Let's think about the B12 versus the ACC for a moment or two.
The B12 has lost Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri since 2010. The ACC has lost Maryland. Which league has endured more trauma?
The B12 lost schools for reasons ranging from everything from "we were afraid of being left behind" to "we hate Texas". The ACC lost a school that monumentally mismanaged its money and had to cut out many sports. Which league is less fundamentally stable?
The B12 GOR expires in June 2025. The ACC GOR expires sometime around 2027 or so. Which league's schools are going to be available first?
The B12 has a footprint consisting of Kansas City and the State of Texas. The ACC has a footprint containing 70M more people than the B12, and ranges from Florida to Boston. Which league has the most long-term TV potential?
The B12 has a TV ratings problem because people outside of the tiny B12 footprint are not tuning into B12 football games. If you were forced to watch one of the following two games, which game would you pick: Virginia Tech @ Syracuse or Texas Tech @ Kansas State? How about Texas & Oklahoma or Clemson @ Florida State?
Huge numbers of alums of the B12's major schools -- Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas -- talk constantly about not being happy in the B12 and wanting out (and why not? -- the heart of our league has been ripped out). For Texas, Scipio Tex over at Barking Carnival is the leader of a rather cacophonous group of Longhorns disaffected with the B12. Do you hear the same unhappiness from ACC fans and alums day-after-day? Do any ACC alums come on this board and talk about moving out of the ACC?
Just playing out the probabilities with what is known today, which is more probable: The B12 gets raided again or the ACC gets raided again?
WinchesterBUCK is a great tOSU poster. But I just don't see UVA leaving the ACC without UNC in tow. Does anyone really foresee UNC being among the first two out of the ACC? To break open the ACC, I'm thinking it would take the B1G and the SEC cooperating in tandem. I just have trouble intellectually getting to that kind of cooperation between the B1G and the SEC, if only for the potential legal issues that would arise. WinchestBUCK also has been saying, "wait 'till MY-ACC settles", so we'll see soon enough, since the ACC cannot withhold any more MY money after June, 2014. Well, June's here, MY-ACC ought to settle soon (if it's going to settle at all), so we'll see.
And from simply a strategic standpoint -- not that there's anything anybody can do about it -- but if the B12 crumbles, there's only Kansas -> Oklahoma -> Texas that are desirable for the B1G. If the ACC crumbles, most all of the ACC schools would be available to the B1G, but more specifically, Boston College and Syracuse would be available. From a strategic pov, is it really in UConn's best interest to for the ACC to be the conference that crumbles?
Let's talk about Texas, it's goals and aspirations .... Texas' ambition is to become a truly national brand, and, hopefully, an international brand. Texas covets the huge metropolitan cities of the northern tier, and, most importantly NYC. NYC is the face of America, its media center, its cultural center (sorry, California).
Texas is setting up a football game in Mexico City, and we open the basketball regular season this year in China. For these kinds of endeavors, would being a member of the B1G give Texas more exposure in the NE Corridor or less exposure?
The SEC cannot deliver culture, except for "good ole boy" culture out in places like Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Texas doesn't want SEC "good ole boy" -- we've already got plenty of "good ole boy" out in the East Texas hinterlands, I assure you. Texas @ Austin values cosmopolitan and academic culture -- witness the current titanic struggle between Texas Admins and Governor Perry, who wants to turn Texas @ Austin into a diploma mill, like he did Texas A&M @ College Station. Not happening. Texas would love the CIC and this developing B1G association with the Ivy League, via Cornell. As for "rust belt", "too cold", "bad football", "can't recruit to the B1G" -- all that stuff is just plain plain silly and, frankly, border-line ignorant.
The bottom line is that Kansas would almost certainly accept an offer to join the B1G. If Kansas were to leave the B12, here comes the trauma. Again. There's only so much trauma Oklahoma and Texas can endure. You folks at UConn know exactly what kind of trauma I'm talking about. It's draining. Not fun. Recurrences are to be avoided.
I think Oklahoma would leave OSU and embrace the athletic-academic advantages of the B1G, which also offers lasting rock-solid stability, significant revenue, and re-establishment of the OU-NU rivalry. I'm not even certain OSU would fight Oklahoma if KU left for the B1G. I think OSU would simply be resigned to their fate. Oklahoma politicians are not going to block Oklahoma from migrating to the B1G if Kansas is gone. The only question I have is whether the B1G would offer Oklahoma unconditionally. They might not without linkage to a Texas acceptance.
As for Texas, Texas would understand that without KU and OU, the B12 is untenable. Texas would move somewhere, period, in my view. Would it be to the PAC? Would it be to the SEC? Would it be to the ACC? Would it be to the B1G? There's your only 4 choices -- independence is not an option. This post is sufficiently long. For many reasons, some set forth hereinabove, I think Texas would choose the B1G.
And that means UConn, either at #16 or at #18, to the B1G. In the B12 scenario, there is no BC or Syracuse to have to deal with. Just Kansas alone moving to the B1G and UConn is golden.
