PAC-10 EXPANSION: Geographic divisions?
by Brian Floyd on Jun 16, 2010 5:01 PM PDT
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PrintGrady covered the "zipper" method of divisional alignment last night, so I'm going to play devil's advocate and cover aligning the division geographically. Both of these methods have pros and cons, but the geographic alignment may be Larry Scott's choice when all is said and done.
The split of the conference would be almost as simple as looking at a map:
North
Washington
Washington State
Oregon
Oregon State
California
Stanford
South
UCLA
USC
Colorado
Utah
Arizona
Arizona State
As Nuss mentioned earlier, it's simple. Anyone can look at the conference and quickly be able to deduce why it was split up this way. The problem with arbitrarily assigning teams to divisions is the artificiality of it all. Splitting a conference in a non-geographical way creates confusion and takes apart the rivalries that have already been built over many years. If you'd like a model that just throws darts at a dartboard to determine divisions, see the ACC.
Travel costs and times are also a factor in all of this. By splitting the conference up based on location, teams cut their travel costs and times down significantly. In a zipper division, schools are traveling up and down the coast for conference games. Geographically, the farthest WSU would have to travel for a non-crossover game would be Northern California.
Splitting rivals up into different divisions takes the most fun part of a rivalry game out
But wait, what about recruiting? Everyone needs access to those fertile Southern California recruiting grounds. Relax. The Northern schools will still be at California/Stanford every year and in Southern California every other year. In addition, a conference network will ensure that full coverage of every team will be available throughout the conference footprint. It isn't like there won't be any exposure.
The most important thing to remember when discussing recruiting is that as little as 5 years ago, the conference played an unbalanced schedule. Northwest schools weren't guaranteed a trip to Southern California every year. We all survived and will continue to survive. It isn't a big deal.
In basketball, the conferences would be the same. Each division plays a home and home series, with each team either playing a home or away game against every opponent from the other division. The crossover games would alternate every year.
Aligning the conference geographically is, admittedly, the easy way out. It's simple to do, makes travel easier, and doesn't cut off the Northwest schools from the rest of the world as much as you may think. It may not seem ideal to some, but it won't be the end of the world.
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That's the word I get from a few in the AD's office at WSU as well
N/S divide, with 9 game schedule.
We’ll see what the conference as a whole thinks though.
BTW, www.wsucougars.com is have an online chat with Moos Thursday if people want to ask about it. Post your questions now.
Chip Kelly and Sarkisian said the same thing too
Haven’t heard from Riley yet, but it still appears as if most are on board with geographic divisions.
--Conquest Chronicles , SBNation's USC Trojans blog
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by Joey Kaufman on Jun 16, 2010 10:02 PM PDT up reply actions
"The split of the conference would be as simple as looking at a map" FAIL
When did SLC and Denver become north of The Bay?
"The split of the conference would be as simple as looking at a map FAIL" FAIL
When did SLC and Denver become north of The Bay?
By the looks of the map they both are.
Since you called the fail, I had to call yours.
I think you missed the point...
Cougfan has the Bay Area schools in the North division. They are south of SLC and Denver on the map.
So if “The split of the conference would be almost as simple as looking at a map,” then Utah and Colorado would be in the North Division, not the South Division.
by TiltingRight on Jun 16, 2010 6:02 PM PDT up reply actions
No I got it
I think he meant to say “when did the Bay become North of SLC and Denver?”
He called Cougfan’s fail, so I felt inclined to call his fail in calling a fail.
Not meant in mean spirit
I just have a very pessimistic sense of humor.
by B Money on Jun 17, 2010 3:23 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
It's only fair to call a fail on a called fail
Don’t worry, I can laugh at myself!
by johnnycougar on Jun 17, 2010 3:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Besides that, it really doesn't matter
I’d rather have the NorCal schools in the North and the newbies in the South. It just works better.
I'd like the zipper+rival scenario best
but I can see the value in this one.
NorCal is a fairly fertile recruiting ground and it seems like a decent deal that might please everyone enough to get done.
Seriously look at the map
Colorado, Utah, and Arizona are all neighbors so it makes sense geographically that they would be together. Also tOregon and Washington are neighbors. Both of the above mentioned groups border California with Arizona in the SOUTH and Oregon in the NORTH. Hmm, I wonder which California schools should go in the North, and which should go in the South? Now I suppose you could put the NorCal schools with the AZ/Mountain schools, but that makes absolutely no sense geographically. The obvious solution is the SoCal schools go with the AZ/Mountain schools, and the NorCal Schools go with the NW schools.
