Details presented today to the conference members on adding UConn, and apparently only 6 schools in favor at this time (needs 12 to pass).
I’ve listened to a few Yormark interviews and he seems super fixated on adding UConn for some reason, even after adding the 4 corner schools. I kind of saw the appeal before the PAC-12 crumbled, but at this point it really doesn’t make much sense.
As a fan of Florida (alum) but also TCU (wife is an alum, plus we live in DFW), this has been an odd obsession for Yormark and one of relatively few yellow flags for a guy who’s played the cards he was dealt very well. The flirtations with Gonzaga and Private Equity would be the other two that come to mind.
I get it, you want to be the basketball conference, but football pays the bills, and Connecticutters (Connecticuttians? Connecticuttites?) don’t give a shit about college football. Nobody else is beating down their door, and basketball-first schools have already got the ACC on life-support. If you can’t at least get to Arizona/Kansas level where the admin understands football, the fans sorta kinda care, and people really turn out and tune in when the team is decent, then it’s no great loss if you take your tournament credits elsewhere.
Would much rather hold tight and see if FSU and Clemson manage to bust up the ACC, at which point Louisville and Syracuse become available, and Duke is a better get as well if they don’t pull off a package deal with UNC somewhere. This is to say nothing of the football-first brands that would suddenly be in play. UConn is a luxury to tack on at the end of a major move, a toss-in to get an even number, not a core addition for their own sake. Shit, I think the Pac-2 is a better addition, and the optics of “saving” the refugees would be very positive.
Reading the article, it sounds like it would be non-football until 2031 at the earliest, and you piss off Fox while pleasing ESPN. Again, I’m left thinking, “why bother?” Just seems like a solution looking for a problem.
As a TCU homer and Longhorn fan, the Big 12 has just been a big disappointment. Sick of what UT has done to it over the years too lol. TCU in the Mountain West made them kind of mysterious in a way and now the Big 12 makes me feel like they’ve fallen into obscurity.
The highs are higher in the B12, but there are a lot more “rebuilding years” now. Still, ask Boise what they think about being left out of realignment entirely.