It'll be interesting to see what happens once real money starts getting thrown around. Texas can afford a whole lot, but Alabama won't let Saban go easily. This could turn into a big payday for him whichever choice he makes.

Mack has a huge buyout, so Alabama has a head start in that respect. Money is really no object. It just comes down to where Saban wants to coach. I don't know if he wants to take on another rebuilding project when he's almost 63. I doubt it.

(In looking up his age, I learned that he is only 5'6...wow)

I didn't know where to post this, but I think and hope Alabama is going to kick the shit out of aTm this week.

Not sure where to post this, but:

University of Kansas‏@KUNews48m
KU ties for 47th among public universities in @USNews rankings, remains top-ranked university in Kansas. http://bit.ly/15Oz50z

...slightly edging out Friends University of Central Kansas...greatest university name ever

So that list has Mizzou T-97 and KU & ISU & Nebraska & OU & St Louis all at T-101. So basically there's no difference where you go regionally. That's surprising, you'd think someone would be good. Guess Wash U is but nobody else.

We're only four behind MU now, and with our increasing enrollment standards, our rating should continue to rise over the next few years.

It's not really "4 slots behind" based on how they group. 5 years ago, KU and MU were tied at 88 so both have slipped a tad anyway.

http://amroamroamro.files.wordpress..../usnewscom.pdf


However, "fallen" is relative as the list goes from T-88 to T-98. That doesn't mean Arizona & Neb were really any meaningful distance back, just how it got grouped by the cut-off. Which was and is marginal

How ****ed is Texas? They just hired Greg Robinson to improve their defense. You may remember him as the worst defensive coordinator in Chiefs history. You may remember him as the guy Sports Illustrated named the sixth worst head coach in the past 50 years. But do you remember his last stop at Michigan?

He's the guy who ran the defense that allowed over 350 rushing yards in a single game...while allowing the opposing team to complete 14 of 15 passes.

Texas just hired him...wow

http://espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=303240130

That's not realignment saul. This is:


University of Missouri
Mizzou’s Gary Pinkel: Playing KU at Arrowhead early in season would be ‘ideal’
By TOD PALMER The Kansas City Star Updated: 2013-09-10T18:28:13Z
September 10

By TOD PALMER
The Kansas City Star

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel still wants the rivalry with Kansas restored. He made that clear Tuesday when he stopped by The Star’s downtown offices during a bye-week media tour of Kansas City.

Mizzou’s Gary Pinkel: Playing KU at Arrowhead early in season would be ‘ideal’
Tod Palmer is The Star’s new Mizzou beat writer


“I don’t make all those decisions, but, for me, the ideal thing would be to play Kansas the first week or two of the season every year here,” Pinkel said.

From 2007-11, the Tigers and Jayhawks clashed at Arrowhead Stadium, drawing massive crowds and usually producing compelling contests.


http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2...nfE.St.81.jpeg
Video: Gary Pinkel talks Missouri Football with Blair Kerkhoff

But when Missouri moved from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference, the yearly regular-season conference showdown with Kansas disappeared and the Jayhawks, so far, have shown no interest in resuming the rivalry as a nonconference game in football or men’s basketball.

The Tigers, on the other hand, are eager to play the Jayhawks again if it can be worked out.

“People have to see the importance of the game,” Pinkel said. “Obviously, it would be a televised game and a good money-maker for both (schools), because it always has been. From our standpoint, and I know I’ve talked to (Missouri athletic director) Mike (Alden), we’d be willing to do that without question. That’s something Kansas would have to agree with.

“For the life of me, I don’t know why would you not do it. How long are we going to be mad at each other? I’m sure everybody’s got the way they feel about that, and I really don’t want to get into that. But there’s a lot of common sense, is there not, to this. Let’s move on and get the rivalry back for our fans.”

The first KU-MU meeting at Arrowhead — a 36-28 win for the Tigers on Nov. 24,
2007 — had national championship implications.

Kansas stunned Missouri 40-37 on a late touchdown a year later before the Tigers turned the tables with a 41-39 win in 2009.

Missouri triumphed 35-7 in 2010 and won 24-10 in 2011.

“There are a lot of great memories — one bad one, but the other ones were good memories,” Pinkel said.


http://jeffcity.media.clients.elling...08e3fa67d9af9d
Pinkel was arrested on suspicion of DUI in 2011 (news tribune)

Pinkel spent Monday in St. Louis visiting media outlets on the other side of the state, where he fielded a few questions about the Tigers’ other border rival, Illinois — another football series that has been discontinued in recent seasons.

