Conference Realignment

[iceeater1969]

This analogy had so much potential. It was diffused all too quickly.

I’d like to explore it a little further, perhaps refine it.

SEC Cindy wasn’t that hot. After high school she blew all of her savings on a boob job and managed to bag an attorney one night after her shift at the gentlemen’s club. She doesn’t like to talk about that. He bought her a face, a tuck and a Mercedes and now she flits around the country club in a tennis skirt telling everyone how virtuous she is and how hard she worked to look so good in that bikini shoot she did for charity… yeah, we all hate Cindy.

I think you’re too hard on ACC Amy. She was never overly popular but she’s always been pretty hot. Maybe she let herself go a little but she’s still a good looking woman with an amazing rack. She walks around in oversized sweatshirts and doesn’t bother to put herself together. That’s probably OK for you, because if she applied herself, she could do so much better. Sometimes her defeatist attitude makes it hard to love her, but dammit, you do.

If this is a part of interogatory of cc commissioner and makes it to a public trial , it will on national news

 

[CEB]

If this is a part of interogatory of cc commissioner and makes it to a public trial , it will on national news

Maybe even a 30 for 30 episode? SEC Storied runs an unedited behind the scenes with Cindy on late night?

Ball is rollin…

 

[Northeast Stinger]

What, exactly, do you want the ACC leadership to promote? Do you expect the college football universe to suddenly change 100 years of habit and start demanding a new product?

It‘s an established fact. Other than FSU and Clemson, virtually the entire rest of the conference are smaller schools, with smaller fan bases, and where athlethics are not as important.

When I was at Tech, the ACC was an 8 team basketball conference. Today, it’s the third most important athletic conference in the country. Overall, it’s probably the perfect fit for most of the schools in it.

All I want is better marketing. That’s it. Those years when the ACC has been better than the SEC I want us to act with the same swagger and bravado that the other major conferences act with. Instead of going all humble. In those years where we are clearly inferior I want us to do what the SEC does and talk about how we beat each other up, or how our rivalries are so strong that our out of conference games don’t mean as much.

You know what I’m talking about. We could even put our own spin on it about how our athletes face the toughest gauntlet of all, both on the field, or on the court, and in the classroom.

Mostly I just want to see a marketing presence. The SEC show up in my news feed, my tv ads, and everywhere I look. The ACC only shows up where I am specifically looking for them.

That’s what I want. And you can tell me all the reasons why this can’t be, or we shouldn’t expect it, but that’s what I want. And I think FSU and Clemson want that especially because, in their cases, it holds them back financially, in recruiting, and in getting national respect.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I think he is saying that the ACC should promote hype similar to how the SEC does.

I found a website that had the OOC records for all conferences since 1998. The SEC does have the best OOC record, but it is 56% not 90% or even 70%. The lowest is the ACC, but it is at 46%. The rest of the conferences were at almost exactly 50%. The SEC hype would lead people to believe that no SEC team can lose to anyone else, but they do lose 44% of the time.

The SEC hype would lead people to believe that SEC DLs tower over non-SEC OLs and outweigh them by 50 pounds. The SEC hype would lead people to believe that every SEC player has "SEC speed" and that there aren't any players in any other conference who can compare. If Vandy beats an OOC team, then Vandy has "SEC speed" and "SEC size". If Vandy loses OOC, then Vandy is just Vandy and doesn't represent the SEC. None of those things are actually true, but they are drummed into people's heads so often that it affects people's understandings. I believe that what he is saying is that the ACC should be doing the same type of self-promotion. Hype the speed of guys like Singleton. Hype the good players in the conference. The ACC had probably the best QB in the last decade at Clemson, but I never heard any discussion about Lawrence representing the ACC. He was discussed as Lawrence. He was discussed as Clemson's QB. I don't recall hearing any discussion about him and the ACC. The SEC would have hyped him as being representative of the typical SEC QB. True or not, they would have pushed it as a narrative.

I answered in a similar vein but before I saw your response. That was exactly what I was saying.

 

[Richard7125]

I would probably agree that the SEC is slightly better at football. What I don't agree with is that the SEC is far better at football. You seem to believe that the SEC is the best and that it is non-negotiable. That to me is a symptom of a syndrome.

The SEC currently has 9 teams in the pre-season top 25. There is no reason to be in the top 25 at the moment other than hype. They will have 7-9 teams in the top 25 after four weeks. When SEC play is underway, SEC teams will be losing to "top 25" teams, so the losses won't hurt as much. If Ole Miss goes 8-4 this year, a Kentucky loss to them in late September won't matter because they were a top 10 team when the loss happened. But they would have only been a top 10 team because they were a top 10 team based on hype. The SEC will likely have 5-7 teams in the top 25 in November. But that will be based on the pre-season polls and how those teams "beat up on each other". Look at Ole Miss's OOC schedule: Furman, MTSU, WF, and Ga Southern. There are a lot of teams in the P4 that could go 4-0 against that schedule.

