So it’s Friday and I’m at the hospital giving blood. (Men, as a prostate cancer survivor, let me encourage you to get your PSA checked. That simple blood test saved my life.) While sitting and waiting… and waiting… and waiting… the texts began to roll in: ”New SEC deal with Big 12 to be announced shortly!”
Great. A lunchtime Friday gift for the media guys hoping to get a jumpstart on the weekend.
After finally having the blood drawn, I zipped home to put together a quick summary for you. Only I soon realized there is no quick summary for this story. This story is just part of a much larger, still developing story: the complete and total reshaping of college football as we know it.
For all the details, you can turn to long-time SEC scribe and all-around good guy, Tony Barnhart of CBSSports.com. But here’s the basic gist:
* The SEC and Big 12 announced today that beginning with the 2014 season (January of 2015, that is), the regular-season champs of those two leagues will meet in a bowl game that is not a part of what’s expected to be a brand new four-team college football playoff. Consider it the answer to the Big Ten-Pac-12′s Rose Bowl alliance.
* That’s if the SEC and Big 12 champs aren’t invited to the playoff, of course, and during the BCS era there have only been two occasions in 14 years when either the SEC champ or the Big 12 champ hasn’t made the national title game. The last time both leagues were shut out was way back in January of 2003.
* If one or both league champions make the playoff field, then league runner-ups would get the nod.
* The site of the game will be determined by a bidding process. The Sugar Bowl has been the home of the SEC champ since 1976. The old Big 8 was traditionally tied to the Orange Bowl, but the Big 12 locked in a deal with the Fiesta Bowl. For now, however, it looks like Jerry Jones and his Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas will be the top competition for the Sugar Bowl crew come auction time.
Now, for some very quick reactions, thoughts, questions, and observations (in no particular order):
1. This looks to be good news for the Big 12 and bad news for the ACC. At the moment there appear to be five major football conferences — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC. The Big 12 was wobbling just a few months ago after losing four major brand name schools in the span of a couple of summers. Now the Big 12 appears locked and loaded for the future (if its schools can all continue to play nice together). The ACC? Uh, well, not so much. After delivering yet another punch to the Big East by grabbing Pittsburgh and Syracuse last year, John Swofford’s league now appears to be the odd conference out if we ever find ourselves living in that four super-conference universe that’s so often been discussed. How can the ACC guarantee its survival as a big-time football league now? By raiding the Big East for Rutgers and UConn or South Florida? There are now two power blocs when it comes to future votes on college football matters: Big Ten-Pac-12 and SEC-Big 12. The ACC doesn’t have a dance partner.
2. Florida State, you now have another reason to move. President Eric Barron might not like it and it might not make the most sense to the faculty and staff at FSU, but the Big 12 now looks more secure than the ACC. The perception of many will be that the SEC chose to partner with the Big 12 because it’s in better shape going forward. We don’t deny that, but an SEC-ACC bowl could have also yielded rematches thanks to rivalries between Clemson-South Carolina, Florida-Florida State and Georgia-Georgia Tech. Regardless, many FSU trustees and fans were pushing for a Big 12 move based on perception anyway. Now the perception of Big 12 > ACC is even greater.
3. Business rules. Forget emotions. Forget one conference grabbing teams from another conference. Harsh words and threats of lawsuits just don’t matter when it comes to money. The SEC and Big 12 weren’t the best of chums less than 12 months ago as Texas A&M and Missouri packed their bags and departed the latter league for the former. Well, the hatchet has apparently been buried. (You might say the tomahawk — in this case — has been buried in the ACC’s head.) Dollars rule in college athletics. Mike Slive and Swofford have had a good working relationship for a while. But when it came time to toss a rope to one league or the other and help pull them into the boat with the three most stable conferences — SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12 — it wasn’t Swofford’s ACC that got the call, it was Chuck Neinas’ Big 12.
