I have a feeling that Texas is going to go independent at some point and leave the dwarves of the power 5 out in the dust and Oklahoma desperate to find a new home.
Not to turn this into a realignment thread, but OU would be best served to find a home in the SEC or Big10.
If you're going to include the Big 10 in that list then you need to also include the ACC.
I don't necessarily agree. Top to Bottom, the Big10 fans show up for their games. Can you say that about the ACC?
The B1G, as a conference, has real, long term cohesion. The conference has been around forever, with pretty steady membership. The ACC simply doesn't have history as a football conference. Essentially you have fans of schools which are loosely affiliated into a conference. Look no further than their conference championship game attendance. Even when they have a national championship contender in the game, attendance is horrid and tickets cannot be given away.
I don't think that will happen unless they work out a Notre Dame-like deal with the Big 12. It is supposed to be hard to find teams who want to play in a sure loss. Now when (not if) Texas comes back to their powerhouse status they will find it hard to schedule good teams 12 times each year. Well, at least that is the going theory about paying the big buyouts for the cupcakes.
Meh don’t put it past Texas to pull some crap and see a potential ND model of doing things.
That is what I am thinking. Even if they did a Notre Dame-like deal with the All America Conference it would probably work. Several teams close to home (Houston, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, Memphis) and still seven games to schedule the P5 teams.
This is an interesting question. Can schools cut the payroll to match the declining revenue? AD's as well as coaches? At some point it will have to be done unless another source of revenue is found.
If Texas gave the Big 12 the choice of either them leaving or staying in all sports but football and (in football) doing a Notre Dame-style agreement of playing Baylor, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and 1 other rotating Big 12 every year (in exchange for a proportional cut of the TV pie), I'll bet the Big 12 would take the deal. Because the Pac 12 would certainly take that deal.
I've never bought that more to do line, unless the more has to do with non-outdoor activity like other sports or concerts etc. From my house just outside of atlanta, I can be in my kayak on the river in 15 minutes, either of a couple of huge lakes in 45-60 minutes, national park hiking trails in 15, the start of the Appalachian Trail which is surrounded by other amazing hikes in 1:15, local MTB trail with awesome freeride sections in 15 or really amazing MTB trails in North GA in about 1:30 and some of the best in the world in NC in about 2:30, whitewater kayaking is only 1:40 and rock climbing all over the place. The only thing that's a bit of a long haul is the ocean. There's more than enough to do, it's just that folks tend to schedule those activities around their football team schedule. It's also a bit easier to schedule here. If we start at a reasonable time, it's easy to get in a solid outdoor morning activity before even the noon games, and if it's an afternoon or evening game then it can be a big day outside. Back in Tuscaloosa, we used to get in big MTB rides in the national forest before games on Saturdays. Of course, all those fun outdoor things were before my kids started playing fall sports, so now everything revolves around their schedule, regardless of what football games are on...
The things you state are true, but the likelihood that they will be resolved is almost nil. Though the TZ/geography issue exists, IMO, the far greater issue is that, with a couple of exceptions, they simply do not care enough about college football. That affects more than just people in seats, but direct giving, TV eyeballs, website hits, merchandise sales, etc. I.e., money. They can't overcome that and the gap will likely widen rather than close.
If I'm being blunt, you get all that in Virginia. The Deep South can lack the mountains, for the most part, but it's not a "California only" thing. We have Virginia Beach, myriad lakes and rivers, the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley, etc.
