Logistics would be challenging be here’s a thought: 9 ACC league games - 4 at home, 3 on the road and 2 in Los Angeles. Not ideal but better than every away game being in ACC territory and gives Cal continued (increased presence) in SoCal. Most importantly, I would have to think that the ACC teams would love to have a presence in LA for recruiting purposes (especially for a game they will consider an automatic win). It’s a lifeline for us and a fuck you to $SC and UCLA
Upon arrival in SC on or around NOV 1st you can expect see ClemsonBear logon (or South Carolina Bear but definitely no SCBear as I never want to be mistakenly associated with USC). Have the RV reserved to drive my dog and cat (and wife) cross country.
Yearly games per team is not way off. Pac12 plays 9 and ACC plays 8, so it's very close. Also ACC already has a complex conference scheduling that I don't even understand.
Unfortunately if we join the MWC, most of the teams will be shut down. We'll be down to football, basketball, and the self funded sports like rugby, baseball, etc.
My apologies. I don’t mean to be snarky on this just trying to see if there is a way to make this work. Unless the BIG10 comes back we are out of options. I’d rather see an imperfect option that allows us to pay the bills than a MW option where we likely slash much of the athletic department and are relegated to second tier status
BendOregonBear: Where are we supposed to play in LaLa land? $C and FUCLA would do everything possible to keep that from happening. One of the reasons that $C was so opposed to OU and UW joining the Big-10 was A) It means that they have to play two schools that have given them a hard time in football and B) It means more competition for recruiting. Both $C and FUCLA would love nothing better than to have Southern California all to themselves. Greedy bastards.
There are other stadiums than the Rose Bowl and Coliseum. Of course they would hate that but don’t see how they could stop it. Would be an added benefit of doing (a nice way to say fuck you) as well as making Cal and Furd more attractive e to the ACC. Great recruiting opportunity for them
UCLA doesn't actually own the Rose Bowl, the city of Pasadena does... while I'm ignorant on the details of their agreement, maybe there's some wiggle room there?
Neighbors to the Rose Bowl also want to limit the number of football games that can be played at the Rose Bowl. It's an issue of some controversy. So it's not clear to me that even if UCLA doesn't have any say, that such a request would be granted.
Vegas would be fun but, I think, misses the main point - an opportunity to play and recruit in SoCal would make us and furd much more attractive to the ACC (or at least seems like it should)
We could have some sort of Home-Neutral-Away setup with all the schools on the east coast, where each ACC team only has to do one trip to the west coast on any given year.
So for example, one year would be @Cal, Furd @home; next year neutral, neutral; following year Cal @home, @Furd, etc...
I don't know how it's possible either. Most likely scenario would be to convince ACC members that they get to play in LA, and it will be good for their recruiting and exposure. Adding west coast games means later tv time (it doesn't necessarily have to be in the evening, but just an afternoon game here) and ESPN might open wallet for bigger contract.
Yeah I was just kidding. A schedule could be worked out. Wouldn’t be easy but possible. Just trying to come up with and angle (playing/recruiting in SoCal) to make us and Furd a little more attractive.
IMO this is likely part of a leverage play to get a better offer from the B1G. (Or to look at it another way, ESPN upping the ante and forcing Fox to counter.)
But a temporary home in the ACC wouldn't be the worst thing.
It's weird to be joining a conference you know you're probably not likely to be part of in ten years. I'm not at all clear how we can compete with this amount of travel, but at the very least, there is no shortage of incentivization for our administration to get their act together after what has been a very illuminating stretch (and not in a good way). We just learned the hard way that you really can't go half way any more.
B1G: good money, meh geographic fit, bad competitive fit, good cultural fit
Big 12: ok money, good geographic fit, good competitive fit, meh cultural fit
ACC: ok money, bad geographic fit, good competitive fit, good cultural fit
(hypothetical) SEC: righteous bucks, bad geographic fit, bad competitive fit, bad cultural fit
Last resorts:
Mountain West: not enough money, best geographic fit, good competitive fit, ok cultural fit
Pac-4 plus whatever: not nearly enough money, best geographic fit, good competitive fit, good cultural fit
I think the Big 12 would be the most fun by a wide margin but at this point I would be happy with an ACC invite assuming the B1G isn't interested. I'm expecting football to basically break off from the other sports in a few years, so then we would most likely be ACC in football and basketball and western leagues of one sort or another for everything else. This would be workable for the players' mental health and for the department budget.
Edited: If we blew off the Big 12, that was at best an ill-advised risk. We still have no guarantee that any of the other big leagues will be interested, and the Big 12 would be infinitely preferable to the Mountain West, the Pac-4, or (barf) independent status.
We could also take the place of illustrious football programs such as Samford and Chatanooga and reform as the "cannon fodder" or "body bag" division. That's basically what Vandy is for to the rest of the SEC in football; an easy win.
