On a 19 point scale, how photogenic are you? That is, how easy is it to take a good picture of what you look like, regardless of how ugly/handsome/pretty you are. I’m asking because my wife looks perfectly cromulent but can never seem to take a picture with her eyes open. Every. Single. Time.
I applaud the Japanese trying their best under Covid conditions when they can't get together to collaborate in person. That was a polite and... uh... understated opening ceremony.
I'm usually more excited about it, but the combination of the time difference, NBC's shitty "after the fact" coverage, and my general malaise regarding superspreader events in a global pandemic, are all coming together for a gentle "meh" reaction this time.
NBC actually showed it live on one of their channels and will show it again recorded and edited for the prime time audience. Showing a lot of stuff live at times most people can only record.
There's no getting around the fact that Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of EDT. I'm not going to sitting up until 3 am to watch dressage. Also, perhaps I'm just getting old, but I was looking at the NBC sports olympics coverage website just now and it was borderline indecipherable. I'm too casual a viewer to invest the time in trying to figure that shit out.
I'm old so I still get the Post delivered. It has a special section today that does a good job of showing what's being shown and when. Not sure if the website duplicates it.
I am photogenic. I look considerably better in pictures than I do in real life, and it's always been like that. I think there is a certain look that makes people photogenic and I'm not sure what all it is, but suspect it starts with big eyes.
I'm the opposite. I (think) I look okay in the mirror, but look shite in photos (generally).
Altho when I catch myself in a 45-degree reflection – and get the full heft of my schnoz, weakness of my chin, and extent of my hairline – I realize that my "front view" mirror is lying to me!
Haven't been photogenic since the Tedford years...sigh...the photos slowly declined during the Dykes era, and now that Wilcox has been here a stretch, they're just ridiculously hiddie...I shy away like Nosferatu from the sun...
I'm reasonably photogenic, about as much as the average person. I was much more photogenic when I was younger. I loved the camera and the camera loved me back.
Mrs Slug, on the other hand, is not photogenic because she hates having her picture taken. This goes back to childhood with her. She'd be more photogenic if she didn't try to avoid the camera.
the beauty of being in Berkeley Daylight Time is that all the Apple TV+ shows drop at 9pm Thursday...last night was: Ted Lasso, Physical, Schmigadoon. A quality trifecta!
Rep. Ronny Jackson MD - Trump's doctor who declared the Cheeto to be the healthiest man on the planet says that Biden should be removed via 25th Amendment because [checks blank notes]... reasons.
My brother texted me an image of a blackboard with " I guess we should retire the expression "avoid it like the plague" given how little effort people put into avoiding an actual plague."
I had forgotten how amazing Berkeley Bowl is. I was just running some errands in the EB and decided to pop in there to do my grocery shopping, and if I lived on that side of the bay it's the only place I would ever shop.
Predictable fallout from the NFL's policy that COVID outbreaks on a team forcing a game cancellation could result in a forfeit.
The NFL sent a memo to teams announcing sanctions for failure to follow protocols that result in an outbreak on the team, including loss of pay, responsibility of expenses for the other team, and also any shortfall between actual and expected payment to the visiting team share pool.
The NFL isn't messing around this year. There's three vaccines available. Get vaccinated.
Nor should they. There is a readily available highly effective solution to the problem. And as one P5 Commissioner said, anyone not getting vaccinated is taking an unnecessary, and unwarranted, risk.
The teams just cannot take any risk of an outbreak and cause game cancellations. While I feel bad for a coach getting fired, there are many jobs out there and vaccination just happened to be one of many requirements needed to keep the current job in which he doesn't qualify anymore.
I wish they were the River Phoenix. And have their symbol be a firebird rising from the Cuyahoga River. And so much cross-branding opportunity with Stand By Me, My Private Idaho, etc.
The Rock and Roll Museum? One of my old business partners lives in Shaker Heights, but spends most of his time in Florida or on his yacht. That's my sole connection to Cleveland.
Insert DVD titled “San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, Game 4” into the DVD player. Turn the sound up on the TV.
Grab a Bud Light, the beer of Tyler Rogers’ choice. Grab a second and a third, so you don’t have to keep getting up.
Kick back in your favorite chair. Wear something cozy. Put your feet up. Take a large, exaggerated sigh to represent your readiness for the recreation that awaits you.
I was tired and had a smallish martini earlier, so I went to bed at the end of the Giants 6th with the score 3-1, Dodgers. I figured with the way that Buehler was pitching the Dodgers would win it.
