If there is talk of 20 team conferences (and I saw some rumor of the rest of the Big 12 reaching out to the Pac12 to make one) then it needs to be the best 6 schools in the PAC going to the Big 10. And maybe the Big 10 needs to lose a member or two. But it makes a ton of sense to have two 10 team divisions and gee I don’t know MAYBE PLAY THE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME IN THE ROSE BOWL BETWEEN EAST AND WEST.
I think it's easy to just default to saying that this move is because of money and that's that ...
I don't think that's that
I think the same recruiting issues we're seeing on the West Coast of top end players thumbing their noses at the P12 schools to go to the SEC, Clemson, and Ohio is also happening in Texas ...
Oklahoma is looking at the environment around them, seeing that they basically sleep walk their way to the B12 title every year because the only score with comparable resources in Texas can't get out of their own way to be competitive and the reward for that is to go face SEC winner, Ohio, or Clemson in the CFP semifinals and get their ass kicked. So they go into the recruiting battles for elite kids and these kids are telling them "why would I go to Oklahoma when you can't win a big game" ... sound familiar? Only difference is that Oklahoma's Plan B players kick the shit out of our current Plan B recruits but I digress ...
As for Texas, they're petty and jealous as fuck at all times. They are embarrassed at the fact that they can't recruit well enough. NIL isn't doing anything for them because their money is getting matched and will only continue to get matched going forward. The ego with the Texas fat cats is beyond belief. In their minds, they think the only thing stopping them is that they aren't in the SEC ... they'll be in for a rude awakening but whatever.
Neither school has ever hurt for money. This is completely tied to protecting the money and recruiting going forward. They saw the tea leaves, ESPN/FOX not so subtly told them that they weren't interested in doing business going forward with the Big 12 at market rates, and away we go ...
I think it's easy to just default to saying that this move is because of money and that's that ...
I don't think that's that
I think the same recruiting issues we're seeing on the West Coast of top end players thumbing their noses at the P12 schools to go to the SEC, Clemson, and Ohio is also happening in Texas ...
Oklahoma is looking at the environment around them, seeing that they basically sleep walk their way to the B12 title every year because the only score with comparable resources in Texas can't get out of their own way to be competitive and the reward for that is to go face SEC winner, Ohio, or Clemson in the CFP semifinals and get their ass kicked. So they go into the recruiting battles for elite kids and these kids are telling them "why would I go to Oklahoma when you can't win a big game" ... sound familiar? Only difference is that Oklahoma's Plan B players kick the shit out of our current Plan B recruits but I digress ...
As for Texas, they're petty and jealous as fuck at all times. They are embarrassed at the fact that they can't recruit well enough. NIL isn't doing anything for them because their money is getting matched and will only continue to get matched going forward. The ego with the Texas fat cats is beyond belief. In their minds, they think the only thing stopping them is that they aren't in the SEC ... they'll be in for a rude awakening but whatever.
Neither school has ever hurt for money. This is completely tied to protecting the money and recruiting going forward. They saw the tea leaves, ESPN/FOX not so subtly told them that they weren't interested in doing business going forward with the Big 12 at market rates, and away we go ...
This isnt about recruiting you fucking recrooting doog. Its about eyeballs and tv contracts.
Oklahoma isnt going to recruit that much differently now that it is in the SEC.
The SEC is now made up of a bunch of huge ego programs...and there can only be 1 winner of the conference.
OU and Texas are going to miss the gimme games of the Big 12 an awful lot. Or maybe their success come at the demise of LSU or a Saban-less Bama?
Some schools arent going to get the success they feel entitled too. And that is when things will get interesting.
You have the name brand schools that one way or another are well funded in Washington, Oregon, USC, and UCLA ...
Stanford is as rich as any but they put their money into Olympics sports and I'm not 1000% sure they wouldn't be fine going Independent or whatever like Notre Dame ... they can likely afford it to be honest.
