(03-21-2017 07:14 AM)XLance Wrote: (03-21-2017 02:49 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: I'd like to take you back to the year 1992 and the expansion of the SEC with Arkansas and South Carolina. We've heard many times how it went down, but we've never really heard why the SEC stopped there.
The SEC didn't expand again until the environment had turned to a mixture of chaotic rumor and the threat of conference dissolution. So why, with the success of the first expansion, did the SEC wait so long?
Well, others will have to answer that question with specifics, but let's say that the SEC had chosen to expand again in the not too distant past. What if the SEC had decided to expand with Virginia Tech and Miami in the late 90s or early 2000s?
How would things be different today?
How would further realignment have played out?
The SEC took a long time to get over the disappointment of having to take their third choices, not only in the west but in the east, too.
That's not to say that in retrospect, Arkansas and South Carolina weren't good additions, they just weren't the schools that the SEC was gunning for at that time.
The rejection by Florida State was particularly unforeseen.
Arkansas was an original first choice. South Carolina was the target of opportunity when Clemson didn't pan out.
Florida State was in my opinion the first manipulation of realignment by ESPN and it was done so they could provide gravitas to the conference they intended to build, and so they could try to control the leverage the SEC was beginning to wield.
But the point that All Tide Up is making is what would things have looked like if we had gone for Miami before the ACC was interested and Virginia Tech before the Cavaliers pushed for a deal?
Having a second Florida school should have been a priority. The geography of Gainesville and its proximity to Tallahassee left a large part of the state unrepresented by either the ACC or SEC. Taking Miami, even though competitively they have not been the star they once were, was a big get for the ACC. The SEC would have been wise to have taken Miami. Having the Canes would have ensured a South Florida presence and it is really a different state than the panhandle and Jacksonville area. It also would not have precluded a move into Texas.
However, I remain dubious about taking Virginia Tech. If we had taken them our focus would have shifted, there would have been more animosity with the ACC, less loyalty by both with ESPN, and our relationship with them for good or ill has been profitable. And the additions of Missouri and A&M would likely have never happened. We would have been slow to expand the last time. Our center of the conference would have shifted too much toward Knoxville to be comfortable for Midwest schools and the Big 10 would have been more defensive with regards to Missouri instead asleep at the wheel.
Besides Virginia Tech is not at any of our means and would have only been a slight add academically (at that time).
An SEC incursion into Virginia in the early 90's might well have meant that the Big 10 would have made a play for Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, and Colorado to go along with Penn State to get to 16.
If I had been the Big 10 commissioner that Big 10 would have made a helluva lot more sense than the present one.
Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma
Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin
Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern
Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue
With the exception of Penn State, which in this model is not too much of a stretch, the Big 10 remains extremely cohesive, geographically compact, and culturally solid.
That move would have sewn discord and disarray between the SEC and ACC because the SEC would have had no better candidates to pursue other than ACC properties.
IMO the move into the Northeast with Rutgers was fools gold. Why do you want a school that can't make it's athletic department solvent? Maryland is simply going to be a kind of island for the Big 10. They had a nice population when the market model drove realignment but they don't fit the Big 10.
Allowing the SEC to take Missouri did more to muddy the Big 10's waters than any single move so far. I'd say Colorado to the PAC was second.
The Big 10 needed football prowess, not New England hoops. They only reason they moved into the Northeast was market presence. Now they need to reverse field to add content and it's not as available as it was in 2010.
Instead ESPN used the ACC to acquire the Big East properties it wanted. It used the SEC to begin to maneuver into the Big 12 territory. I don't think either strategy is going to change now. ESPN wants Texas and the SEC wants DFW. DFW is worth more to us than all of Oklahoma. It's just serendipity that OU gives us both.
I would suggest that Texa-homa to the SEC cements what ESPN would like to control in that area.
I would also suggest that Connecticut, West Virginia, Cincinnati, and Notre Dame gives the Mouse everything it wants access to for the ACC.
That's 36 schools stretching from New York through Ohio and down to the Rio Grande. And other than the PAC it engulfs the majority of viewers in the United States and consolidates their interest into two conferences.
Cincinnati doesn't meet metrics, but I'll bet that ESPN will suffer that to get a slice of Ohio without having to pay the Buckeyes.