Collapse of the PAC-12: Oregon State & Washington State left in the dust

[KevFu]

The whole schedule math thing is why a lot of conferences just completely screw up expansion/realignment.

The last version of Conference USA had some really good basketball programs in it. Not like Top 40 programs but five schools in the 41-80 range. But they couldn't get more than one bid to the NCAA Tournament because the other NINE teams in the conference were just terrible because all their resources were going to football.

Everyone wants to add "The Best" schools and make their conferences "Top to bottom the best conference" but no one ever asks "What's the best CONFIGURATION for a conference to maximize results?"

NO ONE CARES about the bottom of the league on Selection Sunday, because when you go 4-14 or 5-15 in conference, you have no chance at an NCAA bid.


Conference Play is a Zero-Sum Game. That's why when the ACC was getting 7 of 12 teams into the NCAA Tournament and they added four more "NCAA teams" from the Big East, everyone said 7+4 = 11 bids going forward!

But that's not how it works.
The 7th place ACC team WAS 8-8 in conference and 11-3 OOC for 19-11 overall.
The 11th place ACC team NOW is 7-13 in conference and 9-1 OOC for 16-14 overall.



If the Big East adds Gonzaga, Gonzaga is going to slot in near the Top 4 and push every down spot. They'll get the same amount of bids as before because what Gonzaga does OOC is basically what Big East schools do out of conference.

But if the Big East added St. Bonaventure, who puts up the same OOC record but against much weaker competition.... Bona's going to go 4-12 or 5-16 in conference...

The middle of the Big East is now beating Bonaventure instead of losing to Nova a second time, and the Big East is strong enough that being .500 in Big East play is going to give you a serious shot at an NCAA bid. So you could go from two 19-12 teams left out, to two 20-11 teams getting in by adding a WEAKER member instead of a stronger member.

But the Big East (or anyone else) has never looked at "what's the right ratio of programs to have in a conference?" and build a league based on that kind of thinking.

(The A-10 has two teams who are usually bad, six teams that are usually good, and 7 teams who can fluctuate drastically between 24-8 and 13-17 and that last group is what kills them).

You could make a conference of nine basketball schools where everyone would glance at the members and say "they could get 1, maybe 2" but if it was 6 schools usually around the NCAA bubble or NIT range, and 3 schools that are good scheduling soldiers, that conference could get like 4-5 bids pretty easy.

 

[GindyDraws]

The only way I can see that game happening at SoFi is if the Rose Bowl is undergoing renovations preventing UCLA playing a home game.

Besides, a rivalry doesn’t need a neutral site game to be relevant. You keep spouting off nonsense that only makes sense to you. What benefit is there for Purdue/IU to play at Lucas Oil? Seriously. Then your other point regarding Stanford/Cal. What good is it to have 20k empty seats and lose money in the process? Neither team is relevant at all. Cal hasn’t been relevant since 2006/2007. And Stanford has been on a hard decline for years.

I think if we had to change one thing about the Old Oaken Bucket, it would be to play it the weekend before Thanksgiving so students would still be in town. A neutral site game in Indianapolis would not be it.

 

[DaveG]

Good luck. I know my school’s major OOC schedule is set through 2030 and there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell they drop to 7 conference games. That’s like arguing the NHL’s salary cap should go away. That fight is over. We’re at the baseline. The only question is how high does it go from here.

They just aren’t big enough brands to go independent. It’s too bad they couldn’t catch a ride to the Big12. Neither would be at the bottom of that conference competitively or financially. But at this point, their choices are semi-relevance in a smaller conference or irrelevance. That sucks but it is what it is.

would definitely much rather have either of the two in the Big 12 than Houston. That one was ALL politics and making sure they had 12 teams for stability, because they really don't have much of a following either. OSU and Wazzu are better programs in basically everything but basketball but who knows if the PAC is even raidable without being at 12.

 

[PCSPounder]

While we’re having this discussion, please allow me to take you into the world of the Big West Conference.



