In the Betting World, the fact it opened & is sitting currently at -14.5 vs. -13.5 suggests that the Books are anticipating they will need WSU Money to eat up that +14.5.
Spread is -14.5
- Thread starter WASH ST A&M FAN
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The mood in SoCal among the SC alums I know is what I would term "moderately" overconfident. 20 years ago the Trojan fan base assumed they deserved to win when playing Wazzu, and if they showed up and didn't make too many mistakes, it would be automatic. That feeling has diminished, especially over the past decade or so. Helton has squeaked by with some wins so far this year, but his seat is still warm. A lot of SC alums don't know if Helton will be here after next season (he will probably get a free pass for this year). One told me something I found interesting; he said that if both teams are Covid depleted, that should be an advantage for SC, who is presumably deeper...BUT...and he noted that this is a big BUT...since units tend to spend time together, one positive can wipe out via quarantine a good portion of an entire unit. So you might only be down 4 or 5 guys, but they might all be O linemen, as an example. Or D linemen. And his thought was that would probably be the equivalent of a couple of turnovers in the game, so it is a big wild card.
When it comes to betting, I'd in "normal" years look for the SC band wagon money to have bumped the line by more than 1 point. But the doubts about Helton and concerns over possible last minute covid losses seems to have had a dampening effect. What I can't predict is how the WSU money will bet. If we knew that the two teams would be fully intact at game time...all 1's present for duty on both sides...I'd take WSU and the 14.5 points. But the uncertainty makes the betting line a crap shoot. And I'd rather be shooting craps!!
When it comes to betting, I'd in "normal" years look for the SC band wagon money to have bumped the line by more than 1 point. But the doubts about Helton and concerns over possible last minute covid losses seems to have had a dampening effect. What I can't predict is how the WSU money will bet. If we knew that the two teams would be fully intact at game time...all 1's present for duty on both sides...I'd take WSU and the 14.5 points. But the uncertainty makes the betting line a crap shoot. And I'd rather be shooting craps!!
I’m not a gambler but any line in the Pac-12 this year like that, the underdog is probably a safe bet (unless Arizona is involved). The mediocre parity in this conference is pretty wild.The mood in SoCal among the SC alums I know is what I would term "moderately" overconfident. 20 years ago the Trojan fan base assumed they deserved to win when playing Wazzu, and if they showed up and didn't make too many mistakes, it would be automatic. That feeling has diminished, especially over the past decade or so. Helton has squeaked by with some wins so far this year, but his seat is still warm. A lot of SC alums don't know if Helton will be here after next season (he will probably get a free pass for this year). One told me something I found interesting; he said that if both teams are Covid depleted, that should be an advantage for SC, who is presumably deeper...BUT...and he noted that this is a big BUT...since units tend to spend time together, one positive can wipe out via quarantine a good portion of an entire unit. So you might only be down 4 or 5 guys, but they might all be O linemen, as an example. Or D linemen. And his thought was that would probably be the equivalent of a couple of turnovers in the game, so it is a big wild card.
When it comes to betting, I'd in "normal" years look for the SC band wagon money to have bumped the line by more than 1 point. But the doubts about Helton and concerns over possible last minute covid losses seems to have had a dampening effect. What I can't predict is how the WSU money will bet. If we knew that the two teams would be fully intact at game time...all 1's present for duty on both sides...I'd take WSU and the 14.5 points. But the uncertainty makes the betting line a crap shoot. And I'd rather be shooting craps!!
As for SC, I can’t believe they haven’t canned Helton yet. He’s in way over his skis at that school. They are in ruin from the top down though so I guess not entirely surprising. What a mess.
Las Vegas should come up with a betting line on when and who will be the first team to pony up the cash to get a legitimate marquee coach in the line of an Urban Meyer, Dabo Sweeney, Nick Saban type. I gotta think at some point either Oregon or SC will get sick of squandering top rated recruiting classes to middling coaches and go after a really big fish. Right now the P12 doesn't have a single coach in the Big Boy Class of coaches...maybe Chip Kelly during his hayday, but without his Oregon "benefits" (aka, cheating) he's no longer in consideration.
