CBS: Both SEC and ACC Rejected West Virginia
by Year2 on Sep 20, 2011 12:06 PM EDT
in Conference Realignment
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PrintThere has been some controversy about the status of West Virginia's application to the SEC. A report by the Cincinnati 247sports site said that the SEC rejected West Virginia. We covered in Sprints this morning that maybe WVU wasn't rejected after all. Now, CBS's Brett McMurphy is coming with a strong report back in the other direction:
Multiple Big East sources said they have been told by WVU officials that WVU rejected by ACC & SEC
This is third-hand information, but I trust the reporting that McMurphy and CBS in general does.
I proposed yesterday in several comment threads around the SBN network that if West Virginia applied to the SEC, it probably applied to the ACC as well. ACC commissioned John Swofford has said that 10 schools contacted his league about joining up, and we knew that at least one school (Villanova) has applied and not been accepted along with Pitt and Syracuse. You can add West Virginia to that list now.
It also goes to show that we are past the point where schools only apply to conferences if they know they're going to be accepted. The projected leftovers of the Big 12 and Big East are desperate, and they'll do whatever it takes to find a safe landing spot.
The SEC was right to reject WVU for now. For one thing, Texas A&M hasn't even officially entered the conference yet. It's a 12-school league now and in perpetuity if nothing changes. There's no way the SEC would take WVU before bringing the Aggies in the fold for good. For another, there are other candidates out there who likely will need to say no first before the league turns to WVU. Florida State, Virginia Tech, and possibly Missouri as well immediately come to mind.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: the only school that is a potential candidate for SEC inclusion that it might not be able to get at any point in the future is Missouri. Really, that's a school the conference could take or leave because it could find comparable value elsewhere. All of its options are open, and nothing the Big Ten or Pac-12 will do can take away more than one of those options.
The SEC can and will take this slowly. It doesn't have any reason not to.
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S. Mandel on Twitter
ACC thumbs nose at WVU academics. SEC wants TV sets, and W Va doesn’t have enough of them.
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
by Kpz1234 on Sep 20, 2011 12:08 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Stuart Mandel is a good writer
I have been reading his articles for a long time now. I feel I can trust his take on most college football topics. I wonder who the SEC has lined up then, as I imagine they would have some assurances a bigger school is going to join before outright rejecting WVU.
by BullGator79 on Sep 20, 2011 12:28 PM EDT up reply actions
This is about the best-kept secret around.
If I read the tea leaves, Virginia Tech is not interested. I think they are the most attractive candidate, but if they aren’t interested, you have to go to the next level. To me, the logical choice was West Virginia.
I think the SEC is making a mistake if it’s looking STRICTLY at television. We should not do what the ACC did in the 1990s of trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. The SEC should not upset its model of relying on old, traditional, football-first schools with good attendance and rabid fans. Nor should we go far afield geographically. I like the addition of TAMU because they fit right in. They are a neighboring school with a dedicated fan base and good attendance. Historically, they are a top 20 program.
WVU doesn’t quite have that tradition, but their fan base is solid and dedicated. Couch burning may be a bit scary, but this is the SEC. Go big or go home.
Missouri just FEELS wrong. They aren’t a football school. I don’t really think of them as Southeast. I think of them as Midwest. They don’t have the rabid fanbase or the tradition. They open up the St. Louis and Kansas City markets, I guess, but at the expense of the integrity of the conference model. It’s like if McDonald’s started serving fried chicken by the bucket. It might provide a short term boost to the bottom line, but in the long run it wouldn’t make a lot of sense and would ultimately hurt the brand.
Actually, no offense to my blog brethren here, but I think the Clemson idea is a good one. Culturally, they fit right in. However, they violate what I consider to be Rule #1 of SEC expansion, which is, “It has to be unanimous.” I know the rules don’t require unanimity, but if I was a voting member, I would let everyone know that I would vote NO if anyone else was voting NO, for any reason. The SEC model is that all members are equal and everyone’s respected. Expansion should be by unanimous vote or it shouldn’t happen at all.
Father. Husband. Lawyer. Nerd.
by Richard Pittman on Sep 20, 2011 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions
Missouri doesn't have tradition?
Perhaps you don’t know anything about Missouri football.
And I’ll preface this by saying I don’t know much about WVU football, other than Bobby Bowden once coached there, Major Harris, and their recent success. What’s WVU’s big tradition?
