With Texas A&M all but gone from the Big XII and Oklahoma threatening movement, the possibility of a Pac-16 is alive again, a lot sooner than most expected. Although the Pac-12 has publicly stated that they’d prefer to stay at 12, it would almost assuredly move to expand if the Big XII fell apart as a result of SEC accepting the Aggies. There is no guarantee that expansion would shake out that way, but the Pac-16 with Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State added is one of the more plausible scenarios.
Of course an expanded Pac would mean redoing the recently created divisions. So how would that shake out? There are a few options.
For reference keep in mind the four regional groupings of teams the Pac-16 would contain:
| Northwest | Mountain | |||
| Washington | Washington State | Colorado | Utah | |
| Oregon | Oregon State | Arizona | Arizona State | |
| California | Red River | |||
| Cal | Stanford | Oklahoma | Oklahoma State | |
| UCLA | USC | Texas | Texas Tech |
WEST vs EAST
The one most people assume would happen is a simple East/West split that would reunite the original Pac-8 schools in the West and the expansion teams in the East. It’s geographically logical, easy to remember, preserves the tradition of the west coast schools and competitively balanced with marquee schools like USC and Texas in each division.
Scheduling would be simple as well. Each year a team would play its seven division members and two cross division members. Likely you’d pair an east team with one California school and one Northwest school a year, and like wise the west with one Mountain and one Red River school.
Simple right? Well there is a hitch, the Arizona schools aren’t going to be thrilled with losing connections with the California schools, neither is Colorado for that matter, who also gets re-paired with four of the eleven schools it just left. So what other options are there for the Pac-16?
NORTH vs SOUTH
Still geographically based, a north south/split would alleviate the concerns of the Mountain schools by moving Colorado and Utah into the existing Pac-12 North, while the four Red River schools would move into the South. Everyone is paired with two California schools, Colorado isn’t paired with the Big XII schools. Everyone wins right?
Not so much. First, the California schools have made it absolutely clear that playing each other annually is top priority for them. Assuming you guaranteed that, then that would mean the four Northwest schools along with Colorado and Utah would NEVER play the L.A. teams, and the Arizona and Oklahoma and Texas schools would NEVER play the Bay Area teams. As if that weren’t enough of a deal breaker, think about the competitive and recruiting imbalance. USC AND Texas AND Oklahoma in the same division? Texas AND L.A. in the same division recruit wise? I can’t imagine the North schools being at all happy with that arrangement.
THE ZIPPER
I was a big supporter of the zipper divisions for the Pac-12. It would have preserved the regional rivalries while providing more equal geographic access. Larry Scott however preferred simpler splits so people would know who was in what division, unlike the ACC’s Atlantic and Coastal divisions or the BigTen’s Legends and Leaders. Still we can consider how this would work. Eight team divisions with rivals split. But what would the divisions look like? Washington and Oregon would need to be paired, Texas and Oklahoma, USC and Stanford, UCLA and Cal. So perhaps?
Division X: Washington, Oregon, USC, Stanford, Colorado, Arizona, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
Division O: Washington State, Oregon State, UCLA, Cal, Utah, ASU, Oklahoma, Texas
Assuming you pair rivals at the end of the season, thats 8 games decided (division + protected cross-over). If the California schools all play each other your back to the same problem described above, where no cross-over games would involve California and non-California schools. Maybe you can talk them out of it, they are still getting 2 of 3. Assuming that, that would mean you play each non-rival cross division team 1 out of 7 times. Assuming home/home games in pairs, thats 14 year cycles before you’d play a team from the other division again. Hardly seems an ideal way to build a conference. Add to that the confusing divisions and its a sloppy solution that creates more problems than it solves.
FOUR DIVISIONS
How about instead of two groupings, you go with four. Each team would play 3 teams from its own region and two each from the other three. It allows better rotation of opponents, but creates new sets of problems. First, would the NCAA and other conferences even allow it? Even if they did, how do you determine the champion? A two team championship game? A four team playoff? How often will you have multiple teams with the same “division” record of 3-1 or 2-2? Maybe the top two teams from different divisions based on total conference record? It’s creative, but likely too complicated to put in place.
