Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! then we'll never get to find out how UConn stacks up against Nevada-Reno and UTSA!! I had my whole weekend in October 2029 planned, now I gotta find something else to do.
For what it's worth, Nevada would probably have beaten Uconn 3 of the past 4 years. Back off my home town wolf pack!
Yes, and I suspect that if you put Nevada and New Mexico in say, the Big XII, the recruiting would jump considerably, and so would attendance. Which would lead to revenue, investments in facilities and pretty soon you'd have programs that were quite competitive. The Big XII should be the conference of the southwest and mountain states (Colorado should never have left, Utah should have been invited), especially with Missouri now gone.
There is no way to avoid it. For the 16 team conferences scenario to exist, the power conferences are going to have to take schools with lesser reputations, athletically and academically. If the Big XII is going to look to the west they can effectively shut the Pac out.
But there is the RUB ... it won't happen. The Cartel ... heavily weighted NOW to North Carolina & Alabama & Texas ... won't allow the new entrants (totally absent a fast-growing state of Nevada) to enter. No more New England, excepting that awful bunch of Jesuits. This will not stand. Why? Because in Economic theory, Cartels always break apart because of cheating. Someone allows the hole.
i have been one of the few that has been a unr supporter here. most here are to spoiled with how we started and refuse to examine the overall landscape of cf and where its going. unr is on the rise just like uconn is. they just dont have the bball history we do so out here ppl don't know any better. i still think the pac would be stupid not to add teams soon as the b12 could really damage them forever. unr/bsu/sdsu/unlv/hawaii/byu give the pac16/18 all they need and they are a good top 4 conf. on a map they are the most together and time zone wise it makes sense. hawaii also helps the pac get to china and several other small things.
I can tell you from my time @ Kansas that while it is "midwestern" in KC, and is close in mindset to Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, the southern and western parts of the state are more "southwest" oriented. Texas and Oklahoma already are. Losing Colorado hurt, because logically, the Big XII should re-form as the new SouthWest conference, and add BYU, Nevada New Mexico and maybe Colorado State. They may regret adding the yokels from WVU.
I agree with Pudge that cartel that we have (heavily assisted by ESPN) will start seeing stress fractures as some point and I would not be surprised to see the initial crack to be the B-12 publicly complaining (exposing ESPN) that they were told there were no financial incentives in pursuing valuable properties (FSU, possibly Clemson and/or Va Tech) yet there would be if they looked at Rutgers, Cincinnati, USF, UConn or Louisville. Assisting a conference here or there in grabbing assets from another is one thing. Playing puppetmaster, telling members of the cartel where they can and cannot go for assets and unfairly protecting one cartel member at the cost of others (by skewing the true value of potential assets) is an entirely different level of corruption.
The question is where does the market evolve to? The pro sports model of 30 teams that are highly competitive in the largest markets? Will streaming lead to individual contracts for the 14 biggest teams that form a super conference separate from non-football contracts? USC UCLA Stamford Oregon Texas Florida FSU Ohio State Michigan Michigan State Notre Dame Texas AM Oklahoma Alabama Two 10- team divisions and a Championship game. Take on the best of the rest during bowl seasons. Football is wagging the dog and the Top 25 programs are disruptive. get rid of them and put them in a seprate football conference for that one sport
