I believe Joey made a post about this in jest about ND and some eastern indies getting an invite to the PAC 16. As sometimes happens, comments made in jest hit the mark much more accurately than the most detail filled blog with minutia and grandiose machinations propelling the world towards a new dawn. I have it on good authority - very good authority - that the PAC is strongly considering inviting ND, Pitt, BC and SU to join up to make the first 16 team superconference. My source is ironclad, and is never wrong most times. No, I do not have sources to link because this is a source deep within the leadership of one of the 4 mentioned schools. I floated a test balloon out on one of the threads the other day to see what people thought. I probably did not position balloon in the correct place, so I'm starting this thread to share with you what I know to be reasonably true given the right circumstances.

Larry Scott is an ambitious man - very ambitious. He wants to make a huge splash in CFB. He also wants to improve the PAC's positioning for media exposure, i.e. snagging 4 schools in the EST zone is the elixir that the PAC needs to extract more value from their media deals. Never, never, never underestimate the power of the EST in all of this. Way too many people don't think about it. Also, Pitt, ND, SU and BC have good to great academics - both in graduate research and undergraduate academics - which is exactly what the PAC is looking for too. Plus, all 4 schools have a rich athletic history and demonstrated success on the CFB field in their collective histories. Therefore, here is what the new PAC 16 is going to look like. They will go into pods for scheduling. Pod names are not set yet, but I'm making up names that I think are descriptive.

East
Pitt
Notre Dame
Syracuse
Boston College

Desert/Mountain
Utah
Colorado
Arizona
AZ State

Northwest
Washington
WA State
Oregon
OR State

California
USC
Cal
Stanford
UCLA

That's what I know, and it will be going down soon. Cha Ching!!!

You are kidding, right?

Miko I cant tell if you are being serious or taking the piss at all the bloggers and their scenario's. Not to mention that some of us like to write up division scenario's in similar fashion as to the one you just wrote up.

I will go ahead and take you as being for real for now though. The problem with this is the travel. Why would BC, Syracuse and PITT agree to that? What is in it for them?

(05-22-2012 11:32 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  Miko I cant tell if you are being serious or taking the piss at all the bloggers and their scenario's. Not to mention that some of us like to write up division scenario's in similar fashion as to the one you just wrote up.

I will go ahead and take you as being for real for now though. The problem with this is the travel. Why would BC, Syracuse and PITT agree to that? What is in it for them?

The payoff would be significantly higher in a conference that has the right locations, i.e. covering the west coast and the east coast. Travel costs would be factored into the negotiations. The short term exchange of value, if you will, is this: Pitt, ND, SU and BC get stability and a guaranteed seat at the table with one of the four power conferences. The PAC, in return, gets exposure to the northeast and will have "PAC 16" football available for all to see during normal EST kickoff times. Add in the fact that ND would have a many of their most traditional rivals available to them via this move. Only schools in question would be the which B1G schools get dropped. But even here, with the B1G/PAC scheduling agreement, ND could still maintain some contact with traditional B1G foes.

But again, the PAC makes out like a bandit in this deal. It will get the east coast exposure it lacks now in order to fight the "east coast bias". It grows with good schools despite the fact that the Big12 raid is no longer an option. It will be able to hit some big population centers on top of all of this. It's coming, I have no doubt about it. Try not to be too surprised, because I think I gave a good advanced notice.

I could see why Pitt, BC, and Syracuse would do it- they should be desperate right now- desperate enough to do something like this even. But, what about Notre Dame? A school that can get anything that they want. What's the attraction for them? What can Pac 12 give them that Big 12 or Big Ten can't?

(05-22-2012 11:48 PM)stever20 Wrote:  I could see why Pitt, BC, and Syracuse would do it- they should be desperate right now- desperate enough to do something like this even. But, what about Notre Dame? A school that can get anything that they want. What's the attraction for them? What can Pac 12 give them that Big 12 or Big Ten can't?

Did you not see my thread and what DeLoss Dodds said in it about Notre Dame? Notre Dame may be talking about the PAC and they may be serious or they may be just using it as another angle to make the new alliance of the Big 12 and SEC back down.

Notre Dame are the guru's of playing one power off against another.

Farfetched, but if true it would not be the first time the Pac considered something like this. Swap UConn or Rutgers for BC and I think it has potential. Fun to think about but would be very surprising to see.

(05-22-2012 11:53 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  

(05-22-2012 11:48 PM)stever20 Wrote:  I could see why Pitt, BC, and Syracuse would do it- they should be desperate right now- desperate enough to do something like this even. But, what about Notre Dame? A school that can get anything that they want. What's the attraction for them? What can Pac 12 give them that Big 12 or Big Ten can't?

Did you not see my thread and what DeLoss Dodds said in it about Notre Dame? Notre Dame may be talking about the PAC and they may be serious or they may be just using it as another angle to make the new alliance of the Big 12 and SEC back down.

Notre Dame are the guru's of playing one power off against another.

I think the only way that the alliance of the Big 12 and SEC would back down in any fashion would be more if ND went ACC. I don't think the alliance would back down one bit if ND went Pac 12.

