NCAA Prez Says Change Is Coming

[MeanGreen61]

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/9713684/ncaa-president-mark-emmert-says-lot-change-coming-ncaa

[NorthTexan95]

Sounds like more push for the Big 5 conferences to break away. Or it could be a way for the NCAA Prez to say "big things" will happen to save his job but not much comes out of it.

[MeanGreen61]

Sounds like more push for the Big 5 conferences to break away. Or it could be a way for the NCAA Prez to say "big things" will happen to save his job but not much comes out of it.

Rumors are rampant. Saw on another board that the Big 5 may take 2 other conferences with them if the change is made. CUSA & MWC ? Who knows ?

Edited September 24, 2013 by MeanGreen61

[meangreener]

Rumors are rampant. Saw on another board that the Big 5 may take 2 other conferences with them if the change is made. CUSA & MWC ? Who knows ?

It would be the AAC & MWC. But I don't think they will let it happen, a break.

[ColoradoEagle]

Hopefully it just has more to do with FCS schools not being able to vote on FBS issues.

[Green Dozer]

"They" don't care about the smaller schools and what happens to them, "They" don't care about traditions and rivalries within the conferences, all "They" cares about is the $$$$$. "They" will let the Big 5 break and "They" will go with them.

[meangreanmick]

I think this could be bad for North Texas and schools like us. This smells of the bigger conferences trying to break off or break up NCAA so that they can enact rules at the conference level that make it impossible for a CUSA to compete at the FBS level.

[PlummMeanGreen]

On this matter just wait and see what happens--not really much we can do other than beat it like a dead horse on GMG.com (which we will do).

You might be surprised how mostly nothing but a few tweaks would really ever happen, anyway. It is my take that the general public does not want an NFL 2.0 with their P5 schools at all and they don't want P5 players on full scholarships running the show on what will or will not happen, either.

The real losers if any of this would actually happen might eventually be the 2'nd division schools in the P5 conferences (or those schools who will eventually gravitate to that level) like TCU, Wake Forest, Duke, Iowa State, etc, etc, once they see they, too, are not wanted by the real Big Boys, too. This greed really has no end if you think about it.

I'm not so sure the G5 conferences are the P5's main problem. Seems it's more the NCAA Division-IIIIIII schools who keep them from having their way. I would hope the G5 group have hired their consultant(s) to make this fact known to those who need to know it; that is, the P5 group, of course.

GMG!

Edited September 24, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[untjim1995]

Its all just a matter of time. I suspect that the AQs will tell the NCAA to shove it. They will just say that we are free to start our own intercollegiate athletic association, that we aren't making the NCAA give up as the regulator for all the other Division III, Division II, FCS, and non-AQ schools that would be left behind. The big media networks are going to salivate over this. They will get better names for better games every week, as well as a re-bid for their own NCAA March Madness and College World Series from ESPN, CBS, FOX, and NBC.

The thing is that those schools control so much, from the media to the fans to the legislatures, both in state and in DC. One thing we all know is that you cannot beat money unless you have the people (votes). We get less than 20k in attendance, while Texas gets over 100k in attendance. They will always have that power--they graduate journalists, lawyers, and business grads at a high rate, both from volume and prestige. Its just too big of a difference. But the thing is, though, is that UNT isn't any different when compared to Texas as any other non-AQ in this state, even UH. Nobody can compete with the control the Longhorns, Aggies, and Red Raiders have--not even Baylor, TCU, or SMU. They are just too big and too monied. Its just the same in Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, etc...

[PlummMeanGreen]

So what criteria do the Super Conference Big Boys (SCBB's) use to keep G5 schools who've had great turnstile and attendance numbers (like East Carolina for one example) out of their elite little country club?

What if about 10 schools like East Carolina from the G5 who meet the same numbers that many of the Super Conference's lower tier schools meet class action the hell out of the NCAA's version of We Rich--Yo' Po'? (insert extremely Deep South accent with that). So do our new J. Paul Getty's of the NCAA stick a dagger straight thru Cinderella's heart and most piously say...."so sorry, but 25 to 50 years ago yall missed your "Big Boy" chance?"

The Super Conference Big Boys would allow Baylor (who doesn't always have OOC sellouts or Big 12 sellouts for that matter); anyway, why would Baylor or similar schools get to piggy back off the truly Super Conference Big Boys and stay while other schools that have moved their product dramatically forward or maybe even past the Baylors, TCU's, Wake Forest, etc, are ostracized and not invited to the Big Ball?

Me'thinks the Super Conference Country Club crowd may have to keep some pretty good lawyers on hand who will be able to justify to a high court why lower division schools get to stay elite while a select group of G5 schools are not allowed in. Speaking of the legal system, one has to wonder how all this would actually play out in the American courtroom because with all the mega-millions involved don't dare think that that would not be an eventual destination.

Perhaps this is merely nothing else than the SCBB's athletic directors wanting more revenues for their pet projects (since G5 schools annual $1-2 million each must completing be preventing that from happening)? (insert sarcasm).