It’s where UNLV was in the Tarkanian era, and the conference usually had middling football in those days. Some schools got out, the conference added several Mountain schools to keep football alive. By the time the WAC/MWC split happened, no California schools in the Big West even had football, so the BWC gave up the sport and recessed into California. Some D2 schools were added, Hawaii was added, and now there’s 11 full members.



You get fans who wish they could expand the conference beyond its base. Those same fans, however, have a tendency to insist that new members play all the sports they sponsor. This happens to include water polo and men’s volleyball. There’s a men’s soccer NC at UCSB, and their rivalry with Cal Poly is probably the best attended in the sport. UC Irvine has four men’s volleyball national titles. Baseball has a couple NCs as well and the conference seems to have someone in the College World Series every 3-4 years… and you must have heard of the Dirtbags at Long Beach State.



I hope that gives you more of a picture of California, which infuses how Stanford and California-Berkeley think. We could have a broader conversation about football, as no public schools in D-2 or D-3 sponsor football anymore… though there is still a very active community college football scene in California, some schools having better stadiums than the FCS schools that still sponsor the sport.



So who else has some truly sprawling good all-sports programs? Most ACC schools. I think evidence is available that Stanford reached out to the ACC within a week after USC and UCLA announced their departure. It doesn’t hurt that the ACC has 6 private schools, 5 of whom don’t see a chance to move to another conference. That’s the base of this effort, and a reason why the ACC decided to add those schools and SMU. Oh, by the way, Stanford has somewhat better ratings numbers than depicted here, and there’s an economic effect to the academic side of the house by adding them.



By the way, consider that what the California schools in the Pac sponsor are often quite different from what other Pac schools sponsor. I post this with the idea that this was one of many rather stark differences that ended up tearing the Pac-12 apart.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

With the Big 12 set to have 16 teams, I'd like to see them add a third media rights partner (like the Big Ten has) through a sub-licensing agreement. CBS Sports can be that partner, with the broadcast network airing noon games most weeks and night games when CBS is airing an Air Force CIC Trophy game at noon. The broadcast network would also air a night game on Black Friday, and there would also be games on Paramount Network and Paramount+.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

I'm also expecting the following Big 12 games to be played on Thanksgiving weekend every year:

Arizona-Arizona State
BYU-Utah
Cincinnati-Iowa State
Colorado-Oklahoma State
Kansas-Kansas State
UCF-West Virginia

The four Texas schools would rotate amongst themselves on Thanksgiving weekend.

 

[Spydey629]

I'm also expecting the following Big 12 games to be played on Thanksgiving weekend every year:

Arizona-Arizona State
BYU-Utah
Cincinnati-Iowa State
Colorado-Oklahoma State
Kansas-Kansas State
UCF-West Virginia

The four Texas schools would rotate amongst themselves on Thanksgiving weekend.

Why would Cincy and WVU not try to have a Thanksgiving weekend rivalry?

And regarding some of your other posts, absolutely zero of CBS’s CFB games are on Paramount+. The only (American) football games found on there are the NFL.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Why would Cincy and WVU not try to have a Thanksgiving weekend rivalry?

And regarding some of your other posts, absolutely zero of CBS’s CFB games are on Paramount+. The only (American) football games found on there are the NFL.

Actually, CBS has been simulcasting their CFB games on P+ since the start of this season.

I chose the Thanksgiving weekend rivalries based on regional considerations. UCF and WVU are the only two Big 12 schools in East Coast states (notwithstanding the fact that West Virginia is a landlocked state). UC and ISU are both located in the Midwest, and outside the four states usually referred to as the Great Plains states. They are basically a product of my proposed pod scheduling system for football.

 

[sh724]

The whole schedule math thing is why a lot of conferences just completely screw up expansion/realignment.

The last version of Conference USA had some really good basketball programs in it. Not like Top 40 programs but five schools in the 41-80 range. But they couldn't get more than one bid to the NCAA Tournament because the other NINE teams in the conference were just terrible because all their resources were going to football.

