Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

[TDenverFan]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up on Operation Sports

Should we change the title of this thread?

[GAMEC0CK2002]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up on Operation Sports

Should we change the title of this thread?

Not really. Everyone can pretty much guess what thread to enter if wanting to talk about the topic.

[TheGamingChef]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up on Operation Sports

Very good article following up on today's conference call between nine Big XII athletic directors and Dan Beebe:

The Big 12 athletic directors - minus Texas A&M - pledged their commitment to a nine-member conference during a call Saturday afternoon if the Aggies were to bolt for the Southeastern Conference.

But the Big 12 ADs are reaching out to A&M to stay in the Big 12.

The ADs decided if A&M left and the league was to expand, it would be by only one school, sources said.

The early candidates would include BYU, Air Force, TCU and Houston, sources said.

But the Aggies will not go off to the SEC without some questions directed at both Texas A&M and Mike Slive, the commissioner of the SEC.

There appear to be real legal questions from the Big 12 about the SEC's role in A&M's apparent decision to leave the Big 12 and if tortious interference is involved in possibly breaking the Aggies' contracts with their current television partners.

Multiple sources said the 13-year Fox television deal signed by the Big 12 in April for $1.17 billion can be voided if Texas A&M leaves. The sources said if the SEC, which has had ongoing conversations with Texas A&M since Mike Slive was on the College Station campus during last summer's realignment, could be seen as the instigator in A&M's actions, it could constitute a $1 billion lawsuit against the SEC as well as a lawsuit for damages against individuals involved.

A&M's lawyers have also been looking at the legal ramifications of a move to the SEC, a source close to A&M said.

The Big 12 engaged in a high-dollar ad campaign earlier this year to promote the new, 10-member conference that will roll out during football season. And officials across the Big 12 are wondering if Texas A&M knew even then that it would try to relocate to the SEC.

Sources close to the situation say Sunday morning's meeting of the SEC presidents - believed to be in Atlanta, according to one source - has become the most important moment of this year's college realignment drama.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive, who has said, "I can get to 16 schools in 15 minutes," now needs to convince his presidents that he knows what he's doing. According to sources close to the situation, only Florida president Bernie Machen and Georgia president Michael Adams have been in contact with Slive about the SEC's current expansion plans.

The other 10 presidents will apparently be getting a whole lot of critical information from Slive on Sunday. If those presidents, who heard a report of the SEC possibly adding schools such as Missouri, Clemson and Florida State from ESPN's Doug Gottlieb Saturday, are not on board, this story could take a serious left turn.

The New York Times quoted an SEC official who said there's a 30 to 40 percent chance the SEC presidents could reject Texas A&M.

An official at a school in the Big 12 said, "If you asked me last night, I would have said it was 90 to 95 percent that Texas A&M was gone to the SEC. Now, I would say either 50 percent or less. The SEC meeting on Sunday is huge. If they hit the pause button, I don't think it happens."

Several sources said if Texas A&M was to stay in the Big 12, it would take a lot to rebuild the relationship between Texas A&M and Texas but that it was doable.

House Higher Education Committee chairman Dan Branch, R-Dallas, told Orangebloods.com Saturday he has received assurances from A&M that the Aggies' regents board won't be finalizing a move to the SEC on Monday.

Branch on Thursday set a meeting of his committee for Tuesday and invited Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin and Texas A&M regents chair Richard Box along with Big 12 and SEC officials to discuss the Aggies' plans.

Then on Friday, A&M's regents moved an Aug. 22 meeting to Monday, one day ahead of Branch's committee hearing in what looked like a maneuver to out-flank lawmakers. But an A&M source said the regents were likely to vote on Monday to empower Loftin, the school's president, with the ability to make any decision in the matter on behalf of Texas A&M.

"It's my understanding the regents meeting on Monday is to begin negotiations, not complete them - assuming the SEC extends an offer," Branch told Orangebloods.com. "It would be important to the Legislature that the regents not complete anything before lawmakers get to ask some questions.

"It's my understanding from talking to A&M officials that it may take a week or two weeks to finalize any conference realignment anyway."

An administrator at a Big 12 school told Orangebloods.com that the Atlantic Coast Conference has a meeting planned for Monday with its 12 schools to reaffirm their commitment to each other.

