Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

[AbeFroman]

Bahama Bowl? Would rough ridin' take.

[Panjandrum]

For this week's episode of "Sh*t the Dude Says", we see our protagonist tweeting about how the Big Ten is interested in the University of Buffalo.

The Dude of WV ?@theDudeofWV 19 Aug
Correction: This school is AAU. Has been since 1989. That's a hint.
Expand

Two schools gained AAU membership in 1989.  Buffalo and Rutgers.

 

[OK_Cat]

bahamas bowl would be excellent.  we should petition to be there every year.

[KITNfury]

For this week's episode of "Sh*t the Dude Says", we see our protagonist tweeting about how the Big Ten is interested in the University of Buffalo.

The Dude of WV ?@theDudeofWV 19 Aug
Correction: This school is AAU. Has been since 1989. That's a hint.
Expand

Two schools gained AAU membership in 1989.  Buffalo and Rutgers.

 

What's funny is the dude prolly is getting info from someone, but that someone is like "I wonder how long I can make this rube dance to my song" lulzing the whole time while the dude keeps on doing the macarena.

[Harry Doyle]

Do they even have a football stadium in the Bahamas?

[Katpappy]

bahamas bowl would be excellent.  we should petition to be there every year.

Can't drive tractors across ocean... engine would flood. 

[Havs]

bahamas bowl would be excellent.  we should petition to be there every year.

Can't drive tractors across ocean... engine would flood. 

BULL crap.

 

[Katpappy]

bahamas bowl would be excellent.  we should petition to be there every year.

Can't drive tractors across ocean... engine would flood. 

BULL crap.

 

Lead the way. 

[AbeFroman]

bahamas bowl would be excellent.  we should petition to be there every year.

Can't drive tractors across ocean... engine would flood. 

BULL crap.

 

Lead the way. 

If anyone knows what works and doesn't work in deep waters, it's the token Iowonian

[Pete]

Saw this...

@RJ_Sports: Deal reached to carry Fox Sports 1 on DirecTV, Dish, Time Warner: Three of the largest television distributors... http://t.co/omWFCulDHE

[steve dave]

Cox has FS1 in HD but FS2 is just regular PudD. 

[scottwildcat]

Cox has FS1 in HD but FS2 is just regular PudD. 

 

[Rage Against the McKee]

Cox has FS1 in HD but FS2 is just regular PudD. 

I didn't even realize I had FS2. What channel is it on the regular PudD?

[felix rex]

i'm convinced being in the MWC can't be as awful as the suspense of not knowing what will happen.

Really, I guess you could be right.  I still think it will suck to gradually care less and less about KSU sports until it all just fades into nothingness.  It's going to be weird.

I'm going to have to find a productive hobby or something. And I rough ridin' hate productive hobbies.

bump

[TheFormerKCCat]

Need a rules interpretation. Does this mean NDSU takes our spot in FBS and we move down to FCS? Is this part of  's plan to win a MNC before riding off into the sunset?

[OregonSmock]

KU (the state of Kansas flagship university) will be leaving lil' bro in the dust for the Big 10 soon:

Let’s start with my previous post, where I point out how difficult and unlikely it is to break a grant of rights arrangement over the next decade or so. As a result, the likelihood of Big Ten expansion in the near future is extremely low, as I don’t believe that the conference is interested in anyone that isn’t already in one of the 5 power conferences (meaning no one in the AAC or any other Group of 5 conference is compelling enough).

Now, whenever the Big Ten expansion does kick up again, Kansas is certainly high up there on the list. The Jayhawks are to future Big Ten expansion in the way that Pharrell Williams ended up singing on the two largest Billboard hits of the summer (“Blurred Lines” and “Get Lucky”) despite not headlining either of them: it’s hard to see KU not involved as a contiguous AAU school with an elite basketball program, but they also can’t be the biggest athletic name in that expansion, either. One thing that I’ve loved about writing this blog is that I hope that I’ve helped to elevate the discussion of conference realignment to take into account factors that many fans didn’t consider previously (i.e. academics, TV markets, branding, etc.), yet we sometimes do need to take a step back and realize that the product on the field (or court) is still what makes all of the off-the-field money possible, so expansion has to serve those needs. Thus, a hypothetical Kansas/Virginia or Kansas/Missouri (not that I think the Big Ten is ever going to poach the SEC and vice versa) expansion combo for the Big Ten might serve some TV market and AAU status purposes, but that doesn’t have the requisite athletic (and more specifically, football) impact that is required for what could conceivably be the last two spots in the Big Ten. (For all of those that would counter, “Rutgers and Maryland weren’t added for sports!”, I would say that (a) there was a football goal achieved since New Jersey and Maryland were the two top non-Sun Belt states for football recruits that weren’t already in the Big Ten footprint and (b) pure TV market additions were acceptable when looking that them in conjunction with the elite football addition of Nebraska.)