Everyone wants to add "The Best" schools and make their conferences "Top to bottom the best conference" but no one ever asks "What's the best CONFIGURATION for a conference to maximize results?"

NO ONE CARES about the bottom of the league on Selection Sunday, because when you go 4-14 or 5-15 in conference, you have no chance at an NCAA bid.


Conference Play is a Zero-Sum Game. That's why when the ACC was getting 7 of 12 teams into the NCAA Tournament and they added four more "NCAA teams" from the Big East, everyone said 7+4 = 11 bids going forward!

But that's not how it works.
The 7th place ACC team WAS 8-8 in conference and 11-3 OOC for 19-11 overall.
The 11th place ACC team NOW is 7-13 in conference and 9-1 OOC for 16-14 overall.



If the Big East adds Gonzaga, Gonzaga is going to slot in near the Top 4 and push every down spot. They'll get the same amount of bids as before because what Gonzaga does OOC is basically what Big East schools do out of conference.

But if the Big East added St. Bonaventure, who puts up the same OOC record but against much weaker competition.... Bona's going to go 4-12 or 5-16 in conference...

The middle of the Big East is now beating Bonaventure instead of losing to Nova a second time, and the Big East is strong enough that being .500 in Big East play is going to give you a serious shot at an NCAA bid. So you could go from two 19-12 teams left out, to two 20-11 teams getting in by adding a WEAKER member instead of a stronger member.

But the Big East (or anyone else) has never looked at "what's the right ratio of programs to have in a conference?" and build a league based on that kind of thinking.

(The A-10 has two teams who are usually bad, six teams that are usually good, and 7 teams who can fluctuate drastically between 24-8 and 13-17 and that last group is what kills them).

You could make a conference of nine basketball schools where everyone would glance at the members and say "they could get 1, maybe 2" but if it was 6 schools usually around the NCAA bubble or NIT range, and 3 schools that are good scheduling soldiers, that conference could get like 4-5 bids pretty easy.

I understand the point you are making, but the goal of the NCAA tournament is not to pick the 64 (or whatever the number is now) best teams in the country. It's to get the best ratings and thus the most money possible. A .500 team in a big media market in the Big 10 is always going to have a better chance of making the tournament than a team that finishes 2nd in a mid major regardless of their record.

The tournament is all about the money. In the past you used to see a lot more mid majors getting bids but in the modern climate of huge media deals and mega conferences its much more about how to get the most eyes on the TV.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

I understand the point you are making, but the goal of the NCAA tournament is not to pick the 64 (or whatever the number is now) best teams in the country. It's to get the best ratings and thus the most money possible. A .500 team in a big media market in the Big 10 is always going to have a better chance of making the tournament than a team that finishes 2nd in a mid major regardless of their record.

The tournament is all about the money. In the past you used to see a lot more mid majors getting bids but in the modern climate of huge media deals and mega conferences its much more about how to get the most eyes on the TV.

And still, most March Madness games are currently locked behind a paywall - you have to have a paid live TV service (cable, satellite, or OTT) to see games on TBS, TNT, and TruTV at the moment. CBS games are free because of the network being OTA.

I have a solution though. The NCAA can require Turner's networks to make simulcasts available to non-CBS OTA stations in markets with a rooting interest in the participating teams. Sister stations to CBS affiliates that carry ABC, Fox, NBC, The CW, MyNetworkTV or which are traditional independents would have right of first refusal in markets where such a station exists (otherwise the simulcast rights are bid upon by non-CBS stations that fit the affiliation criteria). And the station's signal must cover the campus of the school whose game is being aired on that station. For instance, this would disqualify WLNY-TV from simulcasting games involving many NYC-area schools, since their signal is focused on Long Island and can't be received in much of NYC or any of New Jersey.

