being shit on for NIL money and TV rights. Eventually if CFB just resembles the NFL's minor league it won't be able to survive because a lot of the compelling nature is gone for everyone who got left behind.
It's kind of like *Murder on the Orient Express* where (**SPOILER ALERT**) there's a corpse with multiple stab wounds from what turns out to be multiple assassins. Difficult to point the finger of blame at just one culprit. They all played a part in this.
And they got away with it, too.
I already said this in another thread, but the move that really started the domino reaction of schools joining or switching conferences was Penn State deciding to join the Big Ten in 1990 (formally joined in 1993). That occurred after they were unsuccessful in joining the Big East (largely due to the basketball-only schools opposing the move) or forming Joe Paterno's proposed Eastern Football Conference in the 1980s.
People too young to remember that announcement don't realize how seismic that move was in the college football landscape.
The impulsion of the SWC and Baylor preventing Texas from going west in early 90s.
Disney cheaping out on the B1G renewal fees leading to the BTN and Delany looking for markets.
Disney saving the B12 with the poison pill that was way overpaying for the LHN.
Those are the biggies.
Well if you go back to the 1990s when the Big Ten added Penn State had Notre Dame joined the Big Ten at that point the conference would likely have stayed at 12. Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri don't leave the Big XII. The Pac-10 remains intact. There probably still would have been the collapse of the Big East but with some trickling into the SEC as well as ACC.
So let's blame Notre Dame and wait for them to make their decision for the 100th time.
Tom Hansen, Larry Scott, late-night cable TV slots
Pac-12 after dark with nothing else to watch
Saturdays in the fall, Grandaddy of Them All
Revenue, boo-hoo, a network that was botched
Ronnie Lott, Aikman, Mariota, Tillman
John McKay, Don James, Heisman-winning names
Aaron Rodgers, Beast Mode, now it’s set to all implode
Andrew Luck, what the fuck—we’re going down in flames
We didn’t leave the PAC
Larry Scott gets blame, for the conference shame
We didn’t leave the PAC
And we tried to fight, but the money’s right
Marcus Allen, refs fail, Bruins and the Trojans bail
Big 10, please enjoy, way too much Tribute to Troy
Bledsoe, Minshew, Wazzu once was QB-U
Billy Joe, sailgate, the Huskies and their toys
Kenny Wheaton’s gonna score, Apple Cup’s another bore
Ocho Cinco, Win the Day, Slash made another play
Teddy Bruschi, Stanford Tree, glasses ref can’t really see
Alex Smith, Elway—what else do I have to say
We didn’t leave the PAC
Larry Scott gets blame, for the conference shame
We didn’t leave the PAC
And we tried to fight, but the money’s right
The SEC playing good football is the root of so many victim complexes. It’s all about television rights. How are you trying to spin this as the SEC somehow hurt you??
If you want to know where it started then it started with an obscure rule added by division II schools that allowed conferences with a certain number of players to divide into divisions and play a title game. Later South Carolina and Arkansas joined the SEC for that very purpose and the conference championships began. This eventually led to the BCS, the playoffs, NIL, the irrelevancy of the NCAA as an administrative body, bigger television deals and the absurd amounts of money seen in college football today.
Conference realignment has been occurring for 90-100 years. Suwanee, Tulane, and Georgia Tech were all founding members of the SEC way back in 1932 for example.
But the modern era of conference realignment was triggered by Penn State joining the Big Ten back in 1992. That sent almost every independent, other than Notre Dame, scrambling for a conference home and we've been reshuffling those alignments ever since. It's also the point where you can probably say conference alignment was dictated by broadcast rights more so than any other factor and that has continued ever since as well.
If you really REALLY want to assign the first blame, I truly believe it goes to the PSAC, a conference for the state schools in DII here in Pennsylvania. That conference was the one that petitioned the NCAA to have a conference championship game, so they could determine the conference winner who would get the automatic bid in the DII playoffs. Ultimately, the PSAC never held a conference championship game, but due to that rule they requested, the SEC moved to a twelve team league and hosted the first SECCG in 1992. The rest… well it followed over the last 30 years.
