College sports realignment - Pac 12 implosion

College Confidential Community
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Hmmm yeah. They re-joined the Big East in 2020. You’re right - they didn’t want them for football. The Big East doesn’t offer football.

UConn couldn’t hack it in the football playing AAC and for them, its basketball heritage fit the Big East better.

It wasn’t an upgrade. But it did bring them back to a solid geographic fit and with rivals from the past on the hardwood.

All that said - when the original Big East schools - the Miami, Syracuse, Pitt, BC types were taken out, and later members WVU and Louisville too, UCONN was akin to Washington State and Oregon State. They didn’t want to be where they are. And to their credit basketball has remained relevant.

They were desperate for the ACC which took Louisville as the last team instead. It was a curious choice but it’s what happened. Maybe the ACC had thoughts of expanding Westward.

UCONN has been drooling for the Big 10 or ACC for years. They are actually a good example for the current four West Coast schools or whichever ones get caught empty handed. It’s a very similar parallel, not in success but in conference standing.

Since conferences are growing, this make UCONN potentially relevant again.

The Big East, albeit a vastly different conference than before, is wonderful for basketball.

But it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for UCONN that it’s there. It’s the second to last place they want to be - after the AAC which they left. There are no Northeast AAC rivals so I get that. Only Temple was there. The rest mostly south.

They’ve had long sought big conference dreams and if the Big 12 expands their geography (too far I believe), they do make sense. No way the Big 10 would take them although never say never - they took Rutgers. Most recently - the Big 12 took Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston - all great markets - with two sort of fitting the geography and Orlando a growth boom. But if you’re UCONN, it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of your desirability when losing out to those three schools (no offense to them).

It’s all speculation. If they had regular football success, I believe it would have long ago happened. Still, the Hartford / New Haven DMA is worth having - #32 (bigger than Cincy).

I love UCONN men’s basketball. Great years under Calhoun and then Ollie and Hurley.

But UCONN has long been a clear loser in the world of conference realignment. But they’re still relevant so maybe that’s good news for the PAC 4 schools that end up homeless.

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re: March Madness.

The biggest difference is that the NCAA owns March Madness, bcos it’s a ncaa-sanctioned tournament like every other ncaa sport tournament. Teh ncaa negotiates with CBS et al on behalf of all of its members. OTOH, football bowls and now the playoffs are not owned by the ncaa since it never had a tournament to crown a national champion. Thus, the conferences are free to negotiate directly with the networks for CFB and the their bowl/playoffs. And this is what is driving re-alignment. It’s all about how many eyeballs does your football team bring.

My guess is that the next round of rights negotiations in 6/7 years will completely blow up the now Big 2, as streaming will take over; they will relegate any FB team that is not carrying its own weight. (For example, tOSU and Michigan will vote to relegate Rutgers; Georgia and Alabama will drop Vandy.) We’ll be down to a ‘Football Playoff Conference’ of 25-30 big time football schools.

We could be back to regional conferences for all other sports.

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The ACC negotiation was basically a non-starter (no surprise there), so the PAC-12 has no choice except to rebuild or die. But they’re in a rock and a hard place. If they rebuild, there’s huge exit fees for the MWC, making it cost prohibitive. The AAC is less expensive, but geographically stretched out. My guess is they’re going to take 2 MWC schools and 4 AAC schools. I predict these schools…laugh if you will: SDSU, Fresno State, SMU, Memphis, UTSA, and UAB.

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As the great philosopher once said, tt ain’t over until its over.

(sources say, another and likely final ACC conf call tomorrow.)

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I don’t see that going anywhere. Convincing 4 major schools that they should accept less money because of 4 new schools that can barely fill 30,000 seats in a football game probably isn’t going to go well. But this IS college football, and I’ve seen crazier things happen.

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Interesting take - but if Clemson and FSU want more money - then I don’t see how adding two teams at most share makes sense, especially because those two add no value that I can see.