This would not be unlike the rule in place in the NFL for pay-TV games since 1987.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

 

[TheLegend]

^^^

Judge rules for Oregon State and Washington State, says departing Pac-12 schools can't hold meeting

A judge has granted a request by Oregon State and Washington State for a temporary restraining order to prevent departing Pac-12 schools from meeting until it can be determined who has the right to be on the disintegrating conference’s board of directors.

apnews.com

 

[Spydey629]

Actually, CBS has been simulcasting their CFB games on P+ since the start of this season.

I chose the Thanksgiving weekend rivalries based on regional considerations. UCF and WVU are the only two Big 12 schools in East Coast states (notwithstanding the fact that West Virginia is a landlocked state). UC and ISU are both located in the Midwest, and outside the four states usually referred to as the Great Plains states. They are basically a product of my proposed pod scheduling system for football.

West Virginia has always been a bad fit in the Big XII (Any port in the storm…). Until now, Iowa State was the school closest to them, at 860 miles. Now, with UC in the league, they become the closest school to Morgantown, dropping that distance down to 310 miles.

Realignment has created a lot of force fed rivalries. But making UC-WVU an end of season, local rivalry just makes too much sense.

 

[End of Line]

West Virginia has always been a bad fit in the Big XII (Any port in the storm…). Until now, Iowa State was the school closest to them, at 860 miles. Now, with UC in the league, they become the closest school to Morgantown, dropping that distance down to 310 miles.

Realignment has created a lot of force fed rivalries. But making UC-WVU an end of season, local rivalry just makes too much sense.

Especially since UC-WVU are bordering States.

 

[PCSPounder]

Especially since UC-WVU are bordering States.

Just a thought that you can’t create a rivalry out of thin air.

Colorado & Utah played the game against each other at the end of each Pac-12 season, but it never truly became a thing. From Utah’s standpoint, it was certainly never what the Holy War is… which gets full resurrection next year.

 

[End of Line]

Just a thought that you can’t create a rivalry out of thin air.

Colorado & Utah played the game against each other at the end of each Pac-12 season, but it never truly became a thing. From Utah’s standpoint, it was certainly never what the Holy War is… which gets full resurrection next year.

They at least have a history of playing one another consistently from 2002-2011 unlike WVU-UCF who have only played twice in their entire history.

 

[The Marquis]

This is the greatest thing to happen in the Pac-12 this year. Screw those 10 bastards. Go Cougs! Might be the last time they win anything.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

I'm all for Washington State and Oregon State being able to milk the Pac 12 for as long as possible. This is their last chance to make a boatload of money before falling into relative financial oblivion.

The schools that are leaving for better moneymaking options can suck a lemon.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

The Big 12 sublicensing a package of games to CBS would be huge for several reasons.

CBS was last able to televise the home games of the Big 8 holdovers, Baylor, and Texas Tech in 1990, the last year the CFA package was on CBS, while last airing Arizona and Arizona State home games in 1986 and West Virginia in 2000. Meanwhile CBS Sports Network (including earlier incarnations) frequently televised BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, TCU, UCF, and Utah in previous conference homes for these schools.

 

[End of Line]

The Big 12 sublicensing a package of games to CBS would be huge for several reasons.

CBS was last able to televise the home games of the Big 8 holdovers, Baylor, and Texas Tech in 1990, the last year the CFA package was on CBS, while last airing Arizona and Arizona State home games in 1986 and West Virginia in 2000. Meanwhile CBS Sports Network (including earlier incarnations) frequently televised BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, TCU, UCF, and Utah in previous conference homes for these schools.

Big 12 has their contracts with FOX/ESPN, and I can’t see CBS being interested in them at all. CBS is content moving forward with having the B1G going forward in football every week at 3:30 which has always been their go to slot sans the one night game they broadcast a year which is changing this year.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Big 12 has their contracts with FOX/ESPN, and I can’t see CBS being interested in them at all. CBS is content moving forward with having the B1G going forward in football every week at 3:30 which has always been their go to slot sans the one night game they broadcast a year which is changing this year.