Wazzu and Oregon St are bleeding money as an athletic department and they really bring little to the table going forward. Them dropping a level and being more aligned with the Mountain West is probably the right spot for them.
Cal is perpetually bankrupt and generally sucks at everything ... their symmetry with UCLA under the UC school umbrella could be problematic though
ASU should be better than it is and it obviously operates in a huge market ... also telling that they seemingly can never keep anybody at home ... far from a national brand
Arizona is really an asset in hoops with very little about their football program screaming high ceiling in any way
Utah is good enough to be included in any future iteration ... only problem is that you could argue that they are new money and a little late to the party
Colorado obviously has the Denver market and some history but by and large they aren't necessarily anything to write home about
So realistically, when you break down the PAC, it's got better depth than the Big 12, the general incompetence at USC has left them not at the same level as Oklahoma/Texas in the national pecking order, but then some dreck that is worse than the Big 12's dreck if we're being honest.
It's not really the PAC that is worth saving, it's really the PCC that is worth saving with Oregon probably subbed it for Cal at this point.
Working with the Big 10 for some kind of shared interest/vision is really the right path forward here.
On a go forward basis, the conference that is probably the most screwed is the ACC
Locked into a long-term below market media arrangement with ESPN ...
2nd tier with ESPN in all material aspects as a rights partner
Many of their key schools share states with the SEC which directly impacts their ability to recruit
Long-term fatal flaw for the conference is that it has prioritized its basketball schools as the key decision makers ... in many ways still the priority of the conference
PAC/Big10 merger creates a 20 or 24 school collective ...
This gets broken up into 4 pods of 5 or 6 schools (I'd try to cap this at 20 schools and 4 pods of 5)
Pods A + B = West
Pods C + D = East
You play everybody in your pod each year
You rotate pod opponents every year so that you're guaranteed to play everybody 1x over a 3 year time horizon.
Conference record consists of 9 games ... everybody in the division plays the same 9 teams
Pods winners get seeded 1-4 based on records and move to a semi and final format with semi's at the top 2 records and the final rotating between West/East (i.e. Rose/Vegas/Indy
Teams 2-5 in each respective pod play a similar format except it's all played at home and 2nd week games are winners vs winners and losers vs losers
That covers 11 of 12 or 13 games (teams can decide how many they want to play ... remainder of games can be used to play out of conference games, rivalry games left over (i.e. Notre Dame, UW playing Wazzu, etc.)
Does it look like a NFL format ... unfortunately it does.
But on the other side, both the PAC and Big 10 whether they believe it or not have to do something drastic to combat the SEC. Reason being is that the SEC footprint dominates where the recruits are. So for these schools to be able to lure top tier talent, they need to be able to play big games consistently, do so on large stages, and be able to put items on the table that the SEC can't do.
I think it's easy to just default to saying that this move is because of money and that's that ...
I don't think that's that
I think the same recruiting issues we're seeing on the West Coast of top end players thumbing their noses at the P12 schools to go to the SEC, Clemson, and Ohio is also happening in Texas ...
Oklahoma is looking at the environment around them, seeing that they basically sleep walk their way to the B12 title every year because the only score with comparable resources in Texas can't get out of their own way to be competitive and the reward for that is to go face SEC winner, Ohio, or Clemson in the CFP semifinals and get their ass kicked. So they go into the recruiting battles for elite kids and these kids are telling them "why would I go to Oklahoma when you can't win a big game" ... sound familiar? Only difference is that Oklahoma's Plan B players kick the shit out of our current Plan B recruits but I digress ...
As for Texas, they're petty and jealous as fuck at all times. They are embarrassed at the fact that they can't recruit well enough. NIL isn't doing anything for them because their money is getting matched and will only continue to get matched going forward. The ego with the Texas fat cats is beyond belief. In their minds, they think the only thing stopping them is that they aren't in the SEC ... they'll be in for a rude awakening but whatever.
