The Big 12 won't add anyone barring a bizarre set of circumstances.

I suppose it's possible they could get paid enough to stay together after their GOR is up, but even that is kind of a long shot.

I think UT and OU are gone.

I doubt the SEC would ever add partials. But if we did then Tulane, Rice, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt would be ideal. That way we could move to 16 with Texas, Texas Tech and make a run at Florida State again to get to 16. The rest would finish us out at 20 in baseball and basketball and each would get 4 conference games.

(08-05-2018 02:42 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(08-04-2018 11:54 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-04-2018 11:03 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  Another thread got me thinking...

What if the SEC embraced the notion of partial members? I think this could actually be beneficial if executed correctly.

While ideally every member of the league would have strong performers in the revenue sports, this may never be the case for some lesser funded schools.

Vanderbilt has yet to commit to a new football stadium or major upgrades to the current facility. Perhaps a well funded football program is not a realistic endeavor for them and in this day and age when money is still growing and the big boys keep getting bigger, it's entirely possible the window for Vandy to alter their dynamics has closed.

So what if we asked Vanderbilt to remove their football program from SEC competition?

I'm not saying Vandy should drop football. Actually, if a school can afford to field a team at the D1 level without heavy subsidies then you should probably do it because it's still the best promotional tool for a university as far as athletic squads go.

If this were to happen then pay them commiserate with the media value a member would have without football in the fold. This saves everyone a little money and it gives Vandy a good excuse not to spend much on their football program and they clearly don't want to do that anyway.

They could play an independent schedule which would allow them to win more games against comparable competition. We could give them a 5 game agreement similar to what Notre Dame gets. That way, Vandy is taken care of as they are still a valued member, but their removal from football competition would open up a very valuable spot for another strong program to enter and ultimately boost everyone's bottom line.

In the aftermath of a decision like this, what if we made a move to add Texas, Texas Tech, and Kansas?

We would have made room for both TX schools, keeping Texas Tech safe in the process, while also allowing a regional rival for Missouri. We get Kansas' basketball prowess, a new market, and an AAU school while not forcing a strained relationship in the TX capital.

In this scenario, we've got 17 members. I would propose adding Tulane and Rice and giving them the same deal offered to Vanderbilt. One thing this does is add to our academic credibility, but from an athletic standpoint it also allows less travel for minor sports. At that, road games for football would allow visiting fans not to have to travel so far for "non-conference" match-ups against these schools. These "cupcakes" would be built into the schedule, but the money would be remaining in house if you think about it.

I'll even throw this out there...with an eye towards expanding our sports offerings with lacrosse and hockey, I would say even up our membership numbers with a school like Denver. I think you could see schools like Vandy and Tulane add lacrosse as well to help our TV content.

Now, we've got 20, but 4 of them are partials.

I've always liked the idea but never really saw a great way to pull it off until now. Think about how easy it would be to have the ACC essentially merge with us if we could have the SEC, and the SEC/PSC.

That's right the SEC Private School Conference (16 privates or service academies).

Boston College, Pittsburgh (quasi private), Syracuse, Temple
Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Tulane
Baylor, T.C.U., Rice, S.M.U.
Air Force, Army, Navy, Tulsa

Then the regular SEC could consist of these schools (yes 30):

North Carolina, N.C. State, Notre Dame, Virginia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia

Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, South Carolina

Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Louisville, Miami, Tennessee

Arkansas, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Texas A&M

Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech


Now that would be a heckuva group with which to leverage rights and set up an academic consortium.

The main SEC advances 5 schools for the conference playoff and the Privates advance 2 while 1 at large school is selected.

The 8 schools play down to 1 and that one plays in the National Championship game.

I believe Temple is public, but they would probably go for it.

For all intents and purposes, we're a state school.

(08-13-2018 10:12 PM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(08-05-2018 02:42 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(08-04-2018 11:54 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-04-2018 11:03 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  Another thread got me thinking...