4. Earlier this week we wrote that FSU’s power play could force Swofford to reverse field and join the Pac-12 and Big Ten in pushing for a champs-only or a champs-mostly playoff format. He did just that in part to exert some pressure on the Seminoles to stay in the ACC, an easier league to win than the Big 12. But now it appears that the SEC and Big 12 were already planning ahead. We don’t believe Slive learned of Swofford’s flip-flop and picked up the phone to Neinas and new Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby this week. Barnhart says the two leagues have been discussing such a plan for years. But the fact remains, Swofford abandoned the SEC’s push for a 1-2-3-4 playoff system and Slive appears to have had another partner already lined up on that front.
5. This move seems to guarantee that by the 2014 season the BCS will be gone. There’s still a lot of work to do before a playoff format is agreed upon and — let’s face it — that whole thing could still blow up in everyone’s faces. But whether there’s a playoff or not, it looks as if we are definitely heading back to the days of conferences cutting their own bowl deals. Come 2014 the bowl line-up could look a heckuva lot different for everyone. (Earlier this week, Big Ten commish Jim Delany said he’d like to see the bowl eligibility standard raised to seven wins and he even suggested his league might go down that road on its own, by choice.) In just two years, there could be fewer bowls and those bowls could have completely differently conference tie-ins.
6. Delany also suggested this week that perhaps it’s time for the bowl games to pay less money to the teams they invite… with the caveat being that those games would no longer require schools to buy tickets by the bushel (which leads to most schools losing money on their bowl trips). At Big12Sports.com today, Neinas mentioned in a video interview the possibility that the new Big 12-SEC game could be run simply by the leagues and not by a bowl at all. So not only could bowls look different — in number and in tie-ins by 2014 — but they could start to go away altogether, replaced by games run by the conferences. Or at least that seems to be an idea that more than one commissioner is tossing out for leverage purposes, if nothing else.
7. As for the Big 12-SEC game, here’s hoping the good people in New Orleans can raise enough cash to outbid Jones and Arlington. No offense to the Metroplex, but would you rather spend New Year’s in the French Quarter or in chilly mid-Texas?
8. And before anyone tosses out St. Louis as the perfect fit for the new game, would you rather spend New Year’s in the French Quarter or in even chillier Missouri?
9. Back to Florida State for a second, does this new power play now guarantee a Seminole move to the Big 12? Or is there a reason FSU trustees have continually mentioned the SEC as a league they’d like to hear from? If the SEC wanted to help stabilize the ACC it could have. Instead, it partnered with the Big 12 and tightened the noose around the ACC’s neck. If Slive isn’t worried about destabilizing the ACC, then perhaps he knows the age of the super-conference is here — like it or not — and he’s willing to grab FSU his own self. That’s pure speculation, but what in the past three weeks has not been pure speculation?
10. What was Slive’s ultimate goal here? To help stabilize the Big 12 — a league he didn’t intend to destabilize last year — while at the same time partnering with what has been the nation’s second-strongest league during the BCS era? (Championship game berths by league: SEC – 9, Big 12 – 7, ACC – 3, Big East – 3, Big Ten – 3, Pac-12 – 3.) Did he want to deal a death blow to the ACC? Or was he simply looking to do what was best for his own conference, consequences be damned? Personally, I’ve never heard a peep from anyone at an SEC institution suggesting that Slive would for any reason “attack” Swofford’s ACC. Therefore, it seems much more likely that this was Slive’s way of saying, “You can have the Rose Bowl, we’ll partner with the Big 12 and recent history says our bowl will feature higher-rated teams than your bowl.” It’s strictly business.
11. Though Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick says he doesn’t think the new SEC-Big 12 deal deal will have “significant near-term consequences” for his school, rest assured he’s puckering up a bit more today. Unless Notre Dame and the ACC can reach an agreement to merge, both bodies will continue to become more and more irrelevant by the hour.
