Kurt Rambis

So you're saying Pepperdine needs to bring back our football team? 😁

No matter what happens this year or next, does anyone think that will be the end? When do athletes demand a share of revenues, as is already happening in the B10? When do conferences start weeding out "weaker sisters" like Rutgers or Ol' Miss? When do schools start chopping non-revenue-producing sports? When do less elite programs like UNLV or Washington State drop football entirely, or drop down to DII? What other schools will make a big announcement in a year or two, because someone lures them in? Could Baylor join the SEC? Could Florida State? Could Clemson figure a way to join the B10? USC and UCLA jumping ship was unthinkable, just like UT and Oklahoma going to the SEC. What else will happen that we are not even considering today - Congress getting involved? Stanford just dropping sports? Notre Dame forming a new conference with Oregon, Washington, Clemson, Miami, Oklahoma State, etc.? Alabama leaving the SEC for the B10 after getting a huge payday? Nothing will surprise me anymore.

Not that this gives anyone (including me) leave to start referencing politics on the board!

How long do you all think it will be until weaker, less valuable members of various conferences start being invited to leave? Teams that don't come from huge media markets, like Kentucky or Iowa? I don't know how this would work legally (and I assume it varies with each conference agreement), but rather than just expanding, will Ol' Miss be asked to depart, while Washington (with a larger media market) gets invited in? Will Iowa State get tossed in favor of Arizona State? Sadly, it wouldn't even be based on performance; Rutgers and Vanderbilt would probably stick around because their markets have TV HH. I'm just wondering whether that will be the next shoe to drop...

I keep hearing how USC and UCLA will struggle to compete in the Big10. While I fully agree with that (especially for UCLA), it's pretty obvious at this point that the people who are making those decisions do not have that at the top of priority list. It's all about the money. If UCLA can get $80 million annually, they'll be happy to be 5 - 7 after barely squeaking by Maryland. They'll take that over being 9 - 3 in the Pac-12 at $30 million annually without the slightest hesitation. Maybe they'll delude themselves that with a new coach they can successfully compete (and go through that cycle every few years), or maybe they'll just enjoy the income and let losing take its course - the Vanderbilt model.

When public money is involved, and when the governor is the head of the board of regents, it's kind of hard to keep the two entirely separate.

I think I'm done trying to figure out where the Ducks will land, what makes a school attractive to a conference, etc. So much conflicting information, misinformation, talking hairdos guessing or coming out with hot takes, etc. If the Pac 10 dies, merges, steals other teams, has an "agreement" with another conference...if UCLA stays or goes...if Oregon stays or goes...hey, it's not like they're going to consult me for advice. And frankly, if they did, I haven't the faintest idea what I'd tell them.

There's a shload of that which goes on in the media. Gotta have a hot take, and it can't be hot if someone else already has it. At the same time, I look at last year with a win in Columbus and then a completely inexplicable loss to Stanford, coupled with other recent years where we destroy good teams and lose to some .500 outlier, and wonder...

Hmmm...they predict we win at WSU, beat Utah, beat BYU, beat UCLA...and then lose to Cal and OSU. Our reputation from the past few years precedes us...

Well, that didn't take long... Big 12, Pac-12 nix talks of potential merger or partnership with Big 12 still considering all options - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM The two leagues recently raided by the SEC and Big Ten, respectively, had been discussing numerous possibilities

What an absolute joke. Literally penalized for having reactions that are too quick. Imagine: You were the first one into the concert hall after the doors opened - sorry, you reacted too quickly, so you need to leave. New Hampshire's primary was the first in the US, so those votes don't count. No, you weren't offside, but you reacted too quickly after the ball was snapped, so we're giving the offense five yards and an automatic first down. You hit the game-winning bucket, but you left one-thousandth of a second on the clock when it left your hand so we're going to wave it off. Sheesh.

I always saw him (and still do) as basically a good dude. Job changes are not easy, particularly when you're jumping to a competitor. And to do it publicly must be brutal. How do you keep recruiting for Oregon, in case the Miami job falls through? How do you not outright lie to the media? (How many times have we heard "I've had no contact with that university!" and then two hours later the guy signs a contract?) When Slick Willie left, his players WANTED to play for MC. That says a lot. He may have shortcomings as a coaching strategist, but I bear him no ill will, and continue to respect him as a person. That's why I don't participate in a lot of the "trash Mario" stuff that comes up on the board. (Also because we have no idea how our current regime is at strategy and coaching tactics.) Yeah, it sucks to be someone's second choice, and the knee-jerk reaction is often, "I hope he flops over there" (which was my immediate reaction, to be honest). IMHO, I don't think MC deserves that.

Yep, my bad. So make that needing to avoid going 1 - 2.

I have to think it's BYU. I mean, assuming they don't have some inexplicable bonehead loss like Stanford last year. Almost everyone thinks Georgia is a loss, and a win would be just keeping it close. But if the Ducks start 0 - 2, especially with one loss coming in Autzen, that will be hard to recover from, both in public perception and in reality.

Would love to see the national stats, rather than just in the West.

The one caveat to this is that it's much easier to develop good technique and habits in a very young player than to fix problems in an older player. Nix was under other coaches, and Thompson and Butterfield were under Mari at Oregon. Moore is more of a blank slate.