Finger, that is both a good observation and a good question. I'll point out that picking the next Pete Carroll is hard, even if you are willing to spend the money. Good picks look obvious in hindsight, but the Crystal Ball is tough to figure in advance. I'd say that if Indiana's coach finishes well this year and then does the same thing next year you might hear the start of a conversation. If Fleck at Minnesota had a good season this and next year, then maybe a conversation there (though this year is not going very well for him thus far). If Rolo had stayed in Hawaii and put together 2 more seasons to match the last one he had there, then maybe he would rate a mention. You need to be either consistently performing far above expectations at a low- to middling P5 program or blowing it out at a group of 5 school to legitimately be considered for an SC type of job...and it is far easier to just stand pat with a Helton, who speaks well, doesn't get you sanctioned, reliably gets 8+ wins, has kids who mostly go to class, etc. It takes more guts on an athletic director's part to hire a new guy than to stick with a Helton type HC. At SC, that requirement for guts extends to the president's chair, since SC is a school where a bumbling AD or football HC reflects poorly on the president.
Yep--like you say, finding the next big thing is incredibly difficult, whereas hiring the proven winner is just incredibly expensive. I'm wondering more about the latter. Surely SC or Oregon has the funds to make the big splash hire, but for whatever reason they've opted to try to try to find the diamond in the rough rather than the cut and polished version. If Nike U ponied up the money for coaching the way Clemson has, I'm confident they'd have similar if not better results than Clemson and be in the running every year. My only question is, why haven't they? What's a few million more for Uncle Phil?
Bigger issue beyond the coach IMO. Biggs has touched on it in a way when he says Oregon/UCLA/USC, "where 4-5 stars go to play like 2-3 stars". I think it's a cultural issue on the west coast. Gone are the tough lunch pail kids. USC used to pull in numerous 5 star recruits from other states, now they struggle to get, and keep the 4-5 star kids from Cali, to stay in Cali. The west coast is soft on many levels, especially Cali, and it's been trending that way for years now and only getting worse. I have a hard time seeing this conference get back to relevance in football, maybe basketball too.
Even the fans/attendance out west is soft, especially in CA, and those who do go can barely sit through a half before leaving. Hate to say it, but I think we will continue to be known as the conference of champions in Swimming, Volleyball, Soccer, etc.
Oh, and Larry Scott fits right in.
Just my humble opinion.
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Speaking of splash hires, look how Harbaugh is working out at Michigan. I think most felt if anyone could turn that program into a winner, and bring them back to their glory days, it would be Jim Harbaugh, look at what he did and Stanford and San Francisco, no question he would get it done. Then you look at Michigan and wonder what happened. There are no sure hires in college football, if there are, maybe one or two.
As for the betting line, can you place a bet on if they will actually play this weekend? Might be a better bet than the point spread. I hope we play USC, but I will be surprised if we do. LA county may shut down like Santa Clara county, they are all a bunch of sheep when is come to solving this Covid issue. Just shut everything down and use science as an excuse, who cares what you destroy along the way.
There might be an element of truth to the softness of west coast football, but that starts at the top with coaching, IMO. Bring in an Urban Meyer or Saban and the softness goes right out the door. Kids will bust their ass for a coach that motivates them and gives them an opportunity to win big games. The SEC has been skimming the top talent from the west coast for years, so they must not be so soft out west here that the dominant league in the college football doesn't want to take them.
Thanks, Roses. Made me laugh at the end of a long day. Better bet than the point spread, indeed. I'll take the over, though!
I wonder if Oregon an d SC's administration leave their coaches alone. Or do the mettle? I'm sure that type of info gets around; so maybe the big name guys don't want Uncle Phil telling him what he can and can not do. That was one thing Leach liked about Floyd and Moos.
It's kinda like the Dallas Cowboys. No good coach wants Jerry telling him what he should be doing. That's why they can't get/keep a good coach. Parcells was there for a little while and created a great culture (that's a long time ago now); but he too couldn't put up with Jerry.
I suppose it's possible, but in Oregon's case, if that's the situation then talk about an incompetent CEO dragging down the flagship team. What's interesting about Oregon is they've pumped so much money into that program and they're on the brink of being an elite program, but rather than go all in they've chosen to go cheap on coaching--essentially they've bought a McLaren and put a volkswagen engine in it.