The "SEC Dominance" is the reason that they are starting with so many teams in the top 25. Having so many teams in the top 25 now will cause them to have many teams in the top 25 in November. Then having so many teams in the top 25 in November will be proof of the "SEC Dominance". It is circular logic. I am not railing against the SEC. I am railing against the hype, the circular logic, and the logic that ignores last week's logic.

I may have agreed with the SEC being “slightly better” last year, but they just added Texas and Oklahoma - the SEC has a lot more mass than the ACC now. Imagine what ACC people would be saying if the ACC added Texas and Oklahoma. They would be saying the ACC is on par or even better than the SEC.

 

[stinger78]

I would probably agree that the SEC is slightly better at football. What I don't agree with is that the SEC is far better at football. You seem to believe that the SEC is the best and that it is non-negotiable. That to me is a symptom of a syndrome.

The SEC currently has 9 teams in the pre-season top 25. There is no reason to be in the top 25 at the moment other than hype. They will have 7-9 teams in the top 25 after four weeks. When SEC play is underway, SEC teams will be losing to "top 25" teams, so the losses won't hurt as much. If Ole Miss goes 8-4 this year, a Kentucky loss to them in late September won't matter because they were a top 10 team when the loss happened. But they would have only been a top 10 team because they were a top 10 team based on hype. The SEC will likely have 5-7 teams in the top 25 in November. But that will be based on the pre-season polls and how those teams "beat up on each other". Look at Ole Miss's OOC schedule: Furman, MTSU, WF, and Ga Southern. There are a lot of teams in the P4 that could go 4-0 against that schedule.

The "SEC Dominance" is the reason that they are starting with so many teams in the top 25. Having so many teams in the top 25 now will cause them to have many teams in the top 25 in November. Then having so many teams in the top 25 in November will be proof of the "SEC Dominance". It is circular logic. I am not railing against the SEC. I am railing against the hype, the circular logic, and the logic that ignores last week's logic.

It's easy to see, unless you don't. The Kool Aid blinds one to the reality around him - turns him into an Emperor. We all point and shake our heads while he revels at more chances than anyone else to grasp the brass ring, and when he does, it replenishes the Kool Aid for more refreshment. It's all a circular process... on an on we go....

Yes, I want them gone and for GT to play in a division that is not dominated by such. A life w/o The SECheat Narrative is a life that is much better. Let them play with themselves while we get back to college football.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

To be fair to Meyer (who I respect, but loathe) ... he was an SEC coach, a B1G coach, and a B12 coach, and a mid-America coach. But because he coached in the SEC, he's infected with the disease. Maybe he is just experienced? I suppose Kaylon Deboer is now infected?

A lot of these posts, if they were about women instead of a conference would be ...

SEC Cindy - the statuesque girl from high school who married her high school sweetheart, joined the country club, and 40 years later, still rocks a bikini. Everyone hates Cindy.
ACC Amy - the cute girl with a big rack. She got her degree in urban planning, gained 100 lbs and she's ugly and you hate having sex with her anymore.

Everyone hates Cindy. But what really needs to happen is Amy needs gastric bypass and start going to the gym.

Wow.

This is wrong for so many reasons.

 

[beeteam]

This analogy had so much potential. It was diffused all too quickly.

I’d like to explore it a little further, perhaps refine it.

SEC Cindy wasn’t that hot. After high school she blew all of her savings on a boob job and managed to bag an attorney one night after her shift at the gentlemen’s club. She doesn’t like to talk about that. He bought her a face, a tuck and a Mercedes and now she flits around the country club in a tennis skirt telling everyone how virtuous she is and how hard she worked to look so good in that bikini shoot she did for charity… yeah, we all hate Cindy.

I think you’re too hard on ACC Amy. She was never overly popular but she’s always been pretty hot. Maybe she let herself go a little but she’s still a good looking woman with an amazing rack. She walks around in oversized sweatshirts and doesn’t bother to put herself together. That’s probably OK for you, because if she applied herself, she could do so much better. Sometimes her defeatist attitude makes it hard to love her, but dammit, you do.

They both look a helluva lot better than PAC12 Barb about now.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

The SEC may have 7 teams in the running for the playoffs, but that is largely because of hype. They have a lot of teams in the pre-season top 25, but that is because of hype. The SEC has been hyping for at least 25 years. They realized that the BCS depended upon poll voters and they hyped to try to get votes for SEC teams above teams from other conferences. The hype has been going on for so long, and is so prevalent that people don't even realize it is hype anymore.

