Save the Pac?

godawgst said:

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.

1to392831weretaken said:

RatherBeBrewing said:

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.