Left Out In the Cold with No One to Play With -- How The University of Texas Ruined Midwest Football

Much is being made in the college football world about the possibility of their being the very first major “Super Conference” expansion.  Many feel that eventually, college football will be comprised of these four, 16-team Super Conferences, covering the 4 regions of the United States.  But while this evolution of college football wasn’t suppose to occur for a while, or at least in the next 5 to 7 years, the first domino may soon fall as early as next year, and it may land on the West Coast.    

With the University of Texas A&M announcing its intentions to leave the Big 12 Conference next year and join whatever conference that is willing to take them on, more schools within the conference are starting to look to other conferences as well, as they want no part of the implosion that will soon be the Big 12 conference.  With Texas A&M's impending departure, word came out this week that Oklahoma and Texas, as well as Oklahoma St. and either Missouri or Texas Tech, are looking at joining the Pac-12 conference and officially creating college football’s first Super Conference, the Pac-16.  While nothing has been finalize, much negotiating is taking place.  Currently, the Pac-12 is division by two divisions, a north and a south division, with the Washington schools (Washington and Washington St.), Oregon schools (Oregon and Oregon St.), and Cal and Stanford making up the North Division; and USC, UCLA, the Arizona schools (Arizona and Arizona St.), Utah and Colorado making up the South Division.  If 4 of the 5 schools mention above from the Big 12 conference joins the Pac-12 to create the Pac-16, they would move USC and UCLA into the North Division with the rest of the California school, Oregon schools, and Washington school to create a new West Division, and the rest of the South would then make up the new East Division.  There is one major hurdle that the Pac-12 conference will have to clear, and it is the same hurdle that the Big 12 conference got tripped up on during the race, and that hurdle is the University of Texas and the Longhorn Network. 

After the 2009 season, there were talks between the University of Texas and ESPN joining forces and creating a network specifically dedicated to the universities football team.  The mere thought of the possibility of Texas having their own network dedicated to them ruffled the feathers of some of the schools within the Big 12 conference.  Seeing the writing on the wall, the University of Nebraska and the University of Colorado promptly decided to leave the conference.   Nebraska would join the Big 10 Conference effective the 2011 season, and Colorado found a home in the Pac-10.  While Nebraska and Colorado weren’t powerhouses within the Big 12 Conference, it started a chain reaction that would spread throughout the conference.  There were talks after the 2010 season about the Pac-10 trying to recruit the Universities of Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma St., and Texas Tech to leave the Big 12 after the 2011 season, disbanding the Big 12 Conference altogether.  However, Texas was able to convince the Oklahoma schools and Texas Tech to not leave the conference and stay another year in the Big 12 conference.  Their motivation; their precious Longhorn Network.  You will soon see why.                     

Prior to the start of this 2011 season, The Longhorn Network launched.  The network gave Texas fans an all-access, 24 hour coverage of the football team.  The University would keep its share of the revenue generated from the network and not have to share any of it amongst the other schools within the Big 12 Conference.  This created a major stir amongst the other schools.  It was seen as a competitive advantage for Texas, as the plan was for the network to show Texas League high school football games, giving Texas a competitive recruiting advantage in the State of Texas.  This really PO’d not only the other schools in the conference, but in particular the other Universities from Texas that play in the Big 12 Conference (Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor).  Texas A&M promptly announced that it wanted nothing to do with this arrangement and would seek to join another conference (most likely the SEC) prior to the start of the 2012 season, which leads us to where we are today.   

The SEC Conference has voted to extend an invitation to Texas A&M to join their conference and A&M has announced its intentions to accept.  The University of Baylor has filed a lawsuit seeking damages due to financial repercussions of A&M leaving the Big 12 conference.  If Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Missouri, and Texas Tech follow A&M and leave the Big 12 conference, it would in essence disbanded the Big 12 Conference, leaving the smaller schools like Baylor and Iowa State without a conference to play in, and with those universities not having the same prestige as the other schools, there is no guarantee that the other BCS Conferences would extend an invitation for Baylor or Iowa St. to play with them.  Meanwhile, Texas is trying to find another school to join the Big 12 Conference to replace Texas A&M and keep the Big 12 Conference in tact, but their efforts are failing, and it looks like Texas will soon leave the Big 12 Conference as well.  But it's harder from them because no one wanted to play by their rules.  So the question is:  where does Texas go?        

Here is my take on this whole situation.  As a Pac-12 fan and season ticket holder of a University's football team (Cal) within the conference, the possible expansion to a Pac-16 excites me.  I, on occasion, will travel and attend road games and the thought of going to Norman, OK or Lubbock, Tx for a road game seems cool.  However, if I were the President of a University within the Pac-12, I would not behind over to the University of Texas and would not allow them to join my conference without dividing up the revenue generated from the Longhorn Network equally amongst the other schools in the conference.  It has been a standard, strictly enforced rule of the Pac-12 conference that revenue sharing is shared equally, and I wouldn’t bend it at all just to let Texas into the conference.  If Texas doesn’t want to join to Pac-12 under those conditions (which I believe were the real reasons why Texas worked so hard to convince the other schools not to join the then Pac-10 at the end of last season), then we don’t need them.  I would gladly take on Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. Texas Tech, and either Missouri, Texas A&M, or maybe even Baylor, rather than let Texas join the Pac-12 under their own terms.  Rumor has it that the Pac-12 won’t expand to the Pac-16 without Texas, but I seriously hope that is not the case.  I think the real get in all this is Oklahoma.  Oklahoma matches up well with the other powerhouses already in the Pac-12 and added Oklahoma St., Texas Tech, and Missouri are just added bonuses.  It's Oklahoma or bust for the Pac-16.  The conference doesn’t need Texas to expand and survive as the Pac-16.

I see Texas doing one of three things.  They will either: join the Pac-16 super conference and adhere to the revenue sharing rules, go east and join either the ACC or the Big East Conference, or stake their calm as an independent and work out a deal much like Notre Dame.  In my opinion, if they really want to be the money hungry knobs that they are, they will either become an independent like money hungry knob Notre Dame.  Texas has the following, fan base, and now network, to make it as an independent.  They can keep whatever revenue gained from the Longhorn network to themselves, and being an independent will allow them to still schedule their signature rivalry game, the Red River Rivalry between them and Oklahoma.  Or, they will join either the ACC or Big East Conference, two conferences struggling to re-stake their calms as power conferences.  The Big East and ACC are struggling to produce big time watchable football, and letting a powerhouse university like Texas into their conference would definitely bring instant  notoriety and name id; and they may actually be so desperate for it that they accept Texas into their conference and let them keep their network deal to themselves.   

No one knows what Texas will ultimately end up doing with their football program, but whatever Texas decides to do will definitely send shock waves throughout college football.  But I’ll let it be known on this forum that Texas brought all this on to themselves and the Big 12 Conference and unfortunately, the other schools within the Big 12 conference have to suffer through this ordeal.   The finger is pointed square at Texas.  They were the ones who felt that they were above the rest of the other schools within the Big 12 Conference and selfishly had to create their own network.  Normally, networks are created as a conference, much like what the Big 10 and SEC conferences did, and revenue is shared evenly amongst all players.  The Pac-12 will soon be creating their own conference network in a similar fashion.   

 It probably won’t happen because everything and everyone seems to always bow down to Texas (speaking as a bitter Cal Fan who is still reeling over Texas and Mack Brown stealing our Rose Bowl bid from us in 2005), but I really hope that Texas gets what they deserve, and that is the short end of the stick on this and gets left out in the cold with no one to play with.  This is how the University of Texas ruined Midwest football.

Mr. Armchair Speaking!!!