*****The Super, Mega, Huge Big 12 Expansion Thread*****
- Thread starter CloneFan4
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Whats this guys reliability. My heart wants to believe every word, but my mind's BS meter keeps going off.
Hope it is true, would love for this to be a done deal sooner rather than later.
I don't know how this topic popped into this thread but since I'm passionate about baseball I'll bite.
To me, all of what Pollard said in the alleged reply makes perfect sense. Baseball at ISU doesn't make a lot of sense because of the lack of facilities, and the fact that we are now by far the most northern team in the Big 12. It would take a huge amount just in start up costs to field a team.
I don't agree that baseball is a dying sport. To many of the southern schools, I would argue baseball falls only behind football in the tier of sports followers in that area. I'm not talking making money, I'm talking about what fans care about. I'm also not talking ACC where basketball is big, but mainly SEC, Sunbelt, etc. Heck even the PAC 12 has some pretty awesome baseball, but the past few years some terrible basketball and no one seems to care. Also, look at the mobs of crowds the college world series gets every year in Omaha of all places, which is only geographically about a half hour south of here.
Also, in my neighborhood at least, in the months of May through most of the summer the youth baseball/softball diamonds are flooded with so many kids it is nearly impossible for teams to schedule a practice time. That doesn't spell dying sport to me. If you compare MLB to Football, heck yeah. The NHL, NBA, and MLB all pale in comparison to football, both Professionally and Collegiate. It am disappointed that Iowa is the only D-I program that kids can go to in this state to play baseball. I understand it, but I don't like it. If there was a way for ISU to have a baseball team, I would be first in line to buy season tickets and try to support it. If I won the lottery, I would even try to donate to re-start the program. Reality is it probably won't happen unless the conference forced all the schools to have baseball which isn't likely to happen.
To me, all of what Pollard said in the alleged reply makes perfect sense. Baseball at ISU doesn't make a lot of sense because of the lack of facilities, and the fact that we are now by far the most northern team in the Big 12. It would take a huge amount just in start up costs to field a team.
I don't agree that baseball is a dying sport. To many of the southern schools, I would argue baseball falls only behind football in the tier of sports followers in that area. I'm not talking making money, I'm talking about what fans care about. I'm also not talking ACC where basketball is big, but mainly SEC, Sunbelt, etc. Heck even the PAC 12 has some pretty awesome baseball, but the past few years some terrible basketball and no one seems to care. Also, look at the mobs of crowds the college world series gets every year in Omaha of all places, which is only geographically about a half hour south of here.
Also, in my neighborhood at least, in the months of May through most of the summer the youth baseball/softball diamonds are flooded with so many kids it is nearly impossible for teams to schedule a practice time. That doesn't spell dying sport to me. If you compare MLB to Football, heck yeah. The NHL, NBA, and MLB all pale in comparison to football, both Professionally and Collegiate. It am disappointed that Iowa is the only D-I program that kids can go to in this state to play baseball. I understand it, but I don't like it. If there was a way for ISU to have a baseball team, I would be first in line to buy season tickets and try to support it. If I won the lottery, I would even try to donate to re-start the program. Reality is it probably won't happen unless the conference forced all the schools to have baseball which isn't likely to happen.
I agree that schedules vary wildly, but I was modeling off of the Big Ten, which did exactly what I did to achieve competitive balance. They used historical win/loss records dating back to 1993 (when Penn State joined the conference).
Nebraska's records were compared alongside the other 11 schools. I did the same with FSU, Clemson, and West Virginia, but not TCU (for obvious reasons).
I'm not saying that that is the best way to do it, I'm just doing what's been done before and what has a decent shot of happening in the future if FSU and Clemson join.
Improving soccer facilities would be more valuable as a multi use space or event venue as well I'm guessing.
I don't think these big picture athletic department discussions are off topic at all, we're talking about a rumored 4.5x boost in tv revenue money from where ISU was just a few years ago. If that happens, ISU needs to keep stepping it up. Obviously SEZ is a ton more important than baseball or mens soccer. But competing in the top sports of a top conference should be an important goal if ISU wants to be a player as conferences ramp up.