This is truly how things begin on the internet. I'm sure there are people taking this post and reposting it across message boards as we type...next week we'll have a post about an 'insider' hearing on a PAC premium board that they are considering a northeastern expansion with Notre Dame and pretty soon Chip will have a blog on it.

(05-22-2012 11:48 PM)stever20 Wrote:  I could see why Pitt, BC, and Syracuse would do it- they should be desperate right now- desperate enough to do something like this even. But, what about Notre Dame? A school that can get anything that they want. What's the attraction for them? What can Pac 12 give them that Big 12 or Big Ten can't?

Location. Look at Notre Dame and tell me what you see from a cultural standpoint? Do you see a midwestern school in fly over country? Do you see a school that is Texas-centric or strongly attached to the southwest? No, of course not. What you see is an eastern school. The northeast is brimming with ND grads as well as the west coast. This is where most of the catholics are too. This move will give ND guaranteed exposure to those locations that are most natural for them. All they have to do is maintain one or two games around the midwest and they have everything they need. The B1G can't give this to ND nor can the Big12.

And this is what almost everyone in this forum fails to grasp about much of the movement here that recently happened and is about to happen. Everyone thinks the end all is to try to combine all of the strongest, baddest FB schools you can find. WRONG! That is not what this is about. You can already see how the SEC is affected even at 12 schools if there is too much strength. Traditional powers like Tennessee and Georgia are suffering right now. Maybe these schools come back. However, it is far from a guarantee that all of these power schools will take turns being on top. More likely, a power school will morph into a middle of the road school if too much power is combined into one conference. This is the mistake of the fan in wanting to see these insanely powerful conferences. In the end, they will destroy value because the pecking order will result in former winners turning into mediocre schools.

In reality, it is all about fit. Some schools are much more valuable to one conference over another. This fit needs to be balanced out among a number of factors including: 1) FB skill, 2) academics, 3) CFB tradition and 4) Location/markets. As can be clearly seen with this PAC expansion that is going to happen - all 4 metrics are nicely covered. This has been thoroughly discussed and vetted behind closed doors.

I will give credit where credit is due. You understand the absolute importance of the Hierarchy.

Ugh....all I have to say is that they damn well better move to pod scheduling. Even if it does get ND, Colorado and the Arizona schools would block it if they wanted straight up East/West scheduling. One of the few scenario's I've seen though that can take viable "leftovers" after the SEC and B12 get done picking over the ACC's carcass and find schools that could pass the market/academics hurdles in the PAC. Colorado does seem to want to do some NE scheduling for donor base purposes. I know we've scheduled a 2 for 1 with UMASS coming up (with the one in Foxborough I think).

If you look at it, it does solve Notre Dame's scheduling concerns pretty elegantly. They get BC and Pitt in their pod every year, can still play Navy OOC, they can work out something where they play either Stanford or USC every year (or even protect one of the games annually somehow), and they get a B10 OOC game like Michigan or Purdue every year thanks to the PAC/B10 cross-scheduling agreement. That covers almost all of their main historical rivalries within a conference structure, and still leaves them 1 or 2 spots to fill in with Air Force, the odd power team, or a team in another region they want to hit up. It also saves the bacon of a couple of their historical buddies (including a fellow Catholic school) to avoid seeing them relegated to the juco ranks of CFB if the B12 and SEC go into full-on pirate raiding mode against the ACC.

The academic match is also far, far better than when they were going to have to take Texas Tech and Okie Lite to get Texas and Oklahoma (they easily would have preferred to include Kansas, Missouri, or Utah in the deal if the little brothers could have been left behind. Even Oklahoma's academics are suspect, though I doubt they are any worse than Oregon or ASU. I don't think any of the schools other than maybe Pitt are AAU schools, but they are still much better academic institutions then the Texas union would have added.

Actually with at much westcoast recruiting ND does it does make some sense for ND to consider the PAC 12. Plus ND likes a National schedule and a Pod consisting of Pitt, BC, and Syracuse allows ND to keep a National schedule. Then you can insert Michigan or Michigan State as their B10 rival in the B10/P12 alliance and you got something.

I don't think this will go down. And yes I think it makes some sense. I just hope that this doesn't blow up into a full fledged rumor and everything points back to my joke a week ago. oh well..

Joey

This is complete satire. He is making fun of the big east and what we want out of our tv deal. Notice the attention given to having multiple time zones.

Switch the situation around and it is what we have been saying about the big east since boise and sdsu were added.

I thought the Pac-12 was deadset against religious schools? BC and ND are kinda religious.

The logic of it isn't that far-fetched...ND wants to be seen as a "national" school and perhaps the Big Ten really does restrict that. The Pac-12 certainly wouldn't. They'd get into the NE (BC, Syracuse, Pitt) and the mountains and the west coast.

I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this...I just don't know if ND would be part.

(05-23-2012 01:27 AM)allthatyoucantleavebehind Wrote:  I thought the Pac-12 was deadset against religious schools? BC and ND are kinda religious.

