Featheredcock

Tigernet going wild saying FSU/Clemson to Big 12 done deal

Any body seen anything other than the usual Tiger sources on this? There are a bunch of posters there saying it is a done deal as of today. I know this is an ongoing topic, but there seems to be a lot of back slapping like they believe it is now a reality.

SEC-Big 12 bowl game alliance starts unthinkable change in college football

They always threatened to do this, you know, if things got too confined, the landscape too cluttered.
If everything wasn’t what they wanted.

And now here we are, one monumental decision made that has taken what was once a pipe dream and shoved it squarely in the middle of reality.

They’ve taken their ball and gone home to start a new brand of football.
“All along,” said one BCS athletic director, “it was unavoidable.”

This is how utterly unpredictable college football has become: one day, Florida State to the Big 12 looks laughable. The next, it’s imminent.

One day, Notre Dame is bathing in its longstanding, never-wavering independent status. The next, it has no choice but to jump in the deep end of change.

The SEC and Big 12 announced a bowl partnership Friday, one that never more clearly defined the haves and have-nots of college football. If you’re not part of the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten or Pac-12, you’re on the outside with your face pressed against the big-boy glass.

The handful of powerful BCS teams remaining now have a clear decision to make: Join one of the four major conferences, or get shut out of the future of the game.

— SI: SEC, Big 12 gain leverage in BCS 2.0

By partnering in the “Champions Bowl”—the SEC and Big 12 will send their conference champion or highest-ranked non-playoff team to the game—the top two conferences in college football started unthinkable change:

— Although specifics weren’t released Friday, a source close to the process said the new bowl will have a stand-alone television deal, much like the Rose Bowl.

The goal is to bid the game to select cities—New Orleans, Dallas and Atlanta are top potential sites—and negotiate a television deal separate from current bowl agreements.

“Think of it as a conference championship game—without the championship on the line,” a source said. “The revenue potential is unthinkable.”

— By adding the game, the SEC and Big 12 further narrowed the scope of major teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Years ago, during the height of BCS controversy and criticism over the way polls were used, a handful of administrators floated the idea of taking the top 50-60 teams and breaking away from the NCAA to form their own league with their own rules.

That’s essentially what is happening with this groundbreaking move by the SEC and Big 12. This game, and the potential revenue it will bring, will force the elite of the ACC to rethink current conference partnerships, and the Irish to seriously debate their independent status.

— More expansion is on the horizon. Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech and Clemson would be attractive to the Big 12, as would Notre Dame. The Big 12, according to a source, wants to get back to 12 teams and revive the Big 12 championship game for revenue and recruiting purposes.

If the ACC loses one or more of its major teams in expansion—the Big 12 has a provision in its current television deal that allows for renegotiation—it will be mortally wounded and of little consequence in a likely committee vote-based four-team playoff coming in 2014.

— The Delany Plan will be the choice for the new four-team playoff. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott favor a playoff that emphasizes conference champions. SEC commissioner Mike Slive wants the best four teams, and it is believed that the Big 12 will go along with the SEC in that argument.

But to keep the process open to all—at least, on the surface—the playoff must use the Delany Plan: Conference champions within the top five or six of the rankings are eligible for the new playoff. A best-four teams playoff all but eliminates anyone outside the Big Four conferences and invites anti-trust lawsuits.

Two weeks ago, at a suburban Chicago restaurant, Delany said college football was heading toward “fundamental” and “significant” change.

That’s what happens when you take your ball and go home.


Read more: http://aol.sportingn...e#ixzz1vK2RuRj8

Olsen to play in the ACC

QB Keith Olsen of Wayne, NJ Friday committed to Miami. Olsen had narrowed his list to a final four of USC, Wisconsin, Auburn and Miami. USC fell out of contention after a commitment from Connor Mitch. Olsen was chosen an Elite 11 quarterback earlier in the month. Last season he passed for 1686 yards and 20 touchdowns. His brother Greg, a tight end with the Panthers, played his college football at Miami.
link: http://www.goupstate...9597/-1/PSPORTS

It's about to get very serious for Clemson. Those orange folks don't seem to understand they may not even be in the top 6 of the Big 12's wish list. If Clemson gets left out of the Big 4 conferences mentioned in the article, they may be able to focus purely on academics and get that top 20 rating that Barker is pining for.