It would indeed be quite enjoyable to kick a couple of those Big 12 programs in their teeth after all the trash talk that's been thrown our way.
I'm not saying we'd come in and dominate (of course not; that's for Utah to do lol), but we would for certain catch a few of those teams slipping. Like what happened to Texas, UNC, Ole Miss...
I think the B!G is the best fit and as for travel and over all, they'll carve out a west coast pod. I see little problem with that, a PAC 6 within the B!G, so that would make the B!G less of a geographic issue. I also think the B!G/Fox snubbing of us is a straight up negotiating tactic. UCLA, $C, Oregon, and Washington would love to have one less long plane ride and missed classes, although "missed classes" are probably not a problem for most $C "student-athletes."
As for a bad competitive fit, given our current record in our dearly departed conference, i honestly don't see a difference.
Fun Fact: Michigan and Wisconsin are certainly our academic equals and, yet, look at the importance and competitiveness of their football programs. Straight up competition in the same conference might blow away our Academe snob’s bullshit about how Academics varies inversely to football (money sports).
Wisconsin use to be like Northwestern in terms of admissions for student athletes but then they hired Donna Shalala she understood the importance of a good sports program when she came to Wisconsin they were in the whole $2 million. It was unbelievable how bad Wisconsin athletics was when she came in. Her first order of business was fire the Athletic Director and hire a new athletic Director , then they hired Barry Alverez and he turned the entire football program around and that’s the engine that drives the athletic department. Prior to his arrival Wisconsin had only won three games in three years. Now when Shalala came in they started making exceptions for some football players to get into the school. Say out of 88 scholarship football players they might make an exception for two or three of them to get in. It’s no hyperbole to say that Barry Alverez is the most consequential figure in the University of Wisconsin sports history. If he had not turn Wisconsin football around a case could be made that Wisconsin could’ve been kicked out of the Big 10.
Now would Cal make exceptions on a case by case basis to get some kids in? If you look at the roster history I think they have some times in the past. It’s not just football that needs to be successful Cal basketball also needs to be successful.
I'll never understand the hand-wringing over athletic admissions. Nobody would think twice about admitting a musical prodigy with a low math SAT score or a comp sci genius with english as a second language and thus a low verbal score.
The best admits are well-rounded. Running a 4.3 40-yd dash helps make someone well-round in my opinion lol. I'm OK if they "only" had a 3.2 GPA.
Again, people need to look at Cal's record against B1G programs over the last 20-30 years (to get a decent sample size) before declaring them a "bad competitive fit." We actually have a winning record against them in football; the B1G is not only OSU, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
I suspect we'd have been posting mostly the same W-L records over there as we did in the Pac.
We would go into the B1G West with Furd, UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Of that group maybe Furd, Nebraska, and Minnesota are around our level now, but everyone else is above it.
We would be more competitive in the B1G East: we'd get schooled by Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State but everyone else is our own size or smaller. Unfortunately, we'd probably play only 1-2 of those teams every year.
Given where we've been sitting in the Pac-12 standings lately, is it all that different to be worse than >50% of the teams on our schedule? (Also, is Nebraska, who hasn't posted a winning season since 2016, REALLY above our level?)
Cal doesn't have a very good team right now, so would also post losing records in the B1G. If we took in some of our better teams from the Tedford years or our BEST teams from the Dykes or Wilcox years, we'd probably also have a winning record in the B1G. That's my point. It's just up to how good our team is, not the schedule being tougher over there.
I think it’s easy to underestimate this year’s team simply based upon last year’s disaster. Also, I think the underdog status is a powerful motivator. Think Rocky more and The Road less, IMHO.
I actually don’t understand why we aren’t focused on Big 12? With their recent additions in Arizona and Utah it makes a lot of sense geographically. Even TX is not that far - a lot easier than going to East Coast. And the cultural stuff, whatever the hell that means, is a plus not a minus IMO. I like the idea of an intra-conference rivalry between CA and TX schools - it sounds like a fun bit of regional back and forth.
Agree with you on the substance of those views but I don’t follow why that means we can’t be in an athletic conference with these schools? We need to learn how to disagree and get along. And also, in my experience the people with strong views against any particular group tend not to know anyone in that group. Exposure is the antidote to bigotry
No, we do not need to "learn to disagree" with institutions that want to deny people fundamental rights in 2023, or have a fairly recent history of promoting racial segregation and denying Black people the ability to hold positions in the church. This is not a case of a she's a little bit country, he's a little bit rock n roll. I can recognize that the people of Stillwater, OK or Lubbock, TX may think differently than us, and that's fine, it's a little bit different when it's the University itself that holds and promotes those views.