Finger, I don't know what Cristobal is being paid, but I am not sure he is cheap. Not fully competent, yes, but not cheap. Functionally, though, I like your analogy of the McLaren with a VW engine. That would seem to match the results. The ducks are not the only program with a rich godfather who meddles in everything, and limits results. Oklahoma State is in a similar situation.
IIRC he's getting a median salary for a P5 coach, $6MM i want to say. Definitely not the $12MM Saban is getting.
According to this article, he's down at #11 in the P12 at 2.5 million--I find that hard to believe, gotta be some serious bonuses and incentives in there somewhere to have such a low base pay at University of $$$. Regardless, the P12 is paying McDonalds wages compared to what the big boys are shelling out. David Shaw (highest paid P12 coach) is making half what Dabo Swinney and Saban are pulling down.
How the Pac-12 coaches' salaries stack up in 2020
It happens every fall: USA TODAY releases one of its best journalistic projects of the college sports cycle, the annual football coaching salary database. The actual database is accompanied by plen…
trojanswire.usatoday.com
I suppose a more accurate analogy would be they bought the fully functional McLaren but hired Mr. Magoo to drive it.
IMO Cristobal is a "big picture guy." He needs a top notch OC and DC. Mario will take care of the recruiting.
I dunno that much about them at this point. But, when we played them back in Stillwater a few years ago, they honored a bunch of donors who had all given $5-$10 million dollars that year. It was a few years back and I'm trying to remember the details. But it seems to me there were at least six or eight of them? Any one of them would have been our biggest ever donor!
So they aren't hurting. No matter what.
If it was the 2010 game in Stillwater, I remember the celebration at halftime where they were touting that university wide donations totaled over a half billion dollars in just over two years. It didn't hurt that one guy put up almost half....but still.
I'm glad your memory of the details is better than mine. What I mostly remember was being blown away by the number of donors who had given such large contributions. That school ain't hurting for dough. Half a billion "university-wide", or not.......they take care of their athletic dept, big time.
Im sure they still are. Money like that only grows so whatever BP was giving to the program there’s guaranteed to be a steady stream continuing via a trust. Just like when Uncle Phil passes the money isn’t going to dry up for Nike U.
The point spread is concerning. At first I thought it was way off, but after analyzing the matchups, SC has some notable advantages.
This is the first time we’ll be going up against a lethal passing attack, which is very concerning. Oregon and OSU use their running games to set up play action, but SC is the opposite. They have NFL talent at WR, and then they sneak the RB at you when you’re not expecting it. Will be a challenge for our D.
The SC defense is 4 deep at corner, so our WRs will see a lot of man coverage. That’ll be a new challenge for de Laura. Really hoping Borghi makes it back.
One advantage I see in our favor is the extended time off. After 2 emotional NW rivalry games with a depleted roster, the extra time off is especially beneficial given how little time Rolo had to install his system. The warm weather with no fans will be a positive for our side.
This is the first time we’ll be going up against a lethal passing attack, which is very concerning. Oregon and OSU use their running games to set up play action, but SC is the opposite. They have NFL talent at WR, and then they sneak the RB at you when you’re not expecting it. Will be a challenge for our D.
The SC defense is 4 deep at corner, so our WRs will see a lot of man coverage. That’ll be a new challenge for de Laura. Really hoping Borghi makes it back.
One advantage I see in our favor is the extended time off. After 2 emotional NW rivalry games with a depleted roster, the extra time off is especially beneficial given how little time Rolo had to install his system. The warm weather with no fans will be a positive for our side.
The fact that ASU held a 2 score lead late and AZ almost beat SC tells me everything I need to know. USC is always going to have NFL talent in spots but they are just as mediocre as a team as everyone else in this mediocre conference is. Getting Borghi back is big. I think this is a very winnable game.
Can we talk about how far the conference has actually fallen. When I was in school (secondary and post) in the 70's and 80's, the Pac-10 owned the Rose Bowl, 15-2 between 71 and 87, we had the best overall bowl record, the best OOC record and had the most players in the NFL by a significant margin. The Pac-12 in now clearly the weakest of the power five conferences. We aren't only soft, we are talent deprived, top to bottom.
