Put this on 1.5 speed and give it a listen to 20:10 mark. It may give you a different perspective on what may be possible with AAC and other conferences.
The more I think about this, the more I wanna do the last graphic above until the MWC buyout fees go away, or way down, and then invite SDSU and Boise State to round out the West Coast portion of the American West. Thatās a damn solid looking conference if Aresco can pull it off, and much more doable than trying to land Cal and Stanford.
I also like Colorado State if either of those 2 balks.
2 Likes
This is the nightmare scenario that could occur:
https://twitter.com/Sidelines_SN/status/1688653909554790400
Completely shut out forever if this happens.
Might as well call us D2 at that point. Relevancy will be completely gone. No way in hell those guys or the big 2 play us ever.
It basically becomes:
D1 - SEC & B1G (36 teams w/ Clemson, FSU, Texas & Oklahoma)
D1AA - 32 team ACC/BIG12/PAC12 (as above)
D2 - everyone else including us
Sobering.
I heard d several years back that the NFL wants a true developmental league like the minor leagues in baseball and the G league for basketball. Could this be that league developing before our eyes? The players are being paid. But the next step would have to be elimination of classes and grades. The players would no longer be students. Then they can dedicate all of their time to their craft.
Now this would be nice.
Osu and wsu far better adds on the field.
Which helps us in the long term.
Iād grab Wash St and Oregon St even if Cal/Stanford didnāt come along because of that scenario. Can still establish ourselves as the clear #5.
I think itās been proven that this is happing already at a lot of the big schools. Use the players, get them through school and then get them to donate back after signing professional contracts.
I keep seeing people online talk about the PAC staying alive by raiding the top teams from MWC/AAC. I just canāt see that happening because of exit fees and the uncertainty of the PAC tv contract. But someone on CSNBBS did bring up a potential scenario that I think is at least plausible. The PAC4 pick just enough teams where the universities have deep pockets to keep the PAC alive. Get to 7-9 teams. Likely teams would be Tulane, SMU, Rice. Stay alive long enough (maybe with the help of an NCAA waiver) to start picking off other schools once the exit fees go down.
I donāt think that is more likely than the four just joining some combo of ACC/AAC/MWC but certainly more likely than those four team just immediately backfilling with their top picks.
This has to do with maintaining the idea of a āstudent athleteā.
It is University Presidents and Chancellors who ultimately make these decisions. Few are āathletics firstā minded.
Gotcha.
But the only thing required to maintain that is that the players in revenue sports actually go to class and maintain the minimum GPA necessary to keep their eligibility.
Kind of like the thousands of students at every university in the country that do just enough to graduate.
The truly talented student athletes will still stand out and thatās great.
We are talking about survival of these programs right now. They have to be cut throat.
Any school president that falls for this and pays millions in exit fees when they could just add the PAC schools for free is doing their school a disservice.
Has being in CUSA all this time hurt Rices academic standing?
No.
Itās all BS.
If your a good school it cuts right through athletics. Athletics are not factored into academic ratings.
" Fugayzi, fugazi. Itās a whazy. Itās a woozie. Itās fairy dust. It doesnāt exist. Itās never landed. It is no matter. Itās not on the elemental chart. Itās not fucking real.ā
Agreed. Just throwing out another scenario I recently saw.
I think thatās the best thing that could happen. I know Iām in the minority, hell I might be the only one but I think it would be great. We could quit deluding ourselves.
2 Likes
It would be as good of a conference as we could ever hope to be in given what we have actually accomplished.
https://twitter.com/SSN_KState/status/1688924548606140417
Way too much sense to ever happen.