If we cleave our world off from theirs, it just enables them to continue doing the stuff you are complaining about. It’s like self-imposed gerrymandering
So we're imagining that sending our LGBTQ+ athletes, band members, and fans to Provo is going to win hearts over ala a proselytizing strike mission? Seriously doubt it. Think about how strongly you hold your beliefs about LGBTQ rights. We aren't going to change their minds any more than they are going to change ours.
Religious institutions exist, and might have policies you disagree with. We are insane for digging our heads into the sand and refusing to interact with them.
Also, are you aware our new basketball coach is a member of the church?
If Madsen comes out in support of the LDS's views on LGBTQ+ people then I suspect he won't be coach at Cal much longer. But he doesn't strike me as a man who agrees with the LDS stance. Even if he did, he's been silent on it, something the church has not been.
We are in agreement but you kinda ignored the second half of their point there, wouldn't you say?
In other words, wouldn't it be awesome to roll into BYU, score a touchdown in their house, and the camera pans to crazed Cal fans waving a rainbow flag? I'd like to see it.
Our situation is what it is today because we had two dumbfuck conference commissioners in a row, our administrators have been incompetent, and as a result, our fanbase has been largely apathetic. Frankly this applies to your program too, you just have the luxury of being tied to USC.
Not according to SBRnet Sports Marketing, which advises conferences on realignment. UCLA consistently ranks in the top 10 programs among college football fans.
I find this attitude frustrating because taken to its logical extreme, it advocates for breaking apart the United States as a nation. It also does nothing for LGBTQ+ people who live in states with backwards laws and attitudes; it probably puts LGBTQ+ people even more at risk than they are already.
Would not this enable the status quo of Cal enduring continuous middling football? Get our asses kicked and the admin will have to pay attention. Especially if the ass-kicking comes from fellow Academic giants, besides UCLA, $C (gulp, that's hard to say), but, also, Michigan, Wisconsin. Illinois, et cetera.
From what I have read, the BIG 12 had space in their media contract for up to 16 teams. Beyond that additional members would dilute revenue for the other schools unless something could be worked out with the networks. And as we are seeing with the B1G situation, there doesn't seem to be much appetite from the networks for throwing in more money to add us.
So considering it is a pretty bad cultural/academic fit to begin with, I highly doubt we are going to get them to vote us in, even on a partial share.
That is a fair point but IMO they should be. It puts them in CA which is good for recruiting and marketing exposure generally. I think the green eye shade guys at the conferences are thinking way too narrowly about all this stuff by focusing exclusively on incremental TV dollars. I get it that is the bird in hand, but there is a broader business case here about network effects, recruiting, rivalry creation and so on
I will differ only in that the decision-making from a financial perspective is being made by the TV networks and less by the conferences. I see the conferences as being in thrall to the TV networks and the conferences being used as proxies for Fox and ESPN, primarily.
Fox and ESPN are way too big for their britches and their war is being visited on the colleges.
I agree but the actual decision makers are still the conferences. Their lack of vision is obvious but also sad.
One other thing going on here - I know I’m an outlier on this, but I think we are only at the beginning of a wave of lawsuits by former student athletes against universities for brain injuries incurred while playing intercollegiate sports. The effect of those suits won’t really hurt the NFL, but I think they will hurt college football significantly. As a result, over time, I think Olympic sports become more of the focus at the collegiate level. And guess which two schools without a conference home are top shelf Olympic sports schools - Cal and Stanford!
The conferences aren't the decision makers; they are mere rubber stamps for the TV networks. Witness the nonsense about how B1G college presidents wanted Cal and Stanf*rd to join, but they were rebuffed because Cal and Stanf*rd didn't bring enough eyeballs. The conferences don't make decisions based on viewership: the TV networks do.
Further, the conferences are making decisions based on money being offered by the TV networks, not what's in the *academic* best interests of the conference or its member schools. If these conferences were about the academic mission of their member institutions, athletics would be secondary, not primary and TV would be tertiary, at best, not primary.
Agree the conferences are effectively delegating their decision making on realignment to the networks, but this is such short term / small beer thinking. Even from a business case, it’s only a slice of the overall case.
Re academics, not sure that matters for an athletic conf tbh. I never really understood this view. Who cares if the school you are playing football against is a “research university”? What does that have to do with the mission of the athletic conference? I always thought ppl made way too much of that
We could do this if it were football and basketball only. I wish they would keep the PAC-12 together on the Olympic sports, etc front and make all this alignment for football/basketball(which would be tough).
It's rather peculiar that Oregon State is being overlooked despite its status as a top 25 team. The only reason that comes to mind for their absence from the radar of P5 conferences is their previous placement as last in TV ratings within the PAC 12. It's possible that the litmus test for TV networks revolves around the necessity of attracting viewers to tune in and watch the games. But then again there's Arizona which was ranked 11th in TV ratings and yet still got the bag.
