Big 12 Expansion
- Thread starter columbiadawg2
- Start date
Apples and oranges. You are talking about perceived geopolitical power / influence, not actual results. Nobody gives a **** about the “prestigious B1G” going and poaching mother17ing Rutgers and Maryland. One is probably the worst P5 football program in the country….and the other was such a ****** program that not even Dan Mullen would take their job.
If the B1G goes and gets FSU, Miami, or Clemson, then maybe you could talk about moving them up. But until then they are just Ohio State and the 13 dwarves.
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Clemson, FSU and Miami would go to the B1G long before Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State went to the ACC. To deny that is just you being your typical hard-headed self.
You didn't even get the analogy of the B1G being able to pluck solid ACC teams while the ACC couldn't even pluck the lowest B1G teams. Good day to you. Try harder in the next thread.
You do have a point, but I guess I was thinking at an aggregate level, more people are watching football from the "big" games at 2:30 pm Central to the end of the prime-time game about 10 pm Central. Personally, I start my fall Saturdays with College Gameday and don't stop watching until the west coast games are over around 1 am or 2 am, but I always assume I'm outside the norm.
I do have a couple of points with your numbers though...
This was a Friday night game.
Joe Burrow vs Alabama was the CBS game that day, going head to head vs K-State and Texas. The fact 1 million people still watched that K-State vs Texas game is kind of a miracle actually. I know that feeds into your point about not having competition in the time slot, but that LSU vs Bama game drew in over 16 million viewers. More TOTAL eyeballs were on the product of college football at that time, which I guess is kind of my point.
Florida vs LSU was head to head against Ole Miss-Mizzou and Hawaii-Boise St still lost head to head vs Washington and Arizona on FS1.
I still think you're going to run into an issue putting Mountain and Eastern Time Zone teams in the same conference. Are BYU/Boise fans going to get up at 10 am to watch their teams play Cincinnati/UCF in the noon game and are Cincinnati/UCF fans going to stay up until 3-4 am to watch what for them is a 12 am kick-off? That being said, Big 12 already has WV and BYU seems to be the unanimous "first choice", so I guess once you open that door, all bets are off.
Who gives a ****? That’s not even what I’m talking about. I’m talking about who are the strongest conferences ON THE FIELD RIGHT NOW, you dumb ****. The SEC is king. The ACC is pretty relevant. The B1G and PAC 12 are totally and completely irrelevant outside of a combined one team between the two conferences. That is the landscape. Around these parts, the hardware and the games and the talent are what matters. You want to wax poetic about who’s best because of TV contracts or other background **** that has nothing to do with actual football, go become an Ole Miss fan or a Big Ten fan.
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The Big10 currently has 5 teams ranked in the preseason. 20% of ranked teams are in the Big10.
2020- 4 teams finished ranked in the top25.
2019- 6 teams finished ranked in the top25.
2018- 5 teams finished ranked in the top25.
2017- 5 teams finished ranked in the top25.
So between this season and the prior 4, the Big10 has averaged 20% of the ranked teams in the top25.
It is so screwed up when that is viewed as irrelevant.
I get what you're saying, but I guess I'm thinking about it this way...
First Point: Who's got a better position in the world of college athletics right now? Central Florida or Mississippi State?
Central Florida has a MUCH better record than Mississippi State over the past 5 years, but the answer is pretty clearly Mississippi State and that's largely because of the amount of money we make from media contracts.
Second Point:
It's also tough to call Big Ten irrelevant. Yes, they're currently ruled by 1 school with Ohio State winning 4 straight, but every conference goes through those phases. Clemson has won the ACC for 6 straight seasons, preceded by a 3 peat by Florida State and another win by Clemson. So that's 10 straight seasons with one of 2 teams winning the ACC. Seems just as top heavy as the Big Ten to me.
The Pac-12 almost has the opposite problem. There's too much parity in their conference. There's no alpha that emerges as a strong contender for a CFP spot.
Didn't notice the Friday, good catch. I just think if you are going to have the ****** P5 conference, better to not compete against the better conferences for eyeballs.
For the last decade at 9:00 pm Central there were nights that the only thing to watch was Arizona State vs Oregon State or Boise State vs San Jose State, more often than not, people would throw it on the Mountain West game because they are actually better at football.