Neither school has ever hurt for money. This is completely tied to protecting the money and recruiting going forward. They saw the tea leaves, ESPN/FOX not so subtly told them that they weren't interested in doing business going forward with the Big 12 at market rates, and away we go ...
This isnt about recruiting you fucking recrooting doog. Its about eyeballs and tv contracts.
Oklahoma isnt going to recruit that much differently now that it is in the SEC.
The SEC is now made up of a bunch of huge ego programs...and there can only be 1 winner of the conference.
OU and Texas are going to miss the gimme games of the Big 12 an awful lot. Or maybe their success come at the demise of LSU or a Saban-less Bama?
Some schools arent going to get the success they feel entitled too. And that is when things will get interesting.
I'll just stick to what I've seen/heard in talking with people I know that are down there
This has been moving to a consolidated world of CFB for a long time ... I've been talking about it for at least a few years because the tea leaves were there.
If you do any kind of deep dives you'll notice that there are a handful of programs that drive the balance of the revenue in college football (good news for UW is that we're going to be above that cut line) and that line has been shifting a bit simply because some of the SEC schools have come along for the ride. The other big takeaway on the revenue side is that there's a loyalty and old money aspect within the Big 10 that will assure that it's always got a seat at the table.
College football going forward isn't healthy if there are not solid presences on the West Coast. So something will happen and UW will be involved unless Jen (or the West Coast politicians) completely fucks it up. But is that number the 12 that currently exist within the PAC 12? Absolutely not.
I think it's easy to just default to saying that this move is because of money and that's that ...
I don't think that's that
I think the same recruiting issues we're seeing on the West Coast of top end players thumbing their noses at the P12 schools to go to the SEC, Clemson, and Ohio is also happening in Texas ...
Oklahoma is looking at the environment around them, seeing that they basically sleep walk their way to the B12 title every year because the only score with comparable resources in Texas can't get out of their own way to be competitive and the reward for that is to go face SEC winner, Ohio, or Clemson in the CFP semifinals and get their ass kicked. So they go into the recruiting battles for elite kids and these kids are telling them "why would I go to Oklahoma when you can't win a big game" ... sound familiar? Only difference is that Oklahoma's Plan B players kick the shit out of our current Plan B recruits but I digress ...
As for Texas, they're petty and jealous as fuck at all times. They are embarrassed at the fact that they can't recruit well enough. NIL isn't doing anything for them because their money is getting matched and will only continue to get matched going forward. The ego with the Texas fat cats is beyond belief. In their minds, they think the only thing stopping them is that they aren't in the SEC ... they'll be in for a rude awakening but whatever.
Neither school has ever hurt for money. This is completely tied to protecting the money and recruiting going forward. They saw the tea leaves, ESPN/FOX not so subtly told them that they weren't interested in doing business going forward with the Big 12 at market rates, and away we go ...
This isnt about recruiting you fucking recrooting doog. Its about eyeballs and tv contracts.
Oklahoma isnt going to recruit that much differently now that it is in the SEC.
The SEC is now made up of a bunch of huge ego programs...and there can only be 1 winner of the conference.
OU and Texas are going to miss the gimme games of the Big 12 an awful lot. Or maybe their success come at the demise of LSU or a Saban-less Bama?
Some schools arent going to get the success they feel entitled too. And that is when things will get interesting.
I'm siding with Teq on this one. Okalhoma can probably recruit much better defensive talent out of the SEC footprint than it can out of the Big 12 footprint.
OU's defense always sucks and if they can get a couple kids each from Louisiana, Mississipi, Georgia, Florida, etc. every year they are probably looking up in the defensive talent dept. and are actually a more competitive team. (Of course they could get the shit kicked out of them too, but at least they will be rich losers).
Also, agree that the recruiting thing is a huge deal. With NIL the SEC brand is like free money to kids who can get 100,000 Instrgram followers as a second string DB.
PAC/Big10 merger creates a 20 or 24 school collective ...
