Division 1 College Conference Realignment

[rams80]

One thing that you are missing about BYU going independent, is the fact that BYU will control it's fate and who it schedules. Instead of leaning on just beating one or two schools and the rest of your schedule is just a bunch of patsies. Now going independent, they can continue to schedule tough like they do, but if they run the schedule of tougher opponents then they put themselves in a better position to go to a BCS game than they do if they run the Mountain Least schedule. BYU has never been afraid to play the big boys in the big boys stadium and that is something that a lot of the big boys can't even say, I'm talking to you Florida and Nebraska. People sit there and talk about how BYU isn't Notre Dame, that's correct. At least BYU has done something over the past few years, what exactly has Notre Dame done? Oh yeah, that's right, they are still living off the legend of the Gipper.

In the last decade, Nebraska has played non-Conference series with Virginia Tech, USC, Pitt, Penn State, and Notre Dame. This year, they begin a home and home with Washington, as have future home and homes with UCLA, Miami, and Tennessee.

Also, it's kind of hard to schedule tough when it is reported that the independence deal includes 4-6 games against WAC teams.

But then, college football has never been one of your strong suits.

[Mingjai]

Independence rumors have been floating around BYU since the rumors of Utah to the Pac 10 started. I was always skeptical of both the rumors and BYU's ability to be independent. I'm still on the fence on the issue, but I thought I'd add a bit of perspective (bear with me).

From the beginning, BYU never really expected to join the Pac 10 because of issues at the institutional level (i.e., politics), despite the fact that many of the Pac 10 schools are more than happy to schedule BYU because they can fill the stadium. Since 1985, every Pac 10 school has played at least one home-home series with BYU. BYU's biggest hope to switch conferences was always the Big 12, which supposedly was forced to take Baylor over BYU back in the 1990s. With a cloud still surrounding the Big 12, BYU has decided to be proactive.

The biggest issue currently for BYU is publicity and TV revenue. When I was at BYU early in the 2000s, I worked at BYU-TV as a cameraman at football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, lacrosse, and rugby games. Many times, the play-by-play at the events was handled by Holly Rowe, who, despite being a Utah grad, has a long history of working for BYU-TV and KBYU. Whenever ESPN came through, they would use BYU's extensive broadcasting facilities and local production personnel, allowing ESPN to save the costs of bringing their own truck and staff to the game. All ESPN needed to provide was on-air talent. In return, ESPN allowed BYU-TV to rebroadcast games as early as 5 hours after the game ended--even now, BYU-TV still re-airs ESPN games.

While working at BYU-TV, many of my co-workers with close ties to ESPN commented that ESPN was primarily interested in broadcasting BYU games, but that the ESPN-MWC broadcasting deal was negotiated at a time when BYU was struggling, so ESPN was able to make demands like Wednesday night games. Because of that, the MWC switched to its current Mtn/CBS College deal, which BYU was on board with to try to make work. Unfortunately, the Mtn deal was not favorable to BYU Broadcasting, as the Mtn got exclusive rights to all home games of MWC members, meaning that even if the Mtn or its broadcast partners opted not to broadcast a football or men's basketball game, BYU-TV faced significant hurdles to step in to fill the gap. That's why the only recent football game broadcast by BYU-TV was BYU at Utah State in 2008 (ESPN opted not to air the game either on its networks or through its ESPN+ affiliates).

Recently, BYU men's basketball played Fresno State in Provo, with former BYU coach Steve Cleveland helming Fresno State. Even though the Mtn passed on broadcasting the game, the network exercised its exclusivity clause to prevent BYU-TV from broadcasting it.

I think people are underestimating the importance of broadcasting and overplay the Notre Dame analogy. BYU knows it can't demand or even request Notre Dame treatment. But BYU will be happy with a modest TV contract with ESPN, increased broadcasting rights, and continued at-large treatment from the BCS. Right now, BYU only makes $1.5 million annually from the MWC TV deal and it gets a share from MWC bowl earnings. The rumor is that ESPN is willing to pay BYU about $4 million to broadcast 4 home games a year, and BYU would get to pocket its own bowl earnings, meaning it could double possibly double its annual football earnings. BYU will continue to sell out its 60,000+ seat stadium, and it should be able to draw some decent teams to Provo (and ESPN should help since it would be in ESPN's interest to create good matchups). Without a modest ESPN deal in place, independence is not viable.