12. Kudos to Neinas and the Big 12. Dan Beebe took the fall for a league that was built on a fault line and part of the league’s turnaround can surely be attributed to the fact that its members were looking over the edge of a cliff just a few months ago and that scared them straight (at least straight enough to share their media rights for 13 years). Still, the Big 12 is a perfect example of how the college football landscape is changing and morphing and shifting day after day. One day the Big 12 looks doomed. The next, it looks strong as can be. Who knows what the future holds? But Neinas deserves a lot of credit for grabbing the reins of his league’s wild horses, stopping them, and ultimately pulling them and the Big 12′s wagon back from precipice.
So what conclusions can be drawn from all this?
The Big 12 appears stronger. The ACC appears weaker. The likelihood of Florida State moving looks somewhat greater. And the SEC just continues to roll right along with an answer for every problem, a yin for every yang.
Other than those, no one should draw any conclusions. There’s a battle over a new playoff and what form it will take. Will it include existing bowls? Will bowls start to disappear, replaced by conference-owned games? What about bowl eligibility standards? Will more schools move from their current leagues? What about those $2,000 stipends for players? How can the NCAA preserve a level playing field when the biggest leagues are pushing to give players extra cash while more and more small schools (Old Dominion, Texas-San Antonio, Georgia State, etc, etc) jump to the FBS level?
Think you’ve got a read on what’s coming next? Think again. The powers-that-be don’t even know what’s coming next. There are too many variables in too many equations for anyone to feel confident in their beliefs about the future of college football.
Today’s news? Yeah, it’s big. But what it means long-term for all the parties concerned? That’s anybody’s guess.
Lets be honest here, the location will go to the highest bidder and we all know who that will be. Jerry World overpays for everything. He paid 30+Million for a boxing match and with the likelyhood of either Texas or OU playing in this game and also an SEC top 3 team, he will probably put down double what the Super Dome or St Louis could put down. The man knows how to overspend, except in this case, it will probably make him money.
Why is no one talking about San Antonio as a possible site? It has the best weather and the most to do of any city in the B12 footprint. As a fan, I'd be more likely to make a week's vacation of a game there as opposed to Dallas, Houston, or STL. I say rotate the game between SA and NO.
@Scott I agree that San Antonio would be a great destination, but is the Alamo Dome the type of facility needed to compete with the Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl. I would say that yes, the facility is comparable to the Sugar Bowl, but now where near comparison to the Rose Bowl. Last year's attendance numbers speak volumes. Alamo Dome 65,256 - 100.39% of capacity Sugar Bowl 64,512 - 88.12 % of capacity Rose Bowl 91,245 - 100.12% of capacity I have no doubts that the SEC and Big 12 want a game bigger than the Rose Bowl in every possible way. That means hosing a game in a facility that can hold 90,000 plus fans. In my mind, this would make the Jerry Dome the favorite. They crammed more than 103,219 fans in there for the Super Bowl and it's really the only option when you compare both attendence and luxury options.
@KC Guy @Scott I definitely believe Dallas is the place to go if you're looking for a quality facility. Nothing out there compares to Jerry World right now. They can get above 100K with the standing room tickets and no doubt this game will sell out no matter how many seats are available.
I always thought the Cotton Bowl got the shaft when it came to the BCS. It's a great bowl with a lot of tradition in a great city. How did the Fiesta Bowl get such instant prominence? A big game belongs in Dallas.
Ok, so here's my latest theory and since my theories are usually off you can take it with a grain of salt:
Maybe the SEC is ultimately trying to destabilize the ACC because ideally the schools the SEC wants are in that conference. Maybe this will encourage the likes of FSU, Clemson, Miami, and maybe Georgia Tech to bolt for the Big 12 to maintain future relevance and that would also ensure that this new SEC/Big 12 bowl will be even bigger for the future. FSU would be the first to bolt and with the instability that could cause in the ACC with its now overvalued contracts perhaps that will encourage more moves?
I can see the B1G being interesting in Maryland and UVA. I think the B1G may be the only league that schools like that would bolt for. Notre Dame has to see the writing on the wall by this point. Perhaps Rutgers or UConn completes that league. The other three I mentioned earlier(GT, Clemson, Miami) are surely looking to get out by now in this scenario. The Big 12 welcomes them with open arms.