What if the SEC embraced the notion of partial members? I think this could actually be beneficial if executed correctly.

While ideally every member of the league would have strong performers in the revenue sports, this may never be the case for some lesser funded schools.

Vanderbilt has yet to commit to a new football stadium or major upgrades to the current facility. Perhaps a well funded football program is not a realistic endeavor for them and in this day and age when money is still growing and the big boys keep getting bigger, it's entirely possible the window for Vandy to alter their dynamics has closed.

So what if we asked Vanderbilt to remove their football program from SEC competition?

I'm not saying Vandy should drop football. Actually, if a school can afford to field a team at the D1 level without heavy subsidies then you should probably do it because it's still the best promotional tool for a university as far as athletic squads go.

If this were to happen then pay them commiserate with the media value a member would have without football in the fold. This saves everyone a little money and it gives Vandy a good excuse not to spend much on their football program and they clearly don't want to do that anyway.

They could play an independent schedule which would allow them to win more games against comparable competition. We could give them a 5 game agreement similar to what Notre Dame gets. That way, Vandy is taken care of as they are still a valued member, but their removal from football competition would open up a very valuable spot for another strong program to enter and ultimately boost everyone's bottom line.

In the aftermath of a decision like this, what if we made a move to add Texas, Texas Tech, and Kansas?

We would have made room for both TX schools, keeping Texas Tech safe in the process, while also allowing a regional rival for Missouri. We get Kansas' basketball prowess, a new market, and an AAU school while not forcing a strained relationship in the TX capital.

In this scenario, we've got 17 members. I would propose adding Tulane and Rice and giving them the same deal offered to Vanderbilt. One thing this does is add to our academic credibility, but from an athletic standpoint it also allows less travel for minor sports. At that, road games for football would allow visiting fans not to have to travel so far for "non-conference" match-ups against these schools. These "cupcakes" would be built into the schedule, but the money would be remaining in house if you think about it.

I'll even throw this out there...with an eye towards expanding our sports offerings with lacrosse and hockey, I would say even up our membership numbers with a school like Denver. I think you could see schools like Vandy and Tulane add lacrosse as well to help our TV content.

Now, we've got 20, but 4 of them are partials.

I've always liked the idea but never really saw a great way to pull it off until now. Think about how easy it would be to have the ACC essentially merge with us if we could have the SEC, and the SEC/PSC.

That's right the SEC Private School Conference (16 privates or service academies).

Boston College, Pittsburgh (quasi private), Syracuse, Temple
Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Tulane
Baylor, T.C.U., Rice, S.M.U.
Air Force, Army, Navy, Tulsa

Then the regular SEC could consist of these schools (yes 30):

North Carolina, N.C. State, Notre Dame, Virginia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia

Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, South Carolina

Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Louisville, Miami, Tennessee

Arkansas, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Texas A&M

Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech


Now that would be a heckuva group with which to leverage rights and set up an academic consortium.

The main SEC advances 5 schools for the conference playoff and the Privates advance 2 while 1 at large school is selected.

The 8 schools play down to 1 and that one plays in the National Championship game.

I believe Temple is public, but they would probably go for it.

For all intents and purposes, we're a state school.

A hybrid really, but if you read on you will find that we had already ascertained this.

If you want to say that, it's whatever, but no one would call us anything but public/state school/state related if you wanted to be technical.

(08-13-2018 10:33 PM)JHG722 Wrote:  If you want to say that, it's whatever, but no one would call us anything but public/state school/state related if you wanted to be technical.

I call you whatever you would like when the Pennsylvania posters here agree on it. I don't have a dog in this fight.

This is my idea on partial memberships, but looking at the concept a bit differently.

The SEC does not sponsor men's soccer. That is somewhat surprising given the growing popularity of the sport at the high school level and below in the south.

The two SEC schools that sponsor men's soccer are USC and Kentucky. They play men's soccer in C-USA with 6 C-USA schools and the University of New Mexico Lobos.
In the ACC, all play men's soccer except FSU and Syracuse.

