[msqueri]

tara is interviewed in today's chronicle article on ucla & usc moving. she points out that football is the only sport that plays one game a week. she points out that traveling cross country twice in a week will be quite problematic for all the other sports.

Yes, it sucks. But she shouldn't get to make the call. We are dead if we don't go with the big boys. If we want women's basketball to be the biggest sports program at the school, ok. But if we care about football and men's basketball, the Pac-12 or some new configuration of West Coast programs sans-USC/UCLA (and maybe sans Oregon/Washington if they get into a super conference) or going independent are all paths to irrelevance as an athletic department.

To me the best case scenario for us by far is one where the good Pac-12 programs get swallowed up by the Big 10, which would save West Coast football/basketball by affiliating us with an actually relevant conference and would mitigate the travel issue by allowing us to play the bulk of our games with some combination of USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Cal. The problem is I have low confidence that will actually be the landing spot. The Big 10 will have a lot of schools that want in to the 20+ team super conference and I don't know if the eventual outcome ends up looking how I want it to.

[msqueri]

tara is interviewed in today's chronicle article on ucla & usc moving. she points out that football is the only sport that plays one game a week. she points out that traveling cross country twice in a week will be quite problematic for all the other sports.

Yes, it sucks. But she shouldn't get to make the call. We are dead if we don't go with the big boys. If we want women's basketball to be the biggest sports program at the school, ok. But if we care about football and men's basketball, the Pac-12 or some new configuration of West Coast programs sans-USC/UCLA (and maybe sans Oregon/Washington if they get into a super conference) or going independent are all paths to irrelevance as an athletic department.

To me the best case scenario for us by far is one where the good Pac-12 programs get swallowed up by the Big 10, which would save West Coast football/basketball by affiliating us with an actually relevant conference and would mitigate the travel issue by allowing us to play the bulk of our games with some combination of USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Cal. The problem is I have low confidence that will actually be the landing spot. The Big 10 will have a lot of schools that want in to the 20+ team super conference and I don't know if the eventual outcome ends up looking how I want it to.