2023 College Football Discussion

[Kerb Hohl]

**DISCLAIMER**

Hazing is bad. Abuse is bad.

**/DISCLAIMER**

Beyond the cult **** not a lot in this report really raised much of an eyebrow. This mostly just read like college athletics. Covering up positive PED tests...like, whatever. I watched The Program thirty years ago. Hell, running suicides or doing bear-crawls for **** up outside the classroom is high school stuff. I read a report last night about some allegations of abuse within a female program and they talked suicides as a punishment where someone was injured trying to touch lines. It registered so low on my mental scale I can't even remember the sport or school.

I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying that this stuff seems pretty normal.

Yeah, a good deal of this is either legal or "meh" but it does track with exactly what one's vibe on Fleck being a complete self-centered douche would be.

[midranger]

Read on Twitter

?t=9zUcQsskrX9g-cMo8T-KFQ&s=19

Big 12’s stability? Their two best teams are gonzo in a minute. The next two best had already left.

Both conferences have one foot on the banana peel.

[Mags FTW]

We need to just fast forward to Superconference and then have tiers below it for promotion and relegation like European soccer.

Its that or have a Pac 16, Big 16, 16-team SEC, and 16-team ACC or Big 12.
Top 4 teams in each play in a 16-team playoff at the end of the year.

[midranger]

Lots of rumors floating around re: realignment.

My hope:
West:
Oregon
Washington - ND rival
Cal
Stanford- ND rival

East:
Miami
Georgia Tech - ND rival/ATL market/Georgia recruiting
North Carolina
Notre Dame’s hand forced (Purdue, MSU, UM, USC also rivals)

[Kerb Hohl]

Lots of rumors floating around re: realignment.

My hope:
West:
Oregon
Washington - ND rival
Cal
Stanford- ND rival

East:
Miami
Georgia Tech - ND rival/ATL market/Georgia recruiting
North Carolina
Notre Dame’s hand forced (Purdue, MSU, UM, USC also rivals)

I was going to say that they are doing away with divisions in the B10...but if they add this many teams, they will need divisions again haha.

[midranger]

Lots of rumors floating around re: realignment.

My hope:
West:
Oregon
Washington - ND rival
Cal
Stanford- ND rival

East:
Miami
Georgia Tech - ND rival/ATL market/Georgia recruiting
North Carolina
Notre Dame’s hand forced (Purdue, MSU, UM, USC also rivals)

I was going to say that they are doing away with divisions in the B10...but if they add this many teams, they will need divisions again haha.

Yup, you’d be looking at regional pods of 6. Probably play your whole pod and another whole pod every year to get to 11 games. That means you only see out of pod teams once every 3 years and once every 6 at home.

It’d allow the traditional rivals to play every year within their regional pod, but also see o other teams on a rotating basis. Anything beyond 24 teams seems like it’d become completely unwieldy.

[ReasonablySober]

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[MikeIsGood]

Crap, I couldn't recall where we'd discussed this before so I'd been posting in the OT thread. I'll merge-in here again.

Oregon and Washington always make sense. New markets, west coast where we already have USC and UCLA now, and it's exciting IMO from the fan perspective in football and many other sports.

From my personal fan perspective, I'm more interested in Stanford and Cal than I am Clemson and Florida State. I know and acknowledge that's a very unpopular opinion. I don't care about two random Southern teams, and I especially don't care about Florida State who hasn't been overly relevant in revenue sports in about two decades. They feel like fits for the SEC. I'm on board for this becoming the South vs. everyone else, lol.

My opinion is much different from the good of the conference perspective. Go get Oregon, Washington, Clemson, and FSU.

I ultimately just want ND on board. Not just from a good of the conference perspective, but my personal fan perspective. I have several close-friend ties and I've wanted them in to fuel rivalries for 20 years.

[ReasonablySober]

Yea, I can't think of two schools I care about less than Stanford and Cal. Neither are really serious about football or basketball, they're on the West Coast where no one watches. FSU would be a fun add just to see their fanbase lose their minds when they continuously lose to the boys up North. Clemson would be a bunch of big games every year in the conference.

[midranger]

There are still fans out there that still go to games. Bay Area sounds much better than Clemson, SC or Tallahassee, FL to see some smutty team. Obviously much better schools and much better cultural fit. In terms of TV watchers, Media market also obviously better than both combined as well, so more eyeballs/money. I don’t care about Seminole fans tears or that a team has been good for like 8 out of 11 recent years. Those aren’t good reasons to add teams to our conference. Short sighted view like that would have you adding Boise State a decade ago or TCU or some other nonsense.

Also, the tomahawk chop will never be welcome here. Those teams have SEC written all over them.

