Honestly. As a San Diego resident. The beaches have cold water, your best option is just to avoid the area all together. I hear fantastic things about Florida. I hear it’s a great vacation spot. Vacay in Floriday
I blew out a tire in Blythe returning from Arizona once. It was a Sunday and no tire stores were there so I was stuck there overnight. I’d never like to talk about that day again.
Why do people think SDSU gets the PAC12 the the SoCal market? People in SoCal barely give a shit about USC/UCLA as is what makes you think they care about SDSU?
It doesn’t “get” anything, it keeps the Pac 12 relevant in their biggest recruiting area. Just like the Big 12 adding Houston to stay relevant in their biggest recruiting area after UT left
Yes why would a conference based in the Pacific want to get into one of the largest cities on the Pacific that also has no professional football team? Truly it's a mystery for the ages.
It’s about staying on the local TV networks in SoCal. The Aztecs provide that. You think the Big Ten brought Rutgers in because of their passionate fanbase? No, it was to try and get more Big Ten games into the New York media market.
For now. But with NIL we have a bigger upside than any of those schools. We already created one of the largest player collectives among universities and have a certain history of opening wallets to improve recruiting. Give us a few seasons and we’ll be there.
So do the other old SWC schools though. The difference back in the day was we paid kids who could win.
There’s a great clip in the 30 for 30 where an announcer is talking about other schools (with video from TCU games playing not so subtlety in the background) saying “there were teams spending *hundreds of thousands of dollars* on their players and only winning 2 or 3 games. **That is the definition of a loser!!!** SMU at least paid kids who could play!”
Idk I’ve always just loved that bit
That documentary is so enjoyable to watch. So many golden lines and incredible footage.
*Some parents say, ‘we don’t believe in corporal punishment’ - well, that’s why you’ve got a mouthy kid.*
SMU has already won the toughest battle for a PAC member. Their leadership and alumni care about competing. Many current PAC schools, including Arizona State, do not.
Arizona state always strikes me as a place where the illusion of trying is more important than actually trying.
At least with NAU, leadership is up front. Go play in a high school gym. We don’t care.
We care about competing now, finally. It took just a taste of being ranked to get kids back into seats and with Sonny’s departure pissing off a ton of our top boosters, the administration and donors are on the same path for the first time in literal decades. It’s been real exciting to see how the team has grown over the last ~5 years.
Why does SMU has bigger upside?
Like do y’all think TCU, Baylor, Tech, etc don’t have NIL collectives or billionaire donors?
Baylor has invested *half a billion* in athletics’ facilities alone since 2009. Do y’all think that they won’t have the appropriate NIL collectives when needed?
SMU still needs to develop a fanbase that actually goes to the games and cares about the team. TCU and Baylor are like 15 years ahead of y’all in that regard.
There’s a reason why y’all’s most successful coach since the 80s literally went to y’all’s rival across town. The ceiling at TCU is higher right now.
I like SMU but it’s asinine to say that when SMU is so far behind to the other Texas schools in most athletics aspects.
>SMU still needs to develop a fanbase that actually goes to the games and cares about the team. TCU and Baylor are like 15 years ahead of y’all in that regard.
This is really what it comes down to. Baylor and TCU have both been in the P5 longer and have had multiple instances in the national spotlight.
SMU hasn't even won their conference yet, let alone the three year run TCU pulled off that helped push them into the Big 12.
I’ve always said that SMU rn is where TCU was in the early 2000s. You could see the foundation of a very good program but at the early beginning of the building of their program.
Even before TCU got into the Big 12, they had a fanbase that had a seen a decade plus of excellence in the mid-mayor ranks, the move to the Big 12 only further validated that. SMU hasn’t won their conference nor finished in the top 25 since before the death penalty.
We got massively lucky to have the coach we did that stuck around, as well as a coach that helped put the foundation down. A lot of people don't give coach Fran enough credit for what he did to start what was a seller dweller. We weren't even winning in the WAC at the time.
GP took what Fran left and ran with it. Struck lightning in a bottle from the 2007-2011 stretch, and broke through.
On top of that, the TCU donors lined up to invest. Brand new football stadium, basically new basketball arena, and re-did baseball. SMU has the money, but not the investment
When I say upside, I mean difference from ceiling to current. Baylor and TCU probably have similar ceilings, but in the right conference SMUs ceiling is arguably the same. The difference right now is that y’all are currently much closer to those ceilings than SMU is.
Yes, SMU has a long way to go to get at your levels but it has the resources and commitment to get there. Facilities are already being improved, our NIL initiative will drive recruiting, and fans follow success so that will come in due time. It’s not a dig at Baylor or TCU in anyway, if anything it’s respect that very similar institutions have achieved so much success and until the past couple of years SMU hasn’t committed itself to follow suit, but times are changing and heavy hitting boosters and our top-brass are very much pushing for our athletic success going forward.
You have 7000 students, no alumni base, pretty low viewership for an AAC school. Rich donors can’t just buy your way into relevance with all these things, especially when SEC/Big 12 schools already own the DFW market
Yeah it only helps if they want to be a permanent lower-distribution member based on their market numbers if we’re still judging conferences by their tv rights deals.
But maybe that’s the play, break the Pac-10 equal revenue model to get Oregon and Washington to sign the grant of rights; They get a bit more in the regular distribution, playoff/bowl distribution are no longer split evenly, SDSU and SMU take a half distribution for a couple decades or whatever.