By this point the SEC would surely be in talks with Virginia Tech and UNC. Virginia Tech is valuable for obvious reasons and they know they have the choice between the SEC and the Big 12 should things go down the toilet for the ACC. The SEC would be stupid not to jump on that with their network coming down the pike. UNC is also an obvious choice for the reasons someone stated earlier. The SEC would prefer them over NC State for several reasons: 1) UNC is AAU, 2) UNC is the biggest athletic product in that very populated and still growing state, 3) UNC brings a national brand in basketball that helps the SEC make greater inroads in that market especially with their ESPN contract 4) There is no true football product in the state of NC so it's a wash in that area.
I think it's also possible that the Big 12 fills out to 16 as well in this scenario. With who? Maybe some combo of NC State, Duke, Louisville, Pitt, or BYU?
I have no idea what the PAC 12 would do if anything.
@AllTideUp You're too focused on the ACC. Slive was looking west while everyone else was looking east to the ACC. In one single move, Slive locked Texas & Oklahoma into a fragmented conference, limited PAC expansion to within their own footprint (or to states with no population,) and freed up NC State and VT to come join the SEC. This move has secured the SEC's place in college athletics for at least another generation.
With the B1G and PAC looking for conference tie-ins for a playoff system and the SEC and the smaller conferences favoring taking top ranked teams, I expect to eventually see a compromise playoff format that will have the 4 conference champions along with the next 4 highest ranked teams.
Last year would have seen the following seedings based on week 15 rankings:
LSU vs Wisconsin
Alabama vs Boise State
Oklahoma State vs Arkansas
Stanford vs Oregon
With 3 teams in an 8 team playoff, the SEC would have had a team in no less than 5 of the 7 games, and if Arkansas beats OK St, 6 of the seven games. The SEC could end up with a full 50% of all the revenue generated by an 8 team playoff in that scenario.
Slive knows how to play this game.
I know Slive was focused on teams to the West last year. I'm talking about future teams from here on out. The ACC has got to be destabilized before more teams will leave.
Four is a good start but I see 8 down the line: Rose pits Big 10-PAC 12, Sugar/Cotton "Champions" - Big 12/SEC, Orange -ACC/Big East, Fiesta: MWC vs. CUSA (or two highest "second tier" conference champions: some years maybe Sun Belt rises up)
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Great article and analysis. The end result of this situation is anybody's guess. Could this be the start of the 4 team superconferences or just another high profile game. But it would be nice if the major conferences made the same arrangements with teams 1 - 6 in each conference to actually see who was the better conference. Have the conferences own the bowls and drive all the politics out of the bowls. Rotate conferences so maybe SEC #2 plays Big 10 #2 and SEC #3 plays Pac #3. Have the other games set up like this so we can get good bowls that actually mean something.
Fantastic job, John.
I can't see the SEC/B12 accepting an arrangement where their teams face off to determine someone to face the B1G/P12 winner. Most years, the SEC/B12 teams would be 1 and 2 seeds in a 4 team playoff. I could see these two bowls evolving into semi-finals, but that involves logistical and legal complications.
If the ACC cracks up, it's 2 biggest prices would be FSU and UNC, followed by VaTech, Duke, and NC State. North Carolina is the 10th largest state in the country for eyeballs, and most of that population falls in the Charlotte/Raleigh-Durham/Greensbor-Winston Salem media markets - both a large and affluent demographic. Only UNC really draws well across the state, and you see their merchandise prominently across the country.
So, where does UNC end up, and who do they take with them? I cannot see UNC, Duke and State splitting. The campuses are within rock-throwing distance of each other. They are all three research powerhouses with enormous common business interests in the area. Yes, I'm a Tar Heel by sheep skin, Bama fan by birth. It's not a bad fan life.
@Bocktean UNC sn't going anywhere the are and always will be a basketball school first. And that's what the ACC is becoming.
