The Kamikaze Kid

OST8 Howdy. I think must folks here are just shell shocked by the sudden departure news and are just throwing out different options to get a sense of which direction the Ducks should go in. I don't think anyone is disrespecting the Big 12. The appeal of SDSU is more about having a footprint in the So Cal TV market which has been the UO's recruiting hotbed up to this point. Since most feel that USC and UCLA's prime motivation for leaving the Pac was to shut out the Ducks from dominating recruiting in LA, a top priority people are feeling is to figure out how to get back in there while staying nationally relevant. If we become conference mates in the near future, I'm sure the fan base will embrace it. Right now, I think most of us are kind of feeling like we just got dumped on prom night.

As we pour over every scrap of information we can find and every possible merger and realignment, scenario gets discussed, are we sure everything is even that bad? I think the worst aspect of all of this is more about viewership in the LA market and TV revenue dipping than anything else. If the UO just stays at the top of whatever conference they find themselves in, they will still command attention. How excited will recruits be to join up with 7-5 USC or 5-7 UCLA when 11-1 #5 UO is battling to get into the playoffs year after year. The LA schools locking themselves into super conference mediocrity may be the best thing that's ever happened to the Ducks. Even as the Pac 12 has been down the last few years, the UO has still been recruiting like mad all over the country. Maybe the best thing to do is keep on keeping on as we always have. If the Ducks keep hovering around the top 10 they will be added into some super conference at some point and we can still cheer on a top 20 team in the hunt for a playoff spot until then.

I don't think the Pac or Big 12 poaching a few teams from one or the other moves the needle that much. I think a full merger just creates a bloated conference with a lot of dead weight. It seems like the only way forward would be for the two conferences to realign and form two new conferences. If that happens poaching SD St from the Mountain West would also make sense. I have no idea if this kind of realignment is even possible but something major needs to happen or all involved will get left behind.

Now that you brought it up, Auburn scored a safety after a weak motion penalty on UO negating a near first down run when they were just trying to run out clock to protect a halftime lead. The Harris interception was on the ensuing drive which Auburn converts into a touchdown one or two plays later. Deyer's down, get up and run sets up the 0:00 game winning field goal. Twelve points gifted to one team in a championship game. Grrrrrr

And the Cliff Harris interception was good!

Howdy McDawg. To help get caught up to speed, the proper term for Oregon State is 'Little Brother". The proper term for Washington is fuskies as in "Huck the Fuskies!". Which brings us to both our favorite win and favorite phrase, Kenny Wheaton's gonna score! This one play in one game in 1994, completely altered the trajectories of both programs to this day.

Yeah. I don't see him bankrolling a bunch of 4/5 star guys in the future, but I could absolutely see him do it in this instance to prove the point that he could in these earth shaking times of realignment.

Makes me wonder if Uncle Phil doesn't just step in with huge NIL bling here just to show the The BIG and SEC that he ain't messing around.

I'd love to hear what a conversation between the SEC commissioner and Uncle Phil sounds like. Something tells me they'd be speaking each others language.

After thinking things over, here is a plan that I think would be even better than just simply joining the BIG 10 or combining the PAC and Big 12. It would take the PAC, Big 12 and Mountain West and combine them together into two conferences. Here are the conferences as they are now. Big 12: Ok St, Baylor, ISU, KSU, KU, WV, TCU, TTU, Cinn, Hou, BYU, CFU Pac 12: UW, WSU, UO, OSU, Cal, Stan, UU, CU, AU, ASU Mountain West: USU, Air Force, BSU, Wyoming, CSU, NMU, SD St, Fresno St, Nev, SJ St, Hawai, UNLV Here is one option of what this plan could look like: New Conference A: OK st, Baylor, KU, TCU, TTU, Cinn, Hou, BYU, UW, UO, Stan, UU, CU, ASU, SD St, BSU, Fresno St, UNLV New Conference B: ISU, KSU, WV, CFU, WSU, OSU, Cal, AU, USU, CSU, Air Force, Wyoming, NMU, Nev, SJ St, Hawaii With this plan, the best sports schools align together. New Conference A has 18 teams with a presence in So Cal, Nor Cal, NW, Las Vegas, Phoenix, SLC, Denver, and Texas. Teams can stay within there geographical areas without traveling across the country. West Virginia and Central Florida may need to join somewhere else or stay. This new conference would still be third place behind the expanded SEC and BIG but it would be much closer to them than just keeping the Pac or Big 12 as is and adding a few teams to them. I know some old time rivalries get axed for many schools but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Oregon is just one opening season upset away from controlling the entire college football narrative. If that happens, they will have taken out two top five teams on the road in back to back years, played in two of the most viewed regular season games the last two years, and if they don't trip over there own two feet after that, will have set themselves up to be a college game day destination again and be the talk of college football all year long. Not bad for a school not deemed worthy enough to play against college football power houses like Indiana and Northwestern. Meanwhile media favorite USC could easily be looking up at a sad scoreboard against Fresno St, WSU, OSU, Utah, UCLA and ND. Here's to rooting for fate to do her thing!