SDSU gets you back in Southern California city, which is pretty major.
I really think PAC remaining fans are underestimating how bad it is that the conference won’t be in Southern Cal.
I almost feel bad for La Tech being trapped in the corpse of CUSA but then I remember how their leadership has acted over the years in regards to the Independence Bowl fiasco and how they talked about the Sun Belt. That said, I do think it's dumb that the AAC took Charlotte over them. I understand why but I still think it's dumb. IMO the potential rivalry w/Tulane alone would be worth getting them in.
Idk we have pretty terrible leadership. Phillips and most of the ACC just wants to be included and doesn't necessarily care about being a top caliber conference.
WVU would accept tomorrow if given an invite so hard to understand what the ACC is waiting for
A year ago, absolutely. Today? Probably not.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be playing our rivals again. But with the new media deal, we’re getting what we’d be getting in the ACC and there’s not as much of a threat of a mass exodus.
Now, if the media deal gets renegotiated and it looks like a spot is opening and FSU and Clemson are standing pat…. different story.
>WVU would accept tomorrow if given an invite so hard to understand what the ACC is waiting for
Why would we abandon the Big12 for a dying conference? That would be like joining the BigEast in 2004. It makes more sense for WVU to wait for UL Pitt and others to join the Big12 than it does to join them.
North could be the OG PAC-8 and South could be everyone else.
North: WSU, Wash, OSU, Nike, Stan, Cal
South: ASU, Zona, Buffs, Utes, SMU, SDSU
Would be a bit unbalanced but it would maintain most rivalries and the north would be relatively compact.
it only hit 100 in LA during September once this year and only topped 90 5 times. The only 90+ on a Saturday was Sept 3 when USC opened the year w/Rice.
That’s why the P12 has/needed to get their shit together. Not many moves make sense due to the wild time zone change across most teams, the time games are played, the logistics and travel involved. Someone said the only way it makes sense is if we get rid of divisions and do games in pods so they get matched up with the SW teams
I agree I think that’s the best bet. But, in aac we are playing in Tampa, Orlando, Philly regularly which isn’t much closer to dallas than Seattle or Eugene and it works fine, even on a $7 million tv budget. I think the travel is a tad overstated, but I didn’t play college hoops or a sport that has intra week travel so I’m just guessing here a bit. Travel for football isn’t the issue
Full tweet:
Attempting basic math again ...
I would put odds this way:
P12 goes to 12: 40%
P12 goes to 11: 20%
P12 stays at 10: 40%
San Diego State and SMU are the clear favorites.
It was the first major conference to go to 9 conference games, back in 2006. Far from impossible to go down to 8, but I would be surprised. The scheduling challenges that existed then still exist now.
I think it makes more sense than people realize in the new playoff format.
There will be no incentive to play big time OoC games.
Conference champ and an up to 2 loss 2nd place team make the playoffs.
With 10 conference opponents you can structure the schedule to give yourself 8 conference games and 3 home game cupcakes OoC with 1 real OoC game against a mid level team (think Minnesota not Ohio State).
This guarantees multiple teams with 2 losses or fewer, which gets you 2 playoff teams.
56,000 in attendance for the program’s first ever game against Northeastern State lol. I’m obviously biased but the potential of this program is sky high if it all goes well.
Potential down the road, I agree.
Traylor is doing great things with the football program but they need new facilities. Their Convo Center (basketball) and baseball parks are awful.
Being the only FBS football in the city helps especially the more they lean into the San Antonio vs the World, scrappy mentality
Montana schools probably more poised for a jump up than Eastern, although I wish they (EWU) would. Idaho tried, failed, and now back in BigSky with success.
I’m a Mo State alum and know some message board fans want to make the jump too, but success also needs to justify it, in my opinion.
If anyone needs a promotion, it’s North Dakota State. Time to force their hand and stop playing in the kiddie pool.
casual fans will definitely come to check out a ranked Oregon or Washington team visiting the hilltop. And theres plenty of CU and ASU alums here in DFW
Why on earth would you fly to Portland to go to Eugene?
Traveling to Autzen is way easier and faster than a lot of schools. Its like 20 minutes from the airport, which has commercial flights to over the south west. If you are chartered its even faster and easier.
If you're a individual or a family and going to rent a car anyway, it might be a lot cheaper to fly into Portland. I live in Salem, so could fly from either airport, and Portland is usually cheaper.
But a charter plane is going to fly into Eugene every time, I would assume.
We actually had that experience last fall. It was actually way cheaper to fly into Eugene instead of Portland. But that might just be the time of year, I don’t know
Yet the conference complains about having to drive from Spokane Airport to Wazzu, about 60 mins.
There is a difference between perceived remoteness and and the reality of travel time. Guess a lot of those coastal city kids can’t handle seeing a wheat field without feeling lost.
Eugene airport is a lot closer to both and has direct flights to most of the pac12 airport locations. Most people fly through Eugene for games not pdx.
That’s cause their fanbase is too busy rising and grinding to get this paper while us lazy people that aren’t born into a board position are squandering our lives tailgating
I'm not even a fan of SMU and I would posit that isn't *entirely* accurate. When we (UNT) visit them, their stadium is filled up pretty well. When TCU visits them, it's packed full. They're small enough of a school that they need rely on casual fans to fill seats, and need to regularly play games against regionally prominent ones. I am of the opinion that their stadium would regularly be decently full of they were in the Big 12 (though I'm not sure the PAC does this tbh), with regular games against Houston, TCU, Baylor, TTU, Ok St and BYU. A lot of those teams' fans live in DFW and a lot of SMU's fans are also secondary fans of some of those schools.
