🏈 Wisdom, Inside Knowledge, or sheer luck?

[LBS]

So College Football loses its mind over expansion, and all the while Commissioner Slive comes across like Mother Theresa -- We won't hurt the ACC and if the Aggies end up homeless we'll take them in.

Did he know something? Did he really have "the big stick" ready to break out if someone crossed the line? Or is this guy the greatest Riverboat Gambler ever?

 

[Rolling Tide]

All of the above!

 

[LBS]

I'd like to think so, but that's where I question it.

Slive moved as if he knew that this could go no further than 12 teams. He would not consider the ACC. He never offered TAMU or Oklahoma. He did say nice words about Texas and Oklahoma, but in retrospect I can't runle out that he was not bolstering their ego as a means to get them to more strongly consider not going anywhere.

At odds to this persona are those of the Commissioners of the Big TEN, the Big XII, and the PAC-10 who each spoke in specifics about their aims, aims that included two 16 team conferences and no Big XII in the most extreme scenario.

I feel like the dude at the smoking end of Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum, where Eastwood gives his famous speech. "I gots ta know", and "NO, I don't feel lucky" because I have no clue how many shots were fired in the end. Any of you old-timers know where I'm coming from.

 

[psychojoe]

Slive, with a big assist from Gene Stallings, did blunt the mad dash to the PAC 10. For all the bad talk Texas does about aTm I don't think they really wanted to part company with them.

Since Slive did not play his hand out in public we won't know for sure, but my take is that he had a plan in reserve if something happened to radically change the conference landscape. Obviously, from the SEC's position of strength he preferred something as close to the status quo as possible, and that is what he ended up with.

Texas comes out as a big winner here. The league holds togetherbecause Texas wanted it to hold together, and the 'Horns are free to pursue their own TV network.

 

[rammerjammer]

I think with the Big 10, now with 12 teams and the Pac 10, now with 12 teams.....that you need the Big 12 to go out and pull in 2 more to remain at 12 teams. This will most assuredly keep everything kicking along pretty decent.

Only thing I would have liked to have seen different is the Big 12 stay as is.
Big 10 pick up ND (the BCS could have forced it)
Pac 10 pick up Utah and Boise St.

I think this type of re-alignment would have made for stronger conferences nationwide and would have come closer to a true champion for the MNC. Yes there would have been teams left out similar to Auburn in 04, but it would less likely to happen, IMO, with stronger in conference opponents that teams like Utah and Boise would have to face.

Look how close we (Alabama) and Texas came last year to losing games through the season.

 

[ExiledTidefan]

Money won again, as it most always does. The folks breathing the biggest sigh of relief right now are the Bowl Presidents. I honestly thought we were going to see an 18 month progressive reorg of the entire landscape of college football D1-A, with the end result being a true playoff and title game.

Money won again, as it most often does.

 

[Bo]

Meh. with the way Texas is screwing everybody else in the conference, it'll come up again in a few years.

 

[LBS]

PAC-10 asked for 16 and didn't get it.
Big TEN listed it as a consideration, but stopped at twelve.
SEC said it would hang regardless.
Big XII will see what it can do with 10 teams.

This is not over. We will see moves again within a few years. When what has happens plays out and someone ends up being the loser, they will start it all over again and most certainly smaller will not be the solution.

 

[shipley00]

Until he can fix the "off week" schedule crap, he's still in my doghouse.

 

[bama29fan]

so the pac 10 is now the pac 12

the big 10 in now the big 12

the big 12 is now the big 10

and we are still the SEC