I’ve said being a G5 would be awful since the minute this started what the hell do you mean I’m “finally on board?” If the Big 12 tries to add teams to “rebuild” it’s no longer a P5 conference which I have made clear I do not want.
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It’s interesting in that given the move of Texas and OU to the SEC all the other P5 conferences are 1 and maybe 2 teams away from being G5 leagues as well. I think the ensuing power that the SEC will have over all the other conferences will be a huge drag on them and may ultimately kill college football as we know it. Part of the draw of college football is it’s history, rivalries, traditions, etc. Now it seems that the entire focus is on money and no one is trying to preserve the things that have made college football so attractive for so many over the years. if we lose what made college football so fun to just money and who can win championships we may end up with nothing but the SEC looking like the NBA’s G league for the NFL and no one watching. Of course this will take years to develop but I can see it happening.
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Sarcasm I’ve been chitting u. Ur hated for gundy boiled over to me. I’ve been telling u to take a breathe and stay out of the bars
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Haven’t drank since the 4th of July but thanks for the concern.
That binge drink is not good. I can tell u have been taken to ur boiling point.
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Yea options 2 and 3 will set the program back decades, recruiting will be limited to the SEC, PAC 12, Big 10 and ACC leftovers. Winning championships under options 2 and 3 may not even result in making the CFP although who knows what that will look like with the up coming expansion. Option 1 is the only choice that provides for some kind of future IMO.
To wrap our head’s around OSU’s future, we need to answer some difficult questions:
- Why are OU and Texas leaving?
The answer is not football (directly). The expanded playoff would give OU a free pass to the playoffs virtually every year, and give UT the chance to actually make the playoff sometime in the foreseeable future. Their chances to win National Championships both decrease in the short term with this move.
The answer is money (obviously). They, correctly, believe that aligning themselves with another half-dozen of the biggest names in college football gives the conference enormous bargaining power. The principle at play here is one of ratios: A conference with 8 out of 16 teams (50%) carrying a blue blood brand far outweighs a conference with 2 out of 10 (20%).
- What does this decision say about the future of college football?
Every other P5 conference should be extremely concerned about this development. You now have around half the biggest brands in football in a single conference. How does a conference that’s 20% brand names compete with a 50% brand name conference for eyeballs, revenue, and ultimately recruits? I fear that the future of college football will be more about consolidation than about expansion.
I hear a lot of speculation about ultimately moving towards 4 16-team conferences. I’m skeptical about this outcome, since one of those 4 conferences would be significantly stronger than the others. Why would the SEC want to share the landscape with four conferences each boasting only two or three brand names each?
- What does the end game look like?
With the obvious caveat that I have no clue what the future holds, I see three very plausible futures.
Option A: The SEC slowly becomes all of college football. They follow up this move in 5-10 years by inviting Clemson and FSU. A few years later they bring in Ohio State and Michigan. Finally USC and Oregon come on board. The conference has to ability to invite whomever they like, and they keep adding teams until there are no teams left who would increase their overall value. After this point they expand based not on history, but on potential (like a pro league), knowing that anyone who is added will immediately become a better program with the resources and exposure the SEC provides.
Option B: The remaining conferences consolidate to create a real challenger to the SEC. Maybe the Big Ten reaches out to Clemson and FSU, and then continues adding teams until all the major players are in the Big Ten or SEC. This is not functionally much different from having one conference, but allows the remaining teams to assemble on their own terms, instead of letting the SEC dictate who is in or out.
Option C (what everyone seems is projecting for the near future): One super-conference and a number of major players in relatively-minor conferences. To see what this looks like, look towards European Soccer. Half of the top teams play in England with the other national leagues containing 1 or 2 brand names. This seems the least tenable to me long-term. Notice how this past summer every major European Soccer team tried to separate to form their own league. They were blocked due to politics and national sentiment which seem less likely to get in the way here.
- What does OSU’s future look like?
Any way you slice it, it looks bad.
Option A (the SEC expanding to take over college football) is the worst possible future, since they would have no reason to ever include OSU in their plans.