This gets broken up into 4 pods of 5 or 6 schools (I'd try to cap this at 20 schools and 4 pods of 5)
Pods A + B = West
Pods C + D = East
You play everybody in your pod each year
You rotate pod opponents every year so that you're guaranteed to play everybody 1x over a 3 year time horizon.
Conference record consists of 9 games ... everybody in the division plays the same 9 teams
Pods winners get seeded 1-4 based on records and move to a semi and final format with semi's at the top 2 records and the final rotating between West/East (i.e. Rose/Vegas/Indy
Teams 2-5 in each respective pod play a similar format except it's all played at home and 2nd week games are winners vs winners and losers vs losers
That covers 11 of 12 or 13 games (teams can decide how many they want to play ... remainder of games can be used to play out of conference games, rivalry games left over (i.e. Notre Dame, UW playing Wazzu, etc.)
Does it look like a NFL format ... unfortunately it does.
But on the other side, both the PAC and Big 10 whether they believe it or not have to do something drastic to combat the SEC. Reason being is that the SEC footprint dominates where the recruits are. So for these schools to be able to lure top tier talent, they need to be able to play big games consistently, do so on large stages, and be able to put items on the table that the SEC can't do.
I'm absolutely with you on this one, basically. The Pac and B1G actually have a great shared history and have a lot of legacy resources that can be pooled to make a prestigious league together. There used to be this game called the..uh... Rose Bowl that was a huge national game and anchor tradition for the sport.
However, take a look at Kliavkoff. Is this guy going to trim WSU, OSU, and the AZ schools as the new Pac-12 Prez?
The question is where leadership is going to come from.
PAC/Big10 merger creates a 20 or 24 school collective ...
This gets broken up into 4 pods of 5 or 6 schools (I'd try to cap this at 20 schools and 4 pods of 5)
Pods A + B = West
Pods C + D = East
You play everybody in your pod each year
You rotate pod opponents every year so that you're guaranteed to play everybody 1x over a 3 year time horizon.
Conference record consists of 9 games ... everybody in the division plays the same 9 teams
Pods winners get seeded 1-4 based on records and move to a semi and final format with semi's at the top 2 records and the final rotating between West/East (i.e. Rose/Vegas/Indy
Teams 2-5 in each respective pod play a similar format except it's all played at home and 2nd week games are winners vs winners and losers vs losers
That covers 11 of 12 or 13 games (teams can decide how many they want to play ... remainder of games can be used to play out of conference games, rivalry games left over (i.e. Notre Dame, UW playing Wazzu, etc.)
Does it look like a NFL format ... unfortunately it does.
But on the other side, both the PAC and Big 10 whether they believe it or not have to do something drastic to combat the SEC. Reason being is that the SEC footprint dominates where the recruits are. So for these schools to be able to lure top tier talent, they need to be able to play big games consistently, do so on large stages, and be able to put items on the table that the SEC can't do.
I'm absolutely with you on this one, basically. The Pac and B1G actually have a great shared history and have a lot of legacy resources that can be pooled to make a prestigious league together. There used to be this game called the..uh... Rose Bowl that was a huge national game and anchor tradition for the sport.
However, take a look at Kliavkoff. Is this guy going to trim WSU, OSU, and the AZ schools as the new Pac-12 Prez?
The question is where leadership is going to come from.
The az market is actually valuable. It’s a fast growing state with a decent population. It will be included in something going forward.
In my opinion, college football was the greatest sport ever. Takes arguably the most exciting and complex team sport ever created and displays it at the perfect level: A high enough level that you're still watching freaks be freaks but not such a high level that you might as well be watching robots play. In college football, there is still big money and pressure on the line, but not so much that conservatism reigns. Every NFL team looks exactly like every other NFL team, to the point where a player can be traded and be starting for the new team a week later. Most football innovations start at the high school or college levels, usually out of necessity, as the playing field can be so tilted. There are years where OSU (west) or WSU are legit good, and that's amazing! Rivalries are regional and accessible. Players stay on the same team throughout their career--they choose their team just like the fan does, so they're more relatable and likeable than a pro mercenary.
