Read and watch that here.

Read and watch that here.

Read that here.

I was startled by the initial line and am even more startled that it's moved a few points against us, now having us favored by only 7 points. Last year's David Shaw crappy, demoralized, joyless, bad QB play, zero running backs by the end of the season, hapless defense with overmatched linemen 2022 abomination of a team would have been favored by 11.46 against last year's Hawaii team on the road. Even factoring in that Hawaii may be more of a home field advantage than most that would still mean that Vegas likes our chances significantly less than the demoralized version of Stanford football. That probably owes to all of our attrition, but still I find it surprising. The final SP+ preseason rankings for 2023 have Hawaii #120 in FBS and Stanford #92, with Hawaii expected to be bad at everything (in contrast Stanford is expected to be approaching mediocre on defense and downright good on special teams). Hawaii's defense returns a fair (though not standout) amount of its 2022 production. All in all, I am pretty startled by only being favored by 7 against Hawaii. I hope Taylor gets out of the gate with a nice statement. Conversely, I do think we have to be at least a bit nervous about this one. A seven point line equates to a 29.7 percent chance we lose. Extremely real possibility.

Looking forward to Matt or Samuel’s full breakdowin of last night’s game

Read and watch that here.

A couple of more staff promotions for men's hoops: Jack Frost now an assistant coach and Michael Reutt now director of operations.

Read and watch that here.

Just wondering where members of the old staff landed. At one time they were in high demand, or so it seemed, now?

Read and watch that here.

Heck of a read, even if we already have heard some of it…

As everyone here is keenly aware, rumors have continued to swirl on the realignment front. Just a week ago, momentum was building towards the ACC adding Stanford & Cal. Until it wasn't. Now Stanford finds itself just one vote shy of becoming the next member of the ACC. While expansion talks have stalled, they remain ongoing, with no definitive resolution in sight. Two of the more compelling developments from this last week, however, have been Florida State officially staying in the ACC through 2024 and Stanford's attempted full-court press to join the Big Ten (in some capacity). While these developments don't necessarily bring Stanford any closer to Power 4 membership than they were just a week ago, they do help solidify what the most optimal landing spots look like. Below is the most up-to-date look on what our Top 3 options appear to be, based on the latest intel:


DOOR #1

* Join the Big Ten in ALL SPORTS at a heavily reduced rate (perhaps as low as 25% of the normal distribution, which comes out to $15.6M) for the remainder of the Big Ten's media contract with FOX

* Our membership is no longer contingent upon Cal's invite and while it's difficult to speculate how much that has improved our odds, detaching ourselves from the Golden Bears can only help our chances. Adding Stanford would create a 19-team conference, which the Big Ten would be willing to remain at until a viable candidate became available to become the 20th member (assuming that's not Cal)

* The big negotiation isn't so much the current distribution share but the Big Ten's next media contract, which renews in 2030. It has been said that what helped push Oregon & Washington in the Big Ten's direction was getting a guarantee that they'd receive a full-share distribution of their next media deal. Stanford needs to take a holistic approach to this and possibly look at conceding even more on the front end in order to claim as large of a cut of the next media deal as they can (which is expected to come in somewhere around $100M+ per school)


DOOR #2

* Join the Big Ten in every sport EXCEPT football, which would reside in a rebuilt PAC (which would likely stand for Pacific ATLANTIC Conference after the additions of a few AAC schools) until the Big Ten was ready to onboard Stanford as a full member. This would enable the current Big Ten teams to not have to share any of the profits from their current media deal with FOX, while giving Stanford's Olympic & non-revenue sports a suitable long-term home

* While some might look at this as a failure, it would likely come with a number of concessions from the Big Ten. Chiefly, that Stanford would become a full member in all sports NO LATER than 2030, at which point the Big Ten's media contract would be up for renewal. In the event that a financially additive program were willing and able to join the Big Ten prior to 2030 (such as a Notre Dame or Florida State), Stanford would automatically move to full membership in tandem with the 20th addition. The financially additive value brought by the 20th addition would help offset Stanford's dilutive football value and pave the way for both to join simultaneously. But in the event that a 20th team does not emerge prior to 2030, the Big Ten guarantees Stanford will become a full member in all sports at the beginning of the new media contract

* Keep in mind, this is not an ideal plan for Stanford because the media distribution from the re-built PAC would probably come in somewhere between $10-15M/year. That number would be a good $5-10M+ less than what it was receiving as a PAC-12 member and would likely mean that Stanford's athletic department would be operating at a deficit from 2024 - 2030. However, because our athletic department is so well-funded from an endowment perspective, we likely have to dip into those resources for the time being, knowing that our athletic department would once again become self-sustaining upon the execution of Big Ten's new media contract