Imagine my surprise when I find that the final score was 5-3, Giants. Imagine my further surprise reading the account of the game linked above. The Giants take 3 out of 4 from the Dodgers in LA. Maybe this team is for real.
The Oakland A’s have let some games slip away lately, but they played like a full contender on Thursday, and not a moment too soon.
The A’s visited the Seattle Mariners and breezed to a 4-1 victory, putting some distance in the standings between them and their closest competitor for the second Wild Card spot.
As has been the case all year, Oakland’s evening began with a brilliant starting pitching performance. Sean Manaea faced the Mariners in June and threw a shutout, and he extended that scoreless streak against Seattle to 15 innings before finally blinking in the 7th tonight.
On a night with a bigger cushion in the ninth inning, Dave Roberts stuck with his closer Kenley Jansen. What resulted were two agonizingly close calls that would have meant a series split, but instead turned into a second straight booing Dodger Stadium crowd, stunned by four two-out runs in the ninth inning of a 5-3 Giants win at Dodger Stadium.
“There’s a lot of people that are pissed off, and I’m leading the way,” Roberts said. “We should have won that game.”
The Dodgers held a 3-1 lead entering the ninth on Thursday, and faced a similar decision as Wednesday night.
I always thought one of the considerations for Pac-12 inclusion was the academic rigor of all member schools, and the need for a post-grad program (please withhold jokes about current members). Thus, BYU is never a consideration, UNLV/UNR has some serious work to do, Fresno St/SDSU and others are lacking, etc...From the Big 12, I think only Iowa State and Kansas are 'certified' or whatever metric is used.
Might be forgetting some but Colorado St. and SDSU are the only MW schools that wouldn't immediately be the worst academically ranked schools in the Pac-12 (thanks Wazzu)
I doubt that many Big XII schools will be willing to come west. More likely, they immediately add Houston, and then Cincinnati, and some combination of Memphis, SMU, & BYU.
I wouldn't mind those 4 from the Mt. West, though Nevada instead of CSU would work better for both the Pac & the Mt West. I won't be popular with the likes of Jon Wilner, who is a mega market idealist, but Boise is a rapidly growing market that will continue to grow, and after a near collapse, Reno is starting to head in the right direction. Both those markets will look a lot more attractive in 10 years, and adding them early will look brilliant down the line.
What's interesting is San Diego. It's the 8th most populous city in the US. It's the 17th largest economic market in the US -- nearly double the economic size of Cleveland. And yet, SDSU's athletic revenues is $54m vs. $72m of the smallest in the Pac-12 -- Washington State.
I think you misunderstand just how desperate most of the remaining Big12 schools are. KU is going to the Big14, that's almost a done deal already. Iowa State might join them. The rest of them are scrambling. K State and Baylor are effed and likely TCU is as well. For all of its DFW presence, TCU has furd level fan totals and doesn't have the cache that the mighty trees possess. No one in DFW cares about them. Tech and possibly Houston are the best of the Texas schools available if the pack doesn't care about academic standards anymore. Okie State is do-able. Boise is do-able IMO. Maybe SDSU. Hard no on the Mormons. Colo St is K State in a nicer town. So not too many options for the Pac if they decide that they need 16 to compete in the future landscape that the new look SEC is going to dictate. Maybe some sort of merge with the Big14 would be the only other option. Staying at 12 will lead to athletic irrelevance IMO
If I were in charge of admitting new members to the conference, I'd look heavily at Texas Tech, TCU, Oklahoma State, Kansas, and Kansas State. 4 of the 5 are reasonably good football schools (Texas Tech, TCU, OK State, K State). Kansas brings serious basketball cachet.
I'm thinking more along the lines of the conference's (financial) health and stability as opposed to my convenience.
If we were to go with convenience, I'd add SJSU, SDSU, Boise State, and Colorado State. That's a Bay Area team, a Southern California team, a Pacific NW team, and a Rockies team.
Everyone in the current Pac-12 fanbase gets an added convenient away game every now and then. SDSU does double duty for the LA and Arizona schools. Boise State does the same for the Oregons and Washingtons.
But why are we looking at expanding TV/geographical coverage. Cord cutting is a real thing. TV revenue is a thing of the past, we need to look into getting into the streaming ways and leverage a large streaming contract for our content and then also flip into a deal with Tiktok for secondary sports rights.