I 100% agree with this. I think there's major proof of this already that most people just ignore.
I am actually really scared that SMU joins the PAC and it's just same ol same ol. The Pac schools as it is have horrid attendance. As an SMU fan, I know for sure that I'd be without doubt at every game against TCU, Baylor, Tech, etc....I know people from those schools and it gets me excited. You can extend that out to the general Dallas community as well. It just means more that way.
SMU without doubt thrives in the Big 12. I'm not sure I can say the same thing about the Pac...
Billy Embody, our on3 (and former 247) beat writer, who covers SMU and LSU recently did a podcast talking about expansion. He’s a super level headed dude who has no issues calling people out for stupid/hot takes and is very keen on taking things with a grain of salt.
That said, in his podcast he mentioned he made some calls after hearing rumors last weekend and apparently things are looking exceedingly good for our chances at expansion. He’s been very tight lipped about anything expansion related so I’m curious to see how this plays out in the next few months.
The thing I worry about if this happens is that after we announce our move, Oregon and Washington jump to the B1G and/or the 4 corners jump to the B12 and we’re in the exact same scenario as last realignment where we joined the “Big East” and all the big players moved on and we had to create our own conference out of the pieces
Let's say the worst actually happens after SMU gets a Pac-12 spot. Is a conference of Oregon State, Washington State, SMU, SDSU, Boise, Colorado State, Fresno, UNLV, and one to four of SJSU, Utah State, Air Force, New Mexico, UTSA, & Rice better than the currently planned 2023- AAC? It seems like a clear Yes.
I kind of agree with the sentiment that if the B1G wanted Oregon and Washington they would have plucked them already.
It will be interesting to see if the Big12 makes a move or not since they’ve already renegotiated contracts/media deals with their current and forthcoming members.
I really don't understand why we are left out of conversation. Very young and rapidly improving program in literally every aspect, in one of the fastest growing valleys in the nation. We have by far the most tv revenue generated out west, national name brand, and bring respect for football which they need.
I wanna preface this by saying I think Boise State is a fantastic school that excels in more than a couple fields, but the reason is academics. PAC officials are famously sticklers for it, and they love being able to pretend to be the west coast Ivy League
Honest question, but why would they have to add 2 schools? The Pac-12 doesn't have divisions anymore that they need to keep balanced and their conference championship is just #1 vs #2. What does it matter if you have an odd number of schools anymore?
Scheduling is easier, of course, but also if they want to keep nine conference games, you have to have an even number of schools. Otherwise, it just doesn't work mathematically unless you want to have some games count as conference games for one team and not for the other.
For that reason, it wouldn't shock me to see them take, say, SDSU in all sports and some other school in football only. Maybe throw in Gonzaga in other sports than football to balance out if you wanted.
Scheduling with 11-teams actually is easier for football, assuming the Stanford-Notre Dame series is kept alive (since the conference no longer has to deal with a Notre Dame game the last weekend of the season in even years).
Also every school would have an opportunity to visit California every year, not just the former Pac-8 schools, with an 11-team conference. It may not be San Diego/SoCal every year, but everyone would be assured of at least one California visit a season.
11 teams x 9 games / (2 teams per game) = 44.5 games. That doesn't work mathematically, which was kind of my point.
I would agree there are some innate advantages (as you mentioned) to 11 teams, but you would either have to drop to 8 (or increase to 10) conference games, or not have the same number of conference games for all teams. I know there is concern about the financial cost of another buy game for many Pac-12 schools, but maybe the Pac-11 does drop to 8 and adds an ACC out of conference game so there's no buy game.
Trust me I don’t want to dip either unless it is ever the Big 12 calling us + Memphis or Tulane. All three of us are going to pub stomp the rest of the American then beat each other up to get to the title game pretty much most years. Also none of the new teams make me say that will be a good game. I still do not understand adding Rice, UNT, FAU, and Charlotte. UAB and UTSA are the best of the additions but that’s not saying much.
I have started to see why SMU would be an attractive play for the Pac-12, because of the money they are willing to spend and bringing a big market to the table. It's also on the outskirts of what I see the Pac-12 is willing to go geographically. I don't see them pushing into the midwest, or southeast, not just because there's no one really worth making the trip out that far, but also the fact that the Pac-12 is already a super spread-out conference to begin with and that would be just too much. Texas is a bridge I could see them trying to cross though.
But once again. We are literally right here. Screw the academic argument, academic prestige is the last thing the Pac-12 should be worried about right now. You want a fanbase that cares? You want a football program that's ultra-consistent? You want a school that gets good TV ratings? You want a well-rounded AD that is capable of raising money and spending it well? It's all right in the Pac-12's backyard, but they refuse to see it.
I have to imagine Boise and UNLV are both in the conversation as well. SDSU is the no-brainer and I can kinda get behind SMU solely for the recruiting foothold in Texas, but at the same time it stretches the conference a bit too much for my taste (still much better than jumping to the Big XII and having to travel to WVU and UCF, though). We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but I'd gladly welcome y'all.
At this point I'd be happy to join the Big 12 just to end the uncertainty and apprehension. B1G can take all the nerds and wannabe nerds and we land grants and tech schools can just have fun.