I think I saw that one. It still isn't clear whether we had expressed any interest to them (as we had to the B1G) before they admitted Arizona, ASU, and Utah. If we didn't, it was irresponsible.
I know this sounds naive, and I know that not everybody wants this, but is there ANY scenario where Cal could thread the needle and achieve the following?
• Keep all 30 teams financially solvent and cover all expenses
• Schedule competitions with appropriate opponents for all 30 teams
• Make it possible to watch, via some medium, every event for all 30 teams
• Keep every opponent within an average distance of 1,000 miles, thereby preserving regionalism
• Not get involved in the big time college football NFL-lite money circus that would compromise any of the above (see "keep all 30 teams financially solvent" above)
"Cal cannot have it all anymore. The Bears are going to have to take the best of whatever bad options are presented to them." Ten will get you twenty if they don't fuck this up too...
Admin don't give a shit about football and money sports, except as much as they have to.
Perfunctory, blase admin compliance and academic pretensions of all academia and zero sports. A purposeful, passive denigration of football to create a culture where current students even shun their fellow students that play sports, especially football, as though such traditions are part of an evil collective past that must be erased and cancelled. Teaching students to hate traditions is the tell and it's been a long time cultivated. The product is a rarefied academic bubble where students, once turned out, crash and burn in the real world, with incomplete skills only suited to other academic bubbles, should they be lucky enough to find such.
Honestly, I think that is what has brought us to this brink.
ACC fans are not thrilled with the idea of adding Cal and Stanfurd. Still stuck on idea of a geographically sensible conference, which is hard to criticize. Though they don't see to get that it would not have much effect on each team (while the effect on the Bay Area schools would be a lot more drastic).
They better get on board, because they need to get ready for the eventual exodus that happens in 2035-2036. The near future ignores regionality, and trying to avoid that is going to be a problem unless you're like the SEC and 60% of your conference is Blue Bloods.
The best of a god awful situation. A good chunk of it our own making
Agreed, the only positive would be we no longer would have to tolerate the insufferable insolence of the USC band and their one song playbook.
This is the only great thing that has come of this mess.
although let's be frank. I'm going to miss playing USC... just so much to hate. it really galvanizes our fan base.
Logistics would be challenging be here’s a thought: 9 ACC league games - 4 at home, 3 on the road and 2 in Los Angeles. Not ideal but better than every away game being in ACC territory and gives Cal continued (increased presence) in SoCal. Most importantly, I would have to think that the ACC teams would love to have a presence in LA for recruiting purposes (especially for a game they will consider an automatic win). It’s a lifeline for us and a fuck you to $SC and UCLA
Clemson/CAL and FSU/CAL in LA...that would bring the fans out.
Played in Sofi Stadium
Well, well, this needs expounding.
Beat me to it. I’m also in the process of moving from Bend, OR to an hour outside of Clemson so, for selfish reasons, I’d be happy for this outcome.
The real question: will you change your username?!
Upon arrival in SC on or around NOV 1st you can expect see ClemsonBear logon (or South Carolina Bear but definitely no SCBear as I never want to be mistakenly associated with USC). Have the RV reserved to drive my dog and cat (and wife) cross country.
I think getting an RV is somewhere in our ten year plan... We rented one a year ago and it was a blast.
They’re money pits on wheels., but, yeah, it’s your own pillow every night and one can see so many different things. Safe travels.
We have a ‘99 Winnebago motor home. I have learned to be careful about putting my wife in parentheses. 😉
lmao @ the cat-wife imagery
Bend is a great town but been here 12 years and time to move on. Greenville SC is the new Bend.
You might remain within Cal conference territory!
Yearly games per team is not way off. Pac12 plays 9 and ACC plays 8, so it's very close. Also ACC already has a complex conference scheduling that I don't even understand.
Ok. So let’s join the mountain west.
We need a power 5 home to support our entire athletic program. Right now, no one else wants us. Should we shut down athletics and move on?
Unfortunately if we join the MWC, most of the teams will be shut down. We'll be down to football, basketball, and the self funded sports like rugby, baseball, etc.
My apologies. I don’t mean to be snarky on this just trying to see if there is a way to make this work. Unless the BIG10 comes back we are out of options. I’d rather see an imperfect option that allows us to pay the bills than a MW option where we likely slash much of the athletic department and are relegated to second tier status
BendOregonBear: Where are we supposed to play in LaLa land? $C and FUCLA would do everything possible to keep that from happening. One of the reasons that $C was so opposed to OU and UW joining the Big-10 was A) It means that they have to play two schools that have given them a hard time in football and B) It means more competition for recruiting. Both $C and FUCLA would love nothing better than to have Southern California all to themselves. Greedy bastards.