Putting aside the obvious no-brainer additions like Texas, I’m firmly in camp of supporting the addition Oklahoma to the Big Ten and I don’t believe that it’s a purely fan-focused football move. The main detraction for Oklahoma that I often see is that it isn’t an AAU member, but its academic metrics aren’t really far off at all from now-non-AAU member Nebraska and its neighboring old Big 8 AAU schools (Missouri, Kansas and Iowa State). There isn’t the wide academic gap between OU and Nebraska that there was in the case of Louisville compared to the rest of the ACC. Some Big Ten observers believe that the non-AAU status of Oklahoma is a non-starter, but I doubt that the conference would have engaged performing due diligence on the Sooners unless there was some legit interest involved. More importantly, the lack of AAU status for other expansion candidates was simply another reason on top of a number of other factors that made the target school undesirable (i.e. geography, lack of a fan base, lack of a football brand name, not a new TV market, etc.). It’s easy for the Big Ten to ignore a merely “good” football program based on academics (i.e. West Virginia or Louisville), but Oklahoma is a top level king school that would bring a ton of national TV dollars. Even Oklahoma’s smaller home state population on paper is mitigated by the fact that its fan base crosses over into North Texas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area (and Kansas, by the same token, can’t just be looked at by its home state population alone since it’s the top college team in the Kansas City market that takes a large chunk of Missouri).

The upshot is that if the Big Ten goes to 16 schools, then the last 2 additions actually need to make markets irrelevant. What are the 2 additions that can truly transform the BTN from a regional network to a legit national network? Sure, if the Big Ten has the choice, they’d want Texas and Notre Dame (or some other unattainable major market prize like North Carolina or Florida). However, if we’re talking about the top brand names that are willing to reciprocate the Big Ten’s overtures, Oklahoma and Kansas are sitting right there to supercharge the conferences’ football and basketball lineups, respectively. Penetrating a diverse market like New York City has as much to do with the national interest in various teams as it does with local interest, which aids the cases of OU and KU.

Frankly, the biggest factor working the Big Ten going after either OU and KU (much more than academic concerns) is the political pressure of those schools’ respective in-state brothers (Oklahoma State and Kansas State). I believe the Big Ten would expand with an OU/KU combo, but the conference won’t be willing to take either Oklahoma State and Kansas State in the process. Those “little brother” schools might be non-negotiable from a political perspective even if Jayhawk and Sooner fans don’t want to believe that to be the case, so that could stop Big Ten expansion regardless of any Big 12 grant of rights concerns. So, that brings me back to my initial point that Big Ten expansion isn’t likely, albeit it’s still fun to talk about after all of this time.

I’ll be back with Part II of the mailbag going over issues such as EA Sports NCAA ’14, Big East expansion and pro sports realignment shortly. Talk to you again soon!

[ChiComCat]

I'll bet "Frank the Tank" is really well connected within the Big 10.  I know I wouldn't feel like a dumbass quoting an article from him, much less one that I misinterpret to mean "soon" even though it says the opposite of that.  Poor reading comprehension maybe a reason for KU's academic troubles

[eastcat]

OU leaving Texas is a concept so dumb I would expect a child to say it.

[HerrSonntag]

i'm really glad beems referenced that article that that the balls to talk about tv markets in regards to conference expansion, i've frankly never thought of it like that.

[Shooter Jones]

[steve dave]

after 1005 pages we can finally put this thing to bed. frank the tank has spoken.

[Dugout DickStone]

after 1005 pages we can finally put this thing to bed. frank the tank has spoken.

Pete is lucky FtT didn't make this decision sooner or his opus would have died on the vine.

[kim carnes]

 

[bws]

Big 10 bloggers are really good at making fans of mediocre schools pine to be in that dogshit conference.

Those home and homes against Purdue, illinois Northwestern, etc are going to be so mind numblngly boring you're literally going to want to kill yourself rather than watch your team play in those games.

[EMAWzified]

Can we just ship out KU to any conference and bring in Louisville? Win/huge win.