The problem is that nearly all of these reasons that college football is great have either already been thrown in the trash or are about to be. The transfer portal has already brought free agency. (Hell, all the hand-wringing here over the total cuckery of wishing Oregon well in repping the north was closing the barn door after the horse was already out: Just the prior season, UW cried in a corner while watching Georgia fuck their girl, then took their sloppy seconds and let him start at quarterback. All for 8-5.) Now NIL is bringing the mercenary nature of the players into the light of day.
And this imbalance is tilting the playing field so far toward the haves that even the ingenuity and variety that used to keep the game interesting is no longer sufficient. You're not going to beat Alabama's 40 5-stars no matter how clever your scheme and no matter how much you care about the kids and develop them. Besides--you're just developing some portion of them so they can transfer to a lower school if they're impatient for playing time or a higher school if they were using you as a stepping stone to greater exposure in the SEC.
And then the final nail in the coffin: Traveling 3000 miles to take on a "conference rival," because that's all a "lowly" program like the fucking University of Washington can do to have a prayer in the future of keeping a top-100 kid who lives five miles from campus from losing 20 pounds and moving to Columbus, Ohio to be closer to home.
I didn't realize how close I was to the edge, but I'm right there with @MikeDamone and @TommySQC: I already don't watch the NFL, and I can not watch college football as well if it's just going to be another NFL only without the parity.
This cannot be chinned enough. The CFP and players' rights has completely fucked this incredible sport.
CFB at its best has always been about the everyday fan, located in every corner of the country. Not in blowing the 100-200 players who, at any given time in their teens and 20s', actually have an NFL future.
We will see how it plays out.
Bama was dominating even before players can get paid. Who knows, maybe the cash will bring more distractions?
10 years ago the thought was there would be 4 16 team superconferences and either the Pac would get OU/Texas or the Big12 would take SC/UCLA, and the winner of that was the 4th along with SEC/Big10/ACC
With SEC going Nuclear and grabbing them, at best you will have three with now both the Remaining B12 and P12 sol.
Now that it's come out SEC and OU/Texas have been talking between 6 months and year, it makes much more sense why Playoffs suddenly went from 4 to 12 teams (led in large part by SEC commish Mike Sankey).
A simple but telling way you will see that the SEC just cares more..... In all the different realignment scenarios for the Pac/B12 it's based on geography. In the SEC however they decide to group teams (quads/pods/divisions/etc) it will be done to spread out the dreck evenly so that they can maximize their chances to have as many teams as possible with high win totals and hence get in the playoffs. In essence you won't see Kentucky and Vandy in the same 4 team pod.
10 years ago the thought was there would be 4 16 team superconferences and either the Pac would get OU/Texas or the Big12 would take SC/UCLA, and the winner of that was the 4th along with SEC/Big10/ACC
With SEC going Nuclear and grabbing them, at best you will have three with now both the Remaining B12 and P12 sol.
Now that it's come out SEC and OU/Texas have been talking between 6 months and year, it makes much more sense why Playoffs suddenly went from 4 to 12 teams (led in large part by SEC commish Mike Sankey).
A simple but telling way you will see that the SEC just cares more..... In all the different realignment scenarios for the Pac/B12 it's based on geography. In the SEC however they decide to group teams (quads/pods/divisions/etc) it will be done to spread out the dreck evenly so that they can maximize their chances to have as many teams as possible with high win totals and hence get in the playoffs. In essence you won't see Kentucky and Vandy in the same 4 team pod.
CFP committee hasn't voted on 12 teams yet. Be interesting to see how they are digesting the recent info. They should torpedo the whole thing.