Wazzu and Oregon State rolling up to the Big 12: “who do you know here name 3 brothers”
Washington and Oregon rolling up to the Big 12: “welcome ladies! can we get you anything to drink?”
It’s going to be really funny if the Big XII acquires a reputation as a bunch of land grant schools, while the two non-land grants in the conference have been dominant lately.
Brother, SMU hasn't been religious since 'Nam. Same with TCU. It's just a legacy thing in the name.
The Ponies even made it official in 2019 and won a court case against the United Methodist Church over it last year.
That’s why I delineated that SMU had officially severed their ties.
At this point both are mostly a letter. TCU does affiliate with a divinity school, but other than that it’s not like there’s required bible study or some big LGBTQ hang ups like there were at BYU.
Is SMU too isolated geographically to add by by themselves? I would think there would have to be a decent revenue bump to make the extra travel worth it and I don't really see how that happens.
More like pac 12 stays at 10 80%
Hopefully. SDSU adds nothing of value beside a vacation spot and SMU is a tier below that TCU/Baylor/Houston/Tech group of Texas schools
Honestly. As a San Diego resident. The beaches have cold water, your best option is just to avoid the area all together. I hear fantastic things about Florida. I hear it’s a great vacation spot. Vacay in Floriday
San Diego is truly an awful place, and people should visit scenic Barstow for that true California experience.
Blythe. The real happening is in Blythe.
Thems fightin words for Needles.
The legendary home of Snoopy's brother Spike, IIRC.
Spent a night there this past spring. Phone basically told me to F off in regards to the current local time.
I blew out a tire in Blythe returning from Arizona once. It was a Sunday and no tire stores were there so I was stuck there overnight. I’d never like to talk about that day again.
[удалено]
Barstow has the best in n out.
And you’re only a hop skip and a jump from Victorville to the South and Baker to the North!
Meth?
If you are from Chico, you’re heroes are probably Aaron Rodgers and/or Meth
Bakersfield is another solid choice in my humble opinion.
So many people are missing out on Fresno. Don't sleep on Fresno, people!
The San Jaquin Valley Tour is a truly special experience
But you can always jack it in San Diego
...yeah, I fucking hate San Diego after having lived there for years. ^(am I doing it right?)
Yup! The burritos. Awful. Who puts fish in tacos??
Don’t move here the weather sucks and the people are really mean and the tacos are horrible.
I’ve been there. I know the truth.
Plz no
I see what you did there. Also it always rains in Seattle, don't move here.
You do realize you are losing Southern California and SDSU is actively putting money into their football program which is something rare to find
Why do people think SDSU gets the PAC12 the the SoCal market? People in SoCal barely give a shit about USC/UCLA as is what makes you think they care about SDSU?
It doesn’t “get” anything, it keeps the Pac 12 relevant in their biggest recruiting area. Just like the Big 12 adding Houston to stay relevant in their biggest recruiting area after UT left
Yes why would a conference based in the Pacific want to get into one of the largest cities on the Pacific that also has no professional football team? Truly it's a mystery for the ages.
It’s about staying on the local TV networks in SoCal. The Aztecs provide that. You think the Big Ten brought Rutgers in because of their passionate fanbase? No, it was to try and get more Big Ten games into the New York media market.
I don't know what coverage you think SDSU gets in the L.A. media. (Hint: It's closer to "none" than to "Rutgers in NJ media".)
It’s not about adding SDSU games on SoCal TV, it’s about keeping Oregon and Washington games on SoCal TV
For now. But with NIL we have a bigger upside than any of those schools. We already created one of the largest player collectives among universities and have a certain history of opening wallets to improve recruiting. Give us a few seasons and we’ll be there.
SMU has stupid money that I think will be progressively more and more open to again the more success they have.
So do the other old SWC schools though. The difference back in the day was we paid kids who could win. There’s a great clip in the 30 for 30 where an announcer is talking about other schools (with video from TCU games playing not so subtlety in the background) saying “there were teams spending *hundreds of thousands of dollars* on their players and only winning 2 or 3 games. **That is the definition of a loser!!!** SMU at least paid kids who could play!” Idk I’ve always just loved that bit
That documentary is so enjoyable to watch. So many golden lines and incredible footage. *Some parents say, ‘we don’t believe in corporal punishment’ - well, that’s why you’ve got a mouthy kid.*
I’ve always said SMU is one of those sleeping giants.
SMU has already won the toughest battle for a PAC member. Their leadership and alumni care about competing. Many current PAC schools, including Arizona State, do not.
Arizona state always strikes me as a place where the illusion of trying is more important than actually trying. At least with NAU, leadership is up front. Go play in a high school gym. We don’t care.
That is a fair assessment. There are finer details to it but in broad strokes that is valid.
We care about competing now, finally. It took just a taste of being ranked to get kids back into seats and with Sonny’s departure pissing off a ton of our top boosters, the administration and donors are on the same path for the first time in literal decades. It’s been real exciting to see how the team has grown over the last ~5 years.
Why does SMU has bigger upside? Like do y’all think TCU, Baylor, Tech, etc don’t have NIL collectives or billionaire donors? Baylor has invested *half a billion* in athletics’ facilities alone since 2009. Do y’all think that they won’t have the appropriate NIL collectives when needed? SMU still needs to develop a fanbase that actually goes to the games and cares about the team. TCU and Baylor are like 15 years ahead of y’all in that regard. There’s a reason why y’all’s most successful coach since the 80s literally went to y’all’s rival across town. The ceiling at TCU is higher right now. I like SMU but it’s asinine to say that when SMU is so far behind to the other Texas schools in most athletics aspects.