I know one thing--should BYU go independent, you can bet the eyes of Texas will be on BYU for the next few years.

[Seadragon76]

Now, things have gotten real... How real?

WAC Commish: You two traitors (Fresno State and Nevada) WILL pay the $5M penalty and wait until 2012 to join the MWC

[The_Admiral]

Anyone actively involved or even emotionally invested in any of this should consume hemlock by the vat.

[BrySmalls]

Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in separate divisions beginning in the 2011 Season.

[rams80]

Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in separate divisions beginning in the 2011 Season.

Which one gets Minnesota?

[Gary]

Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in separate divisions beginning in the 2011 Season.

Which one gets Minnesota?

I've also heard they are thinking about putting Michigan and Ohio State in seperate divisions for the payoff of the Big Ten Championship

Which makes me think they may be going with a North South Alignment

[rams80]

Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in separate divisions beginning in the 2011 Season.

Which one gets Minnesota?

I've also heard they are thinking about putting Michigan and Ohio State in seperate divisions for the payoff of the Big Ten Championship

Which makes me think they may be going with a North South Alignment

I think splitting up Iowa and Wisconsin is more indicative that they're going for the ACC draw teams out of a hat alignment.

[ESTONES6]

Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in separate divisions beginning in the 2011 Season.

Which one gets Minnesota?

I've also heard they are thinking about putting Michigan and Ohio State in seperate divisions for the payoff of the Big Ten Championship

Which makes me think they may be going with a North South Alignment

The Big 10 wants 16 teams... they want to do 4, 4-team divisions. There is a simple way to solve the problem. If the Big 10 is SMART, they will have Michigan and Ohio State in separate division/leagues. To make up for the rivalry, all that OSU and Michigan has to do is schedule each other for one of the 3 or 4 at-large games. Problem solved. Still leaves the potential for Big 10 title game, OSU -vs- Michigan. Also leaves the option of 1 team spoiling the chances of the other to make the title game, etc. etc. Its not rocket science.

[crashcarson15]

Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in separate divisions beginning in the 2011 Season.

Which one gets Minnesota?

I've also heard they are thinking about putting Michigan and Ohio State in seperate divisions for the payoff of the Big Ten Championship

Which makes me think they may be going with a North South Alignment

The Big 10 wants 16 teams... they want to do 4, 4-team divisions. There is a simple way to solve the problem. If the Big 10 is SMART, they will have Michigan and Ohio State in separate division/leagues. To make up for the rivalry, all that OSU and Michigan has to do is schedule each other for one of the 3 or 4 at-large games. Problem solved. Still leaves the potential for Big 10 title game, OSU -vs- Michigan. Also leaves the option of 1 team spoiling the chances of the other to make the title game, etc. etc. Its not rocket science.

No, that's dumb. They'd do 2, 8-team divisions. You're not gonna play two rounds for the Big Ten Championship in football.

That said, I'd hate to see a scenario (if Michigan gets any good again...) in which Michigan and Ohio State both have their divisions locked up going into the last game of the year. And it isn't good for the league, if say tOSU and Michgan are both 11-0 entering their first matchup. Ohio State wins the first and Michigan wins the second. Neither of them make the BCS National Championship.

[dfwabel]

Apparently how BYU/WAC pact failed

From the SL Tribune story:

Utah State University president Stan Albrecht gleefully wrote in an Aug. 17 e-mail that Boise State University president Bob Kustra?s ?world is crumbling around him and he is desperate.?

?All signatures are in place. I don?t think either John or Milt has $5 million to buy their way out,? said Albrecht, referring to Fresno State president John Welty and University of Nevada president Milt Glick, whose schools faced a $5 million penalty for agreeing to relocate to the Mountain West Conference from the Western Athletic Conference.

But a day later, Albrecht?s world ? and perhaps the WAC as a whole ? had disintegrated. In the span of roughly 24 hours last week, WAC officials and presidents soared and sank from glee to despair, watching their plan to add all of MWC member Brigham Young University?s sports teams except football fall apart.

Known as ?The Project,? the plan that Albrecht masterminded with WAC commissioner Karl Benson, BYU president Cecil Samuelson and Welty would also have guaranteed football games against BYU ? always a big draw ? for the WAC?s top teams. But it came crashing down on Aug. 18, leaving Benson to lament in an e-mail to remaining WAC presidents, ?this has been a very emotional day for me ? both on the professional and personal side.?