Gotta say, the last thing I expected on this board today was a Doris Day reference. Now, pull out a Kitty Kallen song and I'll REALLY be impressed. 😄

I keep reading about needing to include certain schools (SJSU, SDSU, Houston, etc.) because of the size of the media markets. Broadcasters don't care about the size of a market - they care about eyeballs on screens. Long Beach State, UC Irvine, and Loyola Marymount are all right in the middle of Los Angeles just like UCLA is - but they don't pull a fraction of the viewership for MBB that the Bruins do. So Fox and ESPN don't care about them, or about Cal Baptist, Pepperdine (as much as it hurts me to say that), CSUN, etc. Notre Dame is in a tiny media market, but they pull eyeballs nationally. That's what matters. Even for recruiting, I'm not sure how important it would be to have SDSU so we have a "presence" in the SoCal market. The Pac 12 has no presence in TX, FL, MD, or anywhere other than CA, UT, WA, OR, and AZ, and yet look at how many high-level recruits we're pulling in from outside of those states. In today's world, the only thing that matters is what schools can we be in a conference with that will bring the most TV dollars. That's it. Nothing else matters - tradition, rivalries, recruiting, weather, sports other than CFB and MBB, uniform colors, travel, or anything else. Find where we can bring in the most TV dollars, and figure out everything else to make it work. That's the bottom line, whether we like it or not (and I certainly don't like it).

The only thing that scares me about being in a weaker conference is not being able to keep up with the Alabamas and Ohio States financially. The Pac 12 has been perceived as a weaker conference for some time, and if any Pac 12 team had managed to go undefeated, they would have been in the playoffs without question. The ACC isn't exactly a juggernaut conference, and look how often Clemson has been there. Heck, look at Cincinnati. This will be even more true if the playoffs expand to 8 or 12 teams; even weaker conferences will get invites, just like we've seen teams like BYU and Boise State make noise on the national stage historically. It's all about the final record. Going undefeated in the Big 10 or SEC is extremely difficult, and will be even more so if they start to get rid of teams like Maryland and Kentucky in favor of better programs like USC or Oregon. Of course, I'm saying all of this knowing what CFB has been over the past 20 years. Only God knows what it will be like over the coming decade, and so far, He has stayed pretty quiet on the issue.

Gonna respectfully disagree, Daze. Playing time will trump everything else when it comes to the opportunity to get drafted, even in a lower round. How many big school backups have we seen drafted, versus how many kids who did really well at smaller schools (e.g. New Mexico, Western Michigan, LA Tech)? If Winston had put out a lot of film already and wanted to finish up at Oregon, that might be one thing - but he really has little playing time so far. I would think transferring to UNLV or Bowling Green and being a stand-out starter putting out a lot of film would give him a much better chance than playing 10% of the snaps at a school like Oregon. I would also think a rebuilding program like Arizona would be excited to have him, and he'd have a much better chance of starting there than in Eugene.

I remember when full free agency came to the NFL. I figured my days as a serious NFL fan were probably numbered. I was used to seeing guys like Mean Joe Greene and Jack Lambert play their whole careers for my favorite team; now I thought it'll just be a turnstile of random players coming through for a few years and then moving on. And that's largely what it has been; every year my Steelers lose players I liked to free agency, while picking up one-year or two-year rentals. And yet I'm still a huge Steelers fan. I pull for the team more than I do for individual players. I hate losing guys I enjoyed watching, but it is what it is, and sometimes new guys we get make the team more fun. I'm guessing it'll end up being the same with the Ducks. It'll be different, but they're still the green-and-yellow (or black, or pink, or grey...). And although I don't much like the changes we're seeing in college football (You dang kids - get off my lawn!), I'll still enjoy watching them play Clemson for the ACC championship, or whatever the heck we'll be doing in a few years...

I'm doubting he'd want to spend his last year in college football backing up a star, and it's not like he's going to start over Sewell. If he's smart, he goes someplace where there's a need and a ready opportunity. If he were transferring as a sophomore, I could definitely see this. Not as a fifth-year senior.

...is that it never stops. When college football had a strong central overseer (the NCAA), stability ruled. How we have NIL, the transfer portal, Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, USC and UCLA to the Big 10, etc. And no matter what things look like in 2022 or 2024, they probably will not look like that in 2028 or 2030. Imagine... ...the SEC realizes that Vanderbilt brings nothing to the table. The Big 10 feels the same way about Rutgers. Both are tossed from their leagues. ...Amazon decides to jump in to college football with both feet, and Bezos makes Knight look like a pauper. Amazon arranges a new conference with current stepchildren like Oklahoma State and Oregon - and then steals Penn State from the Big 10, Clemson from the ACC, and LSU from the SEC. Think they couldn't do that with their billions? ...schools start realizing that while they can pay these travel expenses for football, they can't for women's soccer and men's gymnastics. New leagues spring up for individual sports, like they already exist in men's volleyball (Penn State plays in the same conference as Harvard and Sacred Heart; Ohio State in the same conferences as Lindenwood and Quincy; UCLA in the same conference with Pepperdine and Grand Canyon). ...the SEC gets really aggressive and steals Ohio State and Michigan from the Big 10, or the Big 10 manages to take Georgia and Missouri from the SEC. All out war! ...Congress gets involved. God help us all. So no matter how things shake out this year or in 2024, don't worry - things will change. And probably sooner rather than later. With no overseer, it's every school and every conference for itself. I won't be at all surprised to see Stanford or Vandy drop football entirely, WSU and OSU go to a lower division, conferences jettison schools, new conferences formed, conferences raid each other for members, lawsuits, new media players, etc. It's just getting started...

Re-opening his recruitment. Five-star Mookie Cook decommits from Oregon 247SPORTS.COM Late Wednesday night five-star small forward Mookie Cook dropped a bit of a bomb. Ranked No. 5 overall by 247Sports in the...

Holy %^*& USC, UCLA looking to leave Pac-12 for Big Ten in 2024, though deal not yet finalized - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM A second round of power conference realignment in as many years may be about to begin