Texas, Oklahoma to SEC. It just makes too much sense. UT and OU are southern foo'ball schools in red states. Austin celebrates itself as this "weird" green, blue island and it is both of those. It is a Union island in a Confederate state. The culture is still Texas, which is deep South. Culture is what gives this the feel of "gonna happen." UT to the ACC felt okay. It was the Austin-Chapel Hill alliance of Big Weird Blue Islands. But beyond the islands, Texas-B.C.? Boston-Austin worked exactly onest. The ACC has got some little, small schools in it: Wake Forest, Duke, Boston College. The ACC goes WAY north, up to Boston, upstate New York, western Pa. And so far south, Miami, that it feels like you're in the North again. The SEC is all-South all the time.
Culture is the reason UT-OU to PAC felt so weird. Imagine OU playing in Berkeley without laughing. PSU-Big Ten felt natural. Same with Nebraska-Big Ten.
The SEC doesn't make mistakes (Well, maybe Missouri). Adding UT and OU wouldn't be a mistake, it'd be knock out.
The Big Ten didn't make mistakes for a long while. Then they blundered badly in overreaction to Notre Dame affiliating with the ACC by rescuing Rutgers from oblivion and Maryland from financial ruin.
The ACC somehow made the surpassing weirdness of Tobacco Road cum Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Boston College, Miami, Florida State and semi-Notre Dame semi-work. Semi-work is the ACC's niche. Weird.
The PAC is an abortion. Utah? Seriously, Utah?! Colorado?
The Big XII's niche is as the Big Mistake. It's just what they do. The Fatal Dysfunction Conference. The conference of last resort. X schools, not XII. West Virginia? It's embarrassing. The Big XII solicited applicants a few years back. Memphis wanted in. I think Houston did. Connecticut. One or both of the Florida compass schools (shoulda took UCF and/or USF, BIG Mistake not too). It was an embarrassment of table scraps and the food fight ended with the XII remaining the X. By contrast UT-OU in the SEC feels as natural as a bottle of Dixie going down, smooth and warm as a shot of Jack. The instant, hardened opposition of A&M and Mizzou is PTSD irrational. UT dominated the various iterations of the conference when all were members. The SEC is out of UT's dominance league. It is just too BIG. NOBODY dominates the SEC. UT will be a drop in the bucket. The Longhorn Network? Who cares.
Whither the Big XII after UT and OU say see ya wouldn't wanna be ya? The Big XII is not going to get a contract worthy of the name with the TV networks without UT and OU. Will WVU stay for the exciting travel opportunity of Lubbock annually? The better question is who wants the Big XII leftovers? Baylor anyone? K-State? The one most attractive contestant in this Miss Ugly Pageant is Okie State. Second least-ugly is West Virginia. But...academics, culture, image. The ACC flat turned down WVU. The PAC reportedly nixed UT and OU if Tech and OSU were a package. Maybe Baylor and some other schools, TCU, Texas Tech, Houston, Smoo form a minor league Rest of Texas plus Okie State con. That's six members, that could semi-work.
There's a similar goodish feel to a similar AAA mid-western con centered around Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State but that's only three. The Mid-West is still the Big Empty. Who else? South Dakota is contiguous, North Dakota is contiguous with South, both of those Badlands states have real good AAA teams already. That'd get you up to five. Still too few.
What the hell happens to WVU, runner-up least ugly? Its contiguous conferences, the B1G and ACC don't want it. Come on ACC, why? You're getting all broke out with Ivy League over WVU when you added Louisville?! Any con with Louisville and Clemson has no right. The ACC lost contiguity when MD left. Guess what? With West Virginia, it would get contiguity back. Conference membership would extend in an unbroken geographical string up the Coast, which is like in its name, from Florida to Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina to Virginia to West Virginia to Pennsylvania to New York to Massachusetts. And the con is contig into the hinterland, Virginia shakes hands in its far west with Kentucky's far east, which borders Indiana to the north. Contiguity isn't everything but it is something. Of the five Big Conferences only the Big XII lacks it. The ACC still has a sizable cultural disconnect but I'll tell you what West Virginia has a whole lot more in common with Clemson than Louisville has with Boston and anyhow this is the Somehow Semi-Works Conference.
So there are your semi-solutions to the fallout to the coming UT-OU-SEC nuptials and you're welcome.