What happen? The conference presidents just weren't, and aren't, willing to commit to continuing excellence in their flagship sport. They went cheap, so cheap in fact they allowed themselves to be conned by the ultimate "mono rail" pitch man Larry Scott in an obvious get rich quick scheme.
Everything in life is cyclical and this is just a time where things aren't going our way. I think that the failed attempt to create a super conference of 16 teams in 2010-11 was the catalyst for our current situation. We wanted Texas, OU, OSU, CU, TT and TAMU. Those discussions didn't work out because of Texas, but it convinced TAMU that it was time to go to the SEC, which led Missouri to the same decision. Nebraska bailed for the B1G. We did get CU and the Big 12 pulled in West Virginia from the Big East and TCU from the MWC to salvage their conference. For a brief moment, it looked like Larry Scott had done some great things. The MWC and Big 12 were both weakened and our conference had the opportunity to be the power in the West.
Unforunately, the SEC got extra TV's in Texas and Missouri with their additions that included the St. Louis, Kansas City, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas TV markets. We got SLC and Denver. The Big 10 added Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers. Nebraska, while sucking, did increase their influence in the upper midwest and Rutgers and Maryland are from population dense regions with lots of TV's. Our power move forced others to do the same and they did it better. The ACC gutted what remained of the Big East when it came to football.
Although the ACC was generally regarded as the weakest of the Power 5 for years, the rise of Clemson has made that conference relevant. Extra eyeballs on the conference for the past four years is paying dividends now. Frankly, although we all hate Oregon and USC, our conference as a whole benefits when those teams are elite. I'd say the same for UW but, hell no, f#ck UW. I'd also throw UCLA in that mix, but they've been irrelevant for so long that it's hard to take the Bruins seriously. It's amazing to think that the Bruins have one Top 10 finish in two decades. USC's fall from grace is tied directly to the jealousy expressed by the SEC over the Reggie Bush scandal. It was a mess, but the punishment probably outweighed the crime.
So, I don't know that I'd say that we are where we are because of leadership being cheap. I think we are where we are because the relatively sparse population of the western US and the geographic diversity of the region has created an environment where our fans are not as numerous and involved and too many of our elite athletes are willing to go to other conferences where the perception is that fans care more.
Pretty good summary of many things, Flat. I'll add that being inept at planning and being cheap are two different things. We did not get the way we are today simply by being cheap. There was a lot of ineptitude involved, as well. Add that to the late '80's overconfidence and sense of entitlement, and we find ourselves in 2020. Even when you are on top, you have to keep working. You can't afford to be lazy, take the easy road, or under-invest. We did a combination of all of those things.
Agree completely. Once we realized that we weren't going to get Texas, we needed to keep thinking big and I think it became to easy to say why we shouldn't do something instead of looking at why we should. FWIW, when I was doing some quick research, I saw an article that talked about how far the Big 12 is falling. TCU and Baylor, combined with OU to make the conference relevant nationally for a while, but this year in particular seems like a year where the conference is average top to bottom. No offense to Iowa State, but when they are your standard bearer......oof.
Flat, some good stuff in this thread. I may have more later, but for now, what kind of other big moves do you think could have made sense for the Pac-12 once Texas was out? The Pac-12 has some things going for it, but also has some inherent challenges relative to the rest of the Power 5 conferences, most of which are tied to geography (i.e., proximity of other candidate schools, time zones, and population densities in western states outside of the west coast).
In his last paragraph, Flat touched on what I believe is the most relevant explanation of why P12 football has lost a step in comparison with the other P5 conferences. West coast culture and the failure of the P12 conference as a whole to reinvest in and grow their own market.
I'm originally from the East coast and my career has afforded me the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the USA. When it comes to football (and sports in general), fans have a completely different mindset East of Colorado. Football & basketball are engrained in the culture. High school sports are a huge deal in the Midwest, SE, Texas, and Atlantic regions. You have to see it to believe it. Texas High School football has been well documented, but basketball up and down the regions I mentioned is also ridiculously popular. The smallest towns off the beaten paths fill their gyms every week. It's something you just don't see on the West coast.