If you are hung up on the terms “North” and “South” maybe you could change the names to something else but that would be silly. Yes Denver and SLC are north of the Bay schools but not by much (36 degree N for the bay schools, and 38 degrees for the mountain) so get over it.
Say what you mean, and say it mean. - Clint Ruin
Easy turbo...
I’m pretty sure he was just giving him a friendly ration of crap.
by TiltingRight on Jun 17, 2010 1:22 AM PDT up reply actions
More importantly
When did Montana and Wyoming become the same state?, looks like Nebraska and Kansas too. 48 states it is then.
We’ll catagorize this as a “map resizing fail”
Shhh... It's all part of a master plan
Montana is slowly taking over the weaker states, and eventually we’ll be bigger than Texas and no-one will care about the Little Ten anymore, The Big Sky conference will be where it’s at. Plus eventually we’ll just get rid of Idaho’s stupid panhandle thing, who’s idea was that anyway?
Colorado, rectangular state. Wyoming, rectangular state… Idaho… WTF is that thing? Now you look screwed up and the state next to you has to be too.
As for Nebraska and Kansas… They’re just on crack.
by Rowsmasterflex on Jun 17, 2010 9:52 AM PDT up reply actions
Its suddenly all so clear!
Who wouldn’t want to play football for Id-an-oming State University? Probably in a better position than Kansas State anyway.
I like this idea MUCH more than
either the Zipper or the NW schools with the Noobs. We’re still in norcal every year, and we’re in socal AT LEAST every other year.
The high costs of the 9th conference game have been documented...
… but it would also allow for more frequent visits to the opposite division. This can take some of the sting out for those who end up disliking the alignment.
I am with this one
Just like Nuss above, I like the idea of primarily playing against the Wash and Ore schools. I don’t want to lose bragging rights. In my little black book of rivals, it says here that I despise Ore (more accurately Ore Fans) with a passion that that exceeds Notre Dame, and the SEC. Of course it doesn’t reach UW, but its in the neighborhood. I would like to beat them every year.
It is a tough decision.
I looked up our football roster and there is 31 players from the state of California. There are 20 players from southern California and 11 players from northern California. I live in CA, so I counted Fresno (and north) as northern CA, because Fresno peeps are usually Bay Area fans. As we know, Wulff lately has been doing a lot of recruiting in northern CA. I like the idea of geographical divisions, because it is easier for the common fan to understand, but on the other hand SoCal is such a fertile area for recruiting. It is also important to have a presence SoCal because the players families are guaranteed to see there kid once a year. I doubt a lot of families in SoCal will be able to get to Pullman to see their kids play. Why would they want that when they could send their kid to ASU or UA, which is a short drive, plus they could see them play in LA every year. WSU will make it, but the large conference may hurt our football recruiting a little bit. Here are some more numbers to think about. Would you rather have ties to area that is 3 times the size of you state or 2 times the size? I don’t like the confusing zipper divisions, but numbers don’t lie. How do you decide, USC or UCLA? I still don’t know what I would do.
1. Southern California Pop 22,422.614
2. Northern California Pop 14,334,052
3. Washington Pop 6,664,195
4. Arizona Pop 6,595,778
5. Colorado Pop 5,024,748
6. Oregon Pop 3,825,657
6. Utah Pop 2,7364,24
member of CougCenter since 9/2/08
Just because you don't play in the area doesn't mean...
…you don’t recruit it hard. Lot of LA kids play for teams not in the PX, so they play for schools who don’t have games in the area. And you’d still be playing in LA 2 out of 3 years (or 7 in 10). And there’s this thing called television.
It’s not going to disappear.
We skipped LA in the past & survived; we’ll do it again. And we still visit No-Cal every year.
And last I checked we haven’t played in Florida in a while, yet we have how many kids from there expressing interest?
Schedule SDSU in years we’re not in LA & all is fine.
Valid Point
And even if a SoCal kids parents aren’t willing to go all the way to Pullman, surely they can manage a trip to the bay area once a year
This is definitely polarizing - 50% each in your poll
Moos & CPW are definitely on record for preferring the N/S arrangement, and don’t believe it will have a negative impact on recruiting in LA.
The one thing I didn’t realize was we were going to 11 one year, and 12 the next. Curious to see what they do scheduling wise in ’11.
I'm not sure if that'll end up being the case when it plays out
Colorado may get the heck out of dodge after this year if they can find any way to (like NU).
division decision pushed back until end of July
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/23311/how-the-pac-10-will-be-divided
Translation: they had made a decision, then realized it wasn’t going to fly, and are only now going to do full due diligence. Sigh… this is exactly the sort of crap that made me opposed to adding Utah; juggling everyone’s needs is just going to be a big mess :(
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