Bleacher Report - Articles by Ron Jones

The Next Round of Conference Realignments

Ron Jones — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:08:29 -0400

Will Be About Geography.

The next rounds of realignments will see conferences becoming what they used to be—institutions with similar academic missions, athletic budgets, and most importantly geographically compact.

Economic pressures are sure to drive conferences to be less diversified geographically. Athletic departments are under increasing pressure to remain competitive while cutting costs, and the easiest way to achieve that is by scheduling contests closer to home and cutting travel expenses.

Aside from cutting expenses, having geographically tighter conferences creates better rivalries that increase interest from fan bases. Who really cares about TCU vs. Air Force or La Tech vs. Idaho? But TCU vs La Tech has a little natural geographic hostility that could be developed into something beautiful given time (and in sports other than football and basketball).

In fact, look at most of the best rivalries in college football—proximity is crucial. It's important for fans to be able to make a road trip or two in a given year and not have to give up a mortgage payment to do so.

Look at the ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, and even the geographically close Big East schools. Fans of opposing teams attend games at rival schools because they can drive.

How many La Tech fans make it to any WAC road games? What about TCU fans to MWC road games? It is doubtful that more than a handful of fans make any road games unless they reside in the vicinity of where the game is being played.

TCU's closet conference foe (New Mexico) is over 620 miles away (nine out of the 12 ACC teams are within that distance). How much sense would it make to be able to put teams in charter buses as opposed to paying airfare for every conference game—in every sport?

Maybe I am nostalgic and want to see the Old SWC teams play each other, but a bus ride to Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, or Tulsa seems to make a lot more sense to me.

The only conference that I think will ignore geography is one of the most flagrant violators now—the Big East. The Big East screwed up majorly when they didn't vote to invite Penn State in the earlier days of the Big East and now they must do whatever they have to in order to keep the BCS bid they have.

To compound the problem, Rutgers and Syracuse continue to come up in "Big Ten Expansion" talk, which could further make their position more tenuous and force them to gobble up the remaining eastern C-USA schools they didn't get the first time around.

In the end, I'm a fan of tradition and would like to see: Boston College & Penn State in the Big East, South Carolina in the ACC, Arkansas (not Baylor) in the Big 12 South, and Georgia Tech in the SEC. But I know that financial interests won't allow that to happen.

However, I do see the C-USA and other non-BCS conferences becoming geographically tighter after the next round of musical chairs.

Conference USA (SWC-Lite)

SMU—Tulsa

TCU—La Tech

Baylor—Tulane

Rice—Southern Miss

Houston—UAB

UTEP—Memphis

What If The Big XII Kicked Out Baylor...That Would Be Awesome!!!

Ron Jones — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:56:36 -0500

How can I say this gently? Baylor is dead weight. Since the joining of the Big Eight and the now defunct SWC Baylor's conference record is a whooping 13 wins, 91 losses. That calculates out to be 12.5 percent winning percentage in the Big 12. Conference road games have been even worse as they have tallied two wins against 50 losses or a 3.8 percent winning percentage in the Big 12.

I am still baffled at why they were invited to join the Big 12 in the first place. They had only moderate success in the old SWC and were at best a middle of the road team.

I've read articles that perhaps there were some political machinations on behalf of the governor at that time which happened to be a Baylor Alum.

Rumor had it that some arm twisting went on to ensure that Texas A&M didn't go to the SEC and that funding might be slashed had the oldest school in Texas not been added to the newly formed conference. I don't know if any of that was true but I know for damn sure that Baylor didn't get in on merit.

Fast forward to 2009 after 13 full seasons of Big 12 Football have passed it's about time to kick Baylor out. Replace them with who? I don't know maybe Memphis or make a push at Arkansas but the time has come to consider something other than a virtually guaranteed win for the Big 12 South.

Politicians Finally Fix Economy; Attention Turned to Fixing the BCS (Sarcastic)

Ron Jones — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:06:37 -0500

Breaking news out of Washington, D.C.: Economists are astounded at the rate at which the economy has recovered.

"It seems like we finally found the right balance of stimulus between regulations and bailouts," said Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

The nation's economy, which had been reeling since the credit crunch began in mid-2007, swiftly emerged from recession when banks agreed to discontinue down payments if the Government wouldn't permit any more banks to fail.

This arrangement allowed for lending to resume and permitted the public to start borrowing again. This effort was further fortified when Ben Bernanke committed the federal reserve to purchase all of the loans in exchange for treasuries.

Art Laffer lauded the deal as "a wonderful free-market solution," as leading economists from all over the world gathered to praise the deal.

Joe Barton of Texas chimed in "I'm glad we have gotten the important business of government concluded, now we can focus on the smaller things that we have been looking at, such as abolishing the BCS... We couldn't have dealt with issues like this so long as the economy was in shambles, because our constituency would think that we were trying to divert their attention from the real issues or trying to curry favor for the next round of elections."

Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii added that "regardless of the legality of the BCS, it will be illegal before the next time I am re-elected...We must have a system that allows every team with a winning record the ability to play for the national title."

Mike Simpson of Idaho added, "I don't care if we have to slide the legislation into the next appropriations bill...we must get it done. This system of people making decisions that the masses don't agree with must come to an end."

Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia concluded the press conference by saying that "the people of America will know that their elected officials have their best interests at heart...economy first, then BCS."

If The Mountain West Adds Boise State and Fresno State, Can the BCS Say No?

Ron Jones — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:59:17 -0500

I think all will agree that the Mountain West Conference is presently the strongest of all of the non-automatically qualifying leagues in college football.

Sure, other schools occasionally provide a few teams capable of winning a lot of games, but the MWC is in perhaps the best position to gain an automatic bid for a few simple reasons.

1. In the states of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, & New Mexico. They own the dominant programs in those respective states. Other than Boise State and Hawaii, all non-BCS programs are down in the pecking order in terms of financial backing, fan support, and media coverage in their own market, which could explain why there is no other leagues are threatening to crack the BCS.

2. The Cotton Bowl is making a huge push to rejoin the elite bowl games, and who better to pursue than the Big 12. If the Big 12 does move to the Cotton Bowl, then it would make sense for the Fiesta Bowl to pursue the MWC as they would be a larger draw in their backyard than either the ACC or Big East.

3. The MWC has shown the ability to schedule and beat teams from BCS conferences as well as have success in the BCS games.

4. The Big East, although having a few good years after the departure of Miami, BC, and VT, is starting to look like it's slowly descending into mediocrity.

With all of these factors in their favor, I think that if the MWC adds Boise State, Fresno State, and another strong team to get them to 12 (UTEP, Nevada, Hawaii, or perhaps San Jose State to grab a toehold in the SF market), the conference will have five or more schools that could and should be ranked throughout the year (BYU, Utah, Fresno State, Boise State, TCU and maybe CSU).

That lineup would be stronger than the Big East and just as good as the Big 12 North. The BCS committee will almost be forced to invite the MWC based on the overall strength of the conference.

Will California's Budget Woes Affect Athletic Departments of FBS Schools?

Ron Jones — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:00:21 -0