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UCLA & USC Recruiting Implications

RLS13

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Nov 8, 2016
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With the recent defection of UCLA & USC, the PAC-12 (PAC-10 again?) is all but finished as a top conference. I am guessing that Washington and Oregon are in meetings right now with the BIG-10 begging to be let in as well. Do you think we will start seeing kids de-commit form other lesser programs like Oregon State, Washington State, Cal etc.. because of this?
 
I don’t think so. A scholarship is still a scholarship and they are so hard to come by. Lots of Pros come out of those schools also. I do think the glory days of Stanford are history. They may need to rethink where they belong because NIL is not what they stand for. Maybe Ivy?
 
Where would Cal end up? Mountain West.
Cal vs San Jose st in conference games. That’s a steep fall
you bring in some of the Big 12 teams over to merge or add SDSU, Boise St and BYU
 
I don’t think so. A scholarship is still a scholarship and they are so hard to come by. Lots of Pros come out of those schools also. I do think the glory days of Stanford are history. They may need to rethink where they belong because NIL is not what they stand for. Maybe Ivy?
Ivy would be a big stretch for Stanford athletics, they would dominate. Let’s see thy had a team in the CWS a woman’s hoop team in the final 4. Let’s face it, for football they go 8-4 and beat Cal every year their fan base is ecstatic. I mean Mr. blah, boring and conservative David Shaw could stay his career if he wanted with 8-4/7-5 seasons.

Stanford and Cal are kind of fvcked at least with UCLA they had the same type of academic standards and the same philosophy. There are no schools on the West Coast that play D1 that are in the same ballpark mission wise as Cal and Stanford. Don’t think Claremont Mudd / Scripps and Cal Tech are on their sports level :D .

Literally if they could make a conference of Stanford, Cal, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Purdue, Wake Forest, Rice maybe even throw in the service academies and it would be a steroid ivy league with way higher level of sports with awesome academics.
 
Ivy would be a big stretch for Stanford athletics, they would dominate. Let’s see thy had a team in the CWS a woman’s hoop team in the final 4. Let’s face it, for football they go 8-4 and beat Cal every year their fan base is ecstatic. I mean Mr. blah, boring and conservative David Shaw could stay his career if he wanted with 8-4/7-5 seasons.

Stanford and Cal are kind of fvcked at least with UCLA they had the same type of academic standards and the same philosophy. There are no schools on the West Coast that play D1 that are in the same ballpark mission wise as Cal and Stanford. Don’t think Claremont Mudd / Scripps and Cal Tech are on their sports level :D .

Literally if they could make a conference of Stanford, Cal, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Purdue, Wake Forest, Rice maybe even throw in the service academies and it would be a steroid ivy league with way higher level of sports with awesome academics.
The ACC is on the run now after their Big 10 alliance partner pretty much gave them the finger.ACC and what’s left of the Pac12 should merge.Geography is out the window now
 
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The key is TV eyeballs and cable fees. Both Cal and Stanford exist in one of the nation's biggest TV markets. Expect both of them to seek out a Big Ten membership ASAP. Small market schools are in deep doo doo.
 
The ACC is on the run now after their Big 10 alliance partner pretty much gave them the finger.ACC and what’s left of the Pac12 should merge.Geography is out the window now
I agree geography is out of the window. For football it’s less impactful. I mean UCLA and SC say have 5 away games, it’s really 4. I wouldn’t considera cross town game where you both wear your home jerseys (best look in sports IMO) a real long haul of a road trip.

At the HS level we definitely see the cries of cross country travel. East coast teams complain about a 7PM pacific time kickoff (11 pm east coast.) Yes because high school aged kids go to bed by 11 pm please. But you also see everyone taking about when a west coast NFL team has an early east coast kickoff and the effects. Personally think it’s overrated.

But for say UCLA baseball, you go to Iowa play a series, go to Indiana play 3, come home play say 2 series then your back to Ann Arbor and East Lansing a week later, brutal. And you can’t do a 3-4 week road trip all at once. Although I definitely see the Big Ten having SC and UCLA play at home a lot in the beginning of the season in March when it’s absolutely crap weather in the Midwest and shipping the pasty white teams to play in better weather.
 
The key is TV eyeballs and cable fees. Both Cal and Stanford exist in one of the nation's biggest TV markets. Expect both of them to seek out a Big Ten membership ASAP. Small market schools are in deep doo doo.
Larry Scott sunk the Pac and is responsible for the breakup. Dude was a buffoon and the TV deals were garbage. Pac 12 after dark lol, it was dark for sure, no one east of Colorado was watching.

