I’d still favor BYU over Colorado however. Since there are 5 two-school rivalries, Utah/BYU would just add another one. There isn’t any animosity between Colorado and Utah. I see why you chose the Buffs, but I’d take the Cougars.

However, the one thing I really like about the Pac right now is that we play a full round robin schedule. You get teams in the Big 12/SEC that could miss, say, both Florida and Georgia on their schedule. Or in the Big 12, Kansas missed Texas and Oklahoma last year. I think the Pac should stick with 10, and crown a champion the REAL way, not the half-ass way that the Big 12, ACC, and SEC do it.

Interesting thoughts though…

When the NCAA allowed an extra football game for everyone, that allowed the Pac-10 teams to play every team in the conference. That’s how it should be. It sets up inconsistency and an unfair system if you don’t play every team in your conference. The teams in the last few years who didn’t play stupid $c had a definite advantage over the others in the Pac-10. Imagine a Big-12 North team that gets to skip Texas instead of skipping Baylor. While I think the Utah-BYU combo would make more sense than Utah-Colorado (good call, bucknell), I don’t think expansion to 12 is good for the integrity of the conference, no matter who the 2 would be.

I like the Pac-10 as it is, and I don’t believe Colorado is open to leaving a stable and balanced BCS conference for another. Not to mention they would be the only school in the Pac (outside of the Arizona schools during Day light savings time) that would be in a different time zone.
I don’t like elevating Utah, BYU, Fresno State (which was thought to be a good school to make the Pac) or San Diego State to BCS status because, well, it’s an ‘elite’ tag that I don’t want to give them.
I like it fine how we are, even if it means not being able to get a second BCS bowl. I also think that the BCS is on it’s way out anyway. It has, maybe, a decade left before we move to some kind of playoff system.
As my mom says, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

They’ve had issues with the Big 12 before, complaining that all the power in the conference was in the Texas schools, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Of all those schools, only Nebraska plays in the north division and the north seems to be an afterthought to not only the conference, but to the nation. I don’t think it will happen, but if the Pac 10 approached Colorado I could see them listening.

The thing is I don’t see the Pac 10 approaching Colorado or any other school about expansion now. With the economy where it is and the escalating costs of travel, I don’t see them adding teams, let alone ones off of the coast. The only time I can see the Pac 10 expanding is if Texas shows some interest in joining. Texas would bring a major name and a lot more money to the table, which would make expansion worth it. I don’t see that happening either though.

With regards to a conference title game, not only is it nowhere near as fair as the round robin the conference currently uses, but I don’t think it would be terribly successful. The ACC title game can’t draw flies unless Florida St. or Miami plays in it. A Pac 10 title game would only be a draw if a local team was in it. The Pac 10 teams have enough trouble selling their tickets to bowl games and that is with a months notice. On a weeks notice, it will only be worse.

Personally, I like having 10 teams and a round robin schedule. It makes things far easier in not only football, but basketball and baseball. All three of those sports play a round robin schedule now and it works great.

but I don’t hear the SEC/Big-12 bitch about it! The hope is that the Pac-12 will have better teams then U$C and the Pac-9.

They are good schools both by academic standards, and in athletic endeavors. They are already instate rivals and If I’m not mistaken a Public and a Private institution.

I voted against this poll. I am somewhat ambivalent to the idea of expanding Pac-10 just to position ourselves for BCS bowls. It hasn’t really worked out for ACC all too well.

However, I am not totally closed to the idea. I have written about this before here on BN. I’d open to Colorado/CSU package because I think that combo will fit nicely into our current arrangement in the conference and sync in very well with all other natural rivalries. Also road trips to Colorado schools are lot more fun that road trips to Utah schools.

Anyway, good discussion topic … I’d give more thought to it during off season. Here was the post I had written before on the topic.

Even though it makes NO sense from a scheduling perspective in football or basketball to add 2 more teams, my selfish thought is that I’d like to have Colorado on our schedule every year. I want to make the road trip!!!

Everyone on BN makes the roadie here and crashes at my house. I have lots of bedrooms, a great deck looking at the mountains, and a kegerator in the basement. Road Trip!!

Nevada and UNLV? Could that work?

good points all around…

I heard Nevada/UNLV or Boise St/Fresno St…these schools don’t cut in on the field/court/classroom.

BYU is also been floated around and is a good school as well. I like that BN thinks it’s a better fit for hoops…something I completely ignored.

Hard to argue with BYU: ‘84 champs + Detmer won the Heisman (he was overrated though). My point is they’ve got some history and are currently excelling.

Also, my proposal preserves the BYU-Utah rivalry as an OOC game and would add Utah-Colorado as a “dusted off” rivalry. It’s not like some of our other “rivalries” can compare to other rivalries around the nation…

I like how we play every team in our conference and I don’t want to expand the conference just for some BCS crap.