Its easy to forget they were an FCS team until 1996.
For the last decade at 9:00 pm Central there were nights that the only thing to watch was Arizona State vs Oregon State or Boise State vs San Jose State, more often than not, people would throw it on the Mountain West game because they are actually better at football.
Its easy to forget they were an FCS team until 1996.
So between this season and the prior 4, the Big10 has averaged 20% of the ranked teams in the top25.
And they represent 23% of the major conference teams, which is 90-95% of the Top 25. So, they are punching below their weight. Now, do the same study, for Top 5 and Top 10, and you’ll see it even more pronounced. Like it or not, where we are in college football is measured by the success at the CFP level. B1G has very little to write home about there. 18% of the appearances and 14% of champions when they represent 23% of the qualified teams. And the lion’s share of that is only one team. Again, punching well below their weight as a conference.
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You're not wrong about that. Boise State-Texas Tech has a better chance of beating out Washington State-Oregon State and San Diego State-Nevada than it does a combo of Tennessee-Kentucky, Michigan State-Wisconsin, Minnesota-Akron, and Mississippi State-Arkansas.
The B1G hasn’t had a school besides Ohio State as a legit NC contender in 25 years. That’s a straight up irrelevant conference when you are talking about the biggest stage and conference strength as a whole. ACC has had three different natty winners in the last 19 years, 2 in the last 10.
As to your other question, MSU is in a better position than UCF because MSU has better football players. Nobody cares about UCF’s record over the past 5 years, because they don’t play anybody. Our position nationally and within the SEC isn’t any different now than its ever been as long as we’ve had competent leadership. Relatively speaking, we are in the same place now compared to SEC peers as we we were when Sherrill was here…..before all the big TV contracts and also before he totally checked out. About the same as we were under Mullen in an average Mullen year (between the extremes of 2014 and 2016/2011). The TV contracts have helped us build newer, nicer things, but they’ve helped everyone else who we compete with directly do the same thing. We haven’t greatly improved our talent profile just because of lucrative TV deals.
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The Big10 has 5 of 28 selections for the CFP. OSU has 4 and MSU has 1.
The SEC has 8 of 28 selections for the CFP. Bama has 6, UGA has 1, and LSU has 1.
Its tough for me to see one conference with 5 selections in 7 CFP seasons as 'completely irrelevant'. And Yes the Big10 is top heavy for CFP appearances...so is the SEC. Its not like those 8 SEC appearances are by half a dozen teams.
Within the top 15 for end of year CFP rankings the Big10 had...
2020- 4
2019- 4
2018- 3
2017- 3
2016- 4
2015- 5
2014- 2
Within the top 10 for end of year CFP rankings the Big10 had...
2020- 1
2019- 3
2018- 2
2017- 3
2016- 4
2015- 3
2014- 2
So they have finished with 23.8% of the final top15 rankings for the CFP and 25.7% of the final top10 rankings for the CFP.
You said it the disparity would be more pronounced, but this looks like its less pronounced. So now they are suddenly punching above their weight then?
This is gonna hurt- the SEC has averaged 23.8% of teams in the final top15 rankings for the CFP and 25.7% of the final top10 rankings for the CFP.
The Big10 has had the exact same number of season ending top10 and top15 selections in the CFP era as the SEC.
I wanna say that if you go back to the 2015 season (when UCF didn't win a game) MSU has finished above UCF in the power index 3 out of 6 season. So it's basically a wash recently in terms of the quality wins and quality losses.
You’re leaving out quite a convenient data point for your argument….you know…the final rankings after all the games are played? Not just the CFP final rankings, which are basically pencil whipped to get desirable NY6 matchups once they get past the top 4. Rankings 5 through infinity don’t mean anything in the final CFP rankings.
I’m genuinely curious to see the same numbers in the final AP / USA Today polls after the bowl games, where the B1G tends to take a few licks from the SEC in Florida from time to time. But again, they are weak at the top no matter what compared to the ACC / SEC. And they have been that way for a quarter century.
I’m genuinely curious to see the same numbers in the final AP / USA Today polls after the bowl games, where the B1G tends to take a few licks from the SEC in Florida from time to time. But again, they are weak at the top no matter what compared to the ACC / SEC. And they have been that way for a quarter century.
