Mizzou will announce SEC or Big12:

http://www.komu.com/streaming-newscast/

Chat comments in sidebar are snarky.

"You know I lost most of my day at work waiting to hear Sprint was getting the **** iPhone. Now I'm spending my evening watching a 0 - 0 pitching duel with the Birds and waiting for this freaking announcement. I hate being from MO sometimes..."

Missouri curators vote unanimously to allow Missouri chancellor to explore leaving the Big 12. Presumably that means they will begin talks (if they haven't already begun) with the SEC. Rumors abound that the SEC will add both Missouri and WVU with an aim to get to 16.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7060457/missouri-tigers-curators-vote-consider-leaving-big-12

What does this mean for rest of B12? I guess they would be crazy enough to add four other shitty teams and go to 12?

WildBear;584935 said:

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What does this mean for rest of B12? I guess they would be crazy enough to add four other shitty teams and go to 12?

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Rebirth of the SWC with Houston, SMU, Rice and TCU?

ninetyfourbear;584937 said:

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Rebirth of the SWC with Houston, SMU, Rice and TCU?

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Supposedly BYU to announce tomorrow if it is going to join the SWC, we'll know more then.

I can't see why anyone would announce to join the Little9/8 until the dust settles. If Missou had announced they were going to sign to the commitment of 6 years of media rights, then BYU joining would have been logical. Now BYU joining is equivalent to them pledging to jump on board a leaky rowboat that is swaying dangerously from the wake of much larger nearby ships...

Cal84;584929 said:

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Missouri curators vote unanimously to allow Missouri chancellor to explore leaving the Big 12. Presumably that means they will begin talks (if they haven't already begun) with the SEC. Rumors abound that the SEC will add both Missouri and WVU with an aim to get to 16.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7060457/missouri-tigers-curators-vote-consider-leaving-big-12

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Seeing as Missouri didn't sign the Big 12 agreement and they are even announcing this tells me they are more than 50% gone if they get the invite they want....I love anything that disrupts the Beebe-Dodds pork fest...

Assuming that Missouri and West Virginia leave their respective conferences for the SEC and bring that conference to 15, is there any speculation on who School No. 16 would be?

FiatSlug;584953 said:

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Assuming that Missouri and West Virginia leave their respective conferences for the SEC and bring that conference to 15, is there any speculation on who School No. 16 would be?

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Florida State would be the best choice for the SEC. People have mentioned that Florida would object to such an addition, but the SEC could break down those objections by noting to Florida that FSU would be a viable competitor in a 16 team ACC anyway. By bringing in FSU, the disemboweled ACC would make Miami an also ran even after it came back from sanctions - thus leaving Florida better off in the long run with only one in-state competitor, not two. But it seems unlikely that FSU would jump, having just signed off on a slightly larger ACC exit fee (not that it would be an insurmountable obstacle to the SEC, but still....). The same presumably goes for the SEC's other logical targets in the ACC.

If the ACC holds firm and Oklahoma and Texass continue to pass on joining what they perceive as the moral cesspit of the SEC, then the next logical target for the SEC would appear to be Kansas. If the SEC added Kansas, that I think would set off alarm bells in the HQ buildings on the B1G and P12. Because at that point, you are pretty near the endgame and there would be a lack of alternative targets for the B1G and P12 to seek.

That's an interesting bit of thinking.

I also don't think that Florida State will join the SEC; too many hurdles to overcome (ACC exit fee and UF veto power). Besides, I don't think FSU wants to leave the ACC to be honest.

It's an interesting scenario to think that the SEC might then target Kansas. It makes sense from the perspective of preserving a long-time Missouri rivalry. What I'm not sure of is if Kansas would want to join the SEC. Has anyone in any position of leadership within KU expressed any views on joining the SEC or the SEC in general?

And would it make any more sense to go after another school like Louisville? Louisville already has a rivalry with Kentucky, which might boost both schools.

It would also present the great advantage of easily aligning each division: the West would add Texas A&M and Missouri; the East would add West Virginia and Louisville.

