RobertHedrock said:
Clemson will not receive an offer from the Big Ten as the universities' academics and cultures are so at variance with that of the conference (indeed, Clemson is a prototype SEC school). I must concede that I was confident that Oregon would never be invited to the Big Ten to give some context to my credibility on these matters.
Florida State and Clemson may have had some "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" conversations with individuals that have informal ties to the Big Ten and the SEC, but I highly doubt that there has been any official contact or secure invitations; such activities would open the conferences to tortious interference lawsuits. There will not be any official discussions between the conferences and the schools until all legal issues are resolved.
If Florida State does not receive a Big Ten invitation it will not be because of AAU status; Florida State's academics have been rapidly improving, and by any reasonable measure their academics are (and certainly will be in the future) superior to those of Oregon. My impression is that AAU status is much preferred by the Big Ten presidents, but is not an absolute. Every Big Ten president knew that Nebraska's AAU status was hanging by a thread for the previous decade (Wisconsin and Michigan provided the crucial votes to expel the Cornhuskers!), yet they were invited anyway, and an AAU-less Notre Dame clearly had a standing invitation for the last quarter century (at least).
I believe that all of the "Florida State/Clemson to the Big Ten" discussion is nonsensical; the locations of each university are deep in the heart of Dixie (the panhandle of Florida is not "Florida"), and in any case I cannot imagine that ESPN, who holds the whip hand in this situation, will allow two valuable schools they have under contract to move to the Big Ten. The most likely outcome in my view is that there will be a negotiated settlement where the two schools move to the SEC and the remaining ACC schools soldier on with the current conference membership.
I continue to be disappointed and puzzled as to why the Big Ten did not invite Stanford and Cal to the conference last summer. Even if FOX/CBS/NBC would not increase their payments on the current contract, opening a fourth window ("Big Ten After Dark") would have surely produced sufficient additional income to pay for the two schools (even ESPN might have bid on this package) given their acceptance of the limited ACC payout. Perhaps the Big Ten presidents were concerned about swallowing six new schools, all with close internal ties, simultaneously; this group would be a formidable voting bloc whose impact would be unpredictable. I still hold out hope that sometime in the not-too-distant future the Bay Area schools will receive an invitation to the Big Ten.
In 2017, I dealt with the Clemson science department on the Eclipse... some incredible folks, and a long ways from from the athletic department.
I love the academia pablum while dollars rule the day.
But, yes, Clemson would have a hard time matching up with those academic giants at Nebraska, Iowa, and Michigan State.
If we have learned anything over the past year, geography means nothing to this money grab. Maybe the Clemson/SCarolina rivalry helps in convincing the powers of the SEC to pick up the Tigers, but I don't want to get too collegiate here...irony intended.
There has to be economic motivation to invite Cal and Furd. I don't think that happens anytime soon.