kyleslamb
Scout Team
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2011
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I understand your argumnets from a TV perspective, but the PAC 12 is not as worried about TV as many think. For available schools, I primarily used your list from above. I agree Mizzou is out for the west.
I respectfully disagree with you regarding academics. Research brings in FAR MORE $$$$ than athletics, even at Texas and Ohio State. Tech's reputation preceeds them. My guess is that if the PAC 12 is only able to secure OU and OSU, then they stop at 14 and wait for Texas or for another school to prove themselves worthy. Tech only comes along as a passenger on the Texas train, much like OSU riding the OU train. The PAC 12 may be more likely to overlook the religious issues with BYU, Baylor, SMU and TCU before they overlook Tech's academic issues.
Remember, TTech would not get into the B1G 10, ACC, Big East based on academic issues. The PAC 12 is on par with these conferences. Only the SEC would accept their academics and they are not going to the SEC. They hold onto Texas coattails or they get nothing. I think Baylor has already realized this, the exception being that the Big East may take Baylor as a filler to round out 12, 14, or 16.
By the way, should OU and OSU leave, and perhaps another team or two, and the Big 12 dissolve, then Texas may wait a year or two as an indy and go where they like without little brother. ESPN had an article that indicated that Texas does not believe they can make a go of it with 7 teams in the Big 12.
"Sources told Schad on Wednesday that Texas is willing to make financial concessions in order to keep the Big 12 together, but if Oklahoma and Oklahoma State join Texas A&M in leaving the conference, Texas does not consider a Big 12 with seven teams remaining to be viable."
From: http://espn.go.com/dallas/ncf/story...rs-not-decision-pac-12-move-seeking-stability
The above leads me to think that Texas does not want to expend its energy to save the conference even though they could backfill with suitable teams and perhaps a couple CUSA teams to get to 12, assuming OU and OSU are gone.
Research brings more than athletics, but why does that matter to Pac-12 schools? It only matters to the Big Ten because they've set up a consortium of resources to where highly-concentrated research universities can help one another improve their own research by sharing access to libraries, equipment and collaborate on projects. The Pac-12 does not have such a consortium, so research dollars of other universities don't really help one another much. Again, I agree with you the Pac-12 cares about academic reputation, but at the end of the day, the Big Ten is currently the only conference that has an avenue for academics of other schools to have an influence on each other. Research otherwise wouldn't impact expansion.
Let's get down to brass tacks: realignment is being brought about by finances, not academics, geography or athletics. Do you agree with that? So at the end of the day, the Pac-12's decision as to which teams they take will be one of the most financial sense, not academic reputation. The Big Ten does have an academic motivation because of the CIC interactions, and the ability for other institutions to indirectly improve research funding through resource collaboration, but ultimately the Big Ten is expanding because of their desire to grow inventory on their TV network and expand the geography of interested subscribers. The Pac-12 is no different and Larry Scott recently said as much when he admitted they're looking at other combinations of schools (even if Texas isn't included) that will be "most profitable."
The final decisions will be made based on money and nothing else. Academics might be a tie-breaker or a consideration between schools with similar credentials, but generally speaking, it's not going to keep a school like Texas Tech out of the running. This is an arms race to some degree. The Pac-12 will want to keep up with their peers, and Texas Tech will give them a better chance to do so than Iowa State, Baylor or even schools like Boise State.