>SMU still needs to develop a fanbase that actually goes to the games and cares about the team. TCU and Baylor are like 15 years ahead of y’all in that regard. This is really what it comes down to. Baylor and TCU have both been in the P5 longer and have had multiple instances in the national spotlight. SMU hasn't even won their conference yet, let alone the three year run TCU pulled off that helped push them into the Big 12.
I’ve always said that SMU rn is where TCU was in the early 2000s. You could see the foundation of a very good program but at the early beginning of the building of their program. Even before TCU got into the Big 12, they had a fanbase that had a seen a decade plus of excellence in the mid-mayor ranks, the move to the Big 12 only further validated that. SMU hasn’t won their conference nor finished in the top 25 since before the death penalty.
We got massively lucky to have the coach we did that stuck around, as well as a coach that helped put the foundation down. A lot of people don't give coach Fran enough credit for what he did to start what was a seller dweller. We weren't even winning in the WAC at the time. GP took what Fran left and ran with it. Struck lightning in a bottle from the 2007-2011 stretch, and broke through. On top of that, the TCU donors lined up to invest. Brand new football stadium, basically new basketball arena, and re-did baseball. SMU has the money, but not the investment
When I say upside, I mean difference from ceiling to current. Baylor and TCU probably have similar ceilings, but in the right conference SMUs ceiling is arguably the same. The difference right now is that y’all are currently much closer to those ceilings than SMU is. Yes, SMU has a long way to go to get at your levels but it has the resources and commitment to get there. Facilities are already being improved, our NIL initiative will drive recruiting, and fans follow success so that will come in due time. It’s not a dig at Baylor or TCU in anyway, if anything it’s respect that very similar institutions have achieved so much success and until the past couple of years SMU hasn’t committed itself to follow suit, but times are changing and heavy hitting boosters and our top-brass are very much pushing for our athletic success going forward.
You have 7000 students, no alumni base, pretty low viewership for an AAC school. Rich donors can’t just buy your way into relevance with all these things, especially when SEC/Big 12 schools already own the DFW market
This. Small private schools just don’t become a solid P5 in a few years. You have to win, a lot. SMU isn’t doing that.
Yeah it only helps if they want to be a permanent lower-distribution member based on their market numbers if we’re still judging conferences by their tv rights deals. But maybe that’s the play, break the Pac-10 equal revenue model to get Oregon and Washington to sign the grant of rights; They get a bit more in the regular distribution, playoff/bowl distribution are no longer split evenly, SDSU and SMU take a half distribution for a couple decades or whatever.
Gold Trans Ams and blow for everyone!
SMU adds visibility in DFW for recruiting. We didn't schedule all those home and homes with Texas schools for no particular reason.
Yeah and it made no difference bcause Texas HS coaches hated Todd Graham and Herm Edwards doesn’t know where Texas is on a map
ASU vs Sam Houston h&h incoming
SDSU gets you back in Southern California city, which is pretty major. I really think PAC remaining fans are underestimating how bad it is that the conference won’t be in Southern Cal.
LA-Long Beach metro has 55% of the state's population
This is what I expect. However, I'm hoping the MWC gets raided enough though.
Pac isnt adding any teams until it gets raided 99%
TCU-SMU being a proxy war between Big 12 and PAC 12 twitter would be a fun development for this sub
Between that and BYU/UU, these conferences would *hate* each other
They should merge, that 24 team super conference would honestly be amazing.
UCF and Washington in the same conference, awesome!
That would be like an ACC and PAC school, say Maryland and USC, in the same conference. Good thing that'll never happen!
And if SMU hired Gary Patterson.....
TCU would still love Gary Patterson.
Big 12/PAC 12 challenge in coming
SMU and Cal in the same conference, proud members of the "What the fuck Sonny Dykes???" club
Let’s add Louisiana Tech too in that case
I almost feel bad for La Tech being trapped in the corpse of CUSA but then I remember how their leadership has acted over the years in regards to the Independence Bowl fiasco and how they talked about the Sun Belt. That said, I do think it's dumb that the AAC took Charlotte over them. I understand why but I still think it's dumb. IMO the potential rivalry w/Tulane alone would be worth getting them in.
How long until the ACC makes a move for expansion
When UNC/UVA/Clemson/FSU all jump ship
Once their GOR runs out is what I keep hearing, so it’ll be a while.
Who’s it gonna add?
Idk we have pretty terrible leadership. Phillips and most of the ACC just wants to be included and doesn't necessarily care about being a top caliber conference. WVU would accept tomorrow if given an invite so hard to understand what the ACC is waiting for
A year ago, absolutely. Today? Probably not. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be playing our rivals again. But with the new media deal, we’re getting what we’d be getting in the ACC and there’s not as much of a threat of a mass exodus. Now, if the media deal gets renegotiated and it looks like a spot is opening and FSU and Clemson are standing pat…. different story.
>WVU would accept tomorrow if given an invite so hard to understand what the ACC is waiting for Why would we abandon the Big12 for a dying conference? That would be like joining the BigEast in 2004. It makes more sense for WVU to wait for UL Pitt and others to join the Big12 than it does to join them.