Also, might the lower division SCBB AD's with this separation from many (G5) schools doing just as well at the gate see a chance (short term as it may be) to compete with the UT's, the Alabama's, the USC's, etc., for much larger salaries for "THEIR" own head football coaches in this exclusively new NCAA club? How soon does this new NCAA Big Dog start chasing its own tail as it seeks out a trail to find those illusive Big Buck$?

MIght it even surprise the Super Conference Big Boys that all the G5 conference commissioners are a bunch of (well meaning) teddy bears and have no problem with the P5 getting all the legislation they want including stipends, too?

Heck, the G5 group might even help the P5 get the very desires of their heart compared to lower NCAA levels who are the ones who have actually been the very ones who've kept them from getting specific legislation in the past. So all and all, what kind of threat are 5 non AQ (or G5) conferences in the scheme of future things who would still get a bowl buster kind of destination each Fall? Seems allowing 5 non-P5 conferences vying for 1 BCS bowl would not be so big a sacrifice, would it?

In closing, don't we all really hate to see this quasi-class warfare going on in the once so innocent and amateur-standing NCAA of years gone by? Would all this eventually boil down to about 10-15 NCAA schools with mega-athletic budgets going their own way, too? What about the college football fans of all 50 states--not just a hardy handful? Sometimes the craving of even more money and to almost do anything to get it can create more harm than good. The NCAA Big Boys may be the latest in a growing line in our present Amercian society to prove that theory. Just my .02.

GMG!

Edited September 25, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[TIgreen01]

Stop freaking out, for goodness sakes. This is first going to be about cutting down from 300+ Div 1 schools to 120 Div 1 schools. Not cutting down to just the Big 5. Little ole UNT's budget still dwarfs that of most of the basketball only schools that make up that bottom half of Division 1. While we're still getting outspent by anywhere from 2-10x of the majority of Big 5 schools, we're still voting along the same lines as most of them.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Stop freaking out, for goodness sakes. This is first going to be about cutting down from 300+ Div 1 schools to 120 Div 1 schools. Not cutting down to just the Big 5. Little ole UNT's budget still dwarfs that of most of the basketball only schools that make up that bottom half of Division 1. While we're still getting outspent by anywhere from 2-10x of the majority of Big 5 schools, we're still voting along the same lines as most of them.

In my heart of hearts, I feel your scenario will be the actual final scenario with all this (for at least awhile), TIgreen01, and that is because our G5 group will vote for just about anything the P5 guys want.

Heck, even most of our G5 commissioners (except the SBC) are for the stipend and that would mean CUSA (and subsequently) North Texas along with most of the rest of the G5.

I just see stipends as being one of those things that could very quickly get out of hand if not monitored and the NCAA is sometimes about as effective in doing that as.............. the U.S. goverment is in trying to run a lemonade stand (or worse, touting low cost health insurance that most liberal based polls say Americans do not want).

I still see that if down the road the Big Boys got it down to a few conferences, then it would be schools like TCU, Baylor, Iowa State, the ACC, etc, who would need to start sweating than the G5 group.

Some of us remember back to the year 1979 when the first volley of all this re-alignment began and with NCAA D1-AA resulting from that one. That is probably the main fear from some of us because we all know how all those years in 1-AA affected the pysche of our UNT alumnus base (of which we're still trying to recover to this day).

GMG!

Edited September 25, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[untjim1995]

In my heart of hearts, I feel your scenario will be the actual final scenario with all this (for at least awhile), TIgreen01, and that is because our G5 group will vote for just about anything the P5 guys want.

Heck, even most of our G5 commissioners (except the SBC) are for the stipend and that would mean CUSA (and subsequently) North Texas along with most of the rest of the G5.

I just see stipends as being one of those things that could very quickly get out of hand if not monitored and the NCAA is sometimes about as effective in doing that as.............. the U.S. goverment is in trying to run a lemonade stand (or worse, touting low cost health insurance that most liberal based polls say Americans do not want).

I still see that if down the road the Big Boys got it down to a few conferences, then it would be schools like TCU, Baylor, Iowa State, the ACC, etc, who would need to start sweating than the G5 group.

Some of us remember back to the year 1979 when the first volley of all this re-alignment began and with NCAA D1-AA resulting from that one. That is probably the main fear from some of us because we all know how all those years in 1-AA affected the pysche of our UNT alumnus base (of which we're still trying to recover to this day).

GMG!

I've said this before, but the 1-AA demotion wasn't the worst part of us falling backwards. It was the fact that we stayed there for 12 years. A I-AA stay of under 5 years would still have been bad, but it would've given the leaders of the university time to refocus on building a legitimate stadium, which would have allowed us to move back up and be ready for 1-A competition. When we finally did move up in 1995, we really gave it about a quarter-assed effort. In that regard, it's only now that we even give FBS competition at the non-AQ level an effort that is necessary to compete with other non-AQ schools that have been around for more than 20 years. We just have to hope that we stay after it at a competitive level. No more 1982 debacles in Denton.