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
WVU has good sustained success
Don Nehlen was coach for a long time, followed by RichRod, Stewart and now Holgorsen. I can’t recall them having a losing season that I remember, but keep tabs on them due to follwing Syracuse and WVU is in the Big East and before that a tradtional Eastern football opponent. Pretty sure they’ve averaged something like 9 wins for the last 10 years or so. They were top 5 a few times under RichRod and regarded as a moderately serious national championship contender a couple of times while Pat White was there (2005ish).
So yeah, they have a pretty good program. I think they’d be competitive in the SEC – the sort of team that’d be mid level bowl team most years and rise up and challenge for the league once or twice a decade when things lined up for them.
We will not rest until we see these capitalist octopuses annihilated.
-Che Marrone
I will grant you that WVU has been better for longer
over the last 10 years than Missouri. I still am not sure why Rich Rod left that great situation in the Big East, which isn’t exactly all about football.
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
I think there may have been some friction
between him and the AD or WVU President over promised faciltites or something along those lines. Add in a chance to coach at a top five all time program and validate your theories on football on a national stage = buh bye.
I think RichRod’s brand of football would have gone over much better at an SEC school or parts of the Big 12 as we formerly knew it. That and he made the cardinal sin of firing Scott Shafer and hiring Greg Robinson as defensive coordinator. Syracuse will forever be in his debt for that one. We got the better coach by far and an opportunity to mock Michigan.
We will not rest until we see these capitalist octopuses annihilated.
-Che Marrone
And when you get down to it..
there aren’t a whole lot of schools that fit my criteria and are likely to be interested.
Virginia Tech is my top candidate, and all other discussion starts with assuming they are not interested.
After that, you have WVU, who I think is a good fit.
FSU and Clemson are good fits, but are likely not going to be unanimously accepted.
NC State would seem like settling, and I get the impression they aren’t interested in breaking up the Carolina schools in the ACC.
Maryland? I suppose we could come up with worse, but you’re getting further afield geographically.
Oklahoma won’t come without OSU, and then you need to add yet another school and you’re right back to the same discussion.
Looking in another direction, Indiana and Illinois are reasonably close neighbors, but lack the cachet of other possibilities.
Father. Husband. Lawyer. Nerd.
by Richard Pittman on Sep 20, 2011 12:46 PM EDT up reply actions
Well
OU, OSU, and Mizzou could work. Then your 4-team pods could be like:
Missouri/Oklahoma/Oklahoma State/Texas A&M
Arkansas/LSU/Mississippi/Mississippi State
Alabama/Auburn/Tennessee/Vanderbilt
Florida/Georgia/Kentucky/South Carolina
by commodore_dude on Sep 20, 2011 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions
West Virginia is a bad fit, and the SEC was right to pass.
They are not a Southern team and have no place in the SEC.
"Lattimore, as the kids can say, can ball, and sometimes does it to the extent one might say [he] is out of control in his balling." - Spencer Hall
by GwinnettGamecock on Sep 20, 2011 1:23 PM EDT up reply actions
Seriously
If your qualifications are being a team that’s in a region accurately thought of as Southern or South Eastern, then how does West Virginia offer anything more in that department than Missouri does?
DawgSports/Falcaholic/Talkin' Chop
I still think
They’ll be someone’s 15th or 16th team. But I do hope this means we’ve got someone from the ACC already.
by commodore_dude on Sep 20, 2011 12:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Here's the thing
I know exactly who the SEC has lined up for team No. 14: no one.
The SEC added A&M because it fits and gets the league into Texas. Mike Slive has talked about composing 13-team schedules for 2012. All of the chatter from the A&M side prior to A&M’s formal withdrawal from the Big 12 said the conference was willing to go with 13 for a year while deciding who the 14th should be. All of the chatter from the SEC side hasn’t been quite that specific, but it all agrees that no decision has been made on who to target next.
All signs point to the SEC neither having a 14th team picked out nor a timeline for deciding on one. It’s going to watch and wait because it can. West Virginia might end up in the league by the time this is all over, but it never had a prayer of getting accepted now.
Team Speed Kills -- SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
Caveat
The only caveat I’ll throw in is that there’s been a small but persistent dribble of information that the SEC wants Missouri if and only if the Big 12 falls apart. The cases for and against Mizzou have been fought over enough times around here, but that’s what some people seem to think. I’ve not seen something like that about any other school since Texas A&M in August.