Is it possible that the ACC got wind of this new SEC/Big-12 partnership ahead of time, and that this is the ultimate reason behind the ACC's sudden backing of a conference champion playoff model?
From my initial perspective nothing has really changed for FSU. Stick with an easier to win ACC, and guarantee yourself a playoff spot should the Conf Champ Model be adopted, or join either the SEC/Big-12 and risk not even playing in the new Rose Bowlesque like partnership.
Too me this just seems to be the more likely reason Slive and Swafford would suddenly disagree after standing beside each other for so long...Swafford feels slighted because instead of an ACC/SEC partnership Slive chose the Big-12.
Great article, John.
You have had the best coverage of the conference expansion/realignment over the past couple years.
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Great post, John.
I agree with the commenter below who suggested a sort of "home and home" for this new bowl game. One year the Big 12 hosts in Arlington, the next year the SEC hosts in either New Orleans or Atlanta.
I also agree that Slive's mindset was probably nothing more than "OK, Delaney. You want to watch Michigan go get killed by USC in the Rose Bowl? Fine. We'll play Oklahoma-LSU in Jerry World. We'll see which game is worth more money."
I wonder if Slive is trying to squeeze FSU out of the ACC to de-stabilize that conference and get two teams like VT and NC State. This would create huge new markets in big, fast-growing states that would make the SEC hundreds of millions of dollars in TV revenue.
All of this is very interesting. I'm just glad the SEC is going to come out on top no matter what.
FWIW, WVU has 3 BCS Bowl wins in the last 8 years. It's no shock that the B12 recognized WVU's value in sports/fans/tradition vs. some of the so-called "Quality" leftovers from the BE/ACC.
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They did this in a very weak Big East that hardly deserved AQ status. Put those WVU teams in the SEC or Big 12 during that time and I doubt they'd ever have gotten those bids.
@JohnVol Well, I didn't say the 2011 team would have won it all. You said we never could which is BS.
@JohnVol And, yes, I forget South Carolina. It was kind of easy to do considering they were over-rated. They didn't even play Bama or LSU and they lost to Auburn and Arkansas. Their best win was against Clemson, you know, the team that we scored 70 points on.
@JohnVol Hey Dimwit, it is a 12-team league meaning you don't play everybody.
And, hey, if Tee Martin can win the MNC then Pat White can. I can't seem to remember any Pro Bowls that Martin played in.
@michael8349 #10 South Carolina is average or below. FACT. Hahaha. I'm starting to think you've never watched a college football game.
@michael8349 Yeah, I guess a top ten South Carolina team is average. Yep, #10 in the country is average. Get a clue. The SEC has so many top ten teams that you're forgetting them. "Yeah, all the SEC had last year was three top 5 teams". Hahaha. WVU is a joke.
Are you talking about the same Pat White who is tearing up the NFL? Wait a minute...
Or the WVU team that lost out on the national title game by losing to a bad Pitt team?
@JohnVol And in 2010 LSU needed a Patrick Peterson punt return TD to beat us in Death Valley. I wouldn't call that dominance. We had a hard time stopping them last year because we lost those 4 NFL draft pick I talked about.
Face it, besides Bama, LSU and Arkansas, the other nine teams in the SEC were average or below. That's a FACT.
@JohnVol And last year's WVU team wasn't as good as the Pat White-led team. That team would have torn though Bama's schedule.
@michael8349 Alabama's strength of schedule was 15, WVU was 57 (Sagarin). Get some facts, dude. Bama played three top five teams in their own division (LSU twice, Arkansas). They went 2-1, with the only loss being by a FG in OT to LSU at home. WVU played LSU at home and lost by 26. The schedules don't even compare.
@JohnVol Give me a break. Alabama had three tough games last year (LSU twice and Arkansas) Auburn was average, Tennessee was below average, Ole Miss sucked, Florida was inept, Vanderbilt sucked, MSU was better than they usually are but that is not saying much. Penn State was their only OOC game worth a damn and they have been a shadow of themselves for years.