I want to play at the Coliseum...so I can take a dump on the floor.
There are other stadiums than the Rose Bowl and Coliseum. Of course they would hate that but don’t see how they could stop it. Would be an added benefit of doing (a nice way to say fuck you) as well as making Cal and Furd more attractive e to the ACC. Great recruiting opportunity for them
UCLA doesn't actually own the Rose Bowl, the city of Pasadena does... while I'm ignorant on the details of their agreement, maybe there's some wiggle room there?
Neighbors to the Rose Bowl also want to limit the number of football games that can be played at the Rose Bowl. It's an issue of some controversy. So it's not clear to me that even if UCLA doesn't have any say, that such a request would be granted.
Damn NIMBYs :(
Oh how I love that logic. You move to a home near agriculture, then complain about the dust. Pasadena pussies.
Good points. I guess that SoFi is an option but it depends on how much it might cost. Better yet, Allegiant Stadium in Vegas! Road trips, baby!!!!!
Vegas would be fun but, I think, misses the main point - an opportunity to play and recruit in SoCal would make us and furd much more attractive to the ACC (or at least seems like it should)
Yeah! I really was disappointed when CAL and UNLV couldn't actually play the first game ever at Allegiant!
Would it just be neutral site games in LA?
I guess it would have to be but I think a Cal-Clemson, furd-Florida St games would get a good turnout.
Agreeing to a couple neutral field games in Los Angeles (or even replacing home games) is a phenomenal leverage point.
We could have some sort of Home-Neutral-Away setup with all the schools on the east coast, where each ACC team only has to do one trip to the west coast on any given year.
So for example, one year would be @Cal, Furd @home; next year neutral, neutral; following year Cal @home, @Furd, etc...
Exactly! Which ACC football or basketball team wouldn’t want a game in California every year rotating between Bay Area and LA.
My brother in Oski, we are past the point of focusing on tradition unfortunately. Tradition is a "nice-to-have", we're in survival mode.
I eat turkey on thanksgiving; it's tradition. If I'm on a deserted island on thanksgiving, I'll eat whatever the fuck I can find lol.
Well said.
Hunger Games mode.
It means 4 home games, 3 away games and 2 neutral site games.
I don’t see how that’s possible. Can you explain that to me
I don't know how it's possible either. Most likely scenario would be to convince ACC members that they get to play in LA, and it will be good for their recruiting and exposure. Adding west coast games means later tv time (it doesn't necessarily have to be in the evening, but just an afternoon game here) and ESPN might open wallet for bigger contract.
Yeah I was just kidding. A schedule could be worked out. Wouldn’t be easy but possible. Just trying to come up with and angle (playing/recruiting in SoCal) to make us and Furd a little more attractive.
Yeah, but West Coast games that conflict with SEC, will only be on The Ocho. So, it will be more PAC-12 After Dark.
I never said it was a good idea
Can you guys imagine Duke at Cal in basketball? I'm salivating at that opportunity to see this particular game! Please make this happen!
IMO this is likely part of a leverage play to get a better offer from the B1G. (Or to look at it another way, ESPN upping the ante and forcing Fox to counter.)
But a temporary home in the ACC wouldn't be the worst thing.
we need the ghost of Joe Kapp to pull off the greatest comeback in college FB history, again, only this time throwing us a lifeline on the Titanic
It's weird to be joining a conference you know you're probably not likely to be part of in ten years. I'm not at all clear how we can compete with this amount of travel, but at the very least, there is no shortage of incentivization for our administration to get their act together after what has been a very illuminating stretch (and not in a good way). We just learned the hard way that you really can't go half way any more.
Any port in a storm...
B1G: good money, meh geographic fit, bad competitive fit, good cultural fit
Big 12: ok money, good geographic fit, good competitive fit, meh cultural fit
ACC: ok money, bad geographic fit, good competitive fit, good cultural fit
(hypothetical) SEC: righteous bucks, bad geographic fit, bad competitive fit, bad cultural fit
Last resorts:
Mountain West: not enough money, best geographic fit, good competitive fit, ok cultural fit
Pac-4 plus whatever: not nearly enough money, best geographic fit, good competitive fit, good cultural fit
I think the Big 12 would be the most fun by a wide margin but at this point I would be happy with an ACC invite assuming the B1G isn't interested. I'm expecting football to basically break off from the other sports in a few years, so then we would most likely be ACC in football and basketball and western leagues of one sort or another for everything else. This would be workable for the players' mental health and for the department budget.
Edited: If we blew off the Big 12, that was at best an ill-advised risk. We still have no guarantee that any of the other big leagues will be interested, and the Big 12 would be infinitely preferable to the Mountain West, the Pac-4, or (barf) independent status.
re: SEC, add Cal 'furd & Rice, and with Vandy, we could add an academic Division called teh Nobels.
