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Originally Posted by warpaint*
The league's perception is hurt right now big time w/ OU & Texas not both being among the elite. In fact it looks as though there are no elite teams in the Big 12 at the moment although Baylor has yet to play anybody of consequence so they are still somewhat of an unknown. Struggling at Kst doesn't necessarily alarm me unless we see them do it again in conference play.
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True.
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I don't think there's any question that the league was hurt by expansion. Smaller footprint, Fewer "name" programs.
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True. But I'm only speaking to quality of play, not reputation. If someone argues the perception weakened then of course it did. But surely you'd agree that Nebraska and Colorado are bigger names than they are quality programs right now.
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Those things speak to perception, which is important and will drive TV $ long term. The #'s they are throwing around right now for the SEC are mind boggling.
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I'm not certain the perennial bottom feeders in the SEC have good "perception" - I'd argue it's terrible. They are welfare queens feeding off the popularity and success of your Big 6.
True but we'll wait and see on that. USC is terrible with the best players.
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I am w/ the others that think TCU was a terrible add. They don't bring anything to the table the league didn't already possess.
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True. But we are talking only quality of football, which vis-a-vis the programs that left, isn't much of a drop.
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I would have taken Louisville.
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Couldn't, Fox dictated the WVU selection.
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Spinning #'s notwithstanding. WVA OTOH was an excellent choice given available options. They will be fine long term they are just adjusting to not getting to play South Florida and UCONN every other week.
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They are going to have a long, tough slog now given their travel situation esp for basketball. I don't know where they recruit but they really don't have any new pipeline to Texas opened up since they're so remote. They're a really odd duck in the Big 12.
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All that said, the other thing that's important to remember is that the reality is that we've just hit the pause button on expansion. IDK about the where or when but I don't believe for a second that it's over.
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Realignment has happened since the beginning of time, there's no reason for anyone to assume it's ever over because technology, population shifts, etc always change.