Team Speed Kills -- SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
Does it seem like every other conference leaks like bucket with a hole in it
And the SEC is so quiet that it actually works against us sometimes. I mean all the conference has to do is say “We’ve received many applications for membership and at this time we have made no decision regarding any of said applications.” I think at the very least it would calm some people down and put an end to “The SEC is going to end up having to take Louisville” crap that some are putting out there.
The people who need to know things are the ones who know things. It doesn’t matter what it looks like now, only what the final result is.
Team Speed Kills -- SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
Okay, but if enough supposed applicants get there feelings hurt
via false media reports at some point doesn’t it become a point of honor. I mean if your humiliated in the national media for long enough can a single press conference really fix the public perception that you were the 10th choice and that the conference took you bc they got turned down by everyone else.
As I said
The people who need to know things are the ones who know things. I’m sure Mike Slive could give a rip if some fan base gets its feelings hurt. Fans don’t make these decisions.
Team Speed Kills -- SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
Regarding VaTech
I was reading over on Frank The Tank’s blog (don’t recall which post) that he is of the opinion that VaTech is a no-go for the SEC due to political reasons. Essentially, he does not think that UVA and the VA state gov’t would let VaTech go without a huge fight after Tech wheedled UVA to pull a bunch of strings get them into the ACC over Syracuse back in 2003.
We will not rest until we see these capitalist octopuses annihilated.
-Che Marrone
I agree
everything I have read states, Va Tech wanted in the ACC for years before they got there. They were about to be passed over for Syracuse back then, and UVa pulled some political clout and got the ACC to take Va Tech instead. I doubt that Va Tech is ready to leave the ACC, and I highly doubt UVa will allow them to anyway,
If I'm VT, looking at the cakewalk of my football schedule,
why would I want to leave and give up games vs Pitt, Syracuse, UVa, Maryland, etc for much harder ones?
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
I don't know
the first thing about university and state politics in VA. That being said, its a different situation. UVA wouldn’t come to the sec I’m sure, so its not a situation where they’re being left to rot. I imagine they are quite happy in the ACC. If Auburn wanted (and could) go to the B1G, I’m sure Bama fans would just go “ok. Bye.” So while I’m not in VA, I think you can’t go by the big east, ACC situation 10 years ago. But either way I think Va Tech stays.
by Mark Mandingo on Sep 20, 2011 1:22 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
and
I’d bet that of UVA was interested (which they’re not), we’d take em.
by Mark Mandingo on Sep 20, 2011 1:24 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Just remember it isn't about what the fans want
You are right about what the Auburn fans want, but the decisions are made by the school’s Board of Regents. There are a lot of politics involved in those boards, which is why you have things like Texas not being able to join a conference without Texas Tech, and also the reason Baylor is in the Big 12 at all. Some states interweave their politics and colleges, which is a situation that is not the case in the SEC, thus I as a fan have difficulty understanding it as well. I could give two craps what happens to FSu or Miami, as long as Florida remains in the SEC, and Florida politicians have thus far stayed out of the schools’ decisions—so the political aspect is a tough thing for me to wrap my head around too. Yet, ti is still there in the case of Va Tech and UVa. I agree with you though, if UVa wanted the SEC, which I think they don’t the SEC would take them. They are far too good of a school academically (top 20) to pass on affiliation with.
I disagree
if FSU had no home, I would probably enjoy rubbing it the face of all my friends that are FSU fans.
I guess what I'm saying
is that the situation is such that both schools would be doing what’s in their best interest this time. Before, VA Tech needed a ticket to the ACC. UVA has no interest in leaving the ACC, but if Va Tech did, then what is there to gain politically? You would just restrict their freedom to move in a way which doesn’t directly affect UVA. If the ACC were on the verge of collapse it might be different.
by Mark Mandingo on Sep 20, 2011 2:36 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I agree
That the SEC would take Va or Va Tech or both.
That neither are interested in joining the SEC.
