It's Great That We've Got Michael Lev...

[catnaz]

Oh boy, let's trade those trips to the west coast for Lubbock, Stillwater, Waco, Morgantown, and Manhattan, Kansas.

[ValleyCat]

Hansen gives a slight nod to the fact that UofA alumni are heavily concentrated on the West Coast, but it is a major matter. The University's visibility to its alums in the major Pacific Coast population centers is of enormous importance to University for find raising and other purposes. Trading our association with Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, U-dub and the 6 other prestigious schools in the league for the Big 12 schools (Texas is the one exception) would raise a huge stink in a lot of circles.

And as catnaz says, trading a trip to Stanford or the Bay or Stillwater? Seattle for Waco? Willamette Valley or Portland for Manhatten, Kansas? Tinseltown for Morgantown? Even Boulder or Salt Lake for Lubbock or Norman? Sure, Ames, Iowa is better than Tempe, but you can't have everything.

[FlagCat]

Related to the big alumni bases on the west coast, there's the perpetually large student population from California. It's hard to quantify but it seems pretty clear that association with the PAC has had a big impact, not only for both universities but for the state as well. A move like that would have kind of a "Back to the Border Conference" vibe to it, for sure.

[El Gato]

if the Oklahoma schools join the Pac12. One would expect an Eastern Division of ASu, UofA, BYU, CU, OU, OSU and whoever they decided to dick over. That would be akin to the old Big8.

Great. Now I've wasted even more keystrokes on his stupid idea. I think it'd be more productive to ponder and comment on his Tucson Girls High School Golf section of the Notebook.

[AzCatFan]

Colorado left the Big 12 for the PAC for all the reasons we need to stay. To suggest otherwise is too stupid to waste any more bandwidth.

[b_dog]

He'd no doubt have a knee-jerk response of "look how good Colorado did in the Big XII, and look how bad they've done in the Pac-12." Always rush to get in the last word, but bother to do any homework that might invalidate some comment. That response would, of course, conveniently ignore the fact that Colorado was only consistently good for an 8-year period in the 90's. Prior to and subsequent to that period, they've been up and down. And, of course, they had a series of scandals, violations. and poor coaching hires that crushed their program in their last several years in the Big XII and that situation just carried over into the Pac-12.

[FlagCat]

I've read there's a low TV money ceiling for the Big 12 because they have the smallest population base within their footprint of any P5 conference by far.