He tried to be a commissioner and a network executive at the same time, big fail. But he gave himself a great package and had a good scam while it lasted.
 
CBS Sports is reporting that Oregon and Washington have already been turned down for membership in the Big Ten.
 
Ivy would be a big stretch for Stanford athletics, they would dominate. Let’s see thy had a team in the CWS a woman’s hoop team in the final 4. Let’s face it, for football they go 8-4 and beat Cal every year their fan base is ecstatic. I mean Mr. blah, boring and conservative David Shaw could stay his career if he wanted with 8-4/7-5 seasons.

Stanford and Cal are kind of fvcked at least with UCLA they had the same type of academic standards and the same philosophy. There are no schools on the West Coast that play D1 that are in the same ballpark mission wise as Cal and Stanford. Don’t think Claremont Mudd / Scripps and Cal Tech are on their sports level :D .

Literally if they could make a conference of Stanford, Cal, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Purdue, Wake Forest, Rice maybe even throw in the service academies and it would be a steroid ivy league with way higher level of sports with awesome academics.
Excellent points.
 
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How would Stanford host Michigan with its 35k seat football stadium?

Wolverines couldn’t fit their student section in Stanford stadium.
 
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after their Big 10 alliance partner pretty much gave them the finger

How do you figure?

From all reputable reports USC and UCLA proactively contacted the B10, not the other way around.

What do you expect the B10 to do, tell them to “go join the SEC”?

None of this is close to finalized either.
 
CBS Sports is reporting that Oregon and Washington have already been turned down for membership in the Big Ten.

I heard they they were essentially put on hold, not turned down, as the B10 is interested in seeing if Notre Dame is interested in joining first.

Honestly, for this to really make sense geographically, I think the B10 should think hard about taking on 5 of the PAC12 programs to align them in one bracket or division.

For example, they could expand from 14 teams to 20 with say USC, UCLA, Oregon, UW, and Utah making up the Western portion of 4 total divisions.

Each of the 4 divisions play 4 conference games within their own division and 1 conference game against the other 3 divisions for a total of 7 conference games.

Winner of each of the 4 divisions play a conference semifinal against one of the other division winners. Winners of those games meet for the conference title.

That’s 9 games total which still leaves room for a couple non-conference matchups during the season and then a playoff against the SEC and whatever other conference champs there are.
 
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How do you figure?

From all reputable reports USC and UCLA proactively contacted the B10, not the other way around.

What do you expect the B10 to do, tell them to “go join the SEC”?

None of this is close to finalized either.
It matters not who contacted who.
The Big 10 formed an alliance with the ACC and Pac12 to combat the SEC super conference and then took the Pac12 flagship institution and left the ACC holding the bag 🤷🏽‍♂️ And yeah they could have denied the acceptance of both schools at this time because it’s highly unlikely that the SEC would expand again when their newest members haven’t even played a game yet.
 
Ivy would be a big stretch for Stanford athletics, they would dominate. Let’s see thy had a team in the CWS a woman’s hoop team in the final 4. Let’s face it, for football they go 8-4 and beat Cal every year their fan base is ecstatic. I mean Mr. blah, boring and conservative David Shaw could stay his career if he wanted with 8-4/7-5 seasons.

Stanford and Cal are kind of fvcked at least with UCLA they had the same type of academic standards and the same philosophy. There are no schools on the West Coast that play D1 that are in the same ballpark mission wise as Cal and Stanford. Don’t think Claremont Mudd / Scripps and Cal Tech are on their sports level :D .

Literally if they could make a conference of Stanford, Cal, Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Purdue, Wake Forest, Rice maybe even throw in the service academies and it would be a steroid ivy league with way higher level of sports with awesome academics.
Don't know how realistic the last paragraph is, but the current structure is getting blown up and that idea for a conference is really good.

Steriod Ivy League LOL. Get it trademarked bella!
 
I heard they they were essentially put on hold, not turned down, as the B10 is interested in seeing if Notre Dame is interested in joining first.

Honestly, for this to really make sense geographically, I think the B10 should think hard about taking on 5 of the PAC12 programs to align them in one bracket or division.

For example, they could expand from 14 teams to 20 with say USC, UCLA, Oregon, UW, and Utah making up the Western portion of 4 total divisions.