The SEC has a rule that no new school can come from a state with a team already in it. That rule seems to be reinforced by the reported key driver on any new team - they must bring new television/recruiting markets. AtM fits. Missou fits. West Virginia, not so much (plus there's that pesky ACC departure fee). Kansas...maybe, kind of. VaTech...maybe, kind of. Louisville violates the 1 per state rule. I don't know, maybe they stop at 14.

If Missouri were to leave the Big 12, I'm not so certain that the Big 12 doesn't at least explore the possibility of a merger with the Big East. The Big East will have six teams remaining, the Big 12 eight teams remaining. Pick up Navy and Temple and voila! A sixteen team conference neatly divided into two divisions of 8 schools each:

East Division (formerly Big East schools)
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Louisville
Navy
Rutgers
South Florida
Temple
West Virginia

West Division (formerly Big 12 schools)
Baylor
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Texas
Texas Tech

Granted, the power in football skews West, but they have a conference championship game and East Coast markets plus they also retain AQ status.

Maybe not the optimal situation, but better than not being a super-conference.

Fiat, what you describe is very logical, but I don't think the situation would remain stable long enough for the Little10/BigLeast to pull it off. Once SEC goes to 14, WVU and UConn will increase their efforts to jump ship and until/unless they get blackballed by their desired landing spots, they will not commit to a new conference. Rutgers and Kansas would also be very near their tipping points.

Your proposed Frankenstein conference does pick up TCU though...

tequila4kapp;584994 said:

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The SEC has a rule that no new school can come from a state with a team already in it. That rule seems to be reinforced by the reported key driver on any new team - they must bring new television/recruiting markets. AtM fits. Missou fits. West Virginia, not so much (plus there's that pesky ACC departure fee). Kansas...maybe, kind of. VaTech...maybe, kind of. Louisville violates the 1 per state rule. I don't know, maybe they stop at 14.

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The rule is that an existing member can veto an applicant if the applicant is in the same state. But the new market thing is more likely to keep Louisville out than allow it admission. I see those two issues as intertwined.

West Virginia is a Big East school, not an ACC school. And while the market that West Virginia brings isn't big like Houston, it also creates another inter-conference rivalry between the SEC and the ACC (Pittsburgh-West Virginia, aka The Backyard Brawl) in addition to Florida-Florida State, Georgia-Georgia Tech, and South Carolina-Clemson. I think the SEC likes those match-ups, as a rule.

As you point out, the SEC might just pause at 14 if Missouri elects to accept an invitation from the SEC (and I think one will be offered). Question is: how are the divisions aligned? One option would be to align Missouri with the East Division and make Texas A&M their arch rival. Another option that I've seen suggested elsewhere would be to split Alabama and Auburn between the East and West Divisions but retain that rivalry as a permanent inter-divisional rivalry.

Not an easy choice. 16 teams with 8 teams in each division would be much cleaner.

And BYU, and possibly Boise. And maybe SMU. So if the three bolt WV, UCONN and Rutgers) to the SEC / ACC to bring those conferences to 14 or 16, then the Big 12 could get to 16 as well.

The Pac 12 and the Big 12 would stay as is. The only issue is, what happens to ND. Do they stick with the Big East Basketball schools for non-football sports (which is what they do now) or do they go to the Big 10 or ACC. If they make a move like that, then everything you just described changes. The Big 10 takes Kansas, ND to move to 14 (not missouri, as they were spurned last year and they are still pissed). I can see the ACC trying to take ND as a non-football school a la Big East, but that would really limit them to a 14 configuration in football and a 15 configuration in hoops. If they did that, they could actually open it up in hoops to get to 18 teams and do a single game round robin like the Big East, except that the basketball would be even better.

In the end, the Pac 12 does not really have expansion capabilities, now that we left OK at the altar. It looks like, unless we want to take Boise or someone like that, we have the west, but that is it. Maybe that is fine.