The ACC has had 2. Miami was in the Big East the last time they won it.
Michigan was a national title contender in 2006. If there was a playoff then, they would have been in it.
Wisconsin would have been in the CFP in 2010.
Michigan State made it to the CFP in 2015 and would have made it in 2013 if it had been a thing.
I can go on, but it's tough to take the CFP era, the last 6 seasons, and apply it back to 20-25 years of National Championships because the criteria for naming a National Champion has been changed so radically over the past 2-3 decades. Basically, you can look back and see who was ranked 3 & 4 from the Big Ten at the end of each of those seasons, it's not just Ohio State.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Big Ten fan. I think they're given the benefit of the doubt much more often than they should be and there's an inherit elitism that conference emits that makes me want them to lose handily in big situations, but to act as if they're not a strong #2 or #3 conference (or at the very least, a 'worthy adversary') is to be intellectually dishonest.
I think you're being very naive about the realities of college athletics right now.
I don't know what the exact numbers are, but as of right now, a nice chunk of G5 and some FCS budgets come from being the visiting opponent for Power 5 teams. I have to expect that's going to be more than what CBSSports.com can pay them to stand up their own league.
I don’t think Miami not being in the ACC then matters. They are a current ACC team with a fairly recent NC. And that 2001 Miami team was probably the greatest college football team ever assembled, it would have run the table in any conference, including the SEC. Do we not get to claim Texas raises the SEC’s profile with their 2006 natty and history in general, because it happened when they were in the Big 12?
Michigan 2006 and Wisconsin 2010 are good discussion points. Neither finished in the Top 6 though. And the team that won the B1G got destroyed by Florida, so it’s hard to see the 2nd or 3rd best teams being legit contenders.
As far as solid #2 or #3 conference? Sure. They are a solid #3 conference. I don’t think they are G5 level, obviously. But this whole thing started just talking about how they stack up to the ACC as to which is 2nd best. I think ACC is the clear #2, right now, and I feel like I’ve backed that up.
As far as being naive about college athletics, how so? You think UCF is in a better position than MSU?
Speaking of football...
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This is dumb. You continue to just pivot the argument a little.
Your claim that the Big10 is 'completely irrelevant' is not rooted in reality. I provided top25 rankings to show your claim is not rooted in reality and you came back with 'well what about final CFP top10 rankings?' So I listed final CFP top10 rankings, where the Big10 has the exact same overall numbers as the SEC, and now you are arguing that the final CFP rankings arent what we should look at and instead we need to look at final season AP rankings.
Come on, just stop. You are obviously surprised to see the Big10 has the same number of final CFP ranked teams as the SEC, this doesnt fit your narrative, and so you have moved the goalposts slightly in the hope that this newest stipulator will end in your favor.
I think the SEC is a better football conference overall than the Big10, both at the top and in the middle. But it is dumb as 17 to claim the Big10 is 'completely irrelevant' in college football during the regular season or postseason.
Show me where I referenced “Top 10 CFP rankings”. You mentioned “preseason rankings” and “final rankings”. Then I said “do the Top 5 and Top 10” of those categories. You then responded with final CFP rankings, which is neither.
And by the way, I’m still interested in seeing those numbers (the final AP / USA Today rankings), because they include the results of high profile postseason matchups (ACC vs. Big 10 vs. SEC, etc.) that would go a long way in proving or disproving your argument.
My opinion based on the relevance of the B1G is that they’ve accomplished very little in the postseason in nearly a quarter century outside of one team. Specifically, they are inferior to the ACC in the present and recent past. I stand by both those things. You’re free to define relevance on your own terms and I’m fine with that.
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The numbers I initially used were final season CFP rankings(in addition to preseason AP since CFP wont be released for many weeks). So I looked up the final top10 and top15 using the same rankings I initially used.
I think that finishing in the top15 makes a program relevant. Or rather, I think that finishing in the top15 means a program isnt 'completely irrelevant'.