All that said, it’s interesting they only missed by one vote and that NC State was a hold out. I don’t see NC State as a school that adds premium value vs any other but perhaps they’re tied in by the state legislature with UNC.

I suppose it will be an exciting week. I, for one, hope they don’t bring in the west coast schools but it’s fun to speculate, and I know we’ll know more soon.

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They’re not tied in by the General Assembly that I know of. Wouldn’t put anything past our state Gen Assembly when it comes to colleges, though. And NC State is a good school.

Interestingly UNC women’s soccer just played and beat Stanford here in NC at home.

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Yep - not debating they’re a good school.

I just don’t see them having the athletic “reach” of a Clemson, FSU, Miami, Va Tech, etc.

Perhaps I’m wrong.

I should add Syracuse into that list of athletic reach…kidding.

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The UNC women’s soccer team beat Cal 3-1 yesterday, not Stanford. And Cal’s soccer teams, men and women, are generally mediocre at best.

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USC just hired Washington’s AD.

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Sorry about that, yes it was Cal. I just thought it was interesting because of the discussion about whether teams would want to travel across the country. They already do!

BTW, UNC women’s soccer is ranked #2 behind UCLA. Five of the top 6 women’s soccer teams are ACC teams, #2 UNC, #3 Notre Dame, #4 Duke, #5 Virginia, #6 Florida State. Stanford is #11.

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Hmmm, I guess we could probably quantify that somehow, but I’m not going to attempt it now.

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And both are on Cal’s chopping block.

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Do you know something that I don’t?

With IX, and the popularity of soccer, I’d think men’s and women’s soccer at Cal would be near the bottom of the “chopping block” list.

Cal Baseball was on the “chopping block” years ago, but alumni saved it. TBD.

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just reading the tea leaves from some of the Cal blogs.

Cal is gonna have to cut ~6 sports, primarily men’s, in addition to dropping Rugby to club.

Edwards Stadium is falling apart and requires a rebuild if Cal is gonna keep soccer and/or track & field. Eliminate all three sports and Cal no longer has a need for that stadium. Others getting serious review: baseball, gymnastics (men & women), lacrosse, field hockey. Softball also requires capital for a new facility/retrofit.

Of course, it’s all about the numbers for T9, as cutting any women’ sport means that Cal has to shift the proportional T9 prong. (~56% female, so that % if varsity athletes)

We should know in the next week or so as they really wanted to have decisions made by the start of fall class.

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Soccer could relocate to Memorial Stadium, though its a turf field, drop baseball and use Evans Diamond with some improvements or just use neutral fields.

In any event, Edwards is a complete dump and should be demolished for student housing, which has been rumored over the years.

I know some Cal Soccer alumni with money and they’ve mentioned to me that they would/could donate a large sum of money to save the program. I don’t know why, since as I said, the program has been mediocre in its best years. :grinning:

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Anson Dorrance, the UNC women’s soccer coach is a curmudgeon. :grinning:

Hey Anson, you’ve already been recruiting against Stanford (and UCLA) for oh, I don’t know, at least 20-25 years that I’ve been watching. No one cares about Cal soccer. Sorry, Cal. :rofl:

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somebody had a little chat with him. Even tho Cal may not have much soccer prominence (other than Alex Morgan), Stanford has won 3 Natty’s so a coach directly dissing a competitor is a bad look. (Shouldn’t you want to play and beat the best in any give year?)

“I want to clarify my recent remarks regarding ACC expansion. I have the utmost respect for Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. They are outstanding institutions with dedicated leaders, committed students and world-class soccer programs and coaches. I don’t think conference expansion is in the best interest of Carolina and the ACC at this time, and I trust and respect the decisions that Kevin Guskiewicz, Bubba Cunningham and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips are making on behalf of Carolina and the ACC.”

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An awful look to say that “Stanford and Cal can die on a vine.” Absolutely, someone at the top told him to put out a statement.

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and they wrote it for him!

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