If other schools from the mountain west get poached - like TCU / Boise / Air Force - then it is entirely possible that they poach the remnants of the WAC and that collapses. They want to play conference USA in a championship game with 11 teams each - 22 total teams - and have that as an AQ BCS game.

So the final configuration would look like SEC - 14, ACC - 16, BIG 10 - 14, SEC - 14, Pac 12 - 12, Conference USA / Mountain West - 22.

There is still Nevada, UNLV, New Mexico ..not choice selections but if we HAD to expand we COULD if others were not available. Even for the sake of just adding them for football.

MinotStateBeav;585052 said:

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There is still Nevada, UNLV, New Mexico ..not choice selections but if we HAD to expand we COULD if others were not available. Even for the sake of just adding them for football.

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This is the problem with not taking the Okies when the opportunity presented itself. If the P12 is stuck taking the likes of Fresno State, Nevada and New Mexico, then wtf did the P12 chancellors just do to themselves on the academic front? On even if you do add those sorts of teams, it's very easy to come up with permutations where the P16 is left out of a 1+1 playoff system in favor or the SEC, ACC, B1G and a Frankenstein conference if that conference can add BYU and ND.

At this point Larry needs to start educating the P12 chancellors about the dangers of sitting put. The fact that he had not done that previously is frankly a bit baffling to me, given his otherwise well prepared plan of attack.

Cal84;585068 said:

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This is the problem with not taking the Okies when the opportunity presented itself.

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Oklahoma stated afterwards that they only said they were looking at the Pac-12 in order to increase their bargaining power within the Big-12. Whether that was true, or just the statement of a spurned suitor, we may never know.

ninetyfourbear;585206 said:

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Oklahoma stated afterwards that they only said they were looking at the Pac-12 in order to increase their bargaining power within the Big-12. Whether that was true, or just the statement of a spurned suitor, we may never know.

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If that was truely their intent, they wouldn't have announced that the P12/14/16 was the only conference they were considering just a day before they were rebuffed by the P12.

ninetyfourbear;585206 said:

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Oklahoma stated afterwards that they only said they were looking at the Pac-12 in order to increase their bargaining power within the Big-12. Whether that was true, or just the statement of a spurned suitor, we may never know.

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Saving face. Oklahoma reached out to both the Big10 and Pac12 and was rebuffed, and proud programs don't appreciate that.

Cal84;585006 said:

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Fiat, what you describe is very logical, but I don't think the situation would remain stable long enough for the Little10/BigLeast to pull it off. Once SEC goes to 14, WVU and UConn will increase their efforts to jump ship and until/unless they get blackballed by their desired landing spots, they will not commit to a new conference. Rutgers and Kansas would also be very near their tipping points.

Your proposed Frankenstein conference does pick up TCU though...

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I brain farted on TCU; I'd replace Baylor with TCU in the West Division.

I think that the situation will remain stable in large part because the B1G has been notably satisfied with where things are and have studiously not been heard from during the most recent re-alignment rumblings that started when Texas A&M announced they were leaving the Big 12.

Note also that the ACC and the SEC have taken measured actions and expressed measured thoughts with regards to conference expansion. Larry Scott and the Pac-12 have been similarly restrained in their actions and public expressions.

WVU and UConn can get as hysterical as they want, it doesn't mean that the ACC or the SEC will pull the trigger on issuing any more invitations. We're at the point that only a few schools can drive forward conference expansion:

[LIST=1]

Missouri - because they allow the SEC to balance their two divisions and create a balanced football and basketball schedule;

Notre Dame - I think that any BCS AQ conference would accept the Fighting Irish as a new member; at the absolute very least, they would have to consider adding UND if they came calling.

Texas - the markets added by adding the Longhorns are huge.

Everyone else who might move is secondary in terms of importance, and that includes Rutgers and Kansas. I believe that the ACC and SEC will take the time to explore the possibilities of adding schools, but they want to know what the consequences and benefits will be before starting off down that path. I believe that all of the BCS AQ conferences are wary of getting too big, too fast.