Each of the 4 divisions play 4 conference games within their own division and 1 conference game against the other 3 divisions for a total of 7 conference games.

Winner of each of the 4 divisions play a conference semifinal against one of the other division winners. Winners of those games meet for the conference title.

That’s 9 games total which still leaves room for a couple non-conference matchups during the season and then a playoff against the SEC and whatever other conference champs there are.
IMHO no way USC or UCLA want Oregon, Wash or any other West Coast schools joining the Big Ten. So I just don’t see that happening. Id say a more likely scenario is Arizona, ASU, Colorado and Utah end up in the Big 12. That would make sense for a lot of reasons. I believe the PAC 12 will be a shell of itself before we know it.

this move by UCLA and USC just shows how much $$$ is involved in the football programs. Both USC and UCLA have incredible ’olympic sports’ programs, something the Big Ten simply doesn’t excel. Add in all the increased travel costs and scheduling headaches caused by this move, and those still weren’t enough to scare the Bruins and the Trojans away from this move. The $$$ in FB is beyond what we could imagine
 
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There is a LA Times story about UCLA athletics being in financial trouble. Increased travel won’t help that but like was said above, maybe the football money solves both of those issues.
 
It matters not who contacted who.

It doesn’t matter to you.

However with regard to your assertion that the B10 “poached” those schools it certainly does matter. Your choice of words and description of the situation is flat wrong.

At worst, the B10 took advantage of the option presented to them. Which is a completely different thing than proactively reaching out and poaching the schools.

Furthermore criticizing them for accepting USC and UCLA’s overtures is very shortsighted.

What did you expect them to do? Tell both schools they have an “alliance” (whatever the hell that means) and let them defect to the SEC or another conference instead?? That sure would have been smart. SMH.

Once those 2 schools made the overtures, it was clear they were leaving the PAC12. To refuse to take the call or refuse to try to work something out knowing another conference would be sure to take them in would be criminal negligence of the highest order.

Shake yourself ararar.
 
It doesn’t matter to you.

However with regard to your assertion that the B10 “poached” those schools it certainly does matter. Your choice of words and description of the situation is flat wrong.

At worst, the B10 took advantage of the option presented to them. Which is a completely different thing than proactively reaching out and poaching the schools.

Furthermore criticizing them for accepting USC and UCLA’s overtures is very shortsighted.

What did you expect them to do? Tell both schools they have an “alliance” (whatever the hell that means) and let them defect to the SEC or another conference instead?? That sure would have been smart. SMH.

Once those 2 schools made the overtures, it was clear they were leaving the PAC12. To refuse to take the call or refuse to try to work something out knowing another conference would be sure to take them in would be criminal negligence of the highest order.

Shake yourself ararar.
Again,It doesn’t mater who contacted who or that the BIG10 did what they should have.They formed the alliance to combat the power of a super conference and then became a super conference themselves.So yeah they gave a big middle finger to the ACC and PAC12
 
Speaking of the $$$ (make that $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!!!) in football...

I have heard that, despite the fact Kentucky hoops is of legendary status and their football program is almost always awful, Kentucky's football program pulls in five times the money that Kentucky's hoops program does.
 
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IMHO no way USC or UCLA want Oregon, Wash or any other West Coast schools joining the Big Ten. So I just don’t see that happening. Id say a more likely scenario is Arizona, ASU, Colorado and Utah end up in the Big 12. That would make sense for a lot of reasons. I believe the PAC 12 will be a shell of itself before we know it.

this move by UCLA and USC just shows how much $$$ is involved in the football programs. Both USC and UCLA have incredible ’olympic sports’ programs, something the Big Ten simply doesn’t excel. Add in all the increased travel costs and scheduling headaches caused by this move, and those still weren’t enough to scare the Bruins and the Trojans away from this move. The $$$ in FB is beyond what we could imagine
Football wise, the PAC 12 has been a shell of itself for quite a while. Worse, the conference wasn't doing anything or showing interest in anything to rectify the situation. They've been perfectly willing to bring up the rear of the Power5 Conference setup. They wanted the prestige of being a Piwer 5 conference without making any in field contributions. They chose in conference "parity@ over boosting the quality of football, especially where the traditional football powers were concerned ( YSC , Washington, UCLA) Oregon's rise has more to do with Nike money than conference boost. PAC 12 Administrators caused all of it.
 
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