stuboy

Obviously Campbell is the guy, but Penn State has yet to "officially" name Campbell the head coach. Still not on their website or other official sites. BUT...Iowa State has already named their new head coach. It's on their websites, on their socials, etc...

When he committed to Penn State he said one of his main reasons was being just a couple hours drive from State College, making it easy for family to see games, etc... He might simply be someone who wants to be closer to home. No crime there. WVU fits the bill being just over an hour from where he lives. NIL matters, but it's not everything to every person. So this might not be a situation of raising the NIL money to get him.

Most of us are actually rational. We KNOW you guys are an overall better program, care about football more, etc... I think most UVa fans just want to be decently respectable, which we weren't for a long time. I think most of us just want a record of about 8-4 to be the bar. We know we'll be worse than that once in a while, but we'd also like, every five years or so, to have a periodic special year like we did this year. And we don't think it's unreasonable to expect that our team can find a way to beat you guys at least once every 4 or 5 years. None of that is irrational, and I genuinely think that's the mentality of most fans: Just let us be a half decent team most years, once in a while pushing to the top of the conference, once in a while realizing we'll probably have a losing record, and let us find a way to beat you guys every handful of years. That will keep us happy.

Miami didn't have to play GT or UVa. SMU didn't have to play UVa and GT. This is just the way things go with conference expansion. Pitt didn't have to play UVa or SMU. Texas A&M had the easiest SEC schedule possible, avoiding Vandy, Bama, Georgia, Ole Miss. They determine the rotation of who you play years before the games, and you really can't hold it against teams if the teams in their rotations are weak.

Just click who wins combination of games and then recalculate each time:

Sure, it could go like it did in 2019. But after all of our suffering the last 25 years, I'm not sure too many of us assume victory in a sure thing.

I think Franklin might have gotten a little burnt out going 10-2 every year and people still wanting him fired. I think there was a sense of relief and an excitement about a new start. So I don't think he had any great desire to siphon Penn State for every last penny. Also (and if you live in Central Pa where PSU is talked about daily), Franklin was known to be a bit standoff-ish and distant at times. A lot of people didn't like that. I think he may have negotiated a lower buyout just to send a statement that he's not all about money, and genuinely just wants to coach again. I might be wrong, but I think those two factors play a role.

I'm actually in Morgantown, WV today, and the Virginia Tech coach bus (like the one in the picture) was parked outside of the WVU Coliseum. Didn't know of any VT teams playing WVU today. Any idea why it would have been there?

And that was Florida, ten years ago. Oklahoma was a Big 12 member for all their recent titles.

When I started the list in my head, I decided that the four national champions post-Berlin Wall would be automatic qualifiers, and would be one group in my new conference. THEN...the deliberations would occur over who else would get to be in the conference. Hope that explains my rationale.

I'm breaking my list into categories: I'm also only including public universities. I have nothing against private schools, but since I can only keep a maximum of 13 teams, it seems an easy way to narrow things down a bit. Group 1 (4 Teams): The Yuppie, academically-oriented, usually good-at-everything-but-football division. (To Remind everyone that there actually IS more than one sport in college athletics). These schools will generally win most conference titles in sports other than football. UNC, Virginia, Cal, Georgia Tech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Group 2 (Five Teams): The Tortured-But-Passionate-Fan Base Division. These schools generally have incredibly devoted fans, great atmospheres at their stadiums, periodically make their fans think they can be elite and compete for championships...yet regularly fall short of meeting fans' expectations. Basically...a division of great places to go to games whose fans THINK they are elite football schools, but in reality they're only elite in terms of passion, not actual football. Virginia Tech, Kansas State, West Virginia, NC State, Oklahoma State ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Group 3: The standard-bearers. (4 Teams) This division is for teams that have actually won national titles since the fall of the Berlin Wall. (Yeah, I realize Colorado had 20 miserable years, and Miami isn't what they used to be. But no one can take away their Nattys, and that deserves our respect and inclusion in this new conference.) Clemson, Florida State, Colorado, Miami ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Massive increase in applicatons.. More applicants means a better pool of high school students to pick from. A better pool of students leads to higher academic rankings, more prestige for university, etc... There's actually a name for this called The Flutie Effect. Read about it here:

You could get 50 yard line seats at Beaver Stadium today for 9 dollars. You could sit in the upper decks for 2 dollars. And they're a playoff team. There's a lot going on. Really cold weather. Deer hunting. Many students away for break. Combine that with two teams having rough seasons....the prices today are not abnormal at all. And like I said, even the blue bloods sometimes have similar stories.

On the one hand, you have to respect that they give the Commonwealth Cup a higher seed that the Iron Bowl trophy. And yet, who on earth even knew that there was a trophy for the Iron Bowl called the V-odk trophy? Does anyone at Alabama or Auburn even know what the V-odk trophy is? I had to look it up.

Hopefully everything is OK at the firm and at the club, and that Mary Margaret is doing OK.

More students back in town for one thing. For another, there may be random fans who had an opportunity to watch other big rivalry games somewhere, or simply wanted to (in the midst of a bad season) stay home and watch Ohio State-Michigan or Clemson-SC or whatever. Sure Dec 3 puts the game opposite some conference title games, but it also might make a bigger draw with many fewer games played that day. Might be a more crowded and packed stadium, and maybe even more eyeballs watching on TV.

It's already been reported that supposedly legislatures in both Oregon and Washington are pushing (somehow) for the two big universities in each state to be required to play in the same athletic conference. As these schools are public universities it's not necessarily out of the question that state legislatures couldn't force this.