We could also take the place of illustrious football programs such as Samford and Chatanooga and reform as the "cannon fodder" or "body bag" division. That's basically what Vandy is for to the rest of the SEC in football; an easy win.
It would indeed be quite enjoyable to kick a couple of those Big 12 programs in their teeth after all the trash talk that's been thrown our way.
I'm not saying we'd come in and dominate (of course not; that's for Utah to do lol), but we would for certain catch a few of those teams slipping. Like what happened to Texas, UNC, Ole Miss...
I think the B!G is the best fit and as for travel and over all, they'll carve out a west coast pod. I see little problem with that, a PAC 6 within the B!G, so that would make the B!G less of a geographic issue. I also think the B!G/Fox snubbing of us is a straight up negotiating tactic. UCLA, $C, Oregon, and Washington would love to have one less long plane ride and missed classes, although "missed classes" are probably not a problem for most $C "student-athletes."
As for a bad competitive fit, given our current record in our dearly departed conference, i honestly don't see a difference.
Fun Fact: Michigan and Wisconsin are certainly our academic equals and, yet, look at the importance and competitiveness of their football programs. Straight up competition in the same conference might blow away our Academe snob’s bullshit about how Academics varies inversely to football (money sports).
Wisconsin use to be like Northwestern in terms of admissions for student athletes but then they hired Donna Shalala she understood the importance of a good sports program when she came to Wisconsin they were in the whole $2 million. It was unbelievable how bad Wisconsin athletics was when she came in. Her first order of business was fire the Athletic Director and hire a new athletic Director , then they hired Barry Alverez and he turned the entire football program around and that’s the engine that drives the athletic department. Prior to his arrival Wisconsin had only won three games in three years. Now when Shalala came in they started making exceptions for some football players to get into the school. Say out of 88 scholarship football players they might make an exception for two or three of them to get in. It’s no hyperbole to say that Barry Alverez is the most consequential figure in the University of Wisconsin sports history. If he had not turn Wisconsin football around a case could be made that Wisconsin could’ve been kicked out of the Big 10.
Now would Cal make exceptions on a case by case basis to get some kids in? If you look at the roster history I think they have some times in the past. It’s not just football that needs to be successful Cal basketball also needs to be successful.
I'll never understand the hand-wringing over athletic admissions. Nobody would think twice about admitting a musical prodigy with a low math SAT score or a comp sci genius with english as a second language and thus a low verbal score.
The best admits are well-rounded. Running a 4.3 40-yd dash helps make someone well-round in my opinion lol. I'm OK if they "only" had a 3.2 GPA.
Again, people need to look at Cal's record against B1G programs over the last 20-30 years (to get a decent sample size) before declaring them a "bad competitive fit." We actually have a winning record against them in football; the B1G is not only OSU, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
I suspect we'd have been posting mostly the same W-L records over there as we did in the Pac.
We would go into the B1G West with Furd, UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Of that group maybe Furd, Nebraska, and Minnesota are around our level now, but everyone else is above it.
We would be more competitive in the B1G East: we'd get schooled by Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State but everyone else is our own size or smaller. Unfortunately, we'd probably play only 1-2 of those teams every year.
Given where we've been sitting in the Pac-12 standings lately, is it all that different to be worse than >50% of the teams on our schedule? (Also, is Nebraska, who hasn't posted a winning season since 2016, REALLY above our level?)
Cal doesn't have a very good team right now, so would also post losing records in the B1G. If we took in some of our better teams from the Tedford years or our BEST teams from the Dykes or Wilcox years, we'd probably also have a winning record in the B1G. That's my point. It's just up to how good our team is, not the schedule being tougher over there.
I think it’s easy to underestimate this year’s team simply based upon last year’s disaster. Also, I think the underdog status is a powerful motivator. Think Rocky more and The Road less, IMHO.
Looks like SEC is the way to go
Seems to me that this is evolving (devolving?) into a Fox vs ESPN battle, so maybe it’ll be like the NFC and AFC of the NFL in a few years?
Bingo!
Good point. The networks are driving this whole mess.
I'd compared it to the AL/NL before but your division gets down to the core issue.
I actually don’t understand why we aren’t focused on Big 12? With their recent additions in Arizona and Utah it makes a lot of sense geographically. Even TX is not that far - a lot easier than going to East Coast. And the cultural stuff, whatever the hell that means, is a plus not a minus IMO. I like the idea of an intra-conference rivalry between CA and TX schools - it sounds like a fun bit of regional back and forth.
The Baptist and LDS views on LGBTQ+ people is a non-starter for me.