WEST vs EAST POD SCHEDULED
This option takes the scheduling aspect of the four division option, but teams are still grouped into East and West divisions. The advantage here is no need to get special approval from the NCAA, you are still two divisions with a two team championship game, and you’d have more mixed scheduling among the two divisions, but you’d end up missing not one but TWO teams from your OWN division each year. It could easily happen that Washington and USC or Utah and Oklahoma both go undefeated in the same seasons. Who is the division champ? Isn’t the whole point of divisions to play the team IN your division? Ok, so the “divisions” are meaningless so why not…
NO DIVISIONS
So why go with divisions at all? Simply take the two teams with the best record at the end of the season and pair them off for a championship game. Pod scheduling like above to balance out the teams. It solves a lot of problems, but it would require a rule change that the NCAA and other conferences might not be willing to go with, and what happens when you end up with multiple teams with the same record at the end of the season? Lots of tiebreakers come into play and that can get ugly.
CONCLUSION
I still think East/West is the likely outcome of a Pac-16 super conference forming. The Mountain Schools might be a little miffed but it causes the least problems with the NCAA, is easy to follow and remember, makes travel sense, and is obvious. For other sports you’d have more flexible options with not all schools competing in all sports, and more games per season. Still maybe i’m wrong, maybe one of these other scenarios ends up being the preferred choice. Maybe the Northwest schools decide they are sick of California and pair with the Red River four. Maybe a giant earthquake swallows the California schools and the Pac-16 goes back to being 12. Maybe the world ends on December 21, 2012 and none of this matters. Or the Pac-12 stays the same and expansion fizzles. Maybe.
I like the pod format the best, and the Pac-16 will simply have to get waivers to allow the top two teams to play in the title game. Will it even matter, though, if the move to superconferences erases the NCAA and BCS’ grip over college football?
If you haven’t had a chance, I highly recommend you read OKTC’s coverage of the realignment scenarios. I am increasingly doubtful Texas ever goes to the Pac; it appears they’re in a very good spot to maintain the Big 12 TV contracts with Fox and ESPN and increase the amount of games going on TLN if/when the Oklahoma schools decide to leave for the Pac. Perhaps in 10 years or so, when the Big 12 media packages come up for renewal, Texas will be forced to seek greener pastures, but for now they’re going to get away with being the arrogant sonsabitches they are.
Good post, thanks David.
As we’ve discussed, I don’t think the Arizona and Mountain schools will take the East/West split idea lying down, and assuming CU and Utah now have full voting rights (I’m not 100% sure about that), they have the ability to block expansion if they vote as a bloc unless they are assured of a solution that’s acceptable to them. Perhaps one of them can be peeled away somehow, but if not, I think it’s very possible we end up with divisions where not everyone plays everyone else in the division, as stupid as that is. I also think it’s very possible the Pac-16 leads the charge to go to the NCAA and try to get permission to have conference semifinals. That seems inconceivable now — and it might lead to some teams cutting back and having only an 11-game schedule — but it becomes highly logical if 16-team superconferences really do become the wave of the future. And if the NCAA won’t play ball, the superconferences could threaten to secede from the NCAA. Once there are multiple superconferences, that becomes a much more viable threat. I imagine the NCAA would certainly allow semifinals if that’s what it needed to keep its money-making schools in the fold.
for now they’re going to get away with being the arrogant sonsabitches they are.
Ahem, the term you’re looking for is “son of a bitches.”
I think you overestimate the lengths to which the Mountain schools will go. Do you really think they would block the other eight schools voting to go forward with expansion despite the perceived need to do so? If the Pac offers membership to those schools, despite their stated desire to stay at 12, it means they believe that going to 16 is in the best interests of the future of the conference. So four schools standing in the way of that seems like a bad play on their part. Don’t you think pissing off the power base of the conference, i.e. the original 8 is a pretty bad idea? I realize the East/West split is not the ideal situation for them, but its still better than poisoning the good will of the rest of the members, who have far tighter ties already and would be INCREDIBLY shortsighted.