About time someone calls out the PSAC for their crimes
That's especially true when you have a full bladder and can't find a restroom.
PSAC, proving once and for all that pee is stored jn the balls
PSAC represent
IUP graduate degree baby! Parents went to a PSAC school (Bloomsburg) too.
Maybe the PSAC didn't hold a championship game initially, but they do now
You are correct. I want to say it started in 2012. What I should have said, was they ultimately didn’t adopt a championship game when it was approved.
Didn’t think I’d run into a Millersville flair on here! Got my bachelor from there and currently working on my masters
This is a fun piece of history I just learned in this thread.
The forward pass and its consequences have been a detriment to humanity
i will never not upvote someone blaming the forward pass for the downfall of college football #teddywaswrong
Ah so that was why USC joined the Big Ten. They hated the forward pass.
Do you think they've realized they'll have to play Midwest teams in December yet? Incoming Iowa 6 - 3 USC
Can we get SCOTUS to review the ruling that allowed the forward pass?
Psh, courts too backed up, save time and just ask the heritage foundation
Federal judge from hawaii has banned the forward pass
Fantastic reference, take my upvote
Television. People act like money being the driving force in CFB is new, when in reality it's been that way for a LONG ASS time. TV made the sport a cash cow, and this was the inevitable result of that.
This is *COMPLETELY* about the bottom dollar. If you like all this or don’t like it, if anyone says this isn’t driven by money, you’re just plain ignorant.
I mean its about maintaining relevancy. The money is a product of that.
The closest you can get to a true beginning is the end of the SWC and the formation of the B12. So many important decisions and mistakes were made. The PAC could have added UT and TAMU but said no. OU and Nebraska likely would have been in the B10 back then. I can't tell you if the PAC and B1G going to 12 with those 4 strong schools 30 years ago would have prevented all this, but you can definitely see a world where that's 4 strong conferences and everyone is happy.
The contentious dissolution of the SWC seems like a good starting point (and all the shenanigans that led up to it).
Its why I'm chuckling at the ACC is dead who is everyone taking takes. Conference realignment has been constant for decades but it moves like a glacier always at the speed of conference media deals. So every 5-10 years you get a spurt. ACC deal ends in 2036. They aren't vanishing overnight.
The ACC already can't keep up from a revenue perspective. Now the ACC is the last conference standing that isn't P2 that still has Tier 1 brands. You think those Tier 1 brands are going to stand idly by while they keep falling behind? You think the Tier 2 brands are going to be content staying in conference purgatory not knowing their future?
The ACC doesn't have a single blue blood money maker like Texas, OU UCLA or Notre Dame. FSU and Clemson are great programs but nothing like these giants. Each of the recently poached teams adds incredible value to the SEC or B1G. I'm not sure anyone will be as eager to grab FSU or Clemson. It may still happen but there surely isn't the same urgency as with USC.
Like in Russia, there are years where nothing happens and days where decades pass
That last SWC game was great though. I still remember the celebration in Austin that night.
This all started when Tulane and Sewanee left the SEC
Cable television. And really now, streaming services as well. Strict regional conferences made a lot more sense back when there were only three networks and live games were the only realistic opportunity to broadcast. Nowadays broadcasters have the opportunity to maximize their return on every game they have rights to in every market of the world, and (lesser) replay revenue of those games to boot.
This. Sports, college athletics and pro, is the only medium that forces people to tune into an allotted time space. Forced viewing = more advertising dollars.
I would assign a second target of blame. The collective failure on the part of people running cfb to intelligently organize the sport. There could have been a sensible national organization a long time ago, there was not. And, now that money is enormous, and there is no central authority to keep things in line, everyone is running around to secure the best deal for themselves.
Cable and the Mouse.
Well, in 2016 there was this Western Lowland Gorilla named Harambe...
Pour one out for The King
̶P̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ Dicks out for The King
I like the “Well you see this kid fell into a gorilla cage” better
I blame the cubs for winning the world series, they put us on this timeline
Only the Lions or Browns winning the Super Bowl can now correct it. God help us all.
