Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Of course, Mike, of course, he joins us every week from the sporting news.
00:07He's a legend.
00:08You see him on Fox Sports, Big Ten Network doing hooves.
00:11He comes on here and rages about everything, soccer, you name it.
00:15So Mike, the conferences are changing again.
00:19Are you buying that Gonzaga's going?
00:21Are you buying the Utah State stories?
00:25Some people are refuting it.
00:27Some people say it's legit.
00:29Where do you think all these teams end up when it's all said and done?
00:33Well, there's also a lawsuit that was filed today by the Pac-12 against the penalty fees
00:41that would be due the Mountain West for taking certain members of their league.
00:46So it really has become wild in the last week.
00:50What's interesting to me is that there's this level of interest, even though we're talking
00:55about what the zombie Pac-12 and the Mountain West and the American Conference, leagues
01:01that don't usually get that much attention.
01:03So maybe a little bit of expansion talk is good for them because it puts their product
01:09in the spotlight some.
01:10I'm not sure where the Pac-12 ends up at this point.
01:15I didn't like their strategy at all for what they did.
01:18I thought that, honestly, that what the Pac-12 and Mountain West should have done was cooperate,
01:24put together a league that added Oregon State and Washington State to the existing Mountain
01:32West, and then just decide which is a better brand.
01:36Mountain West is a pretty cool name.
01:38Pac-12 is a really powerful name that's been around for a long time.
01:42Decide which is a better brand and go from there.
01:44Instead, they decided to fight each other.
01:47And I don't think that the strategy of the reanimated Pac-12 has been good.
01:52They did not have a good handle on their attempt to raid the American Conference.
01:56And look, first of all, if you go after Tulane, Scott, I mean, you do not know what you're
02:01doing.
02:02All right.
02:03You don't want to get Tulane.
02:04Tulane is a wonderful university.
02:07And New Orleans is a cool city.
02:09But you don't want that athletic program.
02:11Even though the football program has gotten better competitively on the field, it's still
02:15not a prime program.
02:18Its history is so up and so down.
02:22It's not one that's been consistent.
02:25The addition of Tulane to the Big East back in 2013, I believe it was, was what precipitated
02:33the basketball school saying, heck with this, we're out of here.
02:36We're going somewhere else and doing our own thing.
02:40So I didn't like the fact that the Pac-12 did that.
02:42And then to get rejected by Tulane, Memphis, and USF shows they really didn't have a good
02:48plan.
02:49They should have been all in on Vegas, which offers so much in terms of the possibility
02:55of what the Rebels could become, what they have been many times in basketball.
02:59And hey, Scott, the worst case scenario, if you add Vegas, what is it?
03:04The worst case scenario is your team goes on the road, gets a W, and all your fans get
03:08to go to Vegas.
03:09How do you not want them in your league?
03:12Are they staying in the Mountain West?
03:14That's their plan.
03:15And do you think that, I talked about this earlier yesterday about St. Mary's.
03:22Why are they being left out?
03:23Because they're pretty good at hoops too.
03:25Well, it comes down to the fact that in a case of St. Mary's, they have a magnificent
03:31basketball program, but not one that, one that is believed to have endurance.
03:38And it doesn't have great national appeal.
03:42It has, it has had great success nationally, but it's not like a lot of people are turning
03:48on the television when St. Mary's is there, unless they're playing Gonzaga, which is a
03:52brand that draws people to the television set and is why there is some interest in the
03:57Pac-12 in adding them as a basketball member.
04:00I'm not sure where Vegas goes because they were pretty much firm on staying in the Mountain
04:06West when they, when they weren't initially invited by the Pac-12.
04:10And then the idea that Utah State might cross the line there and go to the Pac-12 sort of
04:16destabilized Vegas's interest in remaining in the Mountain West.
04:19So we don't know where it's going to end up at this point.
04:23As you said, even Utah State's interest in the Pac-12 now seems to be dubious.
04:28I just think that the Pac-12 strategy here was really poor.
04:33And why should we be surprised now?
04:35Because whoever's been in charge, the Pac-12 in the last 15 years has made very few good
04:42moves from hiring Larry Scott, to letting him run things as he did, to then when he
04:47was, when he departed, to then asking for a King's ransom for their television rights
04:53and seeing a reasonable contract go to the Big 12 instead that could have been, belonged
04:58to the Pac-12.