Georgia has talked about adding men's soccer for years, and even conduct soccer summer camps. They cite Title IX as being a barrier and recognizing there is no SEC sponsorship. Georgia's female enrollment is around 57%.
Div. 1 soccer programs in Georgia are at Georgia Southern, Georgia State, and Mercer.

All Div. 1 men's soccer programs in the south are in a conference, mostly their base conferences

Perhaps as an agreement with C-USA, use that affiliation to grow men's soccer teams from the SEC until the SEC has enough teams to sponsor the sport. Also, a few more SEC teams added to C-USA men's soccer would elevate interest, profile, and recruiting. The ACC and BIG have an advantage in this regard.

(08-14-2018 03:16 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote:  This is my idea on partial memberships, but looking at the concept a bit differently.

The SEC does not sponsor men's soccer. That is somewhat surprising given the growing popularity of the sport at the high school level and below in the south.

The two SEC schools that sponsor men's soccer are USC and Kentucky. They play men's soccer in C-USA with 6 C-USA schools and the University of New Mexico Lobos.
In the ACC, all play men's soccer except FSU and Syracuse.

Georgia has talked about adding men's soccer for years, and even conduct soccer summer camps. They cite Title IX as being a barrier and recognizing there is no SEC sponsorship. Georgia's female enrollment is around 57%.
Div. 1 soccer programs in Georgia are at Georgia Southern, Georgia State, and Mercer.

All Div. 1 men's soccer programs in the south are in a conference, mostly their base conferences

Perhaps as an agreement with C-USA, use that affiliation to grow men's soccer teams from the SEC until the SEC has enough teams to sponsor the sport. Also, a few more SEC teams added to C-USA men's soccer would elevate interest, profile, and recruiting. The ACC and BIG have an advantage in this regard.

I think Men's Soccer is probably a decent investment.

Pro soccer is growing and there are still tons of players in MLS coming from the college ranks. Access for athletes to play their sport at the pro level does lend itself to better exposure I think.

I think it would be pretty easy to add the sport conference wide, but it may take an initiative from the conference office. The facilities already exist. There just needs to be a plan in place so that a handful of schools don't have to foot the bill on their own.

I'm not sure partial memberships would serve the best purpose here unless it was a sport that we knew very few schools would add.

(08-13-2018 09:47 PM)JRsec Wrote:  I doubt the SEC would ever add partials. But if we did then Tulane, Rice, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt would be ideal. That way we could move to 16 with Texas, Texas Tech and make a run at Florida State again to get to 16. The rest would finish us out at 20 in baseball and basketball and each would get 4 conference games.

Would be cool to bring Tulane and GT back into the fold

(08-15-2018 07:36 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(08-13-2018 09:47 PM)JRsec Wrote:  I doubt the SEC would ever add partials. But if we did then Tulane, Rice, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt would be ideal. That way we could move to 16 with Texas, Texas Tech and make a run at Florida State again to get to 16. The rest would finish us out at 20 in baseball and basketball and each would get 4 conference games.

Would be cool to bring Tulane and GT back into the fold

In the next decade, I think CTE and other concerns will drive the elite private schools to alter the full contact aspect or drop football as the first snowball to start rolling down the hill. If that happens, Rice, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Miami, Wake Forest, Duke, and Georgia Tech would benefit from forming a Southern Ivy and have a close association with the SEC, which would surely add FSU and Clemson at that point. Nationwide, Notre Dame and USC are the only elite private schools that I can envision sticking it out with football as currently composed until the last note.

As an aside, I say this because I teach in a middle to upper middle class school district, and we have more kids try out for the robotics team than the football team. The culture is changing, and I just don't think the next generation of alumni from top 50 schools are going to provide the financial or attendance support for those schools to sustain a program without the revenue generating schools becoming frustrated. If the SEC schools can identify this trend now, they can certainly get in early on the game and snag some contributing partial members. To be honest, I am not so sure that Vandy would balk at a non-football membership now if it was structured properly and their peers (Duke, Northwestern, etc.) followed suit in their conferences.