“Illinois did come up a little bit,” Pinkel said. “That’s not near the rivalry, but that’s a big game for us there.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/10...#storylink=cpy
http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/10...laying-ku.html

It's going to happen. You can't duck us forever.

I agree...I think it will eventually.
But the constant begging by MU officials is rather embarrassing...

Yeah...Kansas has ducked us for years, but Mizzou should be embarrassed? Hardly. Enjoy that riveting schedule...not that it matters who Kansas plays. It's just so darned hot outside.

Does Pinkel not realize that the Big 12 plays a 9 game schedule? I know he's not the sharpest tool in the shed but the earliest opening KU even has in their football schedule is 2018.

Not really understanding what he's talking about. Missouri left the conference. We've been through this.

The news said that over 100 folks were treated for heat illnesses at Faurot Saturday. Hope they all make a full recovery, I bet that sucked.

Be careful. It's dangerous out there.

Kansas is kind of the Taylor Swift of college athletics. You can swear that we are never getting back together all you want...but everyone knows that you're just going to sing another whiny song about how you got dumped on your next album.

Agreed. Hope they're all ok.

I'll skip over all the other bantering and just say - likely sooner rather than later.

Of course pinkel wants to play KU at the beginning of each season

everyone needs a few easy wins to pad the stats right

The simple truth is that Kansas needs a compelling matchup on their schedule. It's not going to happen until the program is at least somewhat on the right track, but it's going to happen eventually.

Their schedule is just ridiculously bad. When the toughest ticket...home or away...is at Rice, you've got a problem.

Kansas plays a round robin conference schedule which includes 4 currently ranked teams. Two more against instate rival (KSU) and the highest valued football program in America (UT). You've got a strange definition of "ridiculously bad".

Kansas this year and last year had a strength of schedule ranked in the top 10 by all major ranking systems.

Missouri on the other hand plays 5 ranked team this year.

Judging on the crowd that showed up at Missouri this weekend I would say you're the one with the problem.

I assume Saul means based on possible fan interest. In terms of caliber, okla Ksu tech and wvu are better programs and Baylor has been stronger the past few years. So I'd agree the casual fan would porbably prefer to see Mizzou but I don't recall many if any years that the game even sold out at Lawrence.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/...ansas-jayhawks

Here's the schedule showing the starting ticket prices.

Maybe you misunderstood.....
Every time the AD or HC talks to the KC Media, they are begging to resume the series.
Like the Jilted Boyfriend, they just cant take no for an answer.
Clearly, MU "needs" this game while KU doesn't.
Might want to wonder why that is......

I've taken the opposite view but I'd remind you that the border war historically didn't draw all that well. I went to some games on both campuses over the years that were like going to the morgue. In the 80s we both sucked hard but even in the 90s it didn't sell. In 1995 KU was top 10 and had empties and the next year in Columbia there might've been 30k. Just never sold we'll until 2007.

I don't mean weak. I just mean boring. Nobody comes out to see Baylor or Oklahoma State nor TCU. Those are just games. Rivalry games are events.

57,000 is a shitload more than you got in your opener. Let's see how many show up for your second home game against LA Tech. Maybe next year you can advertise the opportunity to see the most valuable program in college football, though. That's more compelling than Bama, I guess.

Don't blame me. Most of the KU fans I know have spent all their money on Atlantis, Champions Classic and Jerry World.

http://imageshack.us/a/img849/6333/lok2.png

Tee shirt seen at faurot Saturday. "I survived the heat wave and all I got was this lousy opponent?"

Kicking your rival's ass is fun. Challenging them to play gets the fanbase going a lot more than hiding inside with the lights off does.

Looks like the talent was good even well before game time. Nice

Horse Hockey!

Doesn't seem to be impacting Baylor much and their OOC is worse than ours. The "strength" of the OOC has very little to do with a team's fortunes. If fans perceive it as a winning (or at least improving) team, they'll come out to watch. Kansas football is not a "needle mover" and most likely will not achieve that status.

We don't need a "compelling matchup" we need to be competitive in the B12, that's it. I have trouble following your logic. First, you say we "need" a compelling matchup", then, you say it isn't likely to happen until the program gets better, then you go back to the present schedule? Why? Wouldn't it have been more consistent if you were looking at KU's future opponents when you moved to your second point than rehashing the first?

With that in mind, in 2014 we play at Duke, not necessarily a football masterpiece, but it has the "compelling" basketball schools playing each other in football angle. In 2015 we're at Rutgers, in 2016 we host Hawaii, we go to the Aloha State in 2017, and then host Rutger in 2018.

