[LuckyBystander]

IMHO your Magnolia League would turn into a new version of the Ivy League. At one point Princeton and Harvard were the top programs in the sport for decades. After about a half century what we now refer to as the Ivy League stopped dominating college football and by the time college football was an octogenarian the Ivy League formally formed and a new era began. Nothing is permanent and competing in major college football requires being major. I could see something like the Magnolia League forming at some point, but it won't generate revenue in competition with the super conferences. Maybe if we're lucky it can get some sort of streaming television. The forces that sustain the lifeblood of college football - most importantly recruiting) will be driven by hierarchy and prestige, as always, and the caliber of football in the Magnolia League would get comparatively worse until it settles at an equilibrium befitting the level of interest in academic-oriented institution football, which is to say not very high caliber. This could be attractive in some respects to some people and, in any case, may be inevitable, but it won't be anything like Stanford playing in a Rose Bowl or Tulane playing in a Cotton Bowl.

Agreed that a Magnolia League would look closer to an Ivy League model vs. the previous PAC-12 and indeed would likely fall into less football relevance than even what most G5 conferences have.  My question, I suppose, is whether that's something Stanford folks could live with, as part of a broader rejection of essentially professional college football.  You're right that Harvard and Princeton basically made this decision some 50 years ago.  The question is whether Stanford would ever make the same decision.  On paper, Rice hasn't made that decision to deemphasize football--but in the way its taken care of football (which is to say, not well at all), I would say Rice has effectively gotten to the same result, albeit while playing teams like Florida International (when Rice was in C-USA) instead of, say, Brown.

Weird fact: Rice for decades (and up to the present) has had a standing invitation to join the University Athletic Association, a D3 league that includes Emory, NYU, U. Chicago, and Wash U.  That has not been deemed an enticing option, but I suspect that's largely because of the D3 level, the lack of travel partners, and the lack of any TV deal.  In the early 2000s, Rice commissioned McKinsey to study what Rice's best athletic options were, and I think the takeaway was basically "stop half-assing it."  What did Rice do?  We, um, continued to half-ass it.  Our nonrevenue sports have occasional bright spots--we won the CWS in 2003 against Stanford, as it so happens--but football has generally been unimpressive, notwithstanding a few bowl games and some winning seasons here and there.

[LuckyBystander]

IMHO your Magnolia League would turn into a new version of the Ivy League. At one point Princeton and Harvard were the top programs in the sport for decades. After about a half century what we now refer to as the Ivy League stopped dominating college football and by the time college football was an octogenarian the Ivy League formally formed and a new era began. Nothing is permanent and competing in major college football requires being major. I could see something like the Magnolia League forming at some point, but it won't generate revenue in competition with the super conferences. Maybe if we're lucky it can get some sort of streaming television. The forces that sustain the lifeblood of college football - most importantly recruiting) will be driven by hierarchy and prestige, as always, and the caliber of football in the Magnolia League would get comparatively worse until it settles at an equilibrium befitting the level of interest in academic-oriented institution football, which is to say not very high caliber. This could be attractive in some respects to some people and, in any case, may be inevitable, but it won't be anything like Stanford playing in a Rose Bowl or Tulane playing in a Cotton Bowl.

Agreed that a Magnolia League would look closer to an Ivy League model vs. the previous PAC-12 and indeed would likely fall into less football relevance than even what most G5 conferences have.  My question, I suppose, is whether that's something Stanford folks could live with, as part of a broader rejection of essentially professional college football.  You're right that Harvard and Princeton basically made this decision some 50 years ago.  The question is whether Stanford would ever make the same decision.  On paper, Rice hasn't made that decision to deemphasize football--but in the way its taken care of football (which is to say, not well at all), I would say Rice has effectively gotten to the same result, albeit while playing teams like Florida International (when Rice was in C-USA) instead of, say, Brown.

Weird fact: Rice for decades (and up to the present) has had a standing invitation to join the University Athletic Association, a D3 league that includes Emory, NYU, U. Chicago, and Wash U.  That has not been deemed an enticing option, but I suspect that's largely because of the D3 level, the lack of travel partners, and the lack of any TV deal.  In the early 2000s, Rice commissioned McKinsey to study what Rice's best athletic options were, and I think the takeaway was basically "stop half-assing it."  What did Rice do?  We, um, continued to half-ass it.  Our nonrevenue sports have occasional bright spots--we won the CWS in 2003 against Stanford, as it so happens--but football has generally been unimpressive, notwithstanding a few bowl games and some winning seasons here and there.