Documents and e-mail correspondence between the parties, obtained by The Tribune from USU through an open records request, show how close the plan came to being finalized; how MWC commissioner Craig Thompson?s last-minute wheeling and dealing scuttled it; how television sports giant ESPN was involved from the beginning; and how desperately USU wanted instate rival BYU to declare its independence in football and join its conference in everything else.

The e-mails also show that WAC and USU officials believe Thompson hastily invited Nevada and Fresno State as a preemptive strike to weaken the WAC within days of learning BYU was planning to leave.

Thompson said in a teleconference the night of Aug. 18 that the reason the MWC invited the two WAC schools that day was to strengthen the league?s negotiating position with television partner Comcast.

[Geoff]

The Big 10 wants 16 teams... they want to do 4, 4-team divisions. There is a simple way to solve the problem. If the Big 10 is SMART, they will have Michigan and Ohio State in separate division/leagues. To make up for the rivalry, all that OSU and Michigan has to do is schedule each other for one of the 3 or 4 at-large games. Problem solved. Still leaves the potential for Big 10 title game, OSU -vs- Michigan. Also leaves the option of 1 team spoiling the chances of the other to make the title game, etc. etc. Its not rocket science.

By at-large do you mean the 4 non-conference games or the 3 games they play against teams from the other division? The Big Whatever-they'll-call-themselves will not allow Ohio State and Michigan to schedule each other as one of those. And I assume the conference will create a scheduling method like the SEC and ACC (I'm not sure if the Big 12 does it this way) where each school has a permanent crossover partner that they play every season (ex. FSU-Miami) and rotate through through they other 5 teams in the opposite division 2 per season. Either way, crossover or no, the schools wouldn't schedule each other, the league would.

[Viper]

The Big 10 wants 16 teams...

That way, of course, they can still call themselves the Big 10 - as in, 16 in hexadecimal format.

[pianoknight]

^^^ ROFL... hexadecimal.

Here's my ideal BigTen alignments. There would be a protected cross over game in the case where traditional rivals are split up (OSU-UM, etc)

=================================================================================================

12 TEAM

Division A (Mostly East) = Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State, Penn State

Division B (Mostly West) = Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State

=================================================================================================

14 TEAM or 16 TEAM

Division A (Straight East) = Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, Pitt

Division B (Straight West) = Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Notre Dame, Missouri

=================================================================================================

Crazy Shuffle Realignment

North Division = Nebraska, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan, Penn State, Iowa

South Division = Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Alabama, Miami, Georgia

[RyanMcD29]

Okay, so now the word is BYU is gonna go to the WCC for basketball/non-revenue and go independent for football.

I think that's a good move considering the WCC consistently has 2 or 3 tournament teams in hoops whereas the WAC hasn't had as good of a track record IIRC

[dfwabel]

So I guess they will have to modify the "E" in this logo to start?

[LMU]

LMU and BYU in the same conference. Never thought I'd see the day.

While BYU fits in with the WCC's religious-institution background, and really increases the conference's profile, something just seems weird about having a school with an enrollment of 30,000 in with 8 schools of enrollments of between 4,000 and 8,000 roughly.

[rams80]

Okay, so now the word is BYU is gonna go to the WCC for basketball/non-revenue and go independent for football.

I think that's a good move considering the WCC consistently has 2 or 3 tournament teams in hoops whereas the WAC hasn't had as good of a track record IIRC

Except the Mountain West has done even better bid-wise historically.

[dfwabel]

Okay, so now the word is BYU is gonna go to the WCC for basketball/non-revenue and go independent for football.

I think that's a good move considering the WCC consistently has 2 or 3 tournament teams in hoops whereas the WAC hasn't had as good of a track record IIRC

Except the Mountain West has done even better bid-wise historically.

+1. This had all to do with football TV money and the fact that any new version of the MWC was not going to give them as much money as what the Utes will soon receive as being part of the Pac-10. They knew that, so I give them credit for leaving and at least trying something new.

Now, will the University of Denver leave the Sun Belt to become BYU's travel partner?

[LocalVulture]

Now, will the University of Denver leave the Sun Belt to become BYU's travel partner?

Good question. I was thinking the same thing.