Admittedly, its not the kind of stuff "Gameday" is going to have to choose between, but I really do't know what else you expect by something "compelling". Unless KU is ranked, the only fans that are going to be "compelled" to watch are KU fans and fans of the other team. But, I would hazard to guess, its not much different for the majority of schools out there. Only a handful of teams represent programs a fan base outside the participants would find at least a casual interest in. Those teams are NOT Kansas, Kansas St or Missouri.

You want to know how Kansas can be "compelling"? Its only if their good, because Charlie Weis, love him or hate him, is the type of personality that elicits a response. If Kansas is good, they'll be compelling because Weis is the "name" coach who brought the program back when no one really thought he could head coach his way out of a paper bag. That's the reason KU might be compelling, it has absolutely nothing to do with an OOC opponent.

Texas is RAPING the other members of the conference

ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL

78 Million in profit

http://www.forbes.com/special-report...-football.html

Ummmmm, they've always done that. That's why they're the richest athletics program in college sports. Was this really news to you? :spock:

yes, we have landed on the moon

OK... so how is that "raping" the rest of the Big 12? Isn't that "raping" the rest of college football?

Their athletic department is a dumpster fire, so the joke is on them at the moment.

Hard to disagree with that.

Lot of different points here...

Baylor's schedule includes all of their rivals. They don't have to worry much about their non-con.

A game against Mizzou will help generate excitement, but they need to focus on not being a complete disaster first. Getting waxed by your rival when your rival isn't even that good won't provide any benefit. Once Kansas gets up off the mat, the game will resume.

Basketball schools playing football creates zero excitement. None. Does anyone get excited about a basketball game between Alabama and USC? Of course not. Hawaii, Rutgers, Duke, etc. are throwaway games.

Mizzou would be the biggest game of the year for Kansas by a mile.

I don't even care that much. It would be fun, but right now, every conference game is an event unto itself. In a few years, when some of the novelty wears off, maybe I will care more about a Kansas game. For now, I don't miss it at all. When you've got aTm, Florida, Tennessee, etc. coming to town, seemingly every game is a big game.

Someone call Zenger. We're missing our biggest game of the year.

What is the biggest game on your schedule? Don't google "Kansas football schedule", btw. That brings up K-State.

Historically it's never been Mizzou. None of the top-10 crowds in our history were Mizzou. (That would be zero). 3 each for Nebraska and KState.

That's because Mizzou fans don't travel to Lawrence in large numbers. Being the visiting in your home stadium sounds like it sucks. The 2007 had more fans than any game ever played in Lawrence, though.

Besides...Nebraska is long gone, too. You've lost your biggest rivalry game (Mizzou), and your third biggest "rivalry" game (Nebraska). Besides Kansas State, there isn't an interesting game on your schedule...especially your home schedule. If Oklahoma or Texas were on top, it would be interesting to go out and see Sam Bradford or Vince Young come to town, but neither of those teams have any real star power at the moment. Any team coached by Bob Stoops is somewhat of a draw, but he's lost his swagger.

If you think Kansas has a compelling schedule, that's your prerogative. I just don't see it. Good teams? Sure. Interesting matchups that make anyone take notice? Nope...

No question Nebraska and KSU fans travel to Lawrence much better than MU fans do. Of course, they have a much better product to follow.

The "biggest game on the schedule" is whatever game means the most during a given year.

KU Football isn't like the basketball games where they are nationwide events. No one is arguing that.

Fact is that the MU game held importance yes because it was a state rivalry but much more important was that the outcome directly affected the standings in the conference.

You can holler all you want about a "rivalry game" but they don't matter unless it counts.

You can laugh all you want but KU is interested in winning the Big 12 Conference in football and going to the CFB playoffs. You don't go and spend the money on a coach like Weis, build an entirely new track facility in anticipation of renovating your stadium if that wasn't the goal.

Report: Syracuse agrees to ‘concept’ of 10-year series with Georgetown

They may not be in the same conference anymore, but it may not be too long before Syracuse and Georgetown renew annual acquaintance on the basketball floor.

According to Syracuse.com, Syracuse has agreed to the concept of a decade-long series with the Hoyas, and is waiting to hear back from Georgetown.

“We love the concept. We want the concept. We heard that they want the concept,” Syracuse Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director/Chief Communications Officer for External Affairs Joe Giansante told the site Wednesday night. “And so discussions are taking place to try to get something to where we can move it to the phase where we would actually contract the teams to have them happen.”