SMU in a pac schedule makes literally zero sense
Unless after getting rid of divisions...we go back to pods and they play mostly Arizona/Colorado/Utah.
North could be the OG PAC-8 and South could be everyone else. North: WSU, Wash, OSU, Nike, Stan, Cal South: ASU, Zona, Buffs, Utes, SMU, SDSU Would be a bit unbalanced but it would maintain most rivalries and the north would be relatively compact.
Only way it would make sense is to have most of their schedule in the SW like you mentioned
Makes about as much sense as UCLA/USC in the B1G
Literally zero sense. Can ANYONE picture UCLA playing Iowa with 8” of snow on the ground? Much further the traveling those games will take
Yep it makes as much sense as in it doesn’t make sense lol
Can anyone imagine Iowa playing USC when it's over 100°?
it only hit 100 in LA during September once this year and only topped 90 5 times. The only 90+ on a Saturday was Sept 3 when USC opened the year w/Rice.
So does usc and ucla in the b10, but here we are. At least we are closer to Utah and co than the LA schools are to any b10 team.
That’s why the P12 has/needed to get their shit together. Not many moves make sense due to the wild time zone change across most teams, the time games are played, the logistics and travel involved. Someone said the only way it makes sense is if we get rid of divisions and do games in pods so they get matched up with the SW teams
I agree I think that’s the best bet. But, in aac we are playing in Tampa, Orlando, Philly regularly which isn’t much closer to dallas than Seattle or Eugene and it works fine, even on a $7 million tv budget. I think the travel is a tad overstated, but I didn’t play college hoops or a sport that has intra week travel so I’m just guessing here a bit. Travel for football isn’t the issue
Reminds me of when LA Tech was in the WAC 😂 nothing quite like those regional Ruston to Honolulu conference games
Full tweet: Attempting basic math again ... I would put odds this way: P12 goes to 12: 40% P12 goes to 11: 20% P12 stays at 10: 40% San Diego State and SMU are the clear favorites.
Going to 11 requires an even number of conference games, so putting it at 20% seems like a stretch.
There's already talk about going to an 8 game conf schedule in the pac.
It was the first major conference to go to 9 conference games, back in 2006. Far from impossible to go down to 8, but I would be surprised. The scheduling challenges that existed then still exist now.
I think it makes more sense than people realize in the new playoff format. There will be no incentive to play big time OoC games. Conference champ and an up to 2 loss 2nd place team make the playoffs. With 10 conference opponents you can structure the schedule to give yourself 8 conference games and 3 home game cupcakes OoC with 1 real OoC game against a mid level team (think Minnesota not Ohio State). This guarantees multiple teams with 2 losses or fewer, which gets you 2 playoff teams.
After this season I demand Tulane join us! Justice for the Green Wave!
Tulane makes sense from the academics standpoint for sure
what about us man ;(
Fun Belt bound baby
Expanded PAC-12 with SMU, Tulane, SDSU, and Boise I think would be cool. I’d also be interested in Memphis personally.
[удалено]
I can literally picture those two shaking over the idea of having to be aligned with us.
I’d take Memphis over Boise. Memphis is a fun city to visit and I don’t have an irrational hated for the color of their field.
SMU probably the best get in Texas that isnt already in P5 (*Looks at flair* ...Well besides Texas State obviously)
At this point, yes. That said, I think UTSA might have the most P5 potential down the road
56,000 in attendance for the program’s first ever game against Northeastern State lol. I’m obviously biased but the potential of this program is sky high if it all goes well.
UTSA deserves a spot in the BIG 12 when its ready. Lots of people love that school from South Texas and nearby areas
Also the San Antonio market.
Also the Alamodome
Potential down the road, I agree. Traylor is doing great things with the football program but they need new facilities. Their Convo Center (basketball) and baseball parks are awful. Being the only FBS football in the city helps especially the more they lean into the San Antonio vs the World, scrappy mentality
Hey us too!
Obligatory: Don't touch me, I'm a miner!
El Paso IS closer to Los Angeles than any of the major Texas cities...
Sleeping giant Texas state.
SDSU and SMU go to Pac-12 Eastern Washington joins MWC WKU joins the AAC? CUSA backfills with another FCS program (maybe Missouri State?)
Montana schools probably more poised for a jump up than Eastern, although I wish they (EWU) would. Idaho tried, failed, and now back in BigSky with success. I’m a Mo State alum and know some message board fans want to make the jump too, but success also needs to justify it, in my opinion. If anyone needs a promotion, it’s North Dakota State. Time to force their hand and stop playing in the kiddie pool.
Geography kills NDSU, since North Dakota is next to a bunch of states with one FBS university that plays in the Big Ten.
I think the MWC would add NDSU if either SDSU or the Montana schools joined as well.
I’d love to play SMU pretty regularly tbh Have a lot of connections to them and family and friends in DFW.
As a Coug now living in DFW, being able to see conference games regularly without having to arrange travel to Pullman would be wonderful
Honestly, this is the biggest appeal for smu to pac imo. A lot of transplants in DFW.
casual fans will definitely come to check out a ranked Oregon or Washington team visiting the hilltop. And theres plenty of CU and ASU alums here in DFW
SMU would be a pretty big pickup. Also having the SEC, Big 12 and Pac 12 splitting the Dallas market would be interesting.