My point about Lawrence wasn't about him. It was about the ACC not capitalizing on hyping him as an ACC QB when he was there. The SEC hyped Tebow. The SEC hyped Manziel. The SEC pushed that SEC teams have to compete against QBs like Tebow/Manziel every single week. That isn't true, but they said it enough that it sticks. Nobody from the ACC said anything like that about Lawrence. He was a better QB than either Tebow or Manziel, but he was Trevor Lawrence, or he was Clemson's Trevor Lawrence. He was never hyped as an ACC QB.

The SEC hypes much more than what the schools offer. "SEC speed". "SEC size". "SEC schedule". The way it is presented is an NFL vs high school type hype. Even the quote you presented from Myer leaves the impression that no teams in any other conference have anybody on the DL that is even close to the size of the smallest DL on any SEC team. The ACC doesn't engage in any of that type of hype.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, but the SEC didn’t turn this around over night, but they were consistent like the slow drip of water that erodes granite. They did it when the west coast teams were better, they did it when the old Southwest Conference was better, and they done it the entire time the Big 10 was better. I’m even not sure there wasn’t a memo that went out to all conference teams saying don’t lose anymore bowl games, put everything you’ve got into getting your teams ready, this is not a sightseeing vacation. That may sound paranoid but, my hyperbole aside, the SEC seems more keenly interested in how the rest of the world sees them than the other conferences combined. Years of saying, “Look at me, look at me,” finally got everyone’s attention and now it is a perpetual feedback loop that keeps feeding itself rankings, recruits, fans, and money.

 

[Vespidae]

All I want is better marketing. That’s it.

Here's a little thought experiment. Instead of looking solely at wins (because what does Wake beating Vandy really tell us), let's look at who the NFL drafts from and how it's distributed. The table below represents the Top 80% of all players drafted in the 2024 NFL draft and lists the number of players in that cohort as well as the number of teams those players were from. This removes the effect of one player coming from one team (e.g., the Missouri Valley Conference). Then, if we look at the Coefficient of Variation, we can see how concentrated those players are into just a few teams vs. more evenly distributed ... hence, the potential for a more competitive conference. The higher the COV, the more talent is concentrated into just a few teams, the lower the COV, the more teams have more players drafted.

Of the Big 3 conferences, the B1G sends the most players to the NFL but ... also has the highest COV, meaning that it is just a few teams (specifically, Michigan/Washington, Oregon, and Penn State). The ACC is heavily skewed by FSU. Ironically, for all the SEC haters, the SEC sent almost as many as the B1G but had the lowest variance .. so teams tend to be more competitively matched from a pure talent point of view.

Not perfect, but an interesting look. Should FSU and Clemson leave the ACC, the ACC numbers would plummet which means that there wouldn't be as much talent in the conference but .... it would be more competitive on a purely talent point of view.

So what is it you want to market? To who? For what purpose? Both the B1G and SEC are large, land-grant universities with lots of fans and the most highly sought after talent (based on how the NFL grades talent).

	Teams	Players		COV
Big 10	13​	71​		0.64
SEC	13​	70​		0.51
ACC	10​	40​		0.60
Big 12	4​	11​		0.18
FBS Independents	1​	7​		NA
PAC 12	2​	6​		0​
AAC	1​	2​		NA
	44​	207​

 

[CEB]

They both look a helluva lot better than PAC12 Barb about now.

Right?

Hey Barb, pull yourself together!

 

[cpf2001]

Meyer is being super lazy here because he’s saying his experience going from early-2000s Bowling Green and Utah to Florida is what Texas and OU will experience. Texas ain’t that Utah team, and the conferences they’re leaving behind aren’t the same either.

He’s being lazy and he’s repeating an old line. And people are lazy and not thinking about it.

Course, the ACC’s marketing that could’ve tried to leverage Miami and VT coming off dominance and Vick would’ve been let down a bit by those programs turning into mediocrity … so it’s not PURELY a marketing thing. But the leagues PR has done itself no favors

 

[cpf2001]

Here's a little thought experiment. Instead of looking solely at wins (because what does Wake beating Vandy really tell us), let's look at who the NFL drafts from and how it's distributed. The table below represents the Top 80% of all players drafted in the 2024 NFL draft and lists the number of players in that cohort as well as the number of teams those players were from. This removes the effect of one player coming from one team (e.g., the Missouri Valley Conference). Then, if we look at the Coefficient of Variation, we can see how concentrated those players are into just a few teams vs. more evenly distributed ... hence, the potential for a more competitive conference. The higher the COV, the more talent is concentrated into just a few teams, the lower the COV, the more teams have more players drafted.