While many of you dislike Texas, Texas a&m is far far worse from pretty much every perspective. This video kills me and I've watched it a dozen times. It encapsulates everything funny about the aggy delusion and why everyone should laugh at them constantly
For the Big 12 this is a love/hate thing. The big bullies are leaving the conference. What's left, though, is largely irrelevant school in the world of football and basketball (Kansas notwithstanding). I predict the Big 12 will collapse and the remaining schools will join other conferences.
This is a golden opportunity for the Pac-12 to expand it's footprint and revert to two divisions, one of which is the original Pac-8.
The challenge for the SEC is creating two divisions with balance. The bluebloods of the SEC are Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, and to a lesser extent Tennessee and LSU. Those schools were evenly divided between the two divisions.
Adding Texas and Oklahoma puts them geographically in the West. It also upsets the balance. What does the new West division look like? Where does Alabama go and does Auburn follow? Lots of questions to answer with alignment.
Geographically, Vanderbilt could be moved to the west and both the Alabama schools could be moved east. That would eliminate the need for the Tennessee-Alabama permanent crossover, and allow Vandy-Tenn to be the new permanent crossover for the Vols, which would be necessary for in-state issues. And the Commodores will never ever win a game again except in baseball.
From the front page. Michael Saffell medically retires. Driscoll is the next man up according to the last depth chart. I hope Saffell gets to be in a Doja Cat video.
Olympics
I applaud the Japanese trying their best under Covid conditions when they can't get together to collaborate in person. That was a polite and... uh... understated opening ceremony.
I'm usually more excited about it, but the combination of the time difference, NBC's shitty "after the fact" coverage, and my general malaise regarding superspreader events in a global pandemic, are all coming together for a gentle "meh" reaction this time.
NBC actually showed it live on one of their channels and will show it again recorded and edited for the prime time audience. Showing a lot of stuff live at times most people can only record.
There's no getting around the fact that Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of EDT. I'm not going to sitting up until 3 am to watch dressage. Also, perhaps I'm just getting old, but I was looking at the NBC sports olympics coverage website just now and it was borderline indecipherable. I'm too casual a viewer to invest the time in trying to figure that shit out.
I'm old so I still get the Post delivered. It has a special section today that does a good job of showing what's being shown and when. Not sure if the website duplicates it.
We usually get the physical copy because my wife prefers it, but it's on hold while she's in Vermont. I'll try the website though.
Photogenic
I am photogenic. I look considerably better in pictures than I do in real life, and it's always been like that. I think there is a certain look that makes people photogenic and I'm not sure what all it is, but suspect it starts with big eyes.
If normal Scootie scoring (relative to everyone else) applies (and I'll bet it does, as always), on the 1-19 scale Scootie is probably `24.
I'm the opposite. I (think) I look okay in the mirror, but look shite in photos (generally).
Altho when I catch myself in a 45-degree reflection – and get the full heft of my schnoz, weakness of my chin, and extent of my hairline – I realize that my "front view" mirror is lying to me!
I wanna know!
Moderately. 10/19. i typically look just like myself in photos.
nope.
2...maybe a 3 if I'm consciously trying to widen my eyes...bet when I do that sometimes, I look surprised.
Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full....1...
Haven't been photogenic since the Tedford years...sigh...the photos slowly declined during the Dykes era, and now that Wilcox has been here a stretch, they're just ridiculously hiddie...I shy away like Nosferatu from the sun...
Not for a long time. I also don't enjoy getting my picture taken, which doesn't help.
Sort of.
On the 1-19 scale, probably a good solid 2, maybe a 3 on a good day.
Certainly not competitive with the cat in the lead!
I'm reasonably photogenic, about as much as the average person. I was much more photogenic when I was younger. I loved the camera and the camera loved me back.
Mrs Slug, on the other hand, is not photogenic because she hates having her picture taken. This goes back to childhood with her. She'd be more photogenic if she didn't try to avoid the camera.
Happy Ted Lasso day!
Did I watch it at midnight because I was awake anyway? Who's to say?
the beauty of being in Berkeley Daylight Time is that all the Apple TV+ shows drop at 9pm Thursday...last night was: Ted Lasso, Physical, Schmigadoon. A quality trifecta!
It crossed my mind as well but I held off!
I hope y'all love it as much as you did the first season. I do think it's nice that it brings lots of people joy.
I applaud your note after the barrage of replies you took the other day :-)
I recognize that I am basically a minority of 1 in my opinion on this!