10 years ago the thought was there would be 4 16 team superconferences and either the Pac would get OU/Texas or the Big12 would take SC/UCLA, and the winner of that was the 4th along with SEC/Big10/ACC
With SEC going Nuclear and grabbing them, at best you will have three with now both the Remaining B12 and P12 sol.
Now that it's come out SEC and OU/Texas have been talking between 6 months and year, it makes much more sense why Playoffs suddenly went from 4 to 12 teams (led in large part by SEC commish Mike Sankey).
A simple but telling way you will see that the SEC just cares more..... In all the different realignment scenarios for the Pac/B12 it's based on geography. In the SEC however they decide to group teams (quads/pods/divisions/etc) it will be done to spread out the dreck evenly so that they can maximize their chances to have as many teams as possible with high win totals and hence get in the playoffs. In essence you won't see Kentucky and Vandy in the same 4 team pod.
CFP committee hasn't voted on 12 teams yet. Be interesting to see how they are digesting the recent info. They should torpedo the whole thing.
It’s really the only bargaining chip that they have remaining
Comments
Stanford's endowment is valued more than all of the SEC school's combined (including TAMU which is like $10 billion).
Those cousin fuckers pour every dollar they have into football. It just means more to @SECDAWG .
I think it's easy to just default to saying that this move is because of money and that's that ...
I don't think that's that
I think the same recruiting issues we're seeing on the West Coast of top end players thumbing their noses at the P12 schools to go to the SEC, Clemson, and Ohio is also happening in Texas ...
Oklahoma is looking at the environment around them, seeing that they basically sleep walk their way to the B12 title every year because the only score with comparable resources in Texas can't get out of their own way to be competitive and the reward for that is to go face SEC winner, Ohio, or Clemson in the CFP semifinals and get their ass kicked. So they go into the recruiting battles for elite kids and these kids are telling them "why would I go to Oklahoma when you can't win a big game" ... sound familiar? Only difference is that Oklahoma's Plan B players kick the shit out of our current Plan B recruits but I digress ...
As for Texas, they're petty and jealous as fuck at all times. They are embarrassed at the fact that they can't recruit well enough. NIL isn't doing anything for them because their money is getting matched and will only continue to get matched going forward. The ego with the Texas fat cats is beyond belief. In their minds, they think the only thing stopping them is that they aren't in the SEC ... they'll be in for a rude awakening but whatever.
Neither school has ever hurt for money. This is completely tied to protecting the money and recruiting going forward. They saw the tea leaves, ESPN/FOX not so subtly told them that they weren't interested in doing business going forward with the Big 12 at market rates, and away we go ...
Oklahoma isnt going to recruit that much differently now that it is in the SEC.
The SEC is now made up of a bunch of huge ego programs...and there can only be 1 winner of the conference.
OU and Texas are going to miss the gimme games of the Big 12 an awful lot. Or maybe their success come at the demise of LSU or a Saban-less Bama?
Some schools arent going to get the success they feel entitled too. And that is when things will get interesting.
You have the name brand schools that one way or another are well funded in Washington, Oregon, USC, and UCLA ...
Stanford is as rich as any but they put their money into Olympics sports and I'm not 1000% sure they wouldn't be fine going Independent or whatever like Notre Dame ... they can likely afford it to be honest.
Wazzu and Oregon St are bleeding money as an athletic department and they really bring little to the table going forward. Them dropping a level and being more aligned with the Mountain West is probably the right spot for them.
Cal is perpetually bankrupt and generally sucks at everything ... their symmetry with UCLA under the UC school umbrella could be problematic though
ASU should be better than it is and it obviously operates in a huge market ... also telling that they seemingly can never keep anybody at home ... far from a national brand
Arizona is really an asset in hoops with very little about their football program screaming high ceiling in any way
Utah is good enough to be included in any future iteration ... only problem is that you could argue that they are new money and a little late to the party
Colorado obviously has the Denver market and some history but by and large they aren't necessarily anything to write home about
So realistically, when you break down the PAC, it's got better depth than the Big 12, the general incompetence at USC has left them not at the same level as Oklahoma/Texas in the national pecking order, but then some dreck that is worse than the Big 12's dreck if we're being honest.