This brings me back to my #1 criticism of the P12 conference, and the individual schools themselves. They (we) have simply failed to reinvest in the West coast market and their own fan bases, and it's showing up larger than ever. With the tens of millions of dollars that the conference throws around on marketing initiatives, they would be wise to funnel some of it into the largest high school conferences in WA, OR, CA, and AZ. Get more of the games on TV. Increase local coverage of the big games and conferences/district/state championships. This is how you engage young people and their parents beginning in elementary school, and that engagement becomes a passion for sports later in life. That's what happened to me, as I'm sure it did with all of you. That is NOT happening in WA state currently, where budget money is being diverted from sports. That's step #1, IMO.
Step #2 involves the P12 member schools. What are they doing to grow their fan bases? WSU has done a good job over the past 8 years since Moos, Floyd, Leach, and Schulz came on board of re-engaging our fan base. Given our geography, social media has probably benefited WSU in this regard more than any other school in the conference. Coverage of WSU has never been more comprehensive, and while the P12 Network has largely been a disaster for the conference, getting all of our games on TV has been huge for our fan base. Unfortunately, prior to 2012, WSU's administration was asleep at the wheel in this regard at a time when we could have made great strides. Moving forward, WSU needs to embrace the passion of our students and make the gameday experience as party friendly as we can. Stop sugarcoating the importance of that. Every gameday needs to be a big event. Food trucks with good, cheap options. Beer gardens. Live music. An upgraded fieldhouse experience. Can't sleep on this. In the SEC, gamedays are circled on the calendar. They're the biggest campus events of the year, and they're treated as such.
The P12 needs to grow their WEST COAST fan interest. Stop worrying out the other 2/3 of the Nation.
I'm originally from the East coast and my career has afforded me the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the USA. When it comes to football (and sports in general), fans have a completely different mindset East of Colorado. Football & basketball are engrained in the culture. High school sports are a huge deal in the Midwest, SE, Texas, and Atlantic regions. You have to see it to believe it. Texas High School football has been well documented, but basketball up and down the regions I mentioned is also ridiculously popular. The smallest towns off the beaten paths fill their gyms every week. It's something you just don't see on the West coast.
This brings me back to my #1 criticism of the P12 conference, and the individual schools themselves. They (we) have simply failed to reinvest in the West coast market and their own fan bases, and it's showing up larger than ever. With the tens of millions of dollars that the conference throws around on marketing initiatives, they would be wise to funnel some of it into the largest high school conferences in WA, OR, CA, and AZ. Get more of the games on TV. Increase local coverage of the big games and conferences/district/state championships. This is how you engage young people and their parents beginning in elementary school, and that engagement becomes a passion for sports later in life. That's what happened to me, as I'm sure it did with all of you. That is NOT happening in WA state currently, where budget money is being diverted from sports. That's step #1, IMO.
Step #2 involves the P12 member schools. What are they doing to grow their fan bases? WSU has done a good job over the past 8 years since Moos, Floyd, Leach, and Schulz came on board of re-engaging our fan base. Given our geography, social media has probably benefited WSU in this regard more than any other school in the conference. Coverage of WSU has never been more comprehensive, and while the P12 Network has largely been a disaster for the conference, getting all of our games on TV has been huge for our fan base. Unfortunately, prior to 2012, WSU's administration was asleep at the wheel in this regard at a time when we could have made great strides. Moving forward, WSU needs to embrace the passion of our students and make the gameday experience as party friendly as we can. Stop sugarcoating the importance of that. Every gameday needs to be a big event. Food trucks with good, cheap options. Beer gardens. Live music. An upgraded fieldhouse experience. Can't sleep on this. In the SEC, gamedays are circled on the calendar. They're the biggest campus events of the year, and they're treated as such.
The P12 needs to grow their WEST COAST fan interest. Stop worrying out the other 2/3 of the Nation.
Two things: This post is in regards to what WSU should do. Next post is with regard to the PAC.
For WSU, bus trips (even if only a single bus) to attractive baseball games, maybe with a hotel package, has potential. And obviously the same for hoops (so you don't have to drive the pass yourself). Add an alum golf tourney to what has previously been done. Consider the same for soccer, w. hoops & volleyball.