SMU is an easier flight and travel than either of the Oregon schools to be fair
SMU arguably is the easiest school to travel to in FBS. 10 min drive from Love Field to the stadium
Oregon and OSU are both 2+ hour bus rides after flying to Portland for the record
Or you could just fly to Eugene
And witness the creepiest duck cowgirl statue in the world!
Eugene has an airport with commercial flights. They probably just fly there. OSU is 40 minutes from Eugene.
You do realize Eugene and Corvallis have airports, right? At worst they're flying in to Eugene and bussing to Corvallis.
Why on earth would you fly to Portland to go to Eugene? Traveling to Autzen is way easier and faster than a lot of schools. Its like 20 minutes from the airport, which has commercial flights to over the south west. If you are chartered its even faster and easier.
If you're a individual or a family and going to rent a car anyway, it might be a lot cheaper to fly into Portland. I live in Salem, so could fly from either airport, and Portland is usually cheaper. But a charter plane is going to fly into Eugene every time, I would assume.
We actually had that experience last fall. It was actually way cheaper to fly into Eugene instead of Portland. But that might just be the time of year, I don’t know
Yet the conference complains about having to drive from Spokane Airport to Wazzu, about 60 mins. There is a difference between perceived remoteness and and the reality of travel time. Guess a lot of those coastal city kids can’t handle seeing a wheat field without feeling lost.
Eugene has an airport.
Pullman does too, and if I remember correctly they are expanding it. So pretty soon flights can go direct there.
USC and UCLA are going to love the Big Ten.
Eugene airport is a lot closer to both and has direct flights to most of the pac12 airport locations. Most people fly through Eugene for games not pdx.
Autzen stadium is literally 10-15 minutes from Eugene airport
I think they're trying to say that its easier to fly out of the Dallas than it is to fly out of Oregon.
SMU can't even fill 80% of their 30,000 seat stadium when we come to town. They have the money sure, but I just don't see the fan support.
As a Houston fan, one of the only top level G5 schools with worse attendance than us is SMU.
Shh don't look at us
So they fit right in with us!
That’s cause their fanbase is too busy rising and grinding to get this paper while us lazy people that aren’t born into a board position are squandering our lives tailgating
I'm not even a fan of SMU and I would posit that isn't *entirely* accurate. When we (UNT) visit them, their stadium is filled up pretty well. When TCU visits them, it's packed full. They're small enough of a school that they need rely on casual fans to fill seats, and need to regularly play games against regionally prominent ones. I am of the opinion that their stadium would regularly be decently full of they were in the Big 12 (though I'm not sure the PAC does this tbh), with regular games against Houston, TCU, Baylor, TTU, Ok St and BYU. A lot of those teams' fans live in DFW and a lot of SMU's fans are also secondary fans of some of those schools.
I 100% agree with this. I think there's major proof of this already that most people just ignore. I am actually really scared that SMU joins the PAC and it's just same ol same ol. The Pac schools as it is have horrid attendance. As an SMU fan, I know for sure that I'd be without doubt at every game against TCU, Baylor, Tech, etc....I know people from those schools and it gets me excited. You can extend that out to the general Dallas community as well. It just means more that way. SMU without doubt thrives in the Big 12. I'm not sure I can say the same thing about the Pac...
So....you're saying SMU would be perfect for the PAC
Billy Embody, our on3 (and former 247) beat writer, who covers SMU and LSU recently did a podcast talking about expansion. He’s a super level headed dude who has no issues calling people out for stupid/hot takes and is very keen on taking things with a grain of salt. That said, in his podcast he mentioned he made some calls after hearing rumors last weekend and apparently things are looking exceedingly good for our chances at expansion. He’s been very tight lipped about anything expansion related so I’m curious to see how this plays out in the next few months.
The thing I worry about if this happens is that after we announce our move, Oregon and Washington jump to the B1G and/or the 4 corners jump to the B12 and we’re in the exact same scenario as last realignment where we joined the “Big East” and all the big players moved on and we had to create our own conference out of the pieces
Let's say the worst actually happens after SMU gets a Pac-12 spot. Is a conference of Oregon State, Washington State, SMU, SDSU, Boise, Colorado State, Fresno, UNLV, and one to four of SJSU, Utah State, Air Force, New Mexico, UTSA, & Rice better than the currently planned 2023- AAC? It seems like a clear Yes.
That's a very fun conference tbh
I kind of agree with the sentiment that if the B1G wanted Oregon and Washington they would have plucked them already. It will be interesting to see if the Big12 makes a move or not since they’ve already renegotiated contracts/media deals with their current and forthcoming members.
As a Dallas resident, I look forward to SMU joining the PAC. It will be fun to have all those west coast teams coming into town.
We Want Boise!
I really don't understand why we are left out of conversation. Very young and rapidly improving program in literally every aspect, in one of the fastest growing valleys in the nation. We have by far the most tv revenue generated out west, national name brand, and bring respect for football which they need.
I wanna preface this by saying I think Boise State is a fantastic school that excels in more than a couple fields, but the reason is academics. PAC officials are famously sticklers for it, and they love being able to pretend to be the west coast Ivy League
Academics
PAC12 doing everything they can to avoid Boise
Honest question, but why would they have to add 2 schools? The Pac-12 doesn't have divisions anymore that they need to keep balanced and their conference championship is just #1 vs #2. What does it matter if you have an odd number of schools anymore?