If you read the proposal, you know that I posted polls at each of the SBN blog sites. Thanks to all who’ve participated across 10 blogs, voted 410 times, and commented ! I thought this would be a great topic to blog about and I was surprised at some of the results. Like everyone, I’m happy the conference has an auto-BCS bid. But I’m frustrated by the fact that the Pac-10 has shown it cannot get two BCS bowl bids (’04 Cal, ’07 ASU). Boo hoo, right? Well, these are big bucks were talking about here. It would be nice to be able to replace the rotten wood bleachers in Memorial (or something to that effect). Moreover, the secondary bowls are terrible. The Holiday Bowl sounds corny, is pre-New Years, and gets the opportunity to play the #3 Big-12 team. And the Pac-10, in an effort to get more bowls, has settled for "meh" bowls rather than quality bowls. My goal behind the expansion was to level the playing field and to improve the Pac-10’s chances of two BCS bowl bids. I’ve posted the voting statistics below from all of the schools participating (% for / % against / total # voters):

Cal (Cal Golden Blogs): 34% / 64% / 49
Bruins Nation: (UCLA): 21% / 78 % / 185
Conquest Chronicles (USC): 23 % / 76 % / 17
ASU (House of Sparky): 47 %/ 52 % / 19
Oregon (ATQ): 22 % / 77 % / 57
Oregon St (Building the Dam): 15 % / 85 % / 40
UW (UW Dawg Pound): 50 % / 50 % / 38
Wazzou (CougCenter): 36 % / 63 % / 11
Utah (Block U): 80 % / 20 % / 30
Colorado (The Ralphie Report): 63 % / 38 % / 18
UofA (no SBN blog): N/A
‘furd (no SBN blog): N/A
=======
Total: 32 % / 68 % / 410
Throw out UCLA’s 185 votes for copying Cal’s fight song, mascot, colors, team name: 41 % / 59 % / 227

I’m kidding with the last one of course…just a little good natured ribbing. BN should be commended for having such a large blogging audience. I’ve listed some of the general comments that were received around the various blogs that participated:

1) Round Robin Scheduling/I hate changing. Wow. I never knew so many people like robins that are round. In my opinion, I don’t think the SEC/Big-12 cares about non-round robin scheduling since they usually compete for a second BCS bowl bid and they can laugh about it all the way to the bank. The round robin gives the clearest champion whereas the proposed schedule could potentially lead to a screwy system although with better football this "screwiness" could be minimal. This was by far the most common reason for opposing expansion. 11 league football games and 22 league hoops games sound like a lot. Would 11 league games + 2-3 OOC games work? If so, does this improve our BCS chances? I don’t think so. I think a lot of people love the overhyped Conference Championhsip – particularly those who vote in the polls that decide our BCS rankings.

2) Colorado wouldn’t want to/Colorado sucks at hoops/BYU and Utah instead. As the votes and comments suggested, Colorado might want to (some fans at least). Hell, they almost did in ’94 I think. The balance of power has shifted towards the Big-12S/Southwest Conference teams (just as Osborne said it would in the late ‘90s) and it doesn’t appear as it will shift significantly back. Fans should compare the revenue potential of the new Pac-12 and compare it to the revenue potential of the old Big-12, not compare current Pac-10/Big12. I realize that’s hard to do but somebody must be talented enough at business to do this.

Several fans voted for BYU and Utah instead since they offer better hoops teams and have the "Holy War" rivalry to bring. My poll question asked for Colorado and Utah, so these voting numbers don’t reflect BYU + Utah for the Pac-12 expansion. Note that my proposal protects the Holy War, it just doesn’t make it a league game. L’s still matter. This allows for Colorado and Utah to dust off their old rivalry. If BYU wants to take itself seriously, get an SBN blog and help ‘furd and ‘Zona as well.

3) Colardo/Utah don’t fit academically. Yes they do…they are better than 1/3 to 1/2 of the current universities in the Pac-10. Some Buffs fans were really offended by some of the lower Pac-10 blogs were really offended by blogger posting at academically inferior institutions. BYU is different: excellent (so they say) undergrad institution, huge endowment $, no research and no grant $. Some have said this does/does not matter.

4) Mountain West teams can’t compete with Pac-10 teams. A Utah blogger actually said this as his team is ranked #7, 2 spots behind USC and 17 spots ahead of the next Pac-10 team. I think this says something about our current ranking system!

5) Don’t conform to The Man, Screw The Man. Totally unexpected this one and it is very Berkeley. A Utah fan said he enjoys being the BCS buster and he thinks the Pac-10 should leave the BCS conference just to see what others would do. Several other fans around the Pac-10 said they’d rather fix/destroy the BCS and adopt the old version or create a playoff system. One Bruins fan had some crazy shuffling throughout the nation that lead to 7 BCS conferences comprised of 10 teams each, playing round robins, and the winners + next highest ranked team would get BCS bowls. "Fixing the current BCS" is the only thing I see coming out of these ideas mentioned as we roll into another bowl year with 3 teams undefeated…

6) I don’t want to road trip to Utah and Colorado/SLC and Denver aren’t big enough cities. Hey, people hate change. Salt Lake and Denver are major airline hubs and I’ve flown to both locales several times. Salt Lake hosted the Winter Olympics this six years ago. Denver just hosted the DNC. Pulman just hos…

7) Pac-10 teams are afraid of being less successful/losing recruits. I’m of the belief that better teams = better football = better glory. Some aren’t.

8) Are you a commish? Buffs fan? Mountain West fan? No, I’m not a commissioner, Buffs fan, nor Mountain West fan. I’m just a scientist (cue Coldplay) who solves problems for a living.

I’d like to thank everyone for participating and for making this an enjoyable experience. Thanks to all of the chief bloggers for letting a Cal fan post at their site, especially House of Sparky and The Ralphie Report for front page presence.