So this month marks 15 years since the expansion crap started…

Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State had to die so that Oregon vs Rutgers could live.

quote:

---

So this month marks 15 years since the expansion crap started…

---

It started a lot longer ago than 15 years ago

in 1992, we added USC and Arkansas
in 1996, the Big 8 absorbed Texas, A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech to form the Big 12
In 2004, Miami, BC, and Va Tech left the Big East for the ACC, ending the Big East's time as a power conference

That feels like forever ago.

It was going to be the PAC-16.

Now it is the PAC-2.

quote:

---

That feels like forever ago.

It was going to be the PAC-16.

Now it is the PAC-2.

---

What a fiasco that would have been. Bill Powers and Deloss Dodds just assumed everyone would fall in line. Thank goodness for Bowen Loftin, Jim Wilson, and Gene Stallings.

Having said that, unstable conferences are a bit like unstable elements in the periodic table. Once Arkansas left the SWC, it was only a matter of time before A&M and Texas found a way out. It turned out to only be a temporary respite, but it was going to happen one way or another.

Funny thing is, all these super conference models you see floated around have A&M, Texas, OU and Arkansas in a reconstituted SWC of sorts. It didn't work back in the old days; I don't know why folks think it would work now.

quote:

---

So not from when Arkansas and South Carolina joined up?

---

That was more of a prelude than anything else. However, it did provide the blueprint for what was to happen almost two decades later when realignment really got going between 2010-2012.

The game more or less remained the same from 1990-2010. It didn't take long after the chips began to fall with Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri for the sport to totally transform.

quote:

---

Now I hope we break away from the other 2 leagues as soon as possible.

---

if Sankey were as visionary and as bold as his predecessors in Birmingham - he'd realize he doesn't need a conference like the big1t9en as any sort of partner - especially with ESPN opening the door for the ACC media GoR to no longer be a factor -

Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Baylor
cLemson
Duke
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Houston
Kentucky
Louisville
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Missouri
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
South Carolina
SMU
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Texas Christian
Texas Austin
Texas Tech
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Virginia Tech
West Virginia

that 32 alone is more than enough for the SEC to be its own *League* providing inventory for TV and competition no other collection of universities/colleges could match -

They handled the possible move to the Pac10 badly. But the Big12 was dead. The networks weren’t going to pay for it.

Arkansas left the SWC for the SEC when the SEC got ahead of the rest of college football negotiating tv deals. That was one major break in history.

A second was those big10/sec tv deals compared to the deal for what had been a very competitive (on the field) Big12.

Texas, Nebraska, OU, A&M were going to get left behind in the Big12. They can all point fingers at each other, but the fault lies in the fact networks did not want the big12.

quote:

---

that 32 alone is more than enough for the SEC

---

No Liberty no care.

I like what you have there. Break it into 4 divisions and let's play ball.

quote:

---

What a fiasco that would have been. Bill Powers and Deloss Dodds just assumed everyone would fall in line. Thank goodness for Bowen Loftin, Jim Wilson, and Gene Stallings.

---

Thank goodness Texas turned down the SEC before you were born. Then Bowen, Loftin, Stallings etc. wouldn't have mattered.