Agreed. I prefer north south.
OSU Tech Arizona ASU UCLA USC Colorado
Wash WSU Stanford Cal Utah Oregon ORST
Can swap Stanford and Cal for Utah and Colorado if you don’t want Wash/Oregon/Stanford but I would argue once you add us it’s pretty even based on past decade.
If a kansas school +- additional texas school sneaks into here you could move Colorado to the north.
If somehow byu or boise is included (unlikely IMO) you move Utah to the south. Holy War can be a cross division annual lock.
The previous issue was that Oregon wanted to play in LA for recruiting reasons.
Interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happy to play in the east division. That’s primed for us to run roughshod over.
The one thing that’s good about a move to the PAC is that we will be one of a few schools in the league who actually care about football. Us, Oregon, USC, and Utah are really the only schools who’s fan base demands a certain level of success. Plus being the only “southern” school in the PAC could be a plus as well in recruiting.
The other thought against East/West might be game time. If you want USC playing Central time at least 1-2 times a year you wouldn’t want the East/West divisions.
Could definitely do the 4 team pods which would allow your pod to be close geographically but allow for good cross pollination.
You aren’t going to do North/South and have one division in both CA and TX. It’ll be split up East and West for sure.
North/South seems obvious to me, so can you explain more why you’re so confident in east/west? You don’t think usc and UCLA would love to play more games in CT/Texas? Or do you think the North schools would hate it bc of that reason and not allow it? If you go east/west you don’t gain as much exposure of your big brands into CT game slots which I would think is one of the most valuable aspects of possible expansion we are talking about. And with east/west who do you split off the west if pac only expands to 14? USC/UCLA/Wash/WSU/Oregon/ORSU/Cal/Stanford would be the west in your example. Against OSU/Tech/Col/AZ/ASU/Utah (+2 maybe). Not the best split IMO if you want two equally competitive divisions.
Again, I think if pac takes us and a Texas school, the bigger players of the conference want a larger footprint in TX, north south at least gives USC UCLA that? Where as East/West doesn’t.
Not saying I’m right and you’re wrong but not sure it’s as obvious as you made it sound.
If they expand to 16, then I think four pods is the way to go. You can then schedule across pods to give all teams exposure to the central time zone
Because they’ve already vetoed North/South before in the conference due to recruiting hot spots.
They did just switch it up some a few years ago but that LA issue was the discussion
I don’t see anyway you have a South division where you let some teams get a monopoly on both Texas and California games.
But that doesn’t resolve with an east/west realignment. Unless you’re saying the bigger north schools will be satisfied that usc and UCLA don’t have more access to Texas than they do and everyone is ok with IMO obviously disproportionate divisions.
Pods work for 16 team, but not 14 obviously so that might satisfy everyone better.
I 100% get your point, my counterpoint is that the alternative that satisfies the north schools hurts the product.
I’m probably making too big a deal about geography. They could divy it up however they want. We will be flying to every school anyway, charter too.
I think pods work best with all of the geography and recruiting tangibles.
Our schedule would look like this…
@ Kansas
Kansas State
@ USC
Arizona
@ Texas Tech
Washington State
@ Utah
Stanford
@ Oregon
I’d be cool with that. Play 3 games in your pod and then 2 from the other pods.
Plains Pod: OSU, Tech, KU, KSU
Mountain Pod: Utah, CU, UA, ASU
Cal Pod: USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford
Cascade Pod: Oregon, Oregon State, UW, Wazzou
I think 4 team pods are the easy, obvious answer in a 16 team conference. You get 3 regional opponents to play every year and have rivalries with and all of that, and then you get to play all of the other teams every other year, and get to host every team at home at least every 4 years. In 8 team divisions, you’d only play teams from the other division once every 4 years and only host them once every 8 years, which at that point, what’s the point of being in a conference with them?
Regardless of how they split divisions/pods if we’re in the PAC get ready for a lot of 11 AM home kickoffs. If we’re not in a prime time matchup the home 11 AM kickoff is the price we pay for conference entry.
Wouldn’t they want them to be 2:30/3 kickoffs? I bet USC fans don’t want 9am kickoffs.
The only part of any future schedule I care about is that I don’t see OU anywhere on it. Thank God!
There’s the issue with the PAC 12 playing games east. As much as our fans don’t like staying up late for their games, David Shaw and the rest of the PAc 12 coaches will moan about every 11 a.m. CST/9 a.m. PST kickoff for “body clock” reasons. I’m not sure any PAC team will want to play conference games on the road at the Big 12 teams before 2 p.m. CST, which sort of defeats the purpose of getting into that timezone. Now coaches don’t get paid to make those decisions – athletic directors do – but it does seem like a hurdle to overcome.
Let’s say all 4 added teams are CST, they’d probably do their best to ensure the 11:00am kick is between two of those teams. That way you don’t have body clock issues and still get into that tone a lot. Yes it would suck for us. Although I do love 11am road games. Get in and get out. Play before opposing fans are super liquors up.
Also, if they did that it would mean worse case two home 11am kicks and in some years only one?
Personally, I don’t totally hate 11am kicks as it allows me time to enjoy the game, but still get family time in the evenings. That said, I HATE IT for the vendors
I don’t agree with the Big 12 teams included, but I think this is a great set up. Lets make it happen!
What four do you think would make the cut?