I chided him about only calling me because Louisville is doing so well. He laughed and said, “Yeah that’s part of it.” Anyway he noted how well we were doing and thought we have a great shot at the Pac12 Championship this year. He also talked about the demise of the BigXII and said ESPN and Texas are the problem. He claims to have spoken to some Big Wigs within the BigXII and says Texas will likely go to the ACC with Notre Dame… eventually. And that as far as current BigXII members are concerned, Cincinnati is the best candidate and the rest are all after thoughts. He said Texas only mentions Houston because none of the others want another Texas school diluting their Texas recruiting and it keeps Texas with some power.
He said the most likely candidates for the PAC12 are Oklahoma, Ok St, Kansas and possibly KState. He said he didn’t think the Pac12 would take a religious school like Baylor or TCU. I asked what OU and OK St would do for the Pac12 since we want games in Texas. He said OU and OK St had all but about 5 players from Texas and that Texas HS football fans follow their players and it would help ratings for the PAC12.
I did some research and he was a bit off, but still, OU has 43 players from Texas, which I think would go down with Pac12 membership. OSU has 70 players from Texas which would also go down. Oklahoma and Kansas seem to have the next highest after Texas. But they also pull them in from CA, VA, MD, LA and FL.
Anyway he sees ESPN and Texas being the power brokers in the whole deal. He may be right, ESPN and the Longhorn Network may have played more of a role in things up till now, however I don’t know how much longer they can keep things up. He says CBSsports network carried one of the last Louisville games and he described their announcers not as the A team, B Team or C Team but as the D team at best.
The PAC12 network may be the best thing for us going forward, especially if it all breaks apart. ESPN and Texas are in bed together, but if Texas doesn’t get back to where they were????? They’ll lose a ton of power in future negotiations. And the PAC12 network may be in the best position owning the rights to broadcasts.
BTW he said he thinks Louisville would beat Bama, according to him Louisville has the speed and type of offense/defense which would beat Bama’s QB and linemen. I said, “Oh, so you think you’d be like Utah in the 2009 Sugar Bowl?” He said, “Exactly!” He also mentioned he’s well aware Louisville is 0-4 against the Utes.
So that’s my scoop from BIGXII land. WE obviously talked about more, but I can’t remember everything.
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