Our Crumbling Democracy
Rep. Ronny Jackson MD - Trump's doctor who declared the Cheeto to be the healthiest man on the planet says that Biden should be removed via 25th Amendment because [checks blank notes]... reasons.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1418379361728831488
Proud Boy leader issues press release complaining about how uncomfortable it is in jail.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1418364710328619013
Today in Covid 19
My brother texted me an image of a blackboard with " I guess we should retire the expression "avoid it like the plague" given how little effort people put into avoiding an actual plague."
Now that is a good example of sad but true.
DBD Test Kitchen
I had forgotten how amazing Berkeley Bowl is. I was just running some errands in the EB and decided to pop in there to do my grocery shopping, and if I lived on that side of the bay it's the only place I would ever shop.
You're not alone in this opinion, although the meat counter at Piedmont Grocery is somewhat better.
DBD AV Club
Pro
MN Vikings O-line coach Rick Dennison exercises his freedom to be unemployed... gets fired for refusing vaccine.
https://twitter.com/CourtneyRCronin/status/1418628745049493508
Predictable fallout from the NFL's policy that COVID outbreaks on a team forcing a game cancellation could result in a forfeit.
The NFL sent a memo to teams announcing sanctions for failure to follow protocols that result in an outbreak on the team, including loss of pay, responsibility of expenses for the other team, and also any shortfall between actual and expected payment to the visiting team share pool.
The NFL isn't messing around this year. There's three vaccines available. Get vaccinated.
Nor should they. There is a readily available highly effective solution to the problem. And as one P5 Commissioner said, anyone not getting vaccinated is taking an unnecessary, and unwarranted, risk.
Yup, and as the WaPo points out, this probably wouldn't have happened if Cheeto was re-elected.
The teams just cannot take any risk of an outbreak and cause game cancellations. While I feel bad for a coach getting fired, there are many jobs out there and vaccination just happened to be one of many requirements needed to keep the current job in which he doesn't qualify anymore.
Freedumb. Heh...the comments
Introducing: The Cleveland Guardians
https://twitter.com/Indians/status/1418565355472101378
I wish they were the River Phoenix. And have their symbol be a firebird rising from the Cuyahoga River. And so much cross-branding opportunity with Stand By Me, My Private Idaho, etc.
That would create confusion with the Arizona group.
that name sucks
I wasn't aware there was anything in Cleveland that warrants guarding.
behold your answer: https://twitter.com/actioncookbook/status/1418572168988958725?s=20
[Ryan from the Office pointing up.gif]
Seems to reinforce my previous thoughts.
YES
Traffic!
tbb alert!
YAY
The Rock and Roll Museum? One of my old business partners lives in Shaker Heights, but spends most of his time in Florida or on his yacht. That's my sole connection to Cleveland.
I am also your connection to Cleveland
with pictures! https://twitter.com/JoshuaGrubbsPhD/status/1418571022819807234?s=20
oops that was a reply fail, those pictures are not of Shaker Heights or a yacht
Those are both really cool, and absolutely goofy at the same time.
Guardians is such an uninspired name.
Cuyahogas would have been so much better, given that Progressive Field is not far from the banks of the Cuyahoga River.
Giants use the power of glorious nonsense for second straight ninth-inning comeback
https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2021/7/22/22589930/san-francisco-giants-dodgers-comeback-win-darin-ruf-kenley-jansen
Insert DVD titled “San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, Game 4” into the DVD player. Turn the sound up on the TV.
Grab a Bud Light, the beer of Tyler Rogers’ choice. Grab a second and a third, so you don’t have to keep getting up.
Kick back in your favorite chair. Wear something cozy. Put your feet up. Take a large, exaggerated sigh to represent your readiness for the recreation that awaits you.
I was tired and had a smallish martini earlier, so I went to bed at the end of the Giants 6th with the score 3-1, Dodgers. I figured with the way that Buehler was pitching the Dodgers would win it.
Imagine my surprise when I find that the final score was 5-3, Giants. Imagine my further surprise reading the account of the game linked above. The Giants take 3 out of 4 from the Dodgers in LA. Maybe this team is for real.
Turned on the TV while getting ready to go out. Dreadful unis the Cubs are wearing today.
Are they the city uniforms?
Yup the Wrigleyville ones. Not bad. At least they're the right color palate, unlike some teams.
The blue tops and blue pants was just too much for me
Mychal Kendricks sentenced to 1 day in jail, three years probation for 2018 insider-trading charge, per report
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/mychal-kendricks-sentenced-to-one-day-in-jail-three-years-probation-for-2018-insider-trading-charge/
While it's a crime, I kind of feel proud that he was caught for insider trading and not domestic violence or possession of weapon.