Once there are two super conferences, watch as the playoffs magically open up to 16 teams. 8-4 LSU, welcome to the playoffs. 11-1 WSU, sorry. Better luck next time.

I think the biggest problem here is that there is no long term vision for what's best for the sport, teams, players or even fans. Everybody has been put into a chaotic frenzy scrambling to figure out the best options for themselves with no real understanding how any of this will effect themselves or everybody else in the long term. It's like a panicked crowd trying to escape a burning building at night during a major earthquake. If it were possible to slow down and think things through and get outside of the box, there could be a possible solution. Maybe something along the lines of the B12, Pac and Mountain West all realigning themselves into a couple 16-18 team conferences. The teams that want to keep up with the BIG and SEC join one, and the ones that don't form the other. If you took the best athletic schools and combined them, you could get something like UO, fuskies, Stanford, Utah, CU, UA, ASU, SD St, Boise St, Fresno St, UNLV, Ok St, Baylor, TTU, Kansas, Houston, Cincy. A new conference along those lines would still have many top 20 basketball and football schools and could remain competitive in the new super conference era. The rest could form their own conference which could still produce a couple top 20 ish teams every year without having to go all in on extreme sports spending and breaking the bank. It's just an out of the box thought.

ASU (Phoenix) behind WSU (Pullman) is an absolute embarrassment.

In my opinion: Pac 10= little league Big/Pac= minor league BIG 10= major league Independent= League of their own?

Between failing on expansion and the self sabotage of voting against playoff expansion I'd have to score it : Wet Paper Bag 1 Pac 12 0 As much as I hate the thought of leaving the Pac, circumstances dictate it as the only viable option.

"Even in January, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff stated the league was in favor of an expanded playoff with automatic bids, yet for whatever reason voted against it anyway. That may have signed the league’s demise." How a conference that is routinely shut out of the playoffs closes it's own door in is beyond me. The yacht club is now a bunch of kids on floaty toys in the kiddie pool.

I can't see any option that doesn't suck somehow. In the end, I think we're going to be looking at one of three end results. 1: Join either BIG or SEC as they battle each other forming two super conferences. 2: Some sort of melding between Pac and Big 12. 3: NCAA/ Conferences Leaders sit down and create football exclusive realignments while maintaining current conferences for all other sports. In the end, I see option three as the most logical but it would require the most cooperation which makes me skeptical of this option coming to fruition.

Oh I agree it's ridiculous. I'm just saying to even be considered for SEC membership, the UO would have to show a commitment to stadium expansion and increasing the opperations budget (coaches salaries) to match those of the SEC. If the Ducks showed they were all in on playing big boy football, I think they would be a very enticing school to add.

I remember threads on this board several months back talking about how the Pac 12 presidents thought of the conference more as their private yacht club instead of a billion dollar business. Now that the yachts are sinking, how will that fine wine and cheese taste paddling around in their dinghies? Failure of leadership indeed.

Pass the popcorn. This should get interesting.

Agreed. It makes me sick also.

The more I digest this latest news, the more moving to the SEC seems to be the biggest win for all involved. For the SEC, they would match The BIG's expanded Pacific coast reach and bring in one of the biggest national brands. This would be a revenue bonus instead of a drain. For the UO, having an SEC affiliation would keep them at the front of the line with 4/5 star SoCal talent and keep them nationally relevant. To entice the SEC, UO should immediately go all in on Lanning and double his pay putting him up at SEC levels. They should also begin plans for expanding Autzen to 70,000+ capacity. Regularly bringing in Alabama and LSU et al would justify the expense. What ever the costs involved with travel, pay raises and stadium upgrades, it would be more than offset by the increased revenue involved with SEC affiliation. By putting Lanning on par with his fellow upper level SEC coaches, there won't be a need for him to move on to greener pastures. Joining the SEC would also put Lanning right in his wheel house of recruiting five star SEC talent. Also, five star SEC type kids wouldn't have to leave the SEC to play for the UO. This is truly a go big or go home moment. I hope the UO is up for the challenge.

UO and Miami both joining the SEC would sure make things interesting.

This just may be the kick in the pants the Ducks need to take some bold steps they wouldn't take otherwise.