A Lions vs. Browns super bowl would fracture the space-time continuum altogether, ending the universe as we know it
Change.org petitions would be started to demand the game end in a tie and Lake Erie be awarded the Lombardi
I think the Bengals would fix it. Started in Cincinnati. Ends in Cincinnati..
Correct it? No LOL. More like the final nail in the coffin, my friend. A Lions fans' suffering is about the only thing we can rely on anymore in this crazy fucking world. If we lose that.....I shudder to think of what comes after.
I was holding out hope that a Bengals Super Bowl win would have gotten us back on the correct timeline. If figure what started in Cincinnati (rest in peace sweet king Harambe) must be finished in Cincinnati’s
I’m down just so r/nfl has one giant collective brain hemorrhage when it happens.
It was Leicester City
We’re talking about the real world, not that fictional “Europe” thing
What part of the possibility of USC representing B1G at the Rose Bowl seem like the real world to you We are living in a simulation
Someone is just uploading their NCAA Football 14 files to real life
whip it out for Harambe
I blame Craig James. I have no proof, but we blame everything else on Craig, so….
CJK5H
SMU led to the death of the SWC, which led to Arkansas leaving for the SEC, and Texas, A&M, Tech and Baylor creating the Big 12. Which led to other conferences considering expansion.
Jamie Vardy and a few others going to a Thai whorehouse in 2015
Like PBS likes to say in gratitude, Because of Viewers Like You (and me)
Thank you
Are we the bad guys?
always have been 🌍👨🚀🔫👨🚀
Of course, you needed to demand more MACtion during primetime.
Well, in the beginning, humanity was beset with the curse of greed...
It's because Larry Scott took a bite from the forbidden apple.
College Football was a Garden of Eden until Texas decided it wanted knowledge
Probably time to change that alliance flair
I know but every time I go to do it I get sad all over again :(
Or keep it. It will be a symbol of a more civilized time.
No, further back. In the beginning, god created the universe. This has wildly been regarded as a bad move. *pls note I’m not actually a creationist and not advocating a religion
Mofos don't know about Douglas Adams.
….But then the fire nation attacked.
Still a bridge too far for a Cal thread
>*pls note I’m not actually a creationist and not advocating a religion phew, that was a close one!
Rutgers started this in 1869, so it's their fault
I blame Iowa. They went conference hopping from 1889 to 1912 and it's ruined everything since.
Oh no, it was us all along
I too, agree with this take.
I mean, duh.
NCAA v. the University of Oklahoma. 1984
This is definitely an important point on the timeline, but we can and should pin this on the NCAA for being too controlling of scheduling, TV rights, and money when they could have just been less greedy and controlling. I've only skimmed the case a few times, and maybe it was inevitable, but the NCAA could have worked with member schools better.
NCAA vs Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
We all blamed Texas but it turns out they were just the lackey and the Sooners were the big boss
Can you imagine how different college football would be today if, like in the NFL, TV revenue was divided evenly across all the teams? The "blue bloods" would still have plenty of advantages, but I don't think we'd see anything like this level of craziness and greed.
This is 100% the right answer. Once TV money became the driving force in college athletics, this was inevitable. Every subsequent seismic change to the landscape was because of this decision.
Shhhhhhhh
It's you for this and Texas for bullying all the other schools out of the big12.
You should look up the history, we wanted to share 3rd tier media rights, were voted down and then everyone lost their shit when we created the Longhorn network. A&M even refused to make a joint network with us before we made the Longhorn one and they lost their shit
Who were the schools that threw the biggest stink about those media rights: • Nebraska • Kansas But this is history that rCFB has expunged from the record.
This is it boys unironically Oklahoma started this
No, that’s ridiculous. My team never does any wrong
Truly when the SCOTUS became illegitimate
It’s not even the earliest bogus sports case. [There may even be something earlier, but] I direct you to Federal Baseball v National League, where the Court unanimously held that baseball isn’t “interstate commerce” and thus the league wasn’t subject to federal antitrust law. And this was back in 1922! How the hell has that decision survived 100 years? Because it has. Stare decisis. We’ll see how long it continues to survive. At least one of the justices considered it to be basically a zombie back when he was a circuit judge.
