[AlbanyCardinal]

I get it and concede that it could be the way to go. From where I sit, though, I'd rather Stanford bide its time till the right door opens, assuming it ever does, by going independent or reforming some iteration of the Pac. To me, joining the ACC at this point, while everything seems up in the air, and knowing that it'd be a binding agreement for the next 10+ years, feels ill-advised, panicky, and rushed.

I mean, yeah, I'd way prefer the Big Ten, too. More money, legit Western division, keep some traditional rivalries. It would clearly be a better option than the ACC--if it were an option. It seems like it's not. 

So, I'm assuming these are the actual options: (1) Join the Mountain West, either under the Pac-whatever banner or a new name or under the MW name, but either way it's the Pac-4 plus much or all of the existing MW; (2) go independent in football and join the Big West/WCC in Olympic sports; or (3) join the ACC in the most geographically absurd bit of conference realignment yet.

In that case, I am sprinting through Door #3. 

And it need not be forever, and it won't be. The inevitable march toward football consolidation continues. At a certain point, Ohio State/Michigan/Penn State will come to resent subsidizing Northwestern, Indiana, Rutgers, Purdue et al. and they'll break away (in football, at least) as part of whatever pseudo-Champions League format that will exist for the highest level of college football. You'll see the existing conferences cleave at that point, as Alabama, LSU, Georgia, and Florida will be only too happy to take a bigger chunk of money in exchange for bidding adieu to a conference relationship with Kentucky, Vanderbilt, or Missouri. And yeah, that's when the ACC will die, too, as at least FSU, Clemson, and Miami will join the big kids' table and we'll have a separate governing body that deals with Super League College Football or whatever they call it. Stanford won't be in that mix, and frankly, neither will most of the current Power 5 teams. And that's OK. Maybe that final cleavage doesn't happen, and they get there instead by unequal revenue distributions to prop up the existing conferences, but it amounts to the same thing. 

We've all got a point where we'll reach our limit and want to step off the ride. I'm not there yet. I take a lot of pride in Stanford's overall athletic success, even though most of it happens in less visible sports. I'm proud of the number of Olympians and NCAA championships we can boast. I'm proud in our commitment to excellence. As college football continues down its current path toward discarding tradition in chasing media dollars, I hope that we can preserve that excellence in other sports. Yeah, it's fun when Stanford football does well, but its primary benefit to me personally is helping fund the rest of the athletic department budget to support the other teams. And for that to happen, we need to be in a major conference. And the only one that seems to be seriously considering us right now is the ACC. So I want to be at that table. For now. 

Eventually, when college football breaks off and does its own thing, maybe we can return to normalcy and we'll see more natural geographic realignment. Football will do its own thing, while we return to 8-12 team regional conferences of yesteryear for other sports. But for the time being, I don't want to see our athletic department wither on the vine.

[AlbanyCardinal]

I get it and concede that it could be the way to go. From where I sit, though, I'd rather Stanford bide its time till the right door opens, assuming it ever does, by going independent or reforming some iteration of the Pac. To me, joining the ACC at this point, while everything seems up in the air, and knowing that it'd be a binding agreement for the next 10+ years, feels ill-advised, panicky, and rushed.

I mean, yeah, I'd way prefer the Big Ten, too. More money, legit Western division, keep some traditional rivalries. It would clearly be a better option than the ACC--if it were an option. It seems like it's not. 

So, I'm assuming these are the actual options: (1) Join the Mountain West, either under the Pac-whatever banner or a new name or under the MW name, but either way it's the Pac-4 plus much or all of the existing MW; (2) go independent in football and join the Big West/WCC in Olympic sports; or (3) join the ACC in the most geographically absurd bit of conference realignment yet.

In that case, I am sprinting through Door #3. 

And it need not be forever, and it won't be. The inevitable march toward football consolidation continues. At a certain point, Ohio State/Michigan/Penn State will come to resent subsidizing Northwestern, Indiana, Rutgers, Purdue et al. and they'll break away (in football, at least) as part of whatever pseudo-Champions League format that will exist for the highest level of college football. You'll see the existing conferences cleave at that point, as Alabama, LSU, Georgia, and Florida will be only too happy to take a bigger chunk of money in exchange for bidding adieu to a conference relationship with Kentucky, Vanderbilt, or Missouri. And yeah, that's when the ACC will die, too, as at least FSU, Clemson, and Miami will join the big kids' table and we'll have a separate governing body that deals with Super League College Football or whatever they call it. Stanford won't be in that mix, and frankly, neither will most of the current Power 5 teams. And that's OK. Maybe that final cleavage doesn't happen, and they get there instead by unequal revenue distributions to prop up the existing conferences, but it amounts to the same thing. 

We've all got a point where we'll reach our limit and want to step off the ride. I'm not there yet. I take a lot of pride in Stanford's overall athletic success, even though most of it happens in less visible sports. I'm proud of the number of Olympians and NCAA championships we can boast. I'm proud in our commitment to excellence. As college football continues down its current path toward discarding tradition in chasing media dollars, I hope that we can preserve that excellence in other sports. Yeah, it's fun when Stanford football does well, but its primary benefit to me personally is helping fund the rest of the athletic department budget to support the other teams. And for that to happen, we need to be in a major conference. And the only one that seems to be seriously considering us right now is the ACC. So I want to be at that table. For now. 

Eventually, when college football breaks off and does its own thing, maybe we can return to normalcy and we'll see more natural geographic realignment. Football will do its own thing, while we return to 8-12 team regional conferences of yesteryear for other sports. But for the time being, I don't want to see our athletic department wither on the vine.