Of the Big 3 conferences, the B1G sends the most players to the NFL but ... also has the highest COV, meaning that it is just a few teams (specifically, Michigan/Washington, Oregon, and Penn State). The ACC is heavily skewed by FSU. Ironically, for all the SEC haters, the SEC sent almost as many as the B1G but had the lowest variance .. so teams tend to be more competitively matched from a pure talent point of view.

Not perfect, but an interesting look. Should FSU and Clemson leave the ACC, the ACC numbers would plummet which means that there wouldn't be as much talent in the conference but .... it would be more competitive on a purely talent point of view.

So what is it you want to market? To who? For what purpose? Both the B1G and SEC are large, land-grant universities with lots of fans and the most highly sought after talent (based on how the NFL grades talent).

	Teams	Players		COV
Big 10	13​	71​		0.64
SEC	13​	70​		0.51
ACC	10​	40​		0.60
Big 12	4​	11​		0.18
FBS Independents	1​	7​		NA
PAC 12	2​	6​		0​
AAC	1​	2​		NA
	44​	207​

What does that chart look like if you use 2004’s conferences? Or 2001’s?

Better marketing helped the SEC and Big 10 swallow other leagues. So did big fanbases. But the ACC could’ve been more competent and been in a solid third place instead of an extremely perilous place.

 

[Vespidae]

What does that chart look like if you use 2004’s conferences? Or 2001’s?

Better marketing helped the SEC and Big 10 swallow other leagues. So did big fanbases. But the ACC could’ve been more competent and been in a solid third place instead of an extremely perilous place.

I think it’s the other way around. Better talent enabled better marketing.

 

[Vespidae]

He’s being lazy and he’s repeating an old line

He’s spot on. Oklahoma emphasizes offense, not defense and they are about to meet teams that have better defenses. Not what they were ten years ago, but better than what OK is used to.

 

[cpf2001]

Re: better talent leading to better marketing. That’s why I asked about 2004 or 2001 (to get the old Big East in there too).

The consolidation absolutely did not depend purely on better talent. Go back to the SEC’s expansion to 12 which maybe is the earliest harbinger of all this, they weren’t importing nationally-dominant talent.

They had several advantages compared to some leagues, such as student body sizes compared to the ACC and cultural affinity compared to the PAC. What did they have over the Big 12 with a bunch of big state schools in football territory? The good fortune that UT pissed off everyone? And a much better unified front as far as marketing went. They avoided the self-inflicted wounds of the Big 12 or current ACC.

 

[cpf2001]

He’s spot on. Oklahoma emphasizes offense, not defense and they are about to meet teams that have better defenses. Not what they were ten years ago, but better than what OK is used to.

And instead of saying that could cut both ways - the SEC teams meeting a school that emphasizes offense more - he’s treating OU and UT like 2004 Utah. That’s lazy!

 

[stinger78]

What does that chart look like if you use 2004’s conferences? Or 2001’s?

Better marketing helped the SEC and Big 10 swallow other leagues. So did big fanbases. But the ACC could’ve been more competent and been in a solid third place instead of an extremely perilous place.

The ACC is in 3rd place. However, why is 3rd place any less perilous than 4th place in this particular race? I'm pretty curious.

 

[cpf2001]

The ACC is in 3rd place. However, why is 3rd place any less perilous than 4th place in this particular race? I'm pretty curious.

Right now everyone feels like the top 2 are quite secure. If the gap between them and the ACC was X% smaller and the gap between the ACC and Big 12 was X% larger the story would be very different and the Big 12 would be getting all the focus as being on the outside looking in.

Is that X% something the ACC could’ve gained by being more proactive and less disastrous in terms of PR? I think that’s the main question here. If Clemson and FSU were happy. If they’d gotten a bit better TV deal in the 2010s. If leaving FSU out had been unthinkable. A million other papercuts.

How far are we from having ended up with a Big 3 instead of Big 2? The ACC tried to get there, they just mostly sucked at execution.

 

[stinger78]

Right now everyone feels like the top 2 are quite secure. If the gap between them and the ACC was X% smaller and the gap between the ACC and Big 12 was X% larger the story would be very different and the Big 12 would be getting all the focus as being on the outside looking in.

Is that X% something the ACC could’ve gained by being more proactive and less disastrous in terms of PR? I think that’s the main question here. If Clemson and FSU were happy. If they’d gotten a bit better TV deal in the 2010s. If leaving FSU out had been unthinkable. A million other papercuts.

How far are we from having ended up with a Big 3 instead of Big 2? The ACC tried to get there, they just mostly sucked at execution.

But the ACC and B12 are in the same boat according to many. Both are sinking. If so, what does it ultimately matter if we're 3rd or 4th?