Obsessedsportsnut's Blog

Two days ago, I had written a post regarding the Big 10 and Pac 10 expansion situation, and it seems that things are moving along ahead for a major shakeup.

Some recent developments…

1) It seems that Nebraska will most likely move to the Big 10, as reported by ESPN here.

2) The Pac-10 is in the process of sending invites to 6 Big 12 schools: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Colorado.

There actually has been a lot of talk recently about who the Pac-10 should invite, Colorado or Baylor. A very prominent Baylor supporter even emailed Baylor alumni in the Texas Legislature to see if they could somehow work to package Baylor with their three fellow Texas schools. If Baylor isnt brought along to the Pac-10, they’re screwed and their sports teams will take a huge blow.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, it all comes down to money and television contracts. The Pac-10 decided to take Colorado because Denver (No 16 in the nation) is a much bigger TV market than Waco, Texas.

3) A report in the NYTimes says that the officials from Texas and Texas A&M will meet to try to salvage the Big 12 Conference.

It’s going to be an exciting next couple of days…that’s for sure!

How will the Pac-16 affect the college football season?

1) There would be two divisions: probably the West and the East. The East would have all the new teams + University of Arizona and Arizona State. The West would consist of the remaining 8 teams from the “Pac-10”
2) Currently in the Pac-10, each team plays all other 9 teams once and 3 other non-conference teams to make up a 12 game schedule.

In the new format, I envision each team playing a 7+2+3 format, 7 teams in their own division, 2 teams in the other division, and 3 non-conference opponents. Furthermore, that would also mean that a) One team would only play a member of the other division once every 4 years and b) they would host this opponent once every 8 years.

3) The winner of each division would play a 13th game in the conference championship.

How will the Pac-16 affect the basketball season?

The Pac-16 would probably just follow the system used by the Big East, which also has 16 teams. Team in the Pac-16 would still play an 18 game regular season. Currently, teams play all 9 other teams, home and away. In the Pac-16, each team would play each other once, and then play 3 of the teams twice. The Big East pairs up teams based on regional proximity and rivalries. For example, the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia are always paired up because of their deep rivalry.

I can envision the following breakdown of 4 regions where the teams play each other twice.

a) The Oregon/Washington schools: University of Oregon, Oregon State, University of Washington, Washington State
b) The California schools: Stanford, California, UCLA, USC
c) The Texas schools + Colorado: Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Colorado
d) The Oklahoma and Arizona schools: University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, University of Arizona, Arizona State.