(08-18-2018 01:44 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(08-15-2018 07:36 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(08-13-2018 09:47 PM)JRsec Wrote:  I doubt the SEC would ever add partials. But if we did then Tulane, Rice, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt would be ideal. That way we could move to 16 with Texas, Texas Tech and make a run at Florida State again to get to 16. The rest would finish us out at 20 in baseball and basketball and each would get 4 conference games.

Would be cool to bring Tulane and GT back into the fold

In the next decade, I think CTE and other concerns will drive the elite private schools to alter the full contact aspect or drop football as the first snowball to start rolling down the hill. If that happens, Rice, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Miami, Wake Forest, Duke, and Georgia Tech would benefit from forming a Southern Ivy and have a close association with the SEC, which would surely add FSU and Clemson at that point. Nationwide, Notre Dame and USC are the only elite private schools that I can envision sticking it out with football as currently composed until the last note.

As an aside, I say this because I teach in a middle to upper middle class school district, and we have more kids try out for the robotics team than the football team. The culture is changing, and I just don't think the next generation of alumni from top 50 schools are going to provide the financial or attendance support for those schools to sustain a program without the revenue generating schools becoming frustrated. If the SEC schools can identify this trend now, they can certainly get in early on the game and snag some contributing partial members. To be honest, I am not so sure that Vandy would balk at a non-football membership now if it was structured properly and their peers (Duke, Northwestern, etc.) followed suit in their conferences.

I don't know. A drop of 80% in sports revenue (the football portion) is pretty steep. I could see them keep football, keep 4 conference games, schedule other privates for the other 8 games, and transition into a world without football in the coming years.

(08-18-2018 02:06 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-18-2018 01:44 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(08-15-2018 07:36 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(08-13-2018 09:47 PM)JRsec Wrote:  I doubt the SEC would ever add partials. But if we did then Tulane, Rice, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt would be ideal. That way we could move to 16 with Texas, Texas Tech and make a run at Florida State again to get to 16. The rest would finish us out at 20 in baseball and basketball and each would get 4 conference games.

Would be cool to bring Tulane and GT back into the fold

In the next decade, I think CTE and other concerns will drive the elite private schools to alter the full contact aspect or drop football as the first snowball to start rolling down the hill. If that happens, Rice, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Miami, Wake Forest, Duke, and Georgia Tech would benefit from forming a Southern Ivy and have a close association with the SEC, which would surely add FSU and Clemson at that point. Nationwide, Notre Dame and USC are the only elite private schools that I can envision sticking it out with football as currently composed until the last note.

As an aside, I say this because I teach in a middle to upper middle class school district, and we have more kids try out for the robotics team than the football team. The culture is changing, and I just don't think the next generation of alumni from top 50 schools are going to provide the financial or attendance support for those schools to sustain a program without the revenue generating schools becoming frustrated. If the SEC schools can identify this trend now, they can certainly get in early on the game and snag some contributing partial members. To be honest, I am not so sure that Vandy would balk at a non-football membership now if it was structured properly and their peers (Duke, Northwestern, etc.) followed suit in their conferences.

I don't know. A drop of 80% in sports revenue (the football portion) is pretty steep. I could see them keep football, keep 4 conference games, schedule other privates for the other 8 games, and transition into a world without football in the coming years.

Yes, good point, JR. I should have specified what I meant by "structured properly". If the financial situation is palatable, I can see them accepting the re-structuring and possible phase-out of our modern version of football, and I do not think their alumni at that point will be insistent on fighting to keep it. In other words, I do not see the Vandy/Duke/Northwestern's taking the same stance as Ohio State, Auburn, or Florida State, even though those are top 100 schools. Got to run, but I may elaborate more in the near future in a new post. Happy weekend, all.