All of those will help funding a little but be more important for continuous visibility. The bigger funding issue is filling Martin for football games. That is a function of both publicity and making it easy for the fan, as well as encouraging tailgating, even if the tailgate is NOT in the shadow of the stadium. If you have too many tailgaters, that is a quality problem. Put them somewhere else on campus and they either can walk (as they did while students) or you can run shuttle buses. Make the games fun to attend. Have departmental open houses...one or two for each game....use it as outreach for HS students considering WSU. Next fall, coming out of Covid, will be easy to market trips to anywhere, including Pullman for a football game...or games. Jump on this and push it all summer. Winning games does not, in and of itself, create long term enthusiasm. If it did, the Leach era would have brought even more attendance benefits than it did.
We now have what look from a distance to be the best 3 coaches...football, basketball and baseball...AT THE SAME TIME...that we've had in a long time. Use that. Promote all three sports. Pound the alum network with the baseball recruiting class. Basketball should be easy...we actually are playing real basketball again. And Rolo is a better spokesperson to the alums than we've had since Price. USE THAT!!!!
For WSU, bus trips (even if only a single bus) to attractive baseball games, maybe with a hotel package, has potential. And obviously the same for hoops (so you don't have to drive the pass yourself). Add an alum golf tourney to what has previously been done. Consider the same for soccer, w. hoops & volleyball.
All of those will help funding a little but be more important for continuous visibility. The bigger funding issue is filling Martin for football games. That is a function of both publicity and making it easy for the fan, as well as encouraging tailgating, even if the tailgate is NOT in the shadow of the stadium. If you have too many tailgaters, that is a quality problem. Put them somewhere else on campus and they either can walk (as they did while students) or you can run shuttle buses. Make the games fun to attend. Have departmental open houses...one or two for each game....use it as outreach for HS students considering WSU. Next fall, coming out of Covid, will be easy to market trips to anywhere, including Pullman for a football game...or games. Jump on this and push it all summer. Winning games does not, in and of itself, create long term enthusiasm. If it did, the Leach era would have brought even more attendance benefits than it did.
We now have what look from a distance to be the best 3 coaches...football, basketball and baseball...AT THE SAME TIME...that we've had in a long time. Use that. Promote all three sports. Pound the alum network with the baseball recruiting class. Basketball should be easy...we actually are playing real basketball again. And Rolo is a better spokesperson to the alums than we've had since Price. USE THAT!!!!
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Second post...what the PAC should do.
This one, frankly, is harder. There are no obvious geographic fits that also meet the academic profile. So growth is off the table, unless you want to span multiple time zones, and unless the B12 craters, there are not a lot of good choices there. So I'm going to assume that we stay at 12 schools for the foreseeable future. Frankly, growth is not the solution to all problems, regardless of what you might be told at business school, so this is not a killer...it is simply a less attractive path for the PAC at this time.
So what to do? And specifically, what to do in football? I'll start with our 9 league/3 noncon format. I understand why we do that to ourselves; one reason was so that the WA and OR teams play in LA at least every other year. However...the SEC fattens their W/L every year with 8 league/4 noncons. IMHO we either do the same, or we go the other way completely, and play every other team in the league...11 league/1 noncon. What is dumb is handicapping ourselves with the 9/3 format. We will never be in a position to change the SEC to match...they will stay 8/4...so to have a level scheduling playing field we either do the same, or we differentiate ourselves by playing a full league schedule. There are some downsides to the full league schedule approach...less exposure around the country, and less likely to have an undefeated team are two that come to mind immediately...but you can sell anything that you can differentiate. 9/3 vs 8/4 is not sufficiently differentiable enough to sell. I'd dump the 9/3 format...the only question is what should take its place.
The second question is the PAC network. Somebody who knows more than I do needs to do a legitimate analysis of the options. If fully owning and running your own network is likely to pay off within a reasonable amount of time...I'll call that 3-5 years at most...then maybe you keep it as-is. If not, you move to one of the other options...either a deal with a major network, or instead you make a deal with a streaming giant. Pick your giant. Again, it has to start with a rational assessment of where we can reasonably expect to be from a PAC network financial perspective within a few years. Larry is not capable of doing this. The PAC network is his baby, and nobody wants to be told that their baby is ugly. The league presidents have to engage the consultant on their own, and make every effort to make sure that the consultant does not do what most consultants do...cook the results to fit the intent of those who hired them. Ideally I would hire two groups...one being one of the big 5 accounting firms...and the other somebody more out of the box...like Creative Artists Agency, for example. Then hold up the recommendations side by side.
