kirklandduck

Now we can all breathe! lol

I believe Cristobal and his staff did break Shough's confidence precisely for the reasons you state. It was really disappointing given that he had all the tools necessary to be successful but was driven downward by what we now know to be the lack of development coaching by that staff. It also is likely the reason why we haven't seen more out of Ty Thompson and Jay Butterfield during that era. TT and JB are basically starting from scratch with Kenny Dillingham and likely reaped more benefits during Spring practice under him than an entire year under Cristobal...

Multiple crystal balls say he's likely a Duck but you never know.

Very nice summary! This one is by far my favorite of all the official UO logos.

Saddling up with the ACC would probably work IF George gets things in writing this time. The whole "gentleman's handshake" thing with the "alliance" was, at best, foolish. If that were to happen, then perhaps the snapping up Baylor and maybe Houston would make sense given their prime location for Texas recruiting. After that pick up SDSU and Fresno St. to recover at least some percentage of the Southern Cali media market (forget Boise St, they just can't bring in enough money from Idaho). Then you have a pretty decent super conference that stretches across to both coasts with enough good teams to create some interesting championship match-ups. I'd love to see an Oregon/Clemson game some day.

I believe Alabama already has Eli Holstein Jr. committed at QB for 2023, he's pretty close to being a 5-star.

Cristobal's slow, plodding "power" run offense vs Lanning's chaos-factor Georgia style defense? Someone pop some popcorn and get ready to laugh hard!

Good article and reinforces what I think about a triple conference merger. It's harder to do but results in a much more bullet-proof entity with a lot of negotiating power with ESPN/Fox Sports/etc.

Personally I'm thinking maybe the Pac12, Big12, and ACC should merge into the biggest super conference and beat the Big10/SEC at their own game. Go big or go home.

Yeah I hear that. OSU and WSU are just stuck in really small markets and very little success on the field. Cal has some of the SF market but the school's support of its' football program has always been lukewarm. I don't see any of them surviving in any scenario other than a Pac12/Big12 merger...

Report: The Big 12 in “deep discussions” to bring in six Pac-12 teams WWW.YAHOO.COM It appears the Big 12 is not done with expansion. At this point it's just impossible to tell if these are just rumors and gossip so I'm treating it as such. This article states that the Big12 is in significant talks to bring in Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Utah. It's not saying that the Big12 is talking directly to these schools, they may be just internal discussions within its' board of directors. That being said, this could hint at a possible Pac12/Big12 merger in some form as discussed in other threads. Other rumors had only the first four teams being discussed to try and jump ship to the Big12 but this is the first time I've heard Oregon and Washington being talked about by Big12 brass.

I'm going to make an uneducated guess that the media partner Canzano is (also) speculating on is ESPN. Since Fox Sports is pulling away the LA market, ESPN may want to shore up more west coast media markets with the rest of the Pac12 (plus perhaps SDSU and Fresno St to have at least some penetration into Southern Cali).

It'd be hilarious irony if the B10 brought in Oregon but not UW...

Pac-12 to explore expansion options after losing USC, UCLA THEATHLETIC.COM The Pac-12 board of directors has approved the conference to explore expansion options after USC and UCLA... In what may be a case of "too little, too late"...could there be conversations with the Big12 soon?

Only way I see the Pac12 hold onto Oregon/UW is to hold onto all the other teams plus pull in the Big12 to form a 3rd "super conference" (albeit the weakest of the 3 that would result). Then they can be the "Clemson" of the Pac12/Big12 conference. However unless some kind of miracle happens I think the window has passed for that.

GK was surely blindsided but that would be because he naively thought he could trust the other conference commissioners in this so-called "alliance". His overall solid 1st year on the job is now marred by this huge failure to protect the Pac12 by not implementing any legal framework to prevent others in the alliance from poaching from each other...instead relying on a "gentleman's agreement". Larry Scott certainly shoulders most of the blame for putting the Pac12 in such a bad financial spot in the first place, leaving GK very little margin for error. But we can't say GK is completely blameless in this as he left the conference wide open to attack with no possible defense.

To me there's enough there to be in the same ballpark as the potential expanded Big10, in particular Baylor/Utah/BYU/Houston/Cincinnati...certainly way more competitive than the ACC.

This was a big miss by the current Pac12 commissioner and to me a contributing factor should USC/UCLA leave.

Wasn't one of the points of the "alliance" was to help prevent poaching of teams from other conferences?

That one hurts and is really surprising. My guess is there's a large NIL deal in play here somewhere

I believe that's absolutely what's going on here. Moving to the Big10, to me, doesn't make much sense in a couple ways: 1. Increased costs traveling farther for virtually every away game 2. Increased competition. In the Pac12 USC realistically only needs to worry about Oregon and Utah; in the Big10 they have to deal with tOSU, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Penn St which is a tougher group in the aggregate. It's all about the $$$.

Dante Moore and any combo of 2-3 of the other 5* players is a darn good day in my book.

That's not that bad to me. If they had a 12pm/1pm kickoff in Houston that would be 10am or 11am for us...not horrendous and something definitely manageable for a Saturday. I'll trade a slightly earlier game time for all that recruiting benefit in the Southeast any day of the week!

Welcome to the forums! I agree with what you're saying and advocated for taking in some of those teams rather than the "alliance" that the Pac12 formed with the ACC and Big10. Simply put, the media exposure and recruiting footprint drastically expands for the Pac12 with those teams. Can you imagine Oregon going to Houston/Lubbock every other year and vice versa? Think of all the eyeballs that would be on Oregon from that recruiting area. Before anyone thinks about the distance, LA --> Houston is about 1548 miles. LA --> Seattle is 1137 miles. So from a plane flight standpoint, you're really only adding an hour or two...less for the mountain zone teams. Re-arrange the North and South divisions with each team visiting the other division once a year and it's definitely a feasible thing.