One good thing is in addition to WVU there are 3 rumored ACC schools that have wrestling (unfortunately not Clemson/FSU). I know the program is down now, but history says we will be back among the elites of that sport sooner rather than later. If we get into Virginia, that has traditionally been a great wrestling talent state.
I hope you are correct about wrestling...but what does that mean? "History says"...if we go by history as a basis for the future status of a program that would not bode well for football? History has little to do with contributing to a stronger program in the future.
Yeah that makes sense in their case. They had almost two decades of fair data for 11 teams, and the 12th team played a comparable schedule if not tougher.
In the 90s straight records might have made sense when the top teams in the ACC and Big East were doing much better.
You'd think in hoops a 22 or 26 game round robin isn't probable. Wonder if they'd consider competitive balance divisions for football and geographic for other sports that play more games. Of course we'd be in the tougher northern regions for hoops, but hopefully we're part of what makes it tougher.
That seems pretty clear to me. I think the reason people are getting huffy about it is they think you're talking about adding baseball INSTEAD of something like the SEZ project, which I doubt anybody does.
I actually thought about it the minute the Clemson/FSU rumors started and I'm not a college baseball fan. Those are teams I think of when I think college baseball, and knowing how big the B12 south teams already are about baseball. Do you know if northern teams could ever get scheduling preference to avoid early home games? I would think everyone would prefer that. Maybe we don't get droves of fans in any case, but there would be more that way.
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Success in wrestling is not nearly as dependent on pumping money into facilities. We are improving overall in football because we are spending money at a rate closer to that of our peers.
We have succeeded in the past in wrestling due in part to program history and becuase wresting is very strong across the state of Iowa. We have advantages in wrestling that we do not in football.
The main issue with wrestling in my estimation is dealing with the coaching change and the exodus of talent caused by the coaching change. The staff seems to be bringing in some good talent, but they will need some time to develop.
I would think this would definitely happen. In all honesty I don't now what the B10 did, didn't pay any attention to their bball season. If it is a 12 team league I would guess we would go back to 16 game schedule, 5 teams home/away and the other six would be once a year. If you go to 14 or 16 I don't know what you do with your bball schedule. 14 gives you an odd number of games if you play your division home/away and everyone else once.
Caveat that I'm not a 'wrestling guy', but wasn't part of the reason Cael left that he thought he had a better shot at winning a national title at PSU than here? That's got to partly be money/facilities.
I know I'll sound like a typical state of Iowa wrestling kid, but a serious wrestler just wants a great tough as nails coach and a few mats, maybe cheering fans too. They're not dreaming of fancy locker rooms and a glitzy celebrity life in wrestling like basketball, football and baseball players are, and there's good reason behind that. The fact that a decent amount of people will actually watch a competitive squad at Hilton makes ISU more impressive than all but 4 or 5 wrestling programs in the nation to a recruit.
Long term if the new Big 12 is as glorious and profitable as the picture being painted, the SEZ project gets done and maybe we add soccer or baseball that we never dominate in down the road to cement our place in that league, but we get Big 12 titles in wrestling again at some point. There will likely only be 4-7 schools max unless schools start adding it. Hopefully the next FSU article comes out soon and I'm sure megathread will be back on track, but the amount of money they're throwing around in all this makes all athletic department discussions relevant.
That is hysterical. Got Pollard and Dodds out there saying we aren't talking to them it's originating from them and former FSU trustees saying that the Big 12 is instigating it.
It isn't just the cost of adding a baseball team. There has to be an additional cost of adding an athletic Woman's team as well due to Title IX. That's why Iowa still has Woman's Field Hockey.
That's why I said it's not nearly as dependent on athletic funding.
Cael did leave for bigger money and facilities at PSU. But that doesn't mean that ISU can't compete without that in wrestling. We just have to have the right coaches who can recruit the right wrestlers. ISU is a big enough name in wrestling that we should be able to do that. (Not going to debate if we have the right coach now or not. I'm just not sure. That's another thread for the wrestling forum.)
Wow, shocking (said in most sarcastic tone ever)........
Andy Staples @Andy_Staples RT @McMurphyCBS: ACC commissioner John Swofford said ACC membership prefers conference champ model in playoff
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Andy Staples @Andy_Staples RT @McMurphyCBS: ACC commissioner John Swofford said ACC membership prefers conference champ model in playoff
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