@michael8349 FIrst of all, LSU went undefeated in SEC last year. Auburn did the year before that, Bama did the year before that, Tennessee did in 1998, Auburn did in 2004...so you're wrong there.
So there actually is a really good chance you'd have to go undefeated to win the league. WVU wouldn't come close, therefore no BCS for WVU.
@JohnVol Well, I didn't say we would go undefeated in the SEC. Of course, most of the SEC champs I can remember weren't undefeated.
And, yes, we were average during the Stewart years mainly because he hired an OC that had never been OC on any level, including HS, and they changed the offense instead of just sticking with the spread that led to our success.
Also, Rich Rod's problem in Michigan had nothing to do with his O. His D sucked because his DC (Jeff Casteel) was still in Morgantown.
@michael8349 You're trying to make the argument that Rich Rod would've had success against the big boys, when he in fact DID coach against the big boys at a better program than WVU and went 15-22.
@michael8349 And yes, I know you're not in the Big East anymore. But that's where you were when Rich Rod coached. Ya know, before he ditched you to go to Michigan. Where he failed miserably.
@michael8349 Let's say you beat LSU (which you didn't, at home). Ok, that's one game. Go play #2 Alabama the next week. The following week go play #5 Arkansas. Then #20 Auburn. And when you're done with that, go play #10 South Carolina in Atlanta. Still think you'd make the BCS? You really think WVU would have beaten three top five teams in its own division, another in the top 20, and yet another top 10 team in the SEC Championship Game? Get a grip.
WVU could win a few SEC games, but the difference in the SEC is that you're playing a top 20 team almost every week. That's different than Rutgers, Pitt, Girls Prep, and whoever else is in the Big East. But let's not forget...LSU blew your doors off. I don't know what you're basing this argument on.
"If we can beat your champ"...hahaha. You didn't! You lost by 26. At home. You lost to them the year before that, too.
Ask a Michigan fan what they think of Rich Rod's teams.
@JohnVol That's not the coaching change I was referring to. Stewart was the coach before Holgerson. And, yes, I believe Rich Rod teams would have beaten LSU. Also, if we can beat your champ, we can beat anybody in your league.
@michael8349 So had Rich Rod still been there, you think WVU would've beaten that LSU team? No way. I like West Virginia, but if they had to play SEC competition week in and week out there is no way they would've qualified for BCS bowls.
@JohnVol Well, what do you expect, they were installing a new offense with a new coach and also lost four NFL draft picks from their defense the previous year.
If this isn't meant to hurt the ACC, then I'm guessing the SEC and Big Ten will both be calling the ACC to setup a permanent bowl matching up the ACC champion against the #2 team from their conference, probably in Florida. Several months ago when talking about bowl structures, I told someone the SEC's dream would probably be to have the Big 12 champ tied to the Sugar Bowl and the ACC champ in the Orange Bowl, with the SEC champ going to the higher ranked opponent and SEC #2 going to the other. This wouldn't quite be that, but it would be nice.
@m_Ag The ACC will probably just play the champ of the Big east/mac/conf usa in the Orange Bowl.... oh wait... They already do.
If we move to a Big Four where the likes of Iowa State and WVU are survivors and some quality names from the ACC and BE are left out then college football has indeed gone over the edge. While the prospects of Texas vx LSU, etc, sounds appealing, the concept of creating a new top tier of just 48 teams is appalling. Kansas State, Oregon State and Washington State - in?? Pitt, UNC, Syracuse, MD and Georgia Tech - out??
This simply makes the guy calling for an end to the sport sound all the more sane. At the least, perhaps it's time to cut the collegiate associations and simply go semi-pro. Not like players at Bama and USC are studying, anyway.
Kansas State does not belong in your group of the undeserving.
We will never get to the top 48 teams as long as conferences stay together. Kentucky, Kansas, and Duke have no place at the football table.
