Should Utah Fans Be Thrilled About These Schools Joining PAC 12?
Aren't the BIG 12 and BYU laughing at the PAC for adding SMU?
I don't say this in a snotty way but in a context way, with the exception of West Virginia, every single member of the Big 12, a year and a half ago, was rejected for membership by the PAC 12.
SMU is a lot like USC, they're both old Methodist schools, really rich alumni bases, really heavily connected into the business world there and were both football mega powers. The problem is SMU got the death penalty from the NCAA.
So they spent 15 years recovering from that, were cast aside, lost their conference and have been trying to build up from that.
SMU is a spectacularly beautiful campus in the most beautiful part of Dallas, almost like how UCLA is in Beverly Hills, SMU is in Highland Park, literally the characters from Dallas would have gone to SMU. These are literally like the oil barons...like the Hunt family who owns the Chiefs all went to SMU.
Is valuing big markets over good programs dumb?
When big market teams are relevant it is crazy. When UCLA and USC both had their turnarounds this year and the Rose Bowl was packed for the rivalry game the whole city was watching.
San Diego State used to have big crowds like in the Marshall Faulk era. SDSU suffered greatly because in the old world of the PAC, the TV people basically said that the PAC had maxed out its value of Southern California cable. So SDSU would have added zero dollars.
We are projecting that the PAC 12 will have an offer in place to SMU and SDSU, we believe it's already informally taken place, but we believe that this is a done deal.
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