Miami - good city, south Florida recruiting, good school
Georgia tech - huge market, Georgia recruiting, great school
North Carolina - booming market, fertile recruiting, basketball add
Notre dame - national/international brand, history, great school with loyal alumni

This is the way.

Only ones I wish we could take in addition (but I don’t love more than 24) in this order
1. Virginia
2. Arizona
3. Utah
4. Boston College

(I’d definitely be fine taking Cal and leaving Stanford out in cold to take Virginia instead)

[ReasonablySober]

There are still fans out there that still go to games. Bay Area sounds much better than Clemson, SC or Tallahassee, FL to see some smutty team. Obviously much better schools and much better cultural fit. In terms of TV watchers, Media market also obviously better than both combined as well, so more eyeballs/money. I don’t care about Seminole fans tears or that a team has been good for like 8 out of 11 recent years. Those aren’t good reasons to add teams to our conference. Short sighted view like that would have you adding Boise State a decade ago or some nonsense.

Also, the tomahawk chop will never be welcome here. Those teams have SEC written all over them.

Miami - good city, south Florida recruiting, good school
Georgia tech - huge market, Georgia recruiting, great school
North Carolina - booming market, fertile recruiting, basketball add
Notre dame - national/international brand, history, great school with loyal alumni

This is the way.

Only ones I wish we could take in addition (but I don’t love more than 24) in this order
1. Virginia
2. Arizona
3. Utah
4. Boston College

(I’d definitely be fine taking Cal and leaving Stanford out in cold to take Virginia instead)

Adding SEC type schools is a good thing. Those people care about sports.

Nobody cares about Stanford or Cal. People actually watch Clemson and FSU.

[midranger]

Who watches Clemson when they’re a 3+ loss team as they have been most every year of their existence? No one? Ditto FSU. Ditto a team like Nebraska (an obvious, self inflicted error based on a longer term recency bias than even a team like Clemson).

Get the big, land grant type schools in excellent media/recruiting markets with massive alumni bases that are strong cultural/academic fits. Give them revenue sharing a from huge TV deals. Let them be good or not. They’ll have the tools to choose. Not every team has to compete every year or ever. Who cares? It’ll always be better than watching some out of conference directional Michigan or IAA team matchup.

I think a big part of the equation has to be, “what do they bring to the table if they lose their coach and fall on hard times and are bad at football for a decade”?

The answer for a school like Clemson is “absolutely nothing, total detriment”.

[ReasonablySober]

Who watches Clemson when they’re a 3+ loss team as they have been most every year of their existence? No one? Ditto FSU. Ditto a team like Nebraska (an obvious, self inflicted error based on a longer term recency bias than even a team like Clemson).

Get the big, land grant type schools in excellent media/recruiting markets with massive alumni bases that are strong cultural/academic fits. Give them revenue sharing a from huge TV deals. Let them be good or not. They’ll have the tools to choose. Not every team has to compete every year or ever. Who cares? It’ll always be better than watching some out of conference directional Michigan or IAA team matchup.

I think a big part of the equation has to be, “what do they bring to the table if they lose their coach and fall on hard times and are bad at football for a decade”?

The answer for a school like Clemson is “absolutely nothing, total detriment”.

The answer is eyeballs, prestige, the best recruiting area in the country, and a region that actually cares about football. The only thing Cal and Stanford have over Clemson and FSU is academics and that doesn't matter.

[MikeIsGood]

Who watches Clemson when they’re a 3+ loss team as they have been most every year of their existence? No one? Ditto FSU. Ditto a team like Nebraska (an obvious, self inflicted error based on a longer term recency bias than even a team like Clemson).

Get the big, land grant type schools in excellent media/recruiting markets with massive alumni bases that are strong cultural/academic fits. Give them revenue sharing a from huge TV deals. Let them be good or not. They’ll have the tools to choose. Not every team has to compete every year or ever. Who cares? It’ll always be better than watching some out of conference directional Michigan or IAA team matchup.

I think a big part of the equation has to be, “what do they bring to the table if they lose their coach and fall on hard times and are bad at football for a decade”?

The answer for a school like Clemson is “absolutely nothing, total detriment”.

The answer is eyeballs, prestige, the best recruiting area in the country, and a region that actually cares about football. The only thing Cal and Stanford have over Clemson and FSU is academics and that doesn't matter.

Seems to me that it's an absurdly huge TV advantage to Stanford and Cal. This isn't about who across the country wants to watch x team; it's about local TV markets for the the broadcast rights. This isn't even close. It's orders of magnitude in favor of Stanford and Cal. I don't think it's coincidence that Clemson (17k local) and Tallahassee (197k) schools are in this position despite their recent dominance and historical prevalence, respectively.

[midranger]

Clemson is the #2 school in the 23rd largest state. It’s in the legit middle of no where South Carolina.