Agree with you on the substance of those views but I don’t follow why that means we can’t be in an athletic conference with these schools? We need to learn how to disagree and get along. And also, in my experience the people with strong views against any particular group tend not to know anyone in that group. Exposure is the antidote to bigotry
No, we do not need to "learn to disagree" with institutions that want to deny people fundamental rights in 2023, or have a fairly recent history of promoting racial segregation and denying Black people the ability to hold positions in the church. This is not a case of a she's a little bit country, he's a little bit rock n roll. I can recognize that the people of Stillwater, OK or Lubbock, TX may think differently than us, and that's fine, it's a little bit different when it's the University itself that holds and promotes those views.
If we cleave our world off from theirs, it just enables them to continue doing the stuff you are complaining about. It’s like self-imposed gerrymandering
So we're imagining that sending our LGBTQ+ athletes, band members, and fans to Provo is going to win hearts over ala a proselytizing strike mission? Seriously doubt it. Think about how strongly you hold your beliefs about LGBTQ rights. We aren't going to change their minds any more than they are going to change ours.
Religious institutions exist, and might have policies you disagree with. We are insane for digging our heads into the sand and refusing to interact with them.
Also, are you aware our new basketball coach is a member of the church?
We already do and pretty much always have.
If Madsen comes out in support of the LDS's views on LGBTQ+ people then I suspect he won't be coach at Cal much longer. But he doesn't strike me as a man who agrees with the LDS stance. Even if he did, he's been silent on it, something the church has not been.
We are in agreement but you kinda ignored the second half of their point there, wouldn't you say?
In other words, wouldn't it be awesome to roll into BYU, score a touchdown in their house, and the camera pans to crazed Cal fans waving a rainbow flag? I'd like to see it.
Your attitude is the exact reason the PAC-12 collapsed.
Exactly^^^ this!
We also have and have had plenty of LDS kids on our football team. The best way to change minds is to build bridges, not burn them.
Our situation is what it is today because we had two dumbfuck conference commissioners in a row, our administrators have been incompetent, and as a result, our fanbase has been largely apathetic. Frankly this applies to your program too, you just have the luxury of being tied to USC.
Not according to SBRnet Sports Marketing, which advises conferences on realignment. UCLA consistently ranks in the top 10 programs among college football fans.
https://247sports.com/longformarticle/alabama-slips-among-college-footballs-10-most-popular-teams-entering-2023-season-208673214/amp/
I find this attitude frustrating because taken to its logical extreme, it advocates for breaking apart the United States as a nation. It also does nothing for LGBTQ+ people who live in states with backwards laws and attitudes; it probably puts LGBTQ+ people even more at risk than they are already.
You can end up with a lot of absurd conclusions when you push anything to its logical extreme.
So where's the benefit to LGBTQ+ people if we decide to enforce such a ban? I don't see that keeping ourselves within silos helps anyone.
What ban dude? Nobody has said anything about seceding/splitting the nation or banning anything.
Bravo. The First Amendment matters. We can agree to disagree and stay one. E pluribus unum.
In terms of who we would play, I would totally prefer the Big 12 slate.
I wouldn't. Clemson, FSU, Duke, UNC, even Georgia Tech are all more interesting to me than TT, TCU, Baylor, etc.
Would not this enable the status quo of Cal enduring continuous middling football? Get our asses kicked and the admin will have to pay attention. Especially if the ass-kicking comes from fellow Academic giants, besides UCLA, $C (gulp, that's hard to say), but, also, Michigan, Wisconsin. Illinois, et cetera.
From what I have read, the BIG 12 had space in their media contract for up to 16 teams. Beyond that additional members would dilute revenue for the other schools unless something could be worked out with the networks. And as we are seeing with the B1G situation, there doesn't seem to be much appetite from the networks for throwing in more money to add us.
So considering it is a pretty bad cultural/academic fit to begin with, I highly doubt we are going to get them to vote us in, even on a partial share.
I wonder if there is interest from the Big XII in adding Cal and Stanf*rd, though. They're at 16 teams with the addition of the Four Corners schools.
That is a fair point but IMO they should be. It puts them in CA which is good for recruiting and marketing exposure generally. I think the green eye shade guys at the conferences are thinking way too narrowly about all this stuff by focusing exclusively on incremental TV dollars. I get it that is the bird in hand, but there is a broader business case here about network effects, recruiting, rivalry creation and so on
I will differ only in that the decision-making from a financial perspective is being made by the TV networks and less by the conferences. I see the conferences as being in thrall to the TV networks and the conferences being used as proxies for Fox and ESPN, primarily.
Fox and ESPN are way too big for their britches and their war is being visited on the colleges.
I agree but the actual decision makers are still the conferences. Their lack of vision is obvious but also sad.
