Conference realignment: Great time to join the Pac-10
Two amazing stories collided in the last couple of days. 1. The disintegration of the Big 12. 2. Southern Cal’s stiff probation.
Any other time, we would have filled up a page about the Trojans’ NCAA penalties, which include a two-year bowl ban and loss of 30 scholarships. The NCAA hasn’t handed out a punishment like that in years.
Can we please have an end to all the jabber from fans that the NCAA protects USC? This was a crushing penalty. Look at it this way. Any junior or senior who wants to transfer from USC now can do so without having to sit out a season. Any incoming freshman can appeal to have their letter of intent invalidated, and though it’s not automatic that it will be granted, it seems likely the NCAA would cooperate.
It’s a killer penalty, one that should knock USC down for a few years. Not out. The Trojans still will play good football. But no way can Southern Cal sustain the level of dominance it showed from 2002-08, when it ruled the Pac-10, which before that stretch contained the world’s greatest parity.
All of which means it’s a wondrous time for OU and Texas to join the Pac-10. Whether the Pac-16 begins in 2011 or 2012, USC figures to be a few years from returning to glory, whether or not Lane Kiffin is the man to do it.
Think if these teams had been aligned the last 10 years. An OU-USC conference title game in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Texas-USC in 2005. OU-USC in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
In those seven seasons, OU played in three BCS title games, USC played in two and Texas played in two. In the last seven seasons, USC, OU and Texas have accounted for half the BCS title-game spots.
Now, it appears any road to a BCS title game is a little smoother for the Sooners and Longhorns. The Pac-8 winner won’t be easy, should the Pac-16 stage a title game. But Oregon or Cal or whoever doesn’t figure to be the caliber of the Carson Palmer Trojans or the Matt Leinart Trojans.
It’s the best possible scenario for OU and Texas to join the Pac-10.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Berry, thoughts on this?
USC athletic director Mike Garrett, speaking at a previously scheduled USC Coaches’ Tour at the Airport Marriott in Burlingame, Calif., had this to say Thursday to boosters: “As I read the decision by the NCAA, all I could get out of all of this was … I read between the lines, and there was nothing but a lot of envy, and they wish they all were Trojans.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncf/news/story?id=5275644
Mike Garrett is fixing to get his fanney fired as the AD at USC. What a silly comment he made to boosters!
12 June 2010
I think that this realignment has gone too far. And unfortunately, I believe the Government will too. I see this landing in court, and I also see the Congress or the Usurper in the White House taking this up and ordering everything to return to square one. The institutions doing this should have thought about it before they did it. Now they have brought the government/courts into this. The only good thing is we may restore everything to what we had before this fiasco started.
Berry you have hit the nail on the head, you did forget to mention that coaches are allowed to contact current juniors’s and senior’s at USC. This might as well be the death penalty for USC for the next ten years. If the Sooner’s and the shorthorns possibly going to the Pac-10. This will open the state of California up for which would be the next two top teams in the new Pac-16 to go in and plunder the best talent.
Previous poster Burke’s math doesn’t add up. Four five team divisions, playing each opponent in your own division and one in each of the others totals 7 games, not 9.
To be honest, five team quads isn’t a good solution in this case, because Pac-10 scheduling has been built around pairs of teams by geography: USC-UCLA, Stanford-Cal, Oregon-OSU, Washington-WSU, Arizona-ASU.
What would work in a Pac-20 would be two 10 team divisions with no interdivisional conference games. With this they might be able to achieve two automatic BCS bids. In football, play only 8 of 9 divisional opponents, with four “rivalry” opponents played each year, and 4 rotated among the other 5 every two years. Forget the conference championship game and you achieve every goal without risking the loss of a championship game.
Make your top BCS bid based upon BCS rankings, perhaps even have both teams in the championship bowl! In other sports you could retain geographical pairings. For the Big 12, pair UT-A&M, OU-OSU, KU-KSU, ISU-CU and Baylor-Tech. Missouri becomes odd man out. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
With a Pac-16, there’s no way that the conference gets two auto BCS bids, one would end up with the MWC. But a Pac-20? Why not? And the best part is that the Pac-10 would end up essentially intact, while the Big 12 would be largely preserved.
The negative: no new conference football rivalries created, loss of football powerhouse Nebraska, state of Missouri TV sets, if they ever were turned on to college sports, that is. This would create the least amount of additional television money per team. There wouldn’t be a high degree of integration of Pac-10/Big 12 on the sports front, and sports would lose the best women’s basketball conference, although much would be conserved.
I believe it would still be worth it because it strengthens both conferences in most sports and enhances the academic profile of the Big 12 schools that join. But I don’t think it will happen, because realignment is all about the ages-old weaning out process of leaving less successful and less committed athletic programs behind in order to increase profitability for the rest. By retaining schools such as ISU, BU, KU and KSU, that test isn’t met, sadly. Colorado didn’t really meet that test, but otherwise is a better match for the Pac-10 than any other Big 12 school, and the Denver market is the 3rd largest in the Big 12 after DFW and Houston.
Barry, I was never a sports-aholic and so always, to a great extent, relied on your columns to get the real insight as to what was going on. My dependence on you stopped last week after you incessant calls for–ALMOST DEMANDIMG-breaking up the Big 12. I don’t know what has happened but it seems money is all that matters–loyalty is gone! I wonder if you had a choice to help a longtime friend out of the street or picking up a dollar, which you would choose. I don’t know what you have in common with the Pac-10 teams…but I don’t think we have many. Hurah for the BIG 12.
I just believe OU joining the Pac Whatever is a huge mistake that we will not be able to repair for a long, long time. I really believe OU should try and join the SEC ASAP. Closer teams and football prestige to the max. This academics thing doesn’t wash. As one person said, if Texas or anyone else was joining a conference for academics they would do everything possible to join the Ivy League teams!
The sooners and the longhorns couldn’t have it so good as The Pac 16 currently.
Both schools will dominate much like USC did for those 8 years or so. What’s best is Texas will still get there cherry pick of the top high school athletes from their home state but now Oklahoma will not only get great recruits from Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona and California. People just want to join the SEC because they think small and don’t want to drive far for games in hickstown
southeast USA. Its too bad!
First of all I like the conference realignment. But why stop at PAC-16? Lets go to PAC-20. All ten teams from the PAC-10 and Most of the Big 12. Would have to ditch a team but it would look something like this: Four five team divisions. D1: Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford. D2: USC, UCLA, Cal, Arizona, Arizona State. D3: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, OU. D4: Kansas, K-State, Mizzou, Colorado, OSU. Then your would play each team in your division once and one other division once for nine conference games. The other division would rotate yearly allowing all teams to play each other over a four year period. The smaller sports could stick to more regional play such as D1 & D2 or D3 &D4. Just a thought.