The logic of it isn't that far-fetched...ND wants to be seen as a "national" school and perhaps the Big Ten really does restrict that. The Pac-12 certainly wouldn't. They'd get into the NE (BC, Syracuse, Pitt) and the mountains and the west coast.

I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this...I just don't know if ND would be part.

I agree with this. Nothing these days dealing w/ expansion surprises me.

(05-22-2012 11:07 PM)miko33 Wrote:  I believe Joey made a post about this in jest about ND and some eastern indies getting an invite to the PAC 16. As sometimes happens, comments made in jest hit the mark much more accurately than the most detail filled blog with minutia and grandiose machinations propelling the world towards a new dawn. I have it on good authority - very good authority - that the PAC is strongly considering inviting ND, Pitt, BC and SU to join up to make the first 16 team superconference. My source is ironclad, and is never wrong most times. No, I do not have sources to link because this is a source deep within the leadership of one of the 4 mentioned schools. I floated a test balloon out on one of the threads the other day to see what people thought. I probably did not position balloon in the correct place, so I'm starting this thread to share with you what I know to be reasonably true given the right circumstances.

Larry Scott is an ambitious man - very ambitious. He wants to make a huge splash in CFB. He also wants to improve the PAC's positioning for media exposure, i.e. snagging 4 schools in the EST zone is the elixir that the PAC needs to extract more value from their media deals. Never, never, never underestimate the power of the EST in all of this. Way too many people don't think about it. Also, Pitt, ND, SU and BC have good to great academics - both in graduate research and undergraduate academics - which is exactly what the PAC is looking for too. Plus, all 4 schools have a rich athletic history and demonstrated success on the CFB field in their collective histories. Therefore, here is what the new PAC 16 is going to look like. They will go into pods for scheduling. Pod names are not set yet, but I'm making up names that I think are descriptive.

East
Pitt
Notre Dame
Syracuse
Boston College

Desert/Mountain
Utah
Colorado
Arizona
AZ State

Northwest
Washington
WA State
Oregon
OR State

California
USC
Cal
Stanford
UCLA

That's what I know, and it will be going down soon. Cha Ching!!!

Actually I had a similar post one week ago. I said ND, Pitt, SU and UConn could be added to PAC16.

I would like to add that the PAC16 invitation could be football only. These four schools could have their Olympics sports in the Big East basketball schools new league. I bet Notre Dame would love that. Basically PAC12 is pulling a new Big East.

(05-23-2012 09:02 AM)ArQ Wrote:  

(05-22-2012 11:07 PM)miko33 Wrote:  I believe Joey made a post about this in jest about ND and some eastern indies getting an invite to the PAC 16. As sometimes happens, comments made in jest hit the mark much more accurately than the most detail filled blog with minutia and grandiose machinations propelling the world towards a new dawn. I have it on good authority - very good authority - that the PAC is strongly considering inviting ND, Pitt, BC and SU to join up to make the first 16 team superconference. My source is ironclad, and is never wrong most times. No, I do not have sources to link because this is a source deep within the leadership of one of the 4 mentioned schools. I floated a test balloon out on one of the threads the other day to see what people thought. I probably did not position balloon in the correct place, so I'm starting this thread to share with you what I know to be reasonably true given the right circumstances.

Larry Scott is an ambitious man - very ambitious. He wants to make a huge splash in CFB. He also wants to improve the PAC's positioning for media exposure, i.e. snagging 4 schools in the EST zone is the elixir that the PAC needs to extract more value from their media deals. Never, never, never underestimate the power of the EST in all of this. Way too many people don't think about it. Also, Pitt, ND, SU and BC have good to great academics - both in graduate research and undergraduate academics - which is exactly what the PAC is looking for too. Plus, all 4 schools have a rich athletic history and demonstrated success on the CFB field in their collective histories. Therefore, here is what the new PAC 16 is going to look like. They will go into pods for scheduling. Pod names are not set yet, but I'm making up names that I think are descriptive.

East
Pitt
Notre Dame
Syracuse
Boston College

Desert/Mountain
Utah
Colorado
Arizona
AZ State

Northwest
Washington
WA State
Oregon
OR State

California
USC
Cal
Stanford
UCLA

That's what I know, and it will be going down soon. Cha Ching!!!

Actually I had a similar post one week ago. I said ND, Pitt, SU and UConn could be added to PAC16.

I would like to add that the PAC16 invitation could be football only. These four schools could have their Olympics sports in the Big East basketball schools new league. I bet Notre Dame would love that. Basically PAC12 is pulling a new Big East.

I heard all sports, but we'll see. I think a few sports will not make it into the PAC though. Wrestling is one that I think would continue to be in the EWL. If hocky gets off the ground, it will definitely be in the east too.

The Pitt fans have completely lost it over the fact that Pederson, by jumping the gun on the ACC invite when the Big 12 was interested, has consigned their program to the dustbin of history. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad.

No worries here. Pitt's PAC 16 bound in the very near future and will have 3 other Eastern schools so that it isn't on a lonely island.