One other thing going on here - I know I’m an outlier on this, but I think we are only at the beginning of a wave of lawsuits by former student athletes against universities for brain injuries incurred while playing intercollegiate sports. The effect of those suits won’t really hurt the NFL, but I think they will hurt college football significantly. As a result, over time, I think Olympic sports become more of the focus at the collegiate level. And guess which two schools without a conference home are top shelf Olympic sports schools - Cal and Stanford!
The conferences aren't the decision makers; they are mere rubber stamps for the TV networks. Witness the nonsense about how B1G college presidents wanted Cal and Stanf*rd to join, but they were rebuffed because Cal and Stanf*rd didn't bring enough eyeballs. The conferences don't make decisions based on viewership: the TV networks do.
Further, the conferences are making decisions based on money being offered by the TV networks, not what's in the *academic* best interests of the conference or its member schools. If these conferences were about the academic mission of their member institutions, athletics would be secondary, not primary and TV would be tertiary, at best, not primary.
Agree the conferences are effectively delegating their decision making on realignment to the networks, but this is such short term / small beer thinking. Even from a business case, it’s only a slice of the overall case.
Re academics, not sure that matters for an athletic conf tbh. I never really understood this view. Who cares if the school you are playing football against is a “research university”? What does that have to do with the mission of the athletic conference? I always thought ppl made way too much of that
We could do this if it were football and basketball only. I wish they would keep the PAC-12 together on the Olympic sports, etc front and make all this alignment for football/basketball(which would be tough).
Except for $SC and UCLA. No former PAC team should ever schedule them in anything again. Let them pay to send water polo to Rutgers.
Oregon State is starting the football season ranked 18th in the coaches poll and yet their program is doomed.
I wish I didn’t care about college football.
It's rather peculiar that Oregon State is being overlooked despite its status as a top 25 team. The only reason that comes to mind for their absence from the radar of P5 conferences is their previous placement as last in TV ratings within the PAC 12. It's possible that the litmus test for TV networks revolves around the necessity of attracting viewers to tune in and watch the games. But then again there's Arizona which was ranked 11th in TV ratings and yet still got the bag.
The Big 14/12ths passed on the Bay Area schools, not the other way around.
Source?
https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1688657142486646784?s=19
Not exactly definitive but could be interpreted as such.
I think I saw that one. It still isn't clear whether we had expressed any interest to them (as we had to the B1G) before they admitted Arizona, ASU, and Utah. If we didn't, it was irresponsible.
I know this sounds naive, and I know that not everybody wants this, but is there ANY scenario where Cal could thread the needle and achieve the following?
• Keep all 30 teams financially solvent and cover all expenses
• Schedule competitions with appropriate opponents for all 30 teams
• Make it possible to watch, via some medium, every event for all 30 teams
• Keep every opponent within an average distance of 1,000 miles, thereby preserving regionalism
• Not get involved in the big time college football NFL-lite money circus that would compromise any of the above (see "keep all 30 teams financially solvent" above)
No
I mean, it's not impossible. If you recall, once upon a time there used to be a Pac12 conference that achieved all of that.
If we get $30M-$35M from the ACC and manage to keep Calimony, and Wilcox/Madsen turn things around in the ACC to get the fans buying tickets again?
How much cheaper would it be if football only was ACC and everything else remained west coast?
Maybe we will get $15 million from ACC and $20 million from Apple
Maybe with a/some superdonor(s)/whale(s).
*calls Elon.
"How about a deal with Twitter, er, X?'
If there's anyone who could F this up worse than the Pac-12 brass did, it's Musk.
"Cal cannot have it all anymore. The Bears are going to have to take the best of whatever bad options are presented to them." Ten will get you twenty if they don't fuck this up too...
Because Cal...
Admin don't give a shit about football and money sports, except as much as they have to.
Perfunctory, blase admin compliance and academic pretensions of all academia and zero sports. A purposeful, passive denigration of football to create a culture where current students even shun their fellow students that play sports, especially football, as though such traditions are part of an evil collective past that must be erased and cancelled. Teaching students to hate traditions is the tell and it's been a long time cultivated. The product is a rarefied academic bubble where students, once turned out, crash and burn in the real world, with incomplete skills only suited to other academic bubbles, should they be lucky enough to find such.
Honestly, I think that is what has brought us to this brink.
Awesome!
Interested in seeing how TF that’s gonna work!! ;-)
ACC fans are not thrilled with the idea of adding Cal and Stanfurd. Still stuck on idea of a geographically sensible conference, which is hard to criticize. Though they don't see to get that it would not have much effect on each team (while the effect on the Bay Area schools would be a lot more drastic).
They better get on board, because they need to get ready for the eventual exodus that happens in 2035-2036. The near future ignores regionality, and trying to avoid that is going to be a problem unless you're like the SEC and 60% of your conference is Blue Bloods.