THINGS ARE NO LONGER THE SAME
There is currently a panic in college football. Everyone seems to be concerned about developing a super-conference. Syracuse and Pittsburgh jumped from the Big Eight to the ACC. Oklahoma wants to jump to the now Pac-12 conference just after they accepted Utah and Colorado into the mix. We really don’t know about Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, or Texas. We do know that one of Texas’ demands includes the Longhorn Network, which is an obstacle if they move to the Pac-12 with their TV contracts.
John Boeheim, basketball coach at Syracuse, understands the situation very well--”There’s two reasons, money and football.” Forget about geographic considerations; forget about traditional rivalries. Boeheim’s right. It’s all about money and football.
Consider this--if Oklahoma were to go to the Pac-12 and make it the Pac-whatever, there is a problem there. The primary one to me is time zones. That’s a two time zone jump for all the teams on the coast. There’s two where one time zone exists-Utah and Colorado. Another thing is mindset. Football in Oklahoma is almost religion. West Coast teams, for the most part, have other interests for their students, such as basketball, baseball, golf, indoor and outdoor track, volleyball. All of these are both for men and women.
As of 2010, UCLA, Stanford and Southern Cal have the most NCAA championships; UCLA holds the most, winning a combined 107 team championships in men's and women's sports, with Stanford second, with 101, Southern California third with 93, Oklahoma State with 50, followed by Texas with 48.* The top 3 teams are all in the current Pac-12. Oklahoma is not even in the top five. If the only common thread is football, then Oklahoma would not make a good match. Their school does not have the history of the achievement of sports excellence in all college sports, not simply football.
The only university from the Big 12 even close is Oklahoma State. While they are fourth overall, they are a good 43 championships behind third place Southern Cal. I don’t think any team from the Big 12 is a good fit for the Pac-12. That includes not only Oklahoma, but Oklahoma State, Texas, and Texas Tech.
While the college presidents are negotiating contracts, they will need to consider the bigger picture for their students and their fan base. These mergers into super conferences are to acquire money, increase exposure, and enhance recruiting for football. They could lose excellent players in the other NCAA sports. Some players may not want to travel across two time zones for basketball or baseball or women’s softball. They may want to be on a team fairly close to home or within a conference where teams do not have to travel half way across the country just for a game in that conference.
Of course it doesn’t make sense. That’s because the current atmosphere is all about supporting college football and getting more money. Isn’t it odd that the Big Ten is not involved in any of this. After the announcement of Syracuse and Pittsburgh moving to the ACC, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney made it perfectly clear that this change would not affect his conference, that they want to play each other more, not less, the primary emphasis being quality over quantity.** It’s refreshing to see a big name BCS conference taking a more practical approach to college athletics over the current trend of dismissing allegiances, changing loyalties, maintaining traditions, and serving their students’ needs more than serving money.
*National Collegiate Athletic Association, wikipedia
**“Big Ten Commissioner says No Change is Imminent,” New York Times College Sports Blog, September 17, 2011.
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