It's not really the PAC that is worth saving, it's really the PCC that is worth saving with Oregon probably subbed it for Cal at this point.
Working with the Big 10 for some kind of shared interest/vision is really the right path forward here.
Locked into a long-term below market media arrangement with ESPN ...
2nd tier with ESPN in all material aspects as a rights partner
Many of their key schools share states with the SEC which directly impacts their ability to recruit
Long-term fatal flaw for the conference is that it has prioritized its basketball schools as the key decision makers ... in many ways still the priority of the conference
PAC/Big10 merger creates a 20 or 24 school collective ...
This gets broken up into 4 pods of 5 or 6 schools (I'd try to cap this at 20 schools and 4 pods of 5)
Pods A + B = West
Pods C + D = East
You play everybody in your pod each year
You rotate pod opponents every year so that you're guaranteed to play everybody 1x over a 3 year time horizon.
Conference record consists of 9 games ... everybody in the division plays the same 9 teams
Pods winners get seeded 1-4 based on records and move to a semi and final format with semi's at the top 2 records and the final rotating between West/East (i.e. Rose/Vegas/Indy
Teams 2-5 in each respective pod play a similar format except it's all played at home and 2nd week games are winners vs winners and losers vs losers
That covers 11 of 12 or 13 games (teams can decide how many they want to play ... remainder of games can be used to play out of conference games, rivalry games left over (i.e. Notre Dame, UW playing Wazzu, etc.)
Does it look like a NFL format ... unfortunately it does.
But on the other side, both the PAC and Big 10 whether they believe it or not have to do something drastic to combat the SEC. Reason being is that the SEC footprint dominates where the recruits are. So for these schools to be able to lure top tier talent, they need to be able to play big games consistently, do so on large stages, and be able to put items on the table that the SEC can't do.
This has been moving to a consolidated world of CFB for a long time ... I've been talking about it for at least a few years because the tea leaves were there.
If you do any kind of deep dives you'll notice that there are a handful of programs that drive the balance of the revenue in college football (good news for UW is that we're going to be above that cut line) and that line has been shifting a bit simply because some of the SEC schools have come along for the ride. The other big takeaway on the revenue side is that there's a loyalty and old money aspect within the Big 10 that will assure that it's always got a seat at the table.
College football going forward isn't healthy if there are not solid presences on the West Coast. So something will happen and UW will be involved unless Jen (or the West Coast politicians) completely fucks it up. But is that number the 12 that currently exist within the PAC 12? Absolutely not.
OU's defense always sucks and if they can get a couple kids each from Louisiana, Mississipi, Georgia, Florida, etc. every year they are probably looking up in the defensive talent dept. and are actually a more competitive team. (Of course they could get the shit kicked out of them too, but at least they will be rich losers).
Also, agree that the recruiting thing is a huge deal. With NIL the SEC brand is like free money to kids who can get 100,000 Instrgram followers as a second string DB.
However, take a look at Kliavkoff. Is this guy going to trim WSU, OSU, and the AZ schools as the new Pac-12 Prez?
The question is where leadership is going to come from.
No
With SEC going Nuclear and grabbing them, at best you will have three with now both the Remaining B12 and P12 sol.
Now that it's come out SEC and OU/Texas have been talking between 6 months and year, it makes much more sense why Playoffs suddenly went from 4 to 12 teams (led in large part by SEC commish Mike Sankey).
A simple but telling way you will see that the SEC just cares more..... In all the different realignment scenarios for the Pac/B12 it's based on geography. In the SEC however they decide to group teams (quads/pods/divisions/etc) it will be done to spread out the dreck evenly so that they can maximize their chances to have as many teams as possible with high win totals and hence get in the playoffs. In essence you won't see Kentucky and Vandy in the same 4 team pod.