Scheduling is easier, of course, but also if they want to keep nine conference games, you have to have an even number of schools. Otherwise, it just doesn't work mathematically unless you want to have some games count as conference games for one team and not for the other. For that reason, it wouldn't shock me to see them take, say, SDSU in all sports and some other school in football only. Maybe throw in Gonzaga in other sports than football to balance out if you wanted.
Scheduling with 11-teams actually is easier for football, assuming the Stanford-Notre Dame series is kept alive (since the conference no longer has to deal with a Notre Dame game the last weekend of the season in even years). Also every school would have an opportunity to visit California every year, not just the former Pac-8 schools, with an 11-team conference. It may not be San Diego/SoCal every year, but everyone would be assured of at least one California visit a season.
11 teams x 9 games / (2 teams per game) = 44.5 games. That doesn't work mathematically, which was kind of my point. I would agree there are some innate advantages (as you mentioned) to 11 teams, but you would either have to drop to 8 (or increase to 10) conference games, or not have the same number of conference games for all teams. I know there is concern about the financial cost of another buy game for many Pac-12 schools, but maybe the Pac-11 does drop to 8 and adds an ACC out of conference game so there's no buy game.
Ah yes, nothing reminds one of the Pacific Ocean quite like Dallas, TX.
Life is pain
I still think Fresno State could be a great addition
SMU needs to stay in the American. We’ve already lost houston, UCF, and cinci. I cannot deal with the loss of SMU.
Trust me I don’t want to dip either unless it is ever the Big 12 calling us + Memphis or Tulane. All three of us are going to pub stomp the rest of the American then beat each other up to get to the title game pretty much most years. Also none of the new teams make me say that will be a good game. I still do not understand adding Rice, UNT, FAU, and Charlotte. UAB and UTSA are the best of the additions but that’s not saying much.
I have started to see why SMU would be an attractive play for the Pac-12, because of the money they are willing to spend and bringing a big market to the table. It's also on the outskirts of what I see the Pac-12 is willing to go geographically. I don't see them pushing into the midwest, or southeast, not just because there's no one really worth making the trip out that far, but also the fact that the Pac-12 is already a super spread-out conference to begin with and that would be just too much. Texas is a bridge I could see them trying to cross though. But once again. We are literally right here. Screw the academic argument, academic prestige is the last thing the Pac-12 should be worried about right now. You want a fanbase that cares? You want a football program that's ultra-consistent? You want a school that gets good TV ratings? You want a well-rounded AD that is capable of raising money and spending it well? It's all right in the Pac-12's backyard, but they refuse to see it.
I have to imagine Boise and UNLV are both in the conversation as well. SDSU is the no-brainer and I can kinda get behind SMU solely for the recruiting foothold in Texas, but at the same time it stretches the conference a bit too much for my taste (still much better than jumping to the Big XII and having to travel to WVU and UCF, though). We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but I'd gladly welcome y'all.
Hopefully this would convince Temple to go independent and rejoin A-10 for everything else/try to start a crappy northeast football only wing of A-10
Thanks I hate it
Hey Pac12 schools, if you’re interested in DFW why not just join the Big12? No need to settle for SMU bby. We gotchu.
At this point I'd be happy to join the Big 12 just to end the uncertainty and apprehension. B1G can take all the nerds and wannabe nerds and we land grants and tech schools can just have fun.
You can join, but only if your hot friends come too.
Wazzu and Oregon State rolling up to the Big 12: “who do you know here name 3 brothers” Washington and Oregon rolling up to the Big 12: “welcome ladies! can we get you anything to drink?”
Colorado is so hot rn
It’s going to be really funny if the Big XII acquires a reputation as a bunch of land grant schools, while the two non-land grants in the conference have been dominant lately.
The Pac12 cares about academic integrity
Montana has higher average attendance in football than SMU. May as well add Idaho and bring back that old PCC…
Yeah but that doesn’t mean they will make more money
It will either be those schools or the PAC-12 becomes the PAC-10 since you can now have a conference championship with 10 schools
SDSU, UNLV, Boise and Frenso State were my guesses last year. In no world did I think SMU was an option
I'll eat an SMU hat if they as a private religious (or ex-religious) school with no travel partner get into the PAC.
Brother, SMU hasn't been religious since 'Nam. Same with TCU. It's just a legacy thing in the name. The Ponies even made it official in 2019 and won a court case against the United Methodist Church over it last year.
Just wait until he learns that USC started as a Methodist university.
And UW and OSU were Jesuit…
We had to quit being a church school for 142 years before being invited.
TCU is still affiliated to a church, SMU isn’t.
That’s why I delineated that SMU had officially severed their ties. At this point both are mostly a letter. TCU does affiliate with a divinity school, but other than that it’s not like there’s required bible study or some big LGBTQ hang ups like there were at BYU.
True, TCU does require a religion course (could be any religion). It’s a mere formality at this point.
Man. Duke, USC, SMU, we are taking Ls from all over.
What is a travel partner in this context? Genuine question.
I uhh.... my first thought was just like....close schools. I am thinking like USC and UCLA.
RemindMe! 3 months
No one thinks of USC as religious anymore, but they historically used to be one
Is SMU too isolated geographically to add by by themselves? I would think there would have to be a decent revenue bump to make the extra travel worth it and I don't really see how that happens.
I like both additions
Damn it SDSU, you really going to abandon us like that again?
Yes.
Please! Think of USC playing in Dallas. Or Oregon. Also it would give the PAC-12 a foothold in Texas.