Going up against ABC and Fox at noon every week as well should be an interesting prospect to CBS. Next year the Fox noon games will exclusively be Big Ten-controlled games which means if most noon games on CBS are Big 12-controlled games then ABC can make their noon games all ACC-controlled except for when Navy hosts Notre Dame (the SEC would be at 3:30 on ABC, with the night games continuing to be from any conference ABC holds rights to).

 

[KevFu]

While we’re having this discussion, please allow me to take you into the world of the Big West Conference.

It’s where UNLV was in the Tarkanian era, and the conference usually had middling football in those days. Some schools got out, the conference added several Mountain schools to keep football alive. By the time the WAC/MWC split happened, no California schools in the Big West even had football, so the BWC gave up the sport and recessed into California. Some D2 schools were added, Hawaii was added, and now there’s 11 full members.

You get fans who wish they could expand the conference beyond its base. Those same fans, however, have a tendency to insist that new members play all the sports they sponsor. This happens to include water polo and men’s volleyball. There’s a men’s soccer NC at UCSB, and their rivalry with Cal Poly is probably the best attended in the sport. UC Irvine has four men’s volleyball national titles. Baseball has a couple NCs as well and the conference seems to have someone in the College World Series every 3-4 years… and you must have heard of the Dirtbags at Long Beach State.

The Big West is the Big West because when UNLV was in the Tark Era, the then-Pacific Coast Athletic Association had a timeslot on ESPN's Big Monday as the late game after a Big East and Big 12 game; so they changed to the Big West for branding.

Your point about "everyone has the same sports" thing is totally spot on. That's part of the reason the conference really fell off. You mention MWP (where UCSB, Long Beach, Irvine and former member Pacific are really good; but "trying to keep up in everything with state schools" is one of the reasons Pacific athletics fell off. Dropping football obviously had a negative effect on fundraising, but it didn't help to be funding BWC sports that they sucked in and couldn't compete in vs state schools with one-sixth the tuition cost. Pacific having like 20 sports was crazy. They should be at like, 15 or 16 tops.

I was in Stockton for a while, went to tons of Pacific games and got to know everything about them being friends with a ton of people in their athletic department. Spreading their limited resources around to so many Big West sports is a massive reasons why their Volleyball team fell from "One of the top four programs in the history of college volleyball" to "Not making the NCAA's in 20 seasons."


The state of football in California is extremely interesting. There's SO MUCH talent in the state and so few FBS programs relative to their population.

Louisiana (5 million people) has 5 FBS teams; California (40 million people) has 7 FBS teams. It's insane. The "Who has FBS football and who doesn't" in California makes zero sense when you look at school size:

Long Beach State - 48,000 enrollment
UCLA - 46,000
UC Berkeley - 45,000
UC San Diego - 42,000
UC Davis - 40,000
Cal State Fullerton - 40,000
Cal State Northridge - 38,000
UC Irvine - 35,000
San Jose State - 32,000
Sacramento State - 31,000
UC Santa Barbara - 26,000
San Diego State - 36,000
Cal State Pomona - 27,000
Cal State Los Angeles - 26,000
San Francisco State - 25,000
Fresno State - 24,000

 

[KevFu]

I understand the point you are making, but the goal of the NCAA tournament is not to pick the 64 (or whatever the number is now) best teams in the country. It's to get the best ratings and thus the most money possible.

A .500 team in a big media market in the Big 10 is always going to have a better chance of making the tournament than a team that finishes 2nd in a mid major regardless of their record.

The tournament is all about the money. In the past you used to see a lot more mid majors getting bids but in the modern climate of huge media deals and mega conferences its much more about how to get the most eyes on the TV.

That's categorically incorrect. The guy they had who told the committee how to do their jobs was run off because he was telling the committee to pick THE MOST DESERVING teams for the NCAA tournament, not the "BEST TEAMS" (because people have this mindset that the "Best Teams" are all in "power conferences" and everyone not in one of those conferences is trash).

But now that the P5 kicked that guy to the curb, they take the "best teams" based on that foolish mindset... and that actually leads to a WORSE tournament. The best tournaments for ratings AREN'T when "all the Big Schools" are keep going in the tournament... it's when HALF the big schools get upset and you're left with 75% of the Elite Eight as Blue Bloods, and the other 25% Cinderellas.