Champions Bowl changes college football's big picture

By Dennis Dodd | Senior College Football Columnist

The implications of Friday's SEC/Big 12 bowl agreement should have been obvious on Jan. 10.

Sugar Bowl executive director Paul Hoolahan stood off to the side of the day-after Alabama championship press conference talking to any media outlet with a notebook or microphone.

His bowl, Hoolahan crowed, had a $40 million “war chest” as a buy-in for a possible playoff. This was the World Series of Poker with real honest-to-goodness power brokers at the table, not hygienically-challenged card counters.

Turns out Hoolahan was prescient.

When the SEC and Big 12 announced their new bowl agreement Friday, they changed the paradigm of college football perhaps at the most critical time in the game's history. ACC and the Big East? Done in terms of being meaningful major college football conferences in the marketplace. One has barely made a blip in the BCS era. The other just pushed out its commissioner and is hanging on for dear life.

Meanwhile, interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas just hit a walk-off at the end of a career that has spanned four decades. Asked what he would do if he were ACC or Big East commissioner today, Neinas, laughing, said: “Better get a good bowl.”

The Big East, ACC and whoever else is still playing in FBS don't have war chests. They have become content farms for leftovers.

The Champions Bowl (working title) became a traveling road show that will be played at the site of the highest bidder. The Big 12 and SEC champions will play each year unless one or both champs are in the playoff. If that's the case, a second choice from the conference(s) is picked.

It's what the deal represents: If you haven't noticed, the top level of college football is now narrowed to the Big Four -- Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC. Those 48 schools control most of the influence, power, money and, most important, product in the Football Bowl Subdivision. That shouldn't be a surprise, but the announcement of the Champions Bowl put a face on college athletics' latest study in Darwinism.

“Nothing's changed,” one industry source said. “The Big East is diminished and the ACC is not the same as those other top leagues.”

Still, 48 schools and two major, big-time bowls. More power in the hands of the powerful. Let your mind wander. Secede from the NCAA? They certainly have the leverage if those 46 want to install their own recruiting rules and play with 150-man rosters? And at one point does a 16-team playoff sponsored by Anheuser-Busch become a reality?

It's all on the table now.

If you're not in the Big Four, you're not big time. That means you, Miami and Florida State, who suddenly have a huge decision to make. Remain outside the Big Four with the ACC making $17 million per year in a league that can't compete for a national championship, or take your valuable brands and petition for entry into the Big 12.

Based on Friday's announcement -- the two biggest football names in the ACC could soon be making $25 million a year in the Big 12.

And if that happens, the ACC becomes a whole lot less desirable to a Notre Dame that has to be thinking seriously about joining a conference. Put it this way: ND isn't going to get better access when the four-team playoff debuts in 2014.

Why not just cut to the chase? Miami, Florida State, Virginia Tech and Notre Dame to the Big 12. Even the other members of the Big Four (SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12) would have to take notice of that potential earning power.

“Now it's going to put more pressure on Notre Dame to look at the Big 12,” said one source involved in the playoff discussions.

One unique feature of this new arrangement: The Champions Bowl will be bid out. The Sugar Bowl is the preferred site, but I'm thinking Jerry Jones has a war chest of his own to bring the game to Cowboys Stadium. Atlanta and the Georgia Dome will want in.

A quality product creates competition. Neinas said there is the possibility RFPs will be sent out. For those not business savvy, that stands for Requests For Proposals. Usually you see RFPs in the bidding for construction contracts. Now you're going to see the winning bid inherit the spending power of Bama Nation for a week in Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando or New Orleans.