In a scenario like that I have to think that the Pac-8 would ask themselves who they prefer to be aligned with, the Mountain 4 or the Red River 4? Texas and Oklahoma are worth far more than Colorado or Arizona. In that case the Mountain schools would have far more to lose don’t you think?
In short, I think the East/West split will happen, just like the North/South split did now because 1, its overall better for the conference and 2, Larry Scott will push it and given his track record the schools will listen. If he got the NW schools to agree to the current arrangement, I see no reason he won’t get the Mountain schools to agree as well.
I think the zipper is the least likely solution, but I think the semi-final/four division split is next up there. Too complicated, and 4 teams per division is too few. Now if we went to 24 team mega conferences with 6 team sub divisions, then you might have something 🙂
Nope, we’ll go to 16, then to 20/24 then the conferences will fracture back to 10/12 and it will all start over again 😀
With the 4 division idea, if stead of playing two teams from each of the other three divisions, you played all four from one and then one from each of the other two, and rotated the pairings of divisions, you essentially create a floating division set up. So, for example, USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Cal would be in the same division as Washington, Washington State, Oregon, and Oregon State one year, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Arizona State the next year, and whatever other 4 teams there are the next. It would be confusing and weird, and definitely worse than the East/West split, but might be feasible.
David, you’re talking about the AZ/UT/CU stance as if it would be a public fight in which those schools actually block the deal, but that’s not how it would play out. Think of it as a back-room negotiation, carried out in secret, with all sorts of conflicting leaks, just like we have with the current Big 12 stuff. Larry Scott would hold discussions with them — maybe this is already happening — and say, this is what we want to do, and they’d threaten to vote it down unless they get concessions on the divisional setup. Now everyone has to take the measure of everyone else. Does Scott call their bluff and dare them to vote it down? Does he try to convince them to back down willingly? Or does he make concessions so they’re happy? It’s in everyone’s interest to avoid a public blowup, so one way or another, it would likely be resolved without that. It’s sort of like a vote in Congress… remember the Boehner debt ceiling bill? The original version never came to a vote, because you don’t have a public vote unless you know you’re going to win. Same thing here.
Concessions just like the northwest schools got for being distanced from the LA schools? The Mountain schools can threaten all they want but in the end what can they do? Vote down expansion? What does that get them except pissing off the rest of the conference? When a minority starts enforcing its will on the rest it leads to the Big XII. They will have few options but to agree to expansion in the end if that’s what the other eight and Larry Scott want. And they will because it will be better for the conference long term, just like USC and UCLA finally agreed to equal revenue sharing.
just like USC and UCLA finally agreed to equal revenue sharing.
Which, of course, WAS a concession to the Northwest schools, thus disproving your talking point that they gave up everything they wanted and got nothing in return. They got two California schools in their division, in spite of geography (admittedly this was also preferable to Utah and Colorado, who would have been in the North otherwise, but they didn’t have a vote at the time, so it was primarily a concession to the NW schools), and they got equal revenue sharing. In return, they gave up equal access to California by not insisting on zipper divisions and by not blocking the annual USC/UCLA/Cal/Stanford Weekenders. But they still get to play in SoCal every other year, versus their ideal of 2 years out of 3, and in California (NoCal & SoCal combined) 3 times every 2 years, which is the same as what they’d get under the zipper. And of course they, like everyone else, got a boatload of new money by agreeing to expansion in the first place.
The Arizona and Mountain schools are being asked to give up much more in exchange for much less. Right now they’re in Southern California every year, and in California (NoCal & SoCal combined) 3 times every 2 years. They’re being asked (assuming a Pac-16 split into East & West, with 7 intra-divisional games and 2 inter-divisional games) to reduce that to being in Southern California once every 4 years, and in California (NoCal & SoCal combined) once every 2 years. That’s 25% of their current SoCal access, and 33% of their current California access. Put another way, they would have FOUR TIMES LESS access to Southern California, and THREE TIMES LESS access to California, than they do now.
Compare that to the far less bitter pill that NW schools swallowed last year: their current SoCal access is 50% of the old Pac-10 setup, and 75% of their preferred/ideal scenario (“zipper”); their current California access (NoCal & SoCal combined) is 75% of the old Pac-10 setup, and identical to what the zipper would have been.