TV Ratings and NCAA Bracket pick strategy are exactly the same: "Upsets For Show, Final Four for Dough."


It's a cash grab, but not THAT kind of cash grab: The TV contract is divided to the conferences for each tourney game their teams play in (up to the Final Four). The Power conference reps on the NCAA committee aren't taking power teams to get TV ratings, they're seeding the tournament to maximize their conference cuts. And 50% of the committee is Power Conference membership, and 4 of the other 5 people "believe the myth" because they're reps of one-bid leagues.

Just a thought that you can’t create a rivalry out of thin air.

Colorado & Utah played the game against each other at the end of each Pac-12 season, but it never truly became a thing. From Utah’s standpoint, it was certainly never what the Holy War is… which gets full resurrection next year.

I mean, you CAN create a rivalry out of thin air: Colorado did with Nebraska. They printed schedule posters with everything in gold, black and white except the Nebraska game in red. They made it a thing. Then their team got good enough to win a championship and compete for more in the 1990s and it was very much a thing.

But your point is correct. Rivalries form when two teams play for something only one can possess: A conference title or local bragging rights work; other artificial things do not work.

 

[GKJ]

That's categorically incorrect. The guy they had who told the committee how to do their jobs was run off because he was telling the committee to pick THE MOST DESERVING teams for the NCAA tournament, not the "BEST TEAMS" (because people have this mindset that the "Best Teams" are all in "power conferences" and everyone not in one of those conferences is trash).

But now that the P5 kicked that guy to the curb, they take the "best teams" based on that foolish mindset... and that actually leads to a WORSE tournament. The best tournaments for ratings AREN'T when "all the Big Schools" are keep going in the tournament... it's when HALF the big schools get upset and you're left with 75% of the Elite Eight as Blue Bloods, and the other 25% Cinderellas.

TV Ratings and NCAA Bracket pick strategy are exactly the same: "Upsets For Show, Final Four for Dough."


It's a cash grab, but not THAT kind of cash grab: The TV contract is divided to the conferences for each tourney game their teams play in (up to the Final Four). The Power conference reps on the NCAA committee aren't taking power teams to get TV ratings, they're seeding the tournament to maximize their conference cuts. And 50% of the committee is Power Conference membership, and 4 of the other 5 people "believe the myth" because they're reps of one-bid leagues.





I mean, you CAN create a rivalry out of thin air: Colorado did with Nebraska. They printed schedule posters with everything in gold, black and white except the Nebraska game in red. They made it a thing. Then their team got good enough to win a championship and compete for more in the 1990s and it was very much a thing.

But your point is correct. Rivalries form when two teams play for something only one can possess: A conference title or local bragging rights work; other artificial things do not work.

Colorado and Nebraska were old Big 8/12 rivals. They paused because they split but it is very much still a rivalry.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

The ACC should adopt a 6 protected/2 rotating format for conference play, with all in-state match-ups being protected, alongside all games involving the group of Boston College/Miami/Pittsburgh/Syracuse and other notable series like North Carolina-Virginia.

Then this could be their Thanksgiving weekend schedule:

Every year:
Virginia-Virginia Tech
Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Louisville games against in-state SEC rivals

Three-year rotation:
Tobacco Road games

Even years only:
California-SMU
Stanford bye week

Odd years only:
California-UCLA (Big Ten should also drop to 8 conference games)
Notre Dame at Stanford
SMU bye week

Alternating every year (group 1 TBD):
Boston College at Miami
Pittsburgh at Syracuse

Alternating every year (group 2 TBD):
Boston College at Syracuse
Pittsburgh at Miami

Miami and Syracuse would always be at home at the end of the season due to being respectively a warm-weather city and a domed stadium. As well, Cal and Stanford would as they do now refuse to meet on Thanksgiving weekend due to the many traditions surrounding the game.