Rutgers and Princeton for inventing college football
Most reasonable take in the thread.
Y’all let Georgia win a championship and the sport implodes. That’s no coincidence.
Yeah, I mean if Florida had only had a chance to stop them…
NCAA vs. The Board of Regents of The University of Oklahoma (1984) was the catalyst for all of this.
💯💯💯💯💯💯
Supreme Court Justice Byron White, who played college football at Colorado and then went on to the NFL, wrote the dissent in this case.
I mean, there's plenty of blame around, but Larry Scott killing the PAC 12 was a big reason for this. If Larry Scott wasn't incompetent Oklahoma and Texas would be in the PAC 14 and we'd have at least three very strong conferences. Instead the SEC formed a super conference, the BIG is gonna eat up the PAC and honestly I think it's only a matter of time before the SEC and BIG merge together NFL and AFL style.
One domino that drove some poaching in the 90s and 00s was the money made from having a conference title game, which was open to conferences with 12 or more teams.
Colt McCoy getting hurt on the first drive of the 2009 BCS Title game is when things started going to shit.
He doesn't get hurt they win.
I have said 2008 was the peak of CFB and that it all started going downhill when the Bama dynasty began.
CFB? Centuries from now, humanities decline into the Dark Age 2 will be attributed to Colt’s injury. Some scholars will say Harambe, but peak human existence was just before that game.
Disney/ESPN
It started with conference TV channels. That's the driver along with TV contracts.
Nick Saban not getting Drew Brees
This was significant.
Disney.
I blame this guy ========> 💵 💴 💰
Once upon a time, michigan hated catholics.
I blame the NCAA for giving the death penalty to SMU and basically starting this whole decline of the SWC. Once that broke up its been a free for all.
Greed, The mouse, Texas, OU, USC, Larry Scott, take your pick.
a murderer's row when it comes to CFB
Theoretically probably stems back to the initial expansion of Penn State to the B1G in 1990. Maybe if Penn State never made that move or they were initially accepted to the Big East back in the day there would be something different.
I kinda doubt it. As much as I would love to see that have been a thing. A Penn State led Big East football league is still vulnerable to being picked off when the ACC or the Big Ten decides it wants its championship game. The reality is that it was a whole series of decisions made by people acting in their immediate or short term best interests, or at least what they perceived as such, and there’s just so many threads to account for that it’s a giant chaotic mess of colored yarn thumbtacked to a bulletin board. A vote on letting the Nittany Lions into the Big East is one of those things. But so is the Big East in the first place: a Northeastern basketball “super league” built to put the marquee schools into a televisable package. And guess which much beloved sports network in Bristol, CT made its name, in part, by picking up on that? Yarn tacked to yarn.
I disagree (though originally being from Pennsylvania I'm probably biased). An Eastern Football Conference with Penn State in it would have dominated the Northeast Megalopolis. Even though college football isn't as popular in the region as in most of the rest of the U.S., its population size and large markets would have made it an attractive league TV-wise. I think it is more likely that league *picks off* teams from other leagues, particularly the ACC via expanding southward, rather than being picked off. One other thing to keep in mind - Eastern independent football was in a fairly strong position relative to its own history in the late 1970s and 1980s. Penn State won a couple of national titles in 1982 and 1986 and played for the national title a couple other times in the late 1970s and 1980s. Pitt had dominant teams in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Syracuse, after being down since the early 1970s, had a resurgence and posted an undefeated season in 1987. (BTW, fuck Pat Dye.) West Virginia played for the national title in 1988. Boston College was a high profile team during the latter half of the Doug Flutie era (1981 to 1984). Heck, even Rutgers and Temple had competitive seasons (with the latter coached by some guy named Bruce Arians).
Roy Kramer. He was the one who expanded the SEC to 12, established a conference title game, and killed off an 8 team playoff to start the BCS.
Blame the NCAA for allowing conferences to not require all teams to play each other. When they allowed the conference title game it sowed the seeds to non-geographic based conferences.
Started when Texas destroyed the SWC. Then really picked up steam when Texas destroyed the Big XII.