That industry source went so far as to call this new arrangement nothing more than a glorified Capital One Bowl (sub in the Big 12 for the Big Ten vs. the SEC). Most years the Champions Bowl is going to be the SEC No. 2 or No. 3 vs. the Big 12 No. 2. If a four-team playoff had been in place during the 14 years of the BCS, the champions of the two leagues would have met only three times (1999, 2001, 2002 based on a seeded, four-teamer).

Again, it's what the deal represents. The power continued to shift. Revenue flows up in college athletics. With at least $400 million on the table for a playoff, most of that revenue is going to the Big Four because they've got the best teams that are going to play for the most championships. You might have noticed the SEC seems to have a nice little streak going.

That's what makes Friday also so crazy and ironic. A couple of months ago the Big 12 and SEC were mortal enemies. The Strength Everywhere Conference had taken Texas A&M and Missouri from the Big 12. The Large Dozen was more than unstable. Now with a new bowl, a new commissioner and a new membership, the SEC is its new best friend.

The most amazing thing was, this was done in the last two weeks and it never leaked,” said Neinas proudly.

Well, not until CBSSports.com broke it Friday morning. Still, congratulations are in order. The SEC and Big 12 had been talking conceptually about such an arrangement since 2004 when no one really knew where the BCS was headed. Since the end of that season, the Big 12 and SEC have combined to win every BCS title. Why not a bowl partnership that can be taken around the country and played like it was U2 on tour?

Two years ago SEC commissioner Mike Slive mentioned such an arrangement to insiders if the Rose Bowl proved to be too big an impediment to a playoff. The Champions Bowl mimics the Rose Bowl which continues to be the biggest hangup in the playoff discussion. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is trying like heck to protect the Pac-12-Big Ten matchup as much as possible.

Who can blame him? The two conferences are partners in a bowl that, no matter what, rates the highest in the bowl season year after year. Within the context of those playoff discussions, Slive and Neinas just raised the ante.

Neinas has done the math. Even if an actual champion doesn't play in the Champions Bowl, it most likely will be replaced by a top 10 team from the SEC or Big 12. Not bad.

In terms of tradition, power and revenue, the Champions Bowl is approaching the Rose. The Sugar Bowl has been around for 75 years. The Big 12 traces its roots back 105 years. The SEC is the best conference and has been playing in New Orleans forever. It doesn't have the San Gabriel Mountains, but it now has Oklahoma, Texas, LSU, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee in the same bowl club.

If Delany complains about losing one of his traditional Rose Bowl teams to a playoff, Slive can stare across the table and shoot that argument down.

“Jim, we just agreed to do that very thing with the Big 12. On purpose.”

SEC Football: New SEC Bowl with Big 12 Won't Have Huge Impact on Bowl Tie-Ins

Arkansas would have appeared in the new SEC/Big 12 bowl game following the 2010 season
Chris Graythen/Getty Images


The SEC and Big 12 announced on Friday that they will create a new bowl game following the 2014 season that will match the champion of both conferences if they are not included in the four-team playoff. If one or both conferences supply teams for the four-team playoff, other teams within the conference(s) would be selected.

In terms of today's landscape, this bowl game would jump up to the top of the SEC's non-BCS pecking order.

So how does it affect the rest of the SEC's bowl tie-ins? Using the assumption that the playoff will take the top four teams of the final BCS standings (or some variation thereof), not much.

Only three times (2006, 2008 and 2011) in the BCS era has the SEC placed two teams in the top four, but it has sent two teams to the BCS nine times. Which means that, more times than not, that at-large BCS bid would be going to the newly created SEC/Big 12 bowl.

Will the bowls lose some of their cachet as a result of this newly created game? Not really. Save for the BCS National Championship Game they're all exhibitions anyway.

What the game does do is reshape the landscape outside of the playoff to give more power to the conferences rather than bowl committees.

Yep. What the SEC and Big 12 have done is create a buffer for BCS at-large teams. Essentially, it's the Rose Bowl without the committee...or parade.

That sound you hear is money being printed at the respective offices of the SEC and Big 12.

Link: http://bleacherrepor...gn=sec-football