A Take on Future Realignment

I believe Jon Wilner is drinking the OU w/ A&M rumor kool-aid a bit too much.  A&M has real interest in the SEC and they don’t care if it is without OU.  Plenty prefer it that way.  Every time OU has shown up it has been mostly about politicking by teaming up with A&M to just barely outweigh what Texas wants.  OU just isn’t as actually interested in the SEC.  They know they are desireable so it suits them to look popular.  They prefer to stay with oSu if at all possible, and also are like Texas, but not as cowardly, in that they want a strong league but nothing crazy strong.  The SEC I feel has the preference of adding 2 teams in the west and 2 teams in the east and it best suits how the rivalries and divsions would play out in my opinion.  The SEC doesn’t really need a team as strong as OU, but they can target who they want.  Truth is without UT and OU and if A&M goes SEC we still won’t pass them.  Best we could do is be right about there.  If UT went indy we would always stay a tad behind even with both Oklahoma schools so there really is no good reason for the SEC to try to be way more stacked than everyone else. Will just mean more times where Alabama/ LSU/ Florida/ Auburn and potentially OU trip eachother up in a quest for a BCS bowl or playoff spot.  There has been talk of the SEC also maybe conceding to make a harder push at OU by making room for oSu too, but that prevents oSu from hardly ever making a BCS bowl and means they would only be able to add one eastern team instead of two which is less than ideal.  It also means a team like Auburn would have to move to the east and that creates further issues.

I think JackBeav was getting closer to the PAC’s best interests.  Focus on the Oklahoma schools first and what we offer them.  Truth is we can pay them about the same as the SEC over time.  The PAC is only going to get better and there will be national forces to have very similar pay between the Big 3 conferences.  Sure when one conference announces a new deal they will beat the one before, but that will be the case every time a new deal gets announced every decade or so and the PAC will go past the SEC for a few years again when they negotaiate their next MegaTV deal.   Plus, Scott’s current contract also raises the dollar amount if we expand, so we also get to renogotiate and get more when that happens.   The PAC should ideally add to the Oklahoma schools in the state of Texas.  Houston is viable as it is attractive to get these major cities and Houston is a top 6 market and will grow even bigger.  I like TCU as a football team too and it is about football.  They don’t seem overly religiously zealots at all and I think they could fit fine in a PAC if we wanted more firepower.  They also bring the Dallas/ Ft. Worth market which would be great to add with Houston.  To me they are more attractive than TT and would like to have more teams in their region and the extra pay and prestige the PAC would bring.  Rice I suppose could not be ruled out and we still should consider TT and UT but the truth is there will be 2 quality enough teams available in Texas that the PAC can and should make work that coupled with the Oklahoma schools would atleast put us pretty close to the SEC and very respectable.  It would work itself out with 4 teams really solidifying us in the region with enough options and especially if we get the Oklahoma schools.  We could add a KU and MU to a couple of Texas teams and probably just hold on enough.  Similarly with just one Oklahoma team and atleast one Texas team and 2 others in the area we also could hang on.  These options are better than picking from any MWC teams at all honestly, because you get enough of a region and can make it work over the long haul with 4 teams.  As soon as you mess with that with a UNLV or anything else, it gets harder to get 2 or 3 other teams from the prefered Southwest region because you don’t have an ideal grouping with nice travel pairs.  We can make this work though, just have to get a little creative and realize there are 2 teams in Texas most likely for the PAC no matter what the SEC tries doing.

We offer just as much for the Oklahoma schools and a more winnable division that suits them.  Bob Stoops always liked the PAC-16 idea.  And with just OU as the major power they get to win plenty of PAC-16 East division titles and oSu also will win its share over time.  The nice thing is so will ASU, Utah and others and a potential team like TCU who would fit in nicely as far as their strength into that mix.  I think I lean TCU/HOUSTON and OU/OSU now just because of how it all would fit together and give us Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston.  I still would be Ok with UT and TT just because I think the poltics should be fairly smooth since they almost came before and all the teams used to being BCS members could nicely fall into place in a well balanced national landscape but any move will have its politics and if the Okie schools are tired of being the UT b*tch then match them up with a couple other Texas schools and let UT go indy and they can schedule them OOC at will while being able to be bigger players themselves.