Conference realignment has sacrificed a number of long-time sports rivalries, and Syracuse-Georgetown would be a nice one to salvage, especially if the rivalry smack continues to live up to Big East standards.

It completely missed the point. The thing that generates excitement is the team's prospects for that year. I guarantee you if KU is projected to do well for a season in the future, its not going to matter whether MU is on that schedule or not. KU just wants to win the 3 OOC and then compete in the conference slate. Fans will come to support a team in contention.

The only way your argument works is if KU never gets out of the pit they dug and is never projected to do well in the future. Then, mostly for all the wrong reasons, that KU-Mu would generate interest. But, that goes completely against your logic of "having to get up off the matt" first. If KU is up, MU matters less, not more. The anticipatory games will be against the better conference opponents, not an OOC.

Besides, at the rate things are going, the top conferences want to separate and only playagainst "like" competition in a different classification. Most probably, the OOC slate will soon be just these top conference teams. Would MU generate more regional interest? Sure. Is it necessary? Not really, not from our perspective anyway.

I can't think of any rivalry games where two teams play each other while not in the same conference that really matter.

I guess Florida St and Florida or something like that but whatever.

Michigan v Notre Dame.. Notre Dame v USC... Louisville v Kentucky in up years...

Georgia/Georgia Tech
Clemson/South Carolina
BYU/Utah

Well Notre Dame... those are conf games imo

Basketball is different. Easier to play games logistically and I'm not sure Louisville and UK is a rivalry as much as it's two teams that have both shared a tremendous amount of success.

Texas vs Oklahoma pre Big 12

Iowa vs Iowa St.

Utah vs BYU

Colorado vs Colorado St.

How is Notre Dame vs USC conference game in any possible sense of the word?

Kentucky v. Indiana in basketball was a good example but they ended a couple years ago. That rivalry had been around for over 80 years.

Georgetown and Syracuse are playing for ten years.

Exactly

Those are hideously bad examples because none of them involved one team bailing on the other. Therefore they're instantly null. The valid examples related to KU-MU are: Texas-ATM, Duke-Maryland, WVU-Pitt, Lou-Cinci. And they're all making the same decision.

Nobody but a jilted woman cares about "bailing."

Well, jilted women and crappy programs like Kansas, Texas and Duke.

There's no incentive for KU to keep propping up a 2nd tier program like mizWho.

That's not what he said. You're moving the goalposts.

Ok, then we will stick to your examples and Ill just ask how they're relevant or why you would even care about them.

If you can't follow the back and forth of a simple conversation, I'm not wasting my time with you.

High flying Big 12 offenses on display tonight.

Ok, then just entertain us with news that in fact, Iowa plays Iowa state. That stuff is riveting.

Are you really bitching at me for not addressing points that weren't made? He said that he couldn't think of any non-conference rivalry games. He was promptly handed a ton of them.

There is literally no team on the planet that could play Kansas and have it be an interesting game. That said, Mizzou is far and away the closest thing you're going to find.

I suppose then that your obsessed coach is the only one who finds KU compelling. Kinda hilarious.

Holy shit. This TCU game is the worst piece of shit I've ever seen.

Is anyone else watching this abortion?

I couldn't take more than a few minutes of it.

I stand by your examples of not mattering at all on the national landscape or on how those teams view their season.

Iowa State beats Iowa again. Do they like it? Sure.

They would lose 100 years in a row if it meant winning the Big 12.

That's a stupid binary you've created because you made a stupid comment, and it got shoved back in your face. Kansas would happily lose a game to Duke every year if it meant making the Final Four every year, but that doesn't make a Kansas vs Duke game meaningless.

Shit, Alabama lost to aTm and won the NC last year. I guess their game last year was meaningless.

No one in the thread is agreeing with you.

Besides, no one at KU is happy about not playing MU anymore. MU represented a victory 50% of the time.

I've gotten a good chuckle out of the KC Star comments where Mizzou fans call it an automatic win. Hilarious. If there's one thing 120 years of failure has taught those fanse, it's that there's no such thing in Columbia MO as an "automatic win".

Don't be ridiculous.

K, I suppose I can expect you to start the game thread the next time Colorado/Colorado St plays. It's such a meaningful contest and all.

Why would you suppose that?

Are you really suggesting that games are only meaningful if they have national appeal, regional rivalries be damned? If this is the case, Kansas might as well not play. There is not a single team that Kansas could play that would generate national interest.

That said, rivalry games are the heart of college football. I don't expect posters who don't think college football is a real sport to understand, though.