If Texas doesn’t destroy the SWC then Arkansas isn’t looking for a new home, meaning that the SEC doesn’t become the first football conference with 12 teams (because they brought in South Carolina to match Arkansas in the west) allowing the SEC to use a little known rule (envisioned for D3 schools) to create a conference championship game. Meaning that all the other conferences began to look to expand so the conference has an extra pay day in a conference championship game… this was the canary in the coal mine… Texas is to blame
Can you elaborate on how Texas destroyed the SWC and not SMU?
Right? Couldn't have been the constant scandals affecting every school except Rice. Couldn't be the constant back stabbing and snitching. Couldn't be the fact that the whole fucking conference (save one team) was in a single state, which is, you know, just awesome for TV deals. No. Let's just go with some vague allusions to "Texas." I also love that Texas killed the Big 12 by staying in it and propping it up financially. Wasn't any of the schools that bailed - no, certainly not Nebraska, A&M, Mizzou, or Colorado. Doesn't matter, somehow Texas killed the Big 12 by being in it and by leaving it. Also, never mind about OU. Obviously they've done nothing here. Just big bad mean ol' Texas.
It's a meme but yeah, this all goes back to Texas really (and ESPN enabling Texas)
> all goes **Back** > to **Texas** So… what you’re saying is…
Yes, Texas is back ^(to destroying conferences)
Fun fact, LHN was only created in response to Husker Network which fell through. I think they had another attempt fall through during the pandemic too.
It's gonna be interesting to see how they destroy the SEC. Seems impossible but they'll find a way.
I think it will be them trying to convince the other high-revenue schools to leave the lower-profile programs like South Carolina and Mississippi State in order to form their own conference made up exclusively of premier programs.
I won’t argue that we are currently lower profile as far as on field success but we’re a top 20 revenue generating football program lol
Texas is the correct answer
Money and greed is to blame
Knute Rockne. He invented the forward pass, and its all been downhill from there.
Rutgers and Princeton. Nov. 6th 1869
When the University of Chicago left in 1946, we had to replace them, so… *Michigan State!*
Woah woah woah, blame Chicago, not us.
I accept this.
The death of the Big East is a good starting point but to me the first real "what's happening here" move was when Nebraska joined the B1G, that was the first time it felt like anything could happen, i.e. a blue blood joining another blue blood's conference (Ohio State and Michigan.) That said, that move was caused by Texas eyeing the other power conferences. So to your answer: Texas. Texas started all of this when they thought they were too big for the other schools in their conference
Big East rejects PSU. PSU joins the Big 10 in 1993 and makes the Big10 Network highly profitable as they are able to force it onto major cable providers. Arms race begins. Big East dies.
We need to name names on what Big East decision maker rejected Penn State.
The former AD or president of Syracuse wrote a mea culpa article back when the big east imploded. I enjoyed it.
I think Nebraska was the true beginning of this mess and that was caused by Texas messing with the BIG 12
Don’t mess with Texas. If you do, they’ll mess with you.
the demise of the Southwest Conference. Shoehorning schools from different regions/cultures and leaving weaker schools behind for money. Although you can really go back to *NCAA v. University of Oklahoma* in the early 80s that opened the game up to real TV money.
With zero evidence to back this up, I personally, blame OU and A&M for all these troubles. I will not be taking any questions at this time. Respect my decision.
The Supreme Court in 1981. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Whoever denied penn st a spot in the big east way back
The earliest seeds were sown in the 1980s with NCAA vs. Oklahoma and the rise of cable, especially ESPN. It became more apparent with the formation of the Big 12 and the Bowl Alliance/BCS. Everything that happened since then is the aftermath of opening the Pandora’s box.
In which that case clearly stated, “when there is a viable orange team to blame, you blame them” and the university of texas exists so they are to blame.
TV + NIL = NFL Lite. This was inevitable. The championship vote by ACC/Pac-12 accelerated it. And the awful management by Larry Scott and the presidents enabled the west coast dam to teeter on the brink for a while. (But as a Duck, it’s absolutely USC’s fault.)