It’s a white collar crime so the punishment/sentence was in line with other white collar crime sentencing.
To be frank, this was very common in Silicon Valley. Sometimes, for some reason, folks are caught and/or made an example of.
Game #98: A’s take care of business against Mariners
https://www.athleticsnation.com/2021/7/22/22589957/oakland-as-game-98-seattle-mariners-score-result
The Oakland A’s have let some games slip away lately, but they played like a full contender on Thursday, and not a moment too soon.
The A’s visited the Seattle Mariners and breezed to a 4-1 victory, putting some distance in the standings between them and their closest competitor for the second Wild Card spot.
As has been the case all year, Oakland’s evening began with a brilliant starting pitching performance. Sean Manaea faced the Mariners in June and threw a shutout, and he extended that scoreless streak against Seattle to 15 innings before finally blinking in the 7th tonight.
Manaea has been good this year.
Small ball as nobody homered for the A's. But they were able to manufacture some runs.
Another night, another loud chorus of boos for Kenley Jansen
https://www.truebluela.com/2021/7/22/22589856/kenley-jansen-blown-save-dave-roberts-ejected-again-dodgers-giants
On a night with a bigger cushion in the ninth inning, Dave Roberts stuck with his closer Kenley Jansen. What resulted were two agonizingly close calls that would have meant a series split, but instead turned into a second straight booing Dodger Stadium crowd, stunned by four two-out runs in the ninth inning of a 5-3 Giants win at Dodger Stadium.
“There’s a lot of people that are pissed off, and I’m leading the way,” Roberts said. “We should have won that game.”
The Dodgers held a 3-1 lead entering the ninth on Thursday, and faced a similar decision as Wednesday night.
Those are a couple of rough losses...seems like Jansen, as with Chapman, goes through a stretch like this each year where he blows everything....
yes he does. He was lights out in june. Hopefully he isn't needed much against the DBacks.
Other College
I always thought one of the considerations for Pac-12 inclusion was the academic rigor of all member schools, and the need for a post-grad program (please withhold jokes about current members). Thus, BYU is never a consideration, UNLV/UNR has some serious work to do, Fresno St/SDSU and others are lacking, etc...From the Big 12, I think only Iowa State and Kansas are 'certified' or whatever metric is used.
Might be forgetting some but Colorado St. and SDSU are the only MW schools that wouldn't immediately be the worst academically ranked schools in the Pac-12 (thanks Wazzu)
Academic rating has no impact on television ratings, which is where the $s are.
[Austin Statesman newspaper]: The UT and OU move to the SEC is not just discussion... it's a done deal. This will likely set off consequences.
https://twitter.com/kbohls/status/1418553992691466245?s=19
Which four schools would you like to add to the hypothetical Pac-16?
Commercial choice: Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, TCU (highest revenue schools in Big XII, but not Iowa St because that's too far).
Geographic: SDSU, Boise State, CO State, UNLV
Also the position of "has red and yellow uniform" is taken, sorry Iowa State
hahaha
I doubt that many Big XII schools will be willing to come west. More likely, they immediately add Houston, and then Cincinnati, and some combination of Memphis, SMU, & BYU.
I wouldn't mind those 4 from the Mt. West, though Nevada instead of CSU would work better for both the Pac & the Mt West. I won't be popular with the likes of Jon Wilner, who is a mega market idealist, but Boise is a rapidly growing market that will continue to grow, and after a near collapse, Reno is starting to head in the right direction. Both those markets will look a lot more attractive in 10 years, and adding them early will look brilliant down the line.
Hard no on BYU, SC already has to play one madrassa annually, that's enough.
They are not worthy.
What's interesting is San Diego. It's the 8th most populous city in the US. It's the 17th largest economic market in the US -- nearly double the economic size of Cleveland. And yet, SDSU's athletic revenues is $54m vs. $72m of the smallest in the Pac-12 -- Washington State.
The only part of this comment that is not fact based is the first sentence - there's nothing interesting about San Diego.
Its been massively under-managed and under-marketed. With the right strategy, SD could become a gold mine and a pipeline.
I agree with this. You’re right about the growing Reno and Boise markets.
I don’t know if I would add UNLV, they have never been good at anytime. I would add SDSU, Boise State, Colorado State and Nevada.