Finally, CTE is not going away. The whole covid experience is likely to reinforce for anyone with a pulse that, while people always want to stick their head in the sand and ignore reality, they can't do it forever. There is a role for the league in research into understanding the CTE process. And no, it is not fully understood. Not even close. Existing changes in equipment and rules are only general guesses when the actual process is not fully understood. We as a league need to be the leader in that research, and as the research is done and conclusions can be drawn, we are likely to be the leader in both equipment and rules innovation. That is both smart business and good ethics (usually the two go hand in hand). The PAC has the research horsepower to do this, and it is not even a strictly sports related topic. We should own this.
This one, frankly, is harder. There are no obvious geographic fits that also meet the academic profile. So growth is off the table, unless you want to span multiple time zones, and unless the B12 craters, there are not a lot of good choices there. So I'm going to assume that we stay at 12 schools for the foreseeable future. Frankly, growth is not the solution to all problems, regardless of what you might be told at business school, so this is not a killer...it is simply a less attractive path for the PAC at this time.
So what to do? And specifically, what to do in football? I'll start with our 9 league/3 noncon format. I understand why we do that to ourselves; one reason was so that the WA and OR teams play in LA at least every other year. However...the SEC fattens their W/L every year with 8 league/4 noncons. IMHO we either do the same, or we go the other way completely, and play every other team in the league...11 league/1 noncon. What is dumb is handicapping ourselves with the 9/3 format. We will never be in a position to change the SEC to match...they will stay 8/4...so to have a level scheduling playing field we either do the same, or we differentiate ourselves by playing a full league schedule. There are some downsides to the full league schedule approach...less exposure around the country, and less likely to have an undefeated team are two that come to mind immediately...but you can sell anything that you can differentiate. 9/3 vs 8/4 is not sufficiently differentiable enough to sell. I'd dump the 9/3 format...the only question is what should take its place.
The second question is the PAC network. Somebody who knows more than I do needs to do a legitimate analysis of the options. If fully owning and running your own network is likely to pay off within a reasonable amount of time...I'll call that 3-5 years at most...then maybe you keep it as-is. If not, you move to one of the other options...either a deal with a major network, or instead you make a deal with a streaming giant. Pick your giant. Again, it has to start with a rational assessment of where we can reasonably expect to be from a PAC network financial perspective within a few years. Larry is not capable of doing this. The PAC network is his baby, and nobody wants to be told that their baby is ugly. The league presidents have to engage the consultant on their own, and make every effort to make sure that the consultant does not do what most consultants do...cook the results to fit the intent of those who hired them. Ideally I would hire two groups...one being one of the big 5 accounting firms...and the other somebody more out of the box...like Creative Artists Agency, for example. Then hold up the recommendations side by side.
Finally, CTE is not going away. The whole covid experience is likely to reinforce for anyone with a pulse that, while people always want to stick their head in the sand and ignore reality, they can't do it forever. There is a role for the league in research into understanding the CTE process. And no, it is not fully understood. Not even close. Existing changes in equipment and rules are only general guesses when the actual process is not fully understood. We as a league need to be the leader in that research, and as the research is done and conclusions can be drawn, we are likely to be the leader in both equipment and rules innovation. That is both smart business and good ethics (usually the two go hand in hand). The PAC has the research horsepower to do this, and it is not even a strictly sports related topic. We should own this.
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I have a hazy memory of OSU recognizing those big buck donors, but what is more distinct to me is how damn hot it was, having to lay down at halftime to rest my painful back. Which was a real joy, since those aluminum seats were so hot I was just about blistered from the seats! Yikes!
I do have other good memories of that trip: visiting Fort Sill for your memories, visiting Big Al's family homes, driving through the worst rainstorm ever, and the BEST BBQ meal ever at Arthur Bryant's in KC. Good times. 👍
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