DOOR #3

* Join the ACC in FOOTBALL ONLY, while plugging the rest of our sports into the rebuilt PAC (in other words, the opposite of the Door #2 model). This would protect our Olympic & non-revenue sports from the travel burdens that the ACC would introduce, while generating enough money from the ACC's media contract to create a self-sustaining athletic department

* Some have suggested that Stanford & Cal would only get accepted to the ACC at a reduced share because of how dilutive they are as media properties. While Stanford's lack of value to the TV networks is undeniable at this point, I doubt they would agree to join the ACC for any less than $25M (the ACC's media distribution is expected to come in just above $30M in 2024). In this setup, Stanford would be locking up their media rights with the ACC through 2036. Therefore, they would have to have the proper financial guarantees that doing so would allow them to operate their athletics department at a self-sustaining level. With all the Olympic & non-revenue sports we offer, I would assume $20-25M would be the minimum amount required to do so. Especially when you factor in the increased travel expenses that the football team would incur from playing in a conference on the opposite side of the country

* I assume that Stanford would be the most reluctant to pursue Door #3 for a handful of reasons. For one thing, the travel burden (even if limited to just the football team) would be the most arduous of any college football team in the entire country. Secondly, while the media distribution from the ACC would likely surpass our revenue figures as a full member of the re-built PAC or as an Independent, they still wouldn't be great. As I mentioned earlier, it would most likely be enough to just barely cover our operational costs as an athletic department, but it wouldn't be anywhere near what USC & UCLA will be making ($62.5M) or even what Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah will be making ($31.7M). Last but not least, with Florida State threatening to leave the conference (and Clemson, Miami, and UNC presumed to be not far behind), it seems like it's only a matter of time until the ACC is the next conference to break apart. Which means that a move to the ACC would not only involve the most travel but also the least amount of security and none of the long-term financial upside that Door #1 and Door #2 present. Not ideal

_

Large spread on 'Why College Football Can't Help Itself' featuring picture of Cal's LB Jason Weaver attempting to tackle Stanford TE Colby Parkinson in 2019 Big Game.

A good read on how the Rule of Mammon has perverted the game and today's college Athletic landscape. With no way out.
So for all the idiots here and everywhere who said 'Pay 'em'

You got exactly what you wanted, and now deserve.

Read that here. They should have called this the "Troy Taylor Cup."

PART 1

For those that haven't been following the situation as closely as I have, I'll break things down in layman's terms for everyone here. This is what the Big Ten's master plan looks like: a 24-team super conference that runs coast-to-coast with some of the finest academic and athletic institutions in the entire country. Why 24? because it's a schedule maker's dream. Four 6-team pods that play five opponents from within their pod, three opponents from the three remaining pods, and a permanent cross-pod rival (for instance, Michigan & Ohio State in the event that they were placed in different pods for competitive balance).

Right now the Big Ten is sitting pretty at 18 members, possessing the biggest power players from the West Coast (USC, Oregon) to the Midwest (Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State). That means that there are 6 remaining spots left. The most desirable programs in the country outside of the Big Ten reside in the SEC. Give the equal footing of both conferences, however, I don't see any scenario where the Big Ten would be able to poach programs away from the SEC (no matter how geographically convenient it would be to pluck schools like Texas, Oklahoma, or Missouri). So we can go ahead and cross those schools off the list. Meaning any further expansion would have to come from conferences lower down on the totem pole. Given the massive drop-off from the Big Ten/SEC to the next-best conference, that leaves just about everyone else. If the Big Ten wanted to poach schools from the Big 12, it would have done so by now. And while I'm not suggesting that there's no realistic scenario in which any current Big 12 teams join the Big Ten (Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Kansas would certainly warrant consideration), those invites would be much farther down the road and likely take place at a time when the conference was evaluating a jump beyond 24 members. For the purposes of this exercise, let's keep our focus on what it would take to get to 24 first.