I think you misunderstand just how desperate most of the remaining Big12 schools are. KU is going to the Big14, that's almost a done deal already. Iowa State might join them. The rest of them are scrambling. K State and Baylor are effed and likely TCU is as well. For all of its DFW presence, TCU has furd level fan totals and doesn't have the cache that the mighty trees possess. No one in DFW cares about them. Tech and possibly Houston are the best of the Texas schools available if the pack doesn't care about academic standards anymore. Okie State is do-able. Boise is do-able IMO. Maybe SDSU. Hard no on the Mormons. Colo St is K State in a nicer town. So not too many options for the Pac if they decide that they need 16 to compete in the future landscape that the new look SEC is going to dictate. Maybe some sort of merge with the Big14 would be the only other option. Staying at 12 will lead to athletic irrelevance IMO
I'm with you on the MT West choices - the Boise State fans can be a bit gross, but geographically it makes sense.
The question I would like to answer is "why aren't we taking the opportunity to eject everyone who wasn't part of the Pac-8?"
Institutional suicide isn't a resume builder for most University admins.
Yes please.
I'm in favor of this approach. jettison everyone who doesn't have a pacific shoreline in their state.
If I were in charge of admitting new members to the conference, I'd look heavily at Texas Tech, TCU, Oklahoma State, Kansas, and Kansas State. 4 of the 5 are reasonably good football schools (Texas Tech, TCU, OK State, K State). Kansas brings serious basketball cachet.
The Pacific Division of the Pac-16:
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Washington
Washington State
The Desert/Mountain Division of the Pac-16:
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Kansas
Kansas State
TCU (or Oklahoma State)
Texas Tech
Utah
I know I'd much prefer more trips to Boise, Reno, and San Diego over even occasional excursions to Lubbock, Manhattan or Lawrence, and Stillwater.
Well, so would I were I to travel to away games.
I'm thinking more along the lines of the conference's (financial) health and stability as opposed to my convenience.
If we were to go with convenience, I'd add SJSU, SDSU, Boise State, and Colorado State. That's a Bay Area team, a Southern California team, a Pacific NW team, and a Rockies team.
Everyone in the current Pac-12 fanbase gets an added convenient away game every now and then. SDSU does double duty for the LA and Arizona schools. Boise State does the same for the Oregons and Washingtons.
I do like this idea but I would replace SJSU with Nevada.
But why are we looking at expanding TV/geographical coverage. Cord cutting is a real thing. TV revenue is a thing of the past, we need to look into getting into the streaming ways and leverage a large streaming contract for our content and then also flip into a deal with Tiktok for secondary sports rights.
While many of you dislike Texas, Texas a&m is far far worse from pretty much every perspective. This video kills me and I've watched it a dozen times. It encapsulates everything funny about the aggy delusion and why everyone should laugh at them constantly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixp1tHQpjug&ab_channel=BEVO
For the Big 12 this is a love/hate thing. The big bullies are leaving the conference. What's left, though, is largely irrelevant school in the world of football and basketball (Kansas notwithstanding). I predict the Big 12 will collapse and the remaining schools will join other conferences.
This is a golden opportunity for the Pac-12 to expand it's footprint and revert to two divisions, one of which is the original Pac-8.
The challenge for the SEC is creating two divisions with balance. The bluebloods of the SEC are Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, and to a lesser extent Tennessee and LSU. Those schools were evenly divided between the two divisions.
Adding Texas and Oklahoma puts them geographically in the West. It also upsets the balance. What does the new West division look like? Where does Alabama go and does Auburn follow? Lots of questions to answer with alignment.
And so it begins... KU is reportedly talking to Big X.
[Joker saying And Here We Go.gif]
https://twitter.com/M_Vernon/status/1418591461411495943?s=09
Rumor from Jeremy Clark, a TCU Insider: TCU talking to Pac-12 with Baylor and Texas Tech also reportedly thinking of it.
Baylor gets their state reps involved.
https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=224124
West Virginia AD threatens litigation vs. UT and OU via Twitter
https://twitter.com/MorriseyWV/status/1418661794273431553
TCU & Tech as a package deal would work if Boise St & 1 of CSU/Nevada/UNLV/SD St come as well.
Geographically, Vanderbilt could be moved to the west and both the Alabama schools could be moved east. That would eliminate the need for the Tennessee-Alabama permanent crossover, and allow Vandy-Tenn to be the new permanent crossover for the Vols, which would be necessary for in-state issues. And the Commodores will never ever win a game again except in baseball.
That works.
Cal
From the front page. Michael Saffell medically retires. Driscoll is the next man up according to the last depth chart. I hope Saffell gets to be in a Doja Cat video.
https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/michael-saffell-medically-retires
Go Bears!!!