It will be more like 54-64 teams. The programs that are worthwhile as football schools, who have invested in their programs and shown a commitment to winning (or who are located in a great market but and are decent in football, aka Georgia Tech) will all be par of the superconference structure if it plays out.
GT and UNC will be included if they want to be. Pitt might because of the relationship with Notre Dame. MD and Syracuse- are you kidding with those two ?
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Wow. I didn't know you had prostate cancer, John. As someone who has lost many family and friends to the disease, I can't tell you happy it makes me
to see the words "cancer" and "survivor" in the same sentence.
John-
Very well done. You nailed a lot of points in a very short time and put your counterparts at the Big Media outlets to shame on this one.
A couple of questions that I'd love to hear your thoughts on in a comment response or a follow-up article after you talk to some of your SEC sources.
1.- How do you think this ties in to the "Anchor Bowl" proposal for the playoffs ?
I think the Anchor Bowl concept is the best idea as far as location goes for the playoffs. Do you think this leads us to an anchor bowl setup where if the PAC, BIG, SEC and B14/16 champs are all in the Final four, we see the Rose and the B14/SEC bowl host their tied-in teams no matter the ranking ?
Or do you think Slive and the B12 want to keep this out of the playoff rotation and essentially use it as another high-profile matchup/ money generator ? If it's the latter, maybe Slive started seeing the writing on the wall about conference champs in the playoff, in which case a high-profile B12-SEC matchup of 2nd place teams would be the next best thing to having two teams in the playoffs, as the money and exposure would be huge.
2- Related to the first question, the BCS commissioners were talking about "taking back New Year's Day." If the Rose and B14/SEC bowl are out of the playoff rotation and are taking up the two best time slots, how would they wedge a playoff game in ?
By planting their flag on New Year's Day in primetime, it seems like Slive and the B12 want this bowl in the playoff even though it's not mentioned in the press release. I can't see both playoff games on New Year's Eve, and playing them after New Year's make no sense.
Seems much more that the thought process is to make the Rose and this bowl the two semifinal sites. Conflicting signals/thoughts on this aspect.
3- Is the next step a B14/SEC scheduling agreement similar to the PAC and BIG setup ? Looks like it to me.
4- This feels like the road to the four superconferences just took a giant leap forward. We know Clemson's already on the roof of that hotel in Saigon waiting for the chopper to pick them up before it's too late, but FSU better be packing their bags (if they weren't already) and VT, GT, NCS, etc need to get serious, as the ACC is clearly going to be permanently relegated to 2nd tier status.
I heard recently that the BCS deal would again be for 4 years instead of 10, as was getting reported previously. If that happens, can you imagine the money for the four conferences if they break away from the NCAA for football and stage a Rose bowl winner vs the B14/SEC winner for the NC every year ?
Instead of having to share the BCS money with the other conferences every year, the 54-64 teams in a superconference setup would be rolling in $$$$$ above and beyond anything else we've previously seen. ND would have to jump on board once it became apparent that things were moving that way, and the PAC might be forced to take in some teams they don't want to (in return for some kind of financial incentive) to eliminate any issues of credibility if a team like Boise is not included and goes undefeated.
All in all, these are incredibly exiting times, as I think all of these changes are going to be for the better. I really like where this is heading.
Thanks John. Keep up the good work.
Traveler
Just thinking out loud here, but wouldn't Houston's Reliant Stadium have to be considered? Obviously my vote is for Kansas City, but something tells me that you folks in Florida might not like the weather here in January. We've done a good job of hosting the Big 12 Championship in years past, but our frigid temps are probably more than enough to keep a game like that away from my city.
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I read a lot of sports blogs and check out several newspapers. I just want to say that I thoroughly enjoy reading your articles. They are well informed and entertaining. I like how you give us the option to get even more details through cbssports, but also cut through all of the b.s. to tell us what's what. Thanks for all that you do. I've been checking out this site for a little over a year now, since Mizzou first talked about leaving, and I really like what you do. Thanks!
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