ACC commissioner John Swofford released a statement Friday that said, "As I've said previously, we'll continue to be mindful of the collegiate landscape and what's best for the ACC and its member institutions. With that said, I've received no indication from any of our 12 Presidents that they have any intention of being affiliated with any conference other than the ACC."

Gottlieb reported Saturday that Missouri, Clemson and Florida State could be joining Texas A&M in the SEC.

Missouri athletic director Mike Alden denied any contact between the Tigers and the SEC to several media outlets, including PowerMizzou.com. Behind the scenes, Missouri is also telling the rest of the Big 12 that any contact with the SEC hasn't happened.

But a source close to the situation said Missouri may be able to deny everything right now because talks between Mizzou and the SEC haven't started yet. However, for the SEC to avoid any legal liability in terms of tampering or interfering with the Big 12's contracts, sources have said the SEC needs schools to approach them and apply for membership. Important semantics as the maneuvering unfolds.

A Big 12 official told me that Oklahoma continues to tell the rest of the Big 12 that it is not interested in joining the SEC. The SEC definitely reached out to OU during its courtship of Texas A&M, the source said. The source said Bob Stoops has indicated to OU officials that the best path to win championships is in the Big 12, not the SEC, in part because the Big 12 no longer has a championship game.

The Houston Chronicle reported Friday that Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe told an unnamed A&M official that Texas was the key to the Big 12 and that the league would survive without Texas A&M.

Big 12 associate commissioner Bob Burda told Orangebloods.com Saturday, "That's patently untrue misinformation from an unnamed source."

Link

[rspencer86]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up on Operation Sports

[TDenverFan]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up on Operation Sports

Not really. Everyone can pretty much guess what thread to enter if wanting to talk about the topic.

I was reffering to what I changed the title to in my post...

[Aggies7]

Everyone seems to feel that A&M are giving up their rivals by going to the SEC. Granted Losing Texas- Texas A&M every friday after Thanksgiving will hurt, but are the A&M - Tech and A&M- Baylor games really that heated?

Besides by joining the SEC, the old SWC A&M- Arkansas rivalry will have more meaning (they play just about every year out of conference as it is already), and LSU- A&M will develop into a big rivalry within a decade given the schools proximity to one another. Also after a decade or so A&M and Texas may very well start playing again once all the wounds have healed(out of conference of course) just like A&M and Arkansas do now.

I think the biggest thing A&M needs to fear is becoming an Also ran in College Footballs toughest division the SEC West.

Just FYI the game is now on Thanksgiving Day not black Friday. I wish it was still black Friday.

And I agree with the also ran comment. TAMU better hope that being the only SEC team in Texas helps their recruiting or they will become the also ran team.

But then again as of right now it's not official. I believe announcement is scheduled for Monday but I will believe it when I see it. As an Aggies fan I live the move to the SEC. I was very disappointed with the Big 12 being ok with 10 teams and no championship game.

[KSUowls]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

I hear arguments such as Georgia and Clemson scheduling something out of conference because of a historical rivalry. How did that rivalry compare to what they have now? Rivals change over time. The battles with Tech and Baylor were very important to the Aggies, including the marches on the Brazos. In time, they will change to teams like Louisiana State and Arkansas. If you split up the SEC into fours, you will have some rivalries that lose their prominence.

My point was that Georgia/Clemson was once a big rivalry, but due to lack of scheduling for a period of time it stopped being a rivalry. So, a format where you constantly changing up who you play isn't very conducive of either maintaining or developing new rivalries. To answer your question though I don't know how big the rivalry was exactly as it hasn't been serious since before I started watching football. I just know that there is a lot of history and when that home/home series occurred in the early 2000s there were a lot of older people talking about how big the rivalry was.

Is the complete destruction of nearly every major rivalry in one of the historic conferences in football really more fun than having 7 divisional games + 2 out of division + conference championship?

[TheGamingChef]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

One more thing I saw today is that SEC policy is 9 of the 12 university presidents must vote in favor of adding a new team for it to happen. I am very, very interested to see if they can manage to get all but 3 of them on board with this.

[JBH3]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

So when will A&M enter the SEC? 2012 or 2013?

[TheGamingChef]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

Big XII releases a statement about this situation:

The Big 12 Conference Board of Directors conducted a teleconference meeting today to discuss the future of the Conference given recent developments regarding Texas A&M University.