That the situation is much different, as everyone was claiming the Big East was dead and it looked like Va Tech was going to be left without a major conference. If Auburn wanted to leave the SEC Alabama fans would say bye, but if the SEC was imploding and Alabama had an invitation to another conference then we would push to take them along. That’s what Big Bros do for Lil’ Bros, we can beat up on ‘em all we want but we don’t take kindly to others doing it. That was the problem last time, the ACC was expanding, gutting the Big East and Tech was being left out to dry. So VA and its legislature and governor stepped up to protect them. I don’’t have a problem with that and I think Tech knows that even if they wanted to leave that would be like sticking a pencil in big bro’s eye (A&M style). They don’t hate each other like that.
right
But my point was it wouldn’t be sticking a pencil in someone’s eye because both would be getting what they want.
by Mark Mandingo on Sep 20, 2011 2:31 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
OK
I’m just saying that with the political and public capital UVA used to get VaTech the invite that for them to leave without UVA would be kinda wrong. Especially this early (I know it’s not that recent but it is recent depending on your age). If both were willing to come that would be a homerun for the SEC no doubt.
but I don't know
if UVA cares if Va Tech is in the ACC or not. I really don’t see the conflict if one team wants to leave and the other wants to stay (except in a case where the ACC would collapse without Va tech).
by Mark Mandingo on Sep 20, 2011 2:39 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Let me pose a question
If the SEC takes Missouri are we then through with expansion for a while or is it just one more cog in the wheel and we’re going to go through all this again on members 15 and 16?
KC Star story...
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/20/3155336/source-mizzou-has-sec-offer-but.html
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
Nice- I also think this means that any report of anyone being told NO by the SEC is false
What was probable said was let us review it and we will get back to you. I would be perfectly content to see Missouri in the SEC as long as that assurance that we discussed earlier was on the table.
The only school I've heard that I would protest over
is Louisville. They bring virtually nothing. Another Kentucky without the same level of basketball.
Mizzou doesn’t seem like a great fit culturally, but they will be assimilated with time.
Because if it's about Brantley going in the ocean, the answer is "No."
I'll just say that I am confident if Missouri becomes part of the SEC,
you will change your mind RE: culture.
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
are you in the southern half or yankee half of the state?
I’ve been to MO two or three times, the southern section seems to fit right in (gotta love the bourbon drinkers) and the northern half seems more like Iowa and Minnesota. Even the accents are a little different (what little bit of accents ya’ll have).
You will laugh at this.
But I am not a native Missourian. I’m a Yankee who went to Mizzou for J-School. I currently am living behind enemy lines in the foreign enclave of Seattle, but my eyes and job applications are firmly targeting the SE. I have several friends in the north parts of Florida (Tallahassee, Gainesville, Jax) and am hoping to be moving soon.
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
Too funny
Good luck finding work done here though, all the economies are in the tank except parts of Texas. I almost took a job in Lakewood not long ago (beautiful area) but just didn’t think I would ever adjust to people and time zone. Time Zone more than people.
Lakewood has a heavy military population,
so I think it might be easier to adjust to than the blue zone of Seattle.
I ran into Lawyer Milloy once in a teriyaki joint in Lakewood. I was wearing a rugby shirt that decried the “million dollar crybabies” of the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL. I think he got a kick out of it. And I had no idea who he was at the time.
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
I actually loved the scenery
and the area but I have two daughters (one in high school) and the idea of moving so close to her graduating didn’t cotton to well with the Mrs. I’ve spent most of the last 15 years traveling so much that I get made fun of in SE Alabama (where I grew up) for my lack of accent until I get a few adult beverages in me.
Fully agree
If some thought the addition of West Virginia would mean that expansion was a failure then the addition of Louisville could only be called epic nuclear failure. I have defended WV’s academics and had conversations regarding MO’s fans passion but ultimately like the addition of either or both. But Louisville give me a break, I would rather invite ECU- at least I could go on a nice duckhunting trip after watching them get blown out.
Getting Mizzou
is a resounding success for the 14th team of the SEC. Large fan base, solid academics, solid athletics, and a huge TV market. There are only 5 or so schools that the SEC could feasibly add that would be equal or better, and only one is head and shoulders above MU as far as the criteria listed above goes: Oklahoma, texas, UVA/Va Tech (considered as a package deal), Maryland, FSU, Clemson.
Meat? They're made out of Meat? Meat.
by ihavethemelody on Sep 20, 2011 2:30 PM EDT up reply actions
Per Sporting News...
SN source confirms SEC offer to Mizzou — and this: SEC only wants 14 teams.
"When among evil companions, try to fit in." - Wild Bill Donovan
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