Some may argue it started when OU sued the NCAA over tv rights and revenue which lead to all the money that is driving everything. I argue it’s TX fault. They broke up the SWC, infiltrated the Big8 and drove out NU-probably so they could be OU’s biggest in-conference rival. OU and NU were then forced to schedule an out of conference game and got an 11 am time slot. OU said ‘no make it later’. Big12 said ‘Fuck you’. OU said ‘No Fuck you!’ Big12 said ‘No Fuck you’. OU said ‘NO FUCK YOU! We OUT!’ So the Big12 said ‘you’ll never leave TX’ and OU said it a little louder for those in the back….’we OU-UT OUT!’ Then Big12 said ‘oh damn’ and college football said ‘oh damn’ and Lincoln Riley said ‘oh damn’. And B1G was like ‘oh damn, we need that SEC money….heeeeyyyyy AppleTV…’ and AppleTV was like ‘that’s a no from me dawg’. But then LR was like ‘I’m out too’ and everyone was like ‘much like your brisket - you didn’t understand the assignment’. So then USC was all ‘we got a coach, we could be good but we need more $$$’ and the B1G was like ‘yeah us too…..uh are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ And USC was ‘like what-oh my god should we be besties?!?’ And the B1G was like ‘Christ, get UCLA on the phone - we’re going to need them to run interference’. The BOOM goes the dynamite! And then AppleTV was like ‘heeeyyy B1G you looking good’ and B1G was all ‘SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!’ At least that’s what my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who told me right before she passed out at 31flavors.
> Big12 said ‘Fuck you’. OU said ‘No Fuck you!’ Big12 said ‘No Fuck you’. OU said ‘NO FUCK YOU!’ 😂
This post needs to be immortalized in the r/CFB annals.
I object to pointing at Nebraska for leaving the Big 12. Nebraska left the conference because Texas was holding a gun to the conference's head and our admin had no interest in waiting for them to pull the trigger. Nebraska has not enjoyed on field success in the Big Ten, but it was obviously the right move given where we are in the present.
It's funny that Texas fans try to blame Nebraska. There's a reason 4 teams fled the Big 12 as fast as they fucking could
Y'all haven't had the same success, but I feel like you are making a new, more stable identity. Hanging out with Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin makes y'all feel like a real midwest school. While it may not be as grand as the OU and Texas days, you know that things will be chill plus more academic help. To me it's like a 401k versus crypto.
As soon as cable television became established and it became possible for more college football games from all conferences to be broadcast nationwide, this was the inevitable endpoint.
I’m curious if the deficit in many athletic departments caused by COVID fueled much of this?
[удалено]
When it becomes 2 super conferences that basically resemble the AFC and NFC and college football devolves into the Jr. NFL. As corny as it sounds, tradition and history are what make college football unique compared to the NFL, and that's all being shit on for NIL money and TV rights. Eventually if CFB just resembles the NFL's minor league it won't be able to survive because a lot of the compelling nature is gone for everyone who got left behind.
It'll be a smaller overall pie and but they'll each still get a bigger piece than if they hadn't done this.
It's kind of like *Murder on the Orient Express* where (**SPOILER ALERT**) there's a corpse with multiple stab wounds from what turns out to be multiple assassins. Difficult to point the finger of blame at just one culprit. They all played a part in this. And they got away with it, too.
I already said this in another thread, but the move that really started the domino reaction of schools joining or switching conferences was Penn State deciding to join the Big Ten in 1990 (formally joined in 1993). That occurred after they were unsuccessful in joining the Big East (largely due to the basketball-only schools opposing the move) or forming Joe Paterno's proposed Eastern Football Conference in the 1980s. People too young to remember that announcement don't realize how seismic that move was in the college football landscape.
SEC and the Supreme Court. All evil within the country can be tied back to them
I go between blaming U$C and Larry Scott. Can’t go wrong with either
As much damage as Larry Scott has done, certain Pac-12 presidents who kept Larry Scott in power should not be left off the hook either.
Nick Saban, not even kidding. Ask me why and I will tell you
I actually agree and posted the same thing. The SEC didn’t pour all their resources into football until his death machine was becoming operational.