It would be akin to the Big Ten adding UW La Crosse if UW Lacrosse had a really e excellent division 1 football team for the past decade.

[ReasonablySober]

Who watches Clemson when they’re a 3+ loss team as they have been most every year of their existence? No one? Ditto FSU. Ditto a team like Nebraska (an obvious, self inflicted error based on a longer term recency bias than even a team like Clemson).

Get the big, land grant type schools in excellent media/recruiting markets with massive alumni bases that are strong cultural/academic fits. Give them revenue sharing a from huge TV deals. Let them be good or not. They’ll have the tools to choose. Not every team has to compete every year or ever. Who cares? It’ll always be better than watching some out of conference directional Michigan or IAA team matchup.

I think a big part of the equation has to be, “what do they bring to the table if they lose their coach and fall on hard times and are bad at football for a decade”?

The answer for a school like Clemson is “absolutely nothing, total detriment”.

The answer is eyeballs, prestige, the best recruiting area in the country, and a region that actually cares about football. The only thing Cal and Stanford have over Clemson and FSU is academics and that doesn't matter.

Seems to me that it's an absurdly huge TV advantage to Stanford and Cal. This isn't about who across the country wants to watch x team; it's about local TV markets for the the broadcast rights. This isn't even close. It's orders of magnitude in favor of Stanford and Cal. I don't think it's coincidence that Clemson (17k local) and Tallahassee (197k) schools are in this position despite their recent dominance and historical prevalence, respectively.

What good is a TV market's size if no one watches? Clemson and FSU actually move the needle. There's a reason the Pac 10 is dead. The west coast can't deliver an audience that competes with viewers in SEC or Big 10.

[midranger]

The answer is eyeballs, prestige, the best recruiting area in the country, and a region that actually cares about football. The only thing Cal and Stanford have over Clemson and FSU is academics and that doesn't matter.

Seems to me that it's an absurdly huge TV advantage to Stanford and Cal. This isn't about who across the country wants to watch x team; it's about local TV markets for the the broadcast rights. This isn't even close. It's orders of magnitude in favor of Stanford and Cal. I don't think it's coincidence that Clemson (17k local) and Tallahassee (197k) schools are in this position despite their recent dominance and historical prevalence, respectively.

What good is a TV market's size if no one watches? Clemson and FSU actually move the needle. There's a reason the Pac 10 is dead. The west coast can't deliver an audience that competes with viewers in SEC or Big 10.

I mean, obviously the same could be said of the ACC which is currently a zombie conference disproportionately propped up by bball. Everyone sees the writing on the wall and wants to jump ship.

[ReasonablySober]

Clemson v FSU did a 1.8 in a year where both teams were non-factors in the rankings. Better than any Cal or Stanford game all season.

[ReasonablySober]

Seems to me that it's an absurdly huge TV advantage to Stanford and Cal. This isn't about who across the country wants to watch x team; it's about local TV markets for the the broadcast rights. This isn't even close. It's orders of magnitude in favor of Stanford and Cal. I don't think it's coincidence that Clemson (17k local) and Tallahassee (197k) schools are in this position despite their recent dominance and historical prevalence, respectively.

What good is a TV market's size if no one watches? Clemson and FSU actually move the needle. There's a reason the Pac 10 is dead. The west coast can't deliver an audience that competes with viewers in SEC or Big 10.

I mean, obviously the same could be said of the ACC which is currently a zombie conference disproportionately propped up by bball. Everyone sees the writing on the wall and wants to jump ship.

I mean, if we're being honest basketball doesn't really matter either.

[MikeIsGood]

The answer is eyeballs, prestige, the best recruiting area in the country, and a region that actually cares about football. The only thing Cal and Stanford have over Clemson and FSU is academics and that doesn't matter.

Seems to me that it's an absurdly huge TV advantage to Stanford and Cal. This isn't about who across the country wants to watch x team; it's about local TV markets for the the broadcast rights. This isn't even close. It's orders of magnitude in favor of Stanford and Cal. I don't think it's coincidence that Clemson (17k local) and Tallahassee (197k) schools are in this position despite their recent dominance and historical prevalence, respectively.

What good is a TV market's size if no one watches? Clemson and FSU actually move the needle. There's a reason the Pac 10 is dead. The west coast can't deliver an audience that competes with viewers in SEC or Big 10.

That's not how television deals work.

The SEC is valuable as "the South." Clemson and FSU in a vacuum do not magically bring you the South in its entirety, whereas Stanford and Cal literally bring you the bay area market, which is 10th largest in the country. It matters 0% who actually watches; it's what households are collected in the deal.

In addition to Clemson and FSU not magically bringing you the entire South, to your own point, they aren't even moving the needle enough in their own conference. Why is ACC in the position it is in? ACC is 4th, and they locked themselves into a deal through the late 2030s.