If you want final season rankings, look em up. The discussion has been about how the CFP is what makes teams relevant, so the hunt leading up to the CFP is meaningful. Being in the conversation for the weeks leading up to the CFP selection is what makes a team relevant. That means top15 teams to me since a team can be in the top8 up until the last week and have a shot at making their conference game and maybe the CFP, then lose and end up 12th. That is a relevant team, even though they finish 12th in the CFP rankings.
Fair enough. I can respect that argument even if I don’t fully agree.
Regarding the rankings, I presumed you were going to the same well for both (the AP / USA Today) since you mentioned preseason rankings which would have to be those by default. That threw me off. Would have been more specific in the other post to say final season rankings if if I knew that’s not what they were initially.
You can't claim a conference's superiority by co-opting the accomplishments of another conference. You can say OU and Texas raise the SEC's profile, but no, we don't get to claim OU or Texas's past National Championships as SEC teams winning National Championships. In fact, OU and Bob Stoops were pretty vocally the 'anti-SEC' guys during his run there.
That's fair. It's tough to say what would have happened with a different match-up or different stakes, but you're right. When it came down to it, outside of 2013 Michigan State, those teams didn't win their final games.
Well, you weren't saying "solid #3". You were saying "irrelevant". I think the challenge you have is that you're looking at this very myopically. There are two things in question here, "Who's #2?" and "How big is the gap between #2 & #3?" You're determining that and assigning value to an entire conference based on a very specific criteria. It's like choosing the number of Heisman winners as the sole basis for conference dominance. Even if you believe the ACC is better than the Big Ten (and you can make that argument), the gap between the ACC and the Big Ten is microscopic compared to the gap between the Big Ten and the Pac-12.
Your naivete is based on you ignoring the impact revenue has on the sport. No, I don't think UCF is in a better position than Mississippi State. That was my point. On the field results do matter, but only insomuch as they are a part of the larger whole. Revenue is the king of that larger whole, though. Maryland left the ACC for the Big Ten because they weren't making enough money to support all of their programs in the ACC and could make more money in the Big Ten. It didn't make a damn bit of difference how many games they were going to win in the ACC or how many games they were going to win in the Big Ten. Right now, the ACC is stuck in a TV contract that severely limits their members' collective ability to make more money. This makes them a less desirable destination for existing Power 5 teams than the Big Ten. How many National Championship winners or runners-up each collectively has plays not a damn bit of difference in that. Revenue does.
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You’re hearing something I’m not saying in regards to Miami and OU / TX. Never said anything about their current conferences getting to claim their past accomplishments.
What I am saying is that Miami is a program with a ceiling of winning a NC. As are OU and TX. That ceiling is irrespective of the conference they play in. After all, if you’ve proven you can win it all and be the best in the whole nation, why would that matter? Anyway, those are 3 of only maybe 12-15 programs in the whole nation that have such a ceiling. Therefore, if you’re talking about conference strength, you’re looking at how many teams in any given league have that type of ceiling before looking at anything else. It doesn’t matter if the last time they maxed out their potential was when they were somewhere else, provided that the advantages that got them there (recruiting, history, facilities, coaching hires) are the same or better than they were before.
And somewhat of a non-sequitar here, but I think Miami is arguably the biggest winner of any program in the country with the new NIL landscape. Huge, huge population area where they have a complete monopoly, and tons of sponsorship opportunities abound. All that **** they had rolling for them in the 80’s is about to be back in a much bigger and more legal way.
What I am saying is that Miami is a program with a ceiling of winning a NC. As are OU and TX. That ceiling is irrespective of the conference they play in. After all, if you’ve proven you can win it all and be the best in the whole nation, why would that matter? Anyway, those are 3 of only maybe 12-15 programs in the whole nation that have such a ceiling. Therefore, if you’re talking about conference strength, you’re looking at how many teams in any given league have that type of ceiling before looking at anything else. It doesn’t matter if the last time they maxed out their potential was when they were somewhere else, provided that the advantages that got them there (recruiting, history, facilities, coaching hires) are the same or better than they were before.
And somewhat of a non-sequitar here, but I think Miami is arguably the biggest winner of any program in the country with the new NIL landscape. Huge, huge population area where they have a complete monopoly, and tons of sponsorship opportunities abound. All that **** they had rolling for them in the 80’s is about to be back in a much bigger and more legal way.
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