It's no secret that the apple of the Big Ten's eye and the biggest prize left on the table is Notre Dame. They're a revenue-generating cash cow with excellent academics and a rich history of athletic success. In other words, they're about as close as it gets to a slam dunk addition for the Big Ten. However, they have been independent throughout their entire 100+ year existence and it would take a seismic shift in the college landscape for that to ever change. Having said that... it just so happens that we're already well into that seismic shift and just one major shakeup away from this whole thing getting blown wide open: the collapse of the ACC. The most attractive media properties left on the table reside in the ACC: Florida State, Clemson, Miami, and North Carolina. These are the four schools that TV network power brokers (who are driving all these moves right now) have deemed as the last of the "additive" programs outside of Notre Dame. When I say additive, I mean a program that would increase ever current conference members payout because of the added media value. For instance, Notre Dame & the four aforementioned ACC schools would be additive to both the SEC/Big Ten (who are making $60-70M annually per conference member). Oregon & Washington, on the other hand, were not deemed as additive by the TV network partners, which is why they're coming at a discounted rate (somewhere between $30-40M, since that's apparently their projected value). Stanford & Cal are somewhere below that, which means in the event that the Big Ten were willing to offer us membership into their conference, we'd have to come in at a fraction of that $30-40M (more on that later). It's all relative, however, because even though Stanford & Cal are not additive to the SEC/Big Ten, we most likely would be viewed as additive to the Big 12 & ACC (who's payout is between $20 - 30M) and absolutely viewed as additive to the Mountain West (who's payout is somewhere in the range of $4-5M).

The issue with the Big Ten and the ACC schools, however, is that the ACC signed an iron-clad Grant of Rights agreement (back in 2016 when their TV contract was up for renewal) and instead of signing a shorter-term deal like most conferences, they signed a 20-year deal with ESPN that included unassailable financial consequences for leaving the conference prior to the contract's expiration in 2036. To put things into proper context, if the ACC's deal pays out $30M annually and there are 12 years left on the current TV contract after this season, each school stands to make $360M from 2024 - 2036. If a school were to break away from the conference next year and join the Big Ten in time for 2024 season, they would owe the ACC $360M upfront (prior to their departure). While some schools are sitting on larger endowments than others, no school has that much money to casually throw around. Notre Dame also signed onto the ACC's Grant of Rights but because they only play 4 ACC games per year, their financial penalty for leaving early is estimated to be under $100M (a fine the Big Ten would gladly absorb to onboard them into the conference). However, Florida State has become increasingly vocal in expressing their frustration over the ACC's TV contract and is apparently looking into any and all options that would help them break free from the conference so that they could depart to greener pastures (where both the SEC & Big Ten would be waiting with open arms).

It is widely speculated that because of this development, the Big Ten has re-opened expansion talks (which have already culminated in the additions of Oregon & Washington). In a perfect world, the Big Ten would love to see Florida State & Clemson (the most desirable TV properties in the ACC) become their 19th & 20th members and fill out their remaining 4 spots with the best available schools on the market (Miami, North Carolina, etc.). The operative phrase being "in a perfect world". I say this because there are some challenging hurdles that stand in the way of the Big Ten and their master plan for expansion. The first of which being that they're bound to face some stiff competition from the SEC in the pursuit of these premiere ACC programs. The SEC already has a stranglehold on the Southeast (hence the name) but would love nothing more than to expand their footprint into the Carolinas (Clemson, UNC) and as far north as Virginia (UVA, VA Tech). Florida State & Miami would be complicated evaluations because they already possess the flagship program in the state of Florida (UF). But if the TV dollars made financial sense, there's no way the SEC would say no. Not to mention, it would solidify their control over the region and by extension the hotbed of recruiting that comes with it. If the Big Ten presented more compelling media contract with bigger TV dollars than the SEC, I could see Florida State, Miami, and Clemson giving it serious consideration despite being more geographically compatible with the SEC. But it's going to be a dogfight of a power grab whenever that moment presents itself and I'm not sure the Big Ten can count on a clean sweep of all the top ACC programs.

_

Read and watch that here.

Read that here.

Read that here.

... but also he hasn't been involved in discussions at an administrative level, so I guess we'll friggin' see.
Still, better to hear this than not.

Read and watch that here.

At around 9:30am ET, Rece Davis was on ESPN Radio talking about College Football. The very first question he was asked was what happens with the remaining Pac-12 schools. He said he believes OSU and WSU end up in the MWC. Then he said he thinks Stanford will go independent for two years before landing in a conference. He then said he thinks Cal will join OSU and WSU in the MWC. Davis said he didn't have any special insight or inside sources, this was just his guess based on what he observes.

Apologies to those younger than 50 who have no idea what the thread title is about.

I find all this discussion odd in the extreme.

My hope and expectation is that Stanford will do the right thing.

This persistent notion that Stanford athletics should break even is goofy. We have more money than we know what to do with

Does, say, the Classics department have to break even? Do our peers like Harvard expect the athletic department to break even? Of course not.

Indeed, this whole focus on money is precisely what's wrong with college sports nowadays.

Neither is ideal, but why would a PAC / AAC merger be better than a PAC / MWC be better for us? TV contract? Easier to bail? Better for the student athlete?

If we find out Monday that Stanford has been offered bids to both the ACC and B12, equal terms, what do you prefer?