Big Ten, ACC, Pac-12 Alliance
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dgcrow
- Kelso, WA
Regarding scheduling PAC 12 and ACC teams in football: The Illini have all 3 nonconference games scheduled through 2025 (2026 if a home game against Southern Illinois, which the school has yet to officially announce, is included), and not one of them is against a team from the PAC 12. (They have 4 scheduled against the ACC: 2 vs Virginia and 2 vs Duke.) The only way the Illini could honor all of its contracts and still meet a PAC 12 opponent before 2027 (or maybe 2026) would be to drop one conference game. I wonder if that would really be a good thing.
I’m actually cool with dropping a conference game in all this for a fresh, major conference, non traditional, but still big name opponent.
I’m with you on this. It seems like the SEC is playing with a totally different deck of cards.
Alliance to USC: “How about a couple games a year across the country in cold weather with institutions that share the same academic philosophy?”
SEC to USC: “How about a $30M raise to play with the big boys?” lol
hooraybeer
- Pittsburgh, PA
have to imagine scheduling agreements have clauses/outs. will be interesting to see
Non con games are generally before the weather shifts.
Are you talking about the old games already scheduled that we’d have to drop to play alliance games? Or the new games we’d schedule within the alliance?
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I'm interested because it's in my backyard and because of the extraordinary volume of orange and blue involved. And because one of our interns is a UVa lineman, by chance. Nice guy; I will be sad for him when he loses.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
*SPOILERS for anyone who hasn’t seen Avengers Endgame*
(FWIW, I never liked Marvel movies and never watched the Avengers movies, but I finally did the other week and I have to say Endgame is absolutely worth the watch and a fantastic film that wraps everything up perfectly!)
My friend sent me this, and it’s hilarious, lol:
(FWIW, I never liked Marvel movies and never watched the Avengers movies, but I finally did the other week and I have to say Endgame is absolutely worth the watch and a fantastic film that wraps everything up perfectly!)
My friend sent me this, and it’s hilarious, lol:
ACC: "I learned from Big 10, if Pac 12 ever asks you to accept something secret… you reply, “Absolutely, I do.”"
I'd like to be more optimistic here, but I have a hard time imagining some of these schools, like Clemson, Miami or FSU, wouldn't at least seriously consider bolting to the SEC, even with this alliance in place.
If Clemson and FSU join the SEC today, Virginia, UNC and Georgia Tech will be in the Big 10 tomorrow.
There’s definitely a reason all of the SEC’s expansion efforts in the last decade have been to the west. Any SEC raid of the ACC would be an absolute gift to the Big 10.
illini80
- Forgottonia
If true, the alliance does nothing but weaken the remaining teams by diluting what’s left of the pot does it not? Unless the situation is so dire they feel like they have already lost football regardless, and hope to keep enough around to have some influence in the remaining sports. Otherwise I see no point to the alliance.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
It takes a ton of media contract leverage away from the SEC, and presumably also ESPN. College football went through a similar exercise in the 70's with the College Football Association, which gave the schools and conferences the control over their own media rights, which previously the NCAA had controlled. There was also anti-trust litigation against the NCAA, which the NCAA ultimately lost.If true, the alliance does nothing but weaken the remaining teams by diluting what’s left of the pot does it not? Unless the situation is so dire they feel like they have already lost football regardless, and hope to keep enough around to have some influence in the remaining sports. Otherwise I see no point to the alliance.
Idk why but I found Michigan being iron man knocked out on the ground for a second to be hilarious.
also one if the greatest movie scenes of all time.
That makes sense, but if the SEC is trying to expand to 20 and beyond, which obviously seems to be the goal here, then they're going to have to rip the Band-aid off at some point, because I can't imagine their ambitions of being the NFL of college football don't include at least a couple of those ACC teams.
The P5 is now the P4. If (when?) the ACC gets raided, it is down to P3.
If the ACC gets raided, what does ND do? And where ND goes, does Southern Cal follow?
How long before only two Mega Conferences remain standing? If things are heading that direction, it seems like it would behoove the BIG to establish some footholds in the South and/or West.
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
Hmmm, maybe George, Kevin and Jim should've signed some papers or agreed to literally anything concrete.
"The LSU Tiger football team could finally get its match against the USC Trojans nearly twenty years after the two teams haggled over who was the National Champion back in 2003.
Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger reported on Wednesday evening that LSU is finalizing plans to play the Trojans in Las Vegas to open up the 2024 season."
"The LSU Tiger football team could finally get its match against the USC Trojans nearly twenty years after the two teams haggled over who was the National Champion back in 2003.
Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger reported on Wednesday evening that LSU is finalizing plans to play the Trojans in Las Vegas to open up the 2024 season."
incredible.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
Yup. Absolutely shocking that the team most likely to change conferences is also the one to immediately go against the "alliance." /s
Without something in writing, the "alliance" is just told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
The timing isn't great, so of course the pundits will jump all over this. But I'm sure the negotiations have been going on for a while. Seems silly to scrap all that work while other schools have SEC games scheduled further out.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
In fairness, the Alliance in fact made clear that this was NOT a scheduling boycott of the SEC, though by filling up so many nonconference games it was clearly intended to operate that way de facto.
But lets leave that to one side for a second. Death Valley and the LA Coliseum (notwithstanding the hideous, symmetry destroying recent "renovation" to reduce capacity and add luxury boxes) are, forget college football, two of the iconic sports venues on planet earth.
To eschew the opportunity to play a home-and-home with those two legendary power programs, in those venues, just marinated to the bone in the essence of college football, in favor of a vapid carnival of the well-heeled existing superfans in a freaking NFL dome in Vegas is an absolute dead-center bullseye of the kind of decision making I've been talking about in this thread.
It will add more to the 2024 balance sheet than the home game would though. This is what eating the seed corn looks like.
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
Right. And scheduling discussions take time. This is why you formalize some effective dates/parameters around when the scheduling component of the Alliance takes effect, if only to avoid the egg on your face of this exact scenario.
Looks like the big 12 will survive after all. Combine this news with the reports that UCF is talking to the big 12 about joining, it seems like everything's starting to come together.
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