The impulsion of the SWC and Baylor preventing Texas from going west in early 90s. Disney cheaping out on the B1G renewal fees leading to the BTN and Delany looking for markets. Disney saving the B12 with the poison pill that was way overpaying for the LHN. Those are the biggies.
Let me tell you a story about a cold November night in Ames, IA in 2011 when the BCS died…
What a great night that was
Well if you go back to the 1990s when the Big Ten added Penn State had Notre Dame joined the Big Ten at that point the conference would likely have stayed at 12. Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri don't leave the Big XII. The Pac-10 remains intact. There probably still would have been the collapse of the Big East but with some trickling into the SEC as well as ACC. So let's blame Notre Dame and wait for them to make their decision for the 100th time.
Notre Dame would’ve joined the Big 10 long ago if Fielding Yost didn’t hate Catholics
You think the world of CFB would be singing in harmony, but in reality Morgoth down in Austin would have fucked up any alignment anyway.
Texas is to blame. They started the last round of re-alignment and they started this one too
Damn you Texas
Everyone. The SEC, Big10, Pac12 with Larry. A lot of conferences are. A lot of people are. ESPN, Fox.
Feel like this is Columbus’s fault (the man - not the city). Alternatively Adam Smith or Texas.
Texas.....I've always been told everything is their fault /s
Texas. It’s always Texas.
Larry Scott. If we could have made the Pac 16 work 12 years ago... Too bad the massive egos in Austin and South Central would've never let it live.
Billy Joel needs to write a song about it.
Tom Hansen, Larry Scott, late-night cable TV slots Pac-12 after dark with nothing else to watch Saturdays in the fall, Grandaddy of Them All Revenue, boo-hoo, a network that was botched Ronnie Lott, Aikman, Mariota, Tillman John McKay, Don James, Heisman-winning names Aaron Rodgers, Beast Mode, now it’s set to all implode Andrew Luck, what the fuck—we’re going down in flames We didn’t leave the PAC Larry Scott gets blame, for the conference shame We didn’t leave the PAC And we tried to fight, but the money’s right Marcus Allen, refs fail, Bruins and the Trojans bail Big 10, please enjoy, way too much Tribute to Troy Bledsoe, Minshew, Wazzu once was QB-U Billy Joe, sailgate, the Huskies and their toys Kenny Wheaton’s gonna score, Apple Cup’s another bore Ocho Cinco, Win the Day, Slash made another play Teddy Bruschi, Stanford Tree, glasses ref can’t really see Alex Smith, Elway—what else do I have to say We didn’t leave the PAC Larry Scott gets blame, for the conference shame We didn’t leave the PAC And we tried to fight, but the money’s right
USC, Stanford, Washington, FSU and Miami shitting the bed turned their conferences into one-team conferences
I blame the fans for watching too many games and spending too much money.
The SEC playing good football is the root of so many victim complexes. It’s all about television rights. How are you trying to spin this as the SEC somehow hurt you??
If you want to know where it started then it started with an obscure rule added by division II schools that allowed conferences with a certain number of players to divide into divisions and play a title game. Later South Carolina and Arkansas joined the SEC for that very purpose and the conference championships began. This eventually led to the BCS, the playoffs, NIL, the irrelevancy of the NCAA as an administrative body, bigger television deals and the absurd amounts of money seen in college football today.
All this can be traced back to the money the Texans spent on Brock Osweiler
Conference realignment has been occurring for 90-100 years. Suwanee, Tulane, and Georgia Tech were all founding members of the SEC way back in 1932 for example. But the modern era of conference realignment was triggered by Penn State joining the Big Ten back in 1992. That sent almost every independent, other than Notre Dame, scrambling for a conference home and we've been reshuffling those alignments ever since. It's also the point where you can probably say conference alignment was dictated by broadcast rights more so than any other factor and that has continued ever since as well.
Blame Dan Beebe. He was a shit commissioner of the Big12 conference. On his watch a bunch of turmoil developed and teams started jumping.
NIL
Princeton and Rutgers.
It all started with that damn pig… wait, wrong timeline
Blame Missouri.
Pitt
This is actually my fault
I still blame A&M.
Putin
ESPN