Option B (a second super-conference forms) might give OSU a little hope. If OSU can keep winning games and building its brand, maybe a future opens up where they get invited to play with the big boys. Maybe the second conference wants to complete directly in Oklahoma and Texas and thinks including OSU and a school(s) from Texas as is the way to make that happen. Unlikely, but not impossible in a situation where two major conferences are in an arms-race.
Options 3 (European Soccer Model) is a livable future for OSU. We could compete to be the best “other” school out there and every 10-20 years have a chance to make a splash against a big name opponent in the playoffs (compare to Ajax playing the Dutch league). It’s not near as much fun as competing against the best every game, but still enjoyable to follow. I bet Boise State fans have had a blast cheering for their team these past two decades.
I feel a bit better after getting all that out of my mind. I wonder if any of you will take the time to actually read it? If so, let me know which questions I answered wrongly, and which important questions I failed to ask. If not, at least it was therapeutic. Thanks!
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Even if we made the CFP in options 2/3 we would be recruiting at a G5 level at that point. Would be way harder than it is now to beat the Alabama/Clemson/Ohio States of the world. College Football looks to be going into some dark days if it keeps going in the direction if currently is.
Best scenario is everyone in the SEC beats each other and only one team makes it out of the conference most years. Nah, they won’t let that happen. ( 8-4 OU gets in over 12-0 OSU because of history)
If those schools don’t improve, you’re correct. However, it keeps us in the Texas recruiting arena, which if we lose, I don’t think it matters where we play.
With the new playoff system, dominating a 16 team league should get us into the playoff.
Arkansas is another example. Both Nebraska and Arkansas are flush with cash due to their conference affiliations. How’s that working for their on field product?
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If we could keep the 8 remaining schools together and add SMU, Houston, Cincy, BYU, Air Force, Army, Navy and Colorado State or San Diego State, that accomplishes the following:
- I think the conference winner of those 16 teams receives a playoff bid
- Adding major TV markets should maximize the new TV revenue (not what we were getting before, but probably best we could get)
- Continues a presence in Texas (Baylor, TCU, Houston, TCU, Texas Tech) for recruiting purposes
Initially I was in favor of the Pac 12, but I’m concerned that we lose our recruiting presence in Texas, and then we become Nebraska or Arkansas.
Brian I like your analysis. As you say who knows what the future holds but you have a good blueprint of what could be. I’m pretty confident that the chances are at least even that OSU is impacted greatly from this especially when it comes to recruiting which is the life blood of any program. Once recruiting is cutoff, curtailed, diminished, etc the football program will start to decline, how far is anyone’s guess.
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Also, Humans by default don’t like change and since I am one that fact could be jading my response to the potential move of Texas/OU to the SEC. I very much hope that I am wrong but my gut tells me that college football is headed to a very dark place as a result of this event. Someone or someones need to put a stop to this and cause the college football powers that be to stop for a minute and take a hard look at what is being done to the sport. They need to understand the potential impacts of these changes, and at least proceed with eyes wide open on the potential effects to college football going forward.
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I do understand what ur saying about recruits. Problem is we never got the 5 or a lot of 4 stars. Like those 2.
3 stars are like fat girls they need loving too.
We have increased r recruiting out west. Going to the pac12 actually mite help us. Kid out west now wants to play in the pac12 says no to us, since we’re in the pac 12 says yes.
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Hope you’re right - unfortunately no one will know which is the correct move until around 2030. Hope I’m still alive then.
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I enjoyed your analysis, but the soccer comparisons are over my head. Not watching soccer if it were primetime on ESPN. Certainly not waking up at 2am to watch 90 minutes of Europeans not scoring goals.
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I’m with you on the changes and the harm this NIL will bring to the haves of football and basketball. You know cheating still goes on in the SEC, this will drive a wedge further between the haves and have nots. I don’t like change much myself, I want to have old rivals we play and I don’t want to start watching football at 9 P. M. …. Fearful we are also headed to a destructive path
Right, wrong, or in-between, nobody in a position of power can see past the money aspect of it all.