And in return for a reduction of SoCal access that’s 2-3x more drastic (depending on how you do the math) than what the Northwest schools gave up in return for equal revenue sharing and vastly more money, what do the Arizona and Mountain schools get? Not much! They already have a boatload of money, shared equally, and (especially with forward-looking economic prospects appearing grimmer and grimmer) it’s not clear how much they’ll increase their take by agreeing to expansion — certainly it’s unlikely to be the kind of insane jump we saw going from the old, bad Pac-10 contract to the new, awesome Pac-12 contract. So they aren’t gaining much there. What else do they gain? Ummmm… “the good of the conference”? Not pissing off the Pac-8? Is that worth having 4 times less access to Southern California?!? Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you would honestly be OK with that if the NW schools were the ones being asked to make that concession, “for the good of the conference.”
And yes, I know, they get access to Texas. So AZ/ASU/CU/UT would be in Texas 4x as often as UW/WSU/UO/OSU are, while UW/WSU/UO/OSU would be in Southern California 4x as often as AZ/ASU/CU/UT are. The thing is, for Colorado at least, that’s a bug, not a feature. I can’t speak to the other schools, and maybe that’s why this ultimately passes: if even one of the four Arizona/Mountain schools concludes that Texas access is of equal value to California access, then the split will pass. I’m not sure they will, though. Though perhaps Utah is the weakest link. They might still be so excited to be in a BCS conference that either way will sound great to them. I’m not sure. I know Arizona and ASU didn’t sign up for the “Pacific” 10 in the ’70s in order to have a recruiting base in….Oklahoma and Texas….and virtually no access to California. And I know Colorado, while it was initially OK with the Pac-16 idea (back when it had no vote in the matter and its only alternative was staying in the Big 12), now responds to the notion of being thrown back into the psuedo-Big 12 with the plaintive wail, “DO NOT WANT.” So I suspect maybe it comes down to Utah. We’ll see.
Correction: “Texas access is of equal value to California access” is wrong. It should say “Texas access is of equal value to Southern California access.” In this analogy, Texas=Southern California and Oklahoma=Northern California.
Equal revenue sharing wasn’t a concession to the Northwest schools, it was a “concession” to everyone in the entire conference not named USC (and to a lesser extent UCLA), so its innacurate to say it was done in exchange for the California split, especially since the newer schools all got gaurenteed annual access to the LA schools out of the deal. The NW schools came out the shorter end of the deal relative to everyone else, but still agreed to it because it was better for the conference as a whole, just as the SoCal schools agreed to revenue sharing for the same reasons.
Also a bit of a history lesson, Arizona and ASU joining the Pac-10 was akin to Utah being invited in, not Texas or Oklahoma. They signed up for the Pac-10 as a change to move up to a power conference AND they (like Utah) were a fallback option. The original goal was to get Colorado and Texas, but that fell apart for a variety of reasons (including a rumored block by Stanford…idiots).
If this expansion were to happen, I doubt that Texas and Oklahoma schools would be comfortable the “Pac-16” conference name. I think “Freedom 16” is more likely. Divisions would likely be renamed as follows:
“Northwest” — “Water Liberals”
“Mountain” — “Space Liberals”
“California” — “Liberal Pussies”
“Red River” — “US Americans”
If the money is there, this could happen.
ASU needs to ditch the trident and bring back the Sundevil.
Texas will not join the PAC16. The Longhorn Network will make to much money. The Longhorns won’t share the cash and the PAC16 will not allow one team to have cable network and compete against the league’s tv package. If the Big12 dies, Texas will go independent. Will the PAC16 take OU, OSU, Texas Tech without Texas? Does expansion make sense without the Longhorns? If they do expand without Texas, who will be the 16th team? I would like to include Kansas. BYU doesn’t add any more tv viewers. New Mexico, Boise State, Mizzou, Baylor, TCU could all be considered too. But the Kansas Jayhawks would be the best choice.
How about the Air Force Academy as the 16th school?
Have I mentioned how much I enjoy reading the gameday thread at ND nation when Notre Dame is losing?
Casey, very amusing.