04:59They haven't, when's the last time they made a good move?
05:01When they decided they wanted UCLA maybe?
05:03Was that the last time?
05:05But I mean, do you really, I never thought it should have, you know, broken up.
05:10Seriously.
05:11I thought it was a great conference.
05:13Maybe they had bad decision, bad people running it.
05:17Who knows?
05:18I never thought it should have ended.
05:19And I think that they're trying to save it is a good thing.
05:24And I loved it.
05:25You didn't like watching those basketball games and the West Coast football games?
05:29I really was rooting hard for the Pac-12 to remain together.
05:32I understood why USC and UCLA left with the opportunity they had to make the money they
05:37would make and to compete at the level that the Big 10 will compete with the SEC, et cetera.
05:42I understood that.
05:44After that, I was hopeful that the Pac-12 would survive, but Scott, they did it to themselves.
05:50At that point, their contract was worth X number of dollars and they asked for X plus
05:56and they stood firm at X plus and it backfired on them because the ESPN said, OK, we'll just
06:03go sign up the Big 12 instead and you guys can do whatever you want to do.
06:07And then there was no one left to bid for them.
06:10At that point, Fox wasn't interested and there are only so many players in this market.
06:14The only other player at that point was Apple, which meant going entirely online.
06:19And the money would have been sufficient, but they felt skeptical about whether they'd
06:23be able to recruit in an entirely online world, an entirely streaming world.
06:29And so they balked at that.
06:31And then before long, you saw Oregon and Washington peel off to the Big 10.
06:37And then it was pretty much over.
06:39When you saw USC go to Michigan, play them in, you know, the big house.
06:45Did you think that, you know, them and UCLA and these, you know, Washington's and Oregon's
06:51going there in the end was a good idea?
06:54It was such a great game.
06:55And the future looks bright with those types of games.
06:58It was such a heavyweight tilt.
07:00It could have been a national championship.
07:02You remember my whole life.
07:04You'd watch Michigan play USC in the Rose Bowl, but never in this setting in a Big 10 game.
07:10I think that it's been very good for the conferences that have expanded and survived.
07:16And I think it's been very good for the viewers.
07:20And I think there's been much too much histrionics about the travel for the non-revenue sports.
07:25And I pointed out in the column that I wrote last week about why this is good or can be good.
07:32The Pitt volleyball team.
07:34I live in Pittsburgh.
07:35Pitt's volleyball team is number one in the country.
07:37They have yet to lose a set.
07:39I think they are 9-0 at this point.
07:41They have won 27 consecutive sets.
07:45That's how good they are.
07:46They began their season by going to Oregon and playing two matches out there.
07:50Then after coming home for one, then they went on the road to Southern California and
07:55played three matches out there.
07:56All of them were non-league matches.
07:58None of them were mandatory.
08:00They chose to do it.
08:01Why?
08:02Because it would make them better.
08:04Fine by me.
08:05Whatever makes you better and whatever you feel comfortable doing, fine.
08:07But at no point did Pitt say, oh, we can't go to the coast twice in the first three weeks
08:11of the season.
08:12It'll tire our players out.
08:14No, they went for it.
08:15They played great.
08:16As I mentioned, they played perfectly.
08:18And now they're in the situation that they are joining the ACC competition soon.
08:23And they'll play some more regional opponents.
08:26But also, at some point, they'll probably have to play Stanford and Cal, home or away.
08:32And so somebody's going to have to travel.
08:34That's the way it is now.
08:36And I think that the concern about the non-revenue travel, as long as it can be afforded, and
08:42it certainly can be afforded at the Big Ten and SEC level, I don't see any problem at
08:46all.
08:47Who do you like in the Georgia-Bama game Saturday in Tuscaloosa?
08:53I think the tide's going to shock them.
08:56Really?
08:57I think Kalen DeBoer is a magnificent coach.
09:00Jalen Milrow has played great.
09:02And Georgia, man, we saw them against Kentucky.
09:04Did not look like they were vintage Georgia.
09:06So we'll see how it goes.
09:07But I favor the tide.