The Board strongly conveyed to Texas A&M its unanimous desire that it remain a Big 12 member, and acknowledged its value to the Conference. The Board noted that Texas A&M expressed concerns about institutional networks and that the athletics directors worked together and took actions, which the Board has approved, to adequately address those concerns.

The other nine members reaffirmed their long term, unconditional and unequivocal commitments made to each other and the Conference last summer. Although the Board hopes Texas A&M remains in the Conference, the Board is prepared to aggressively move forward to explore expansion opportunities. In doing so, the Board recognizes the strength of the Big 12 Conference national brand and the opportunity to capitalize on it.

If A&M leaves the Big XII will expand back to 10 teams but no further. The member institutions are not interested in a conference championship game.

[Watson]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

So do we get to run train on Aggy in 12 or 13?

[acts238shaun]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

Me either. I don't get the point of any of this expansion. The old conferences were fine. There was tradition. You know who was in what conference. Now it's like musical chairs.

Arkansas and A&M left basically because one school (UT) dictates how things work in the conference. DeLoss Dodd, UT AD likes to state as much, often saying "We are the Jonses.". Arkansas left before thet got screwed over, A&M's leaving before they get screwed more with the unequal revenue sharing and constant shadow Texas casts.

[TheGamingChef]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

Arkansas and A&M left basically because one school (UT) dictates how things work in the conference. DeLoss Dodd, UT AD likes to state as much, often saying "We are the Jonses.". Arkansas left before thet got screwed over, A&M's leaving before they get screwed more with the unequal revenue sharing and constant shadow Texas casts.

I am not positive, but I believe A&M fares better financially keeping their own funds rather than equally sharing with the rest of the conference.

I am positive that that was the case with NU. So when Huskers threw out that reasoning we all knew it was BS.

[DonkeyJote]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

Firstly, let me say I think bigger conferences are better. I'm not sure yet if 16 is better than 12, but being a Pac 12 fan, and living on the West Coast, I can tell you that I am much more excited about a 12 team conference than a 10 team. As far as the Pac 12 alignment, it is what it should be. The farthest 2 teams in South (USC and Colorado) are 1029 miles apart, and in the North (WSU to Stanford) 904 miles. If the bay area and new schools were swapped, it'd be 1364 in the north (Seattle to Boulder) and in the south 860 miles (Berkley to Tuscon). That's about a 300 mile cumulative difference. I guess they could've called the divisions "Desert" and "Forest", but they figured "North" and "South" was simpler. Guess not....

But anyway, with a 12 team conference, there will be a true champion. No more co-champions, no more ties. I don't know about you, but I hate ties. This eliminates that, for the most part. And you're talking about BCS standings breaking a tie? To my knowledge that has happened exactly one time, and it was in the Big XII South when there were three teams that had all played and beat each other. How do you think it would've been different if they were in a 9 team round robin conference instead of a 12-team divisional conference - they still would be tied and they'd still need weird tiebreakers.

As far as the "proposed" Super-SEC (I say proposed because I won't believe A&M is in until I see the press conference, and I'm certainly not buying the other three at this point - it makes sense, but at this point, it's speculative, and the reports say the SEC will pursue, not that they will accept). I see a few ways to do the schedule. One would be to play the 7-in division games, and 2 crossover. Another would be to bump it up to 10 conference games, and add a protected rival.

A third, and this one is out there, is to make it a World-Cup style tournament. Every offseason, you set up 4 pools. They all play each other early on. The top 2 in each pool move on into 2 new 4 team pools. They all play each other. Top 4 move on to a 4 team tournament, with the SEC Title game being the final. When you get knocked out of a pool or tournament, you play consilation games, and those are still important as they will have an impact on the pool you are in the following season. Now, I'm sure you guys notice this provides a maximum of 8 games, including the SEC title game. I say you add in a protected rival in there, or, you just tell your conference they are now free to schedule up to 5 OOC games.

Another way to go, would be to have two divisons of 8 teams, with 2 crossover games, that change every year or every couple years to keep it fresh.

[DonkeyJote]

Re: A&M to the SEC starting to blow up again on Twitter

Big XII releases a statement about this situation:



If A&M leaves the Big XII will expand back to 10 teams but no further. The member institutions are not interested in a conference championship game.

TCU or, imo more likely, BYU. I think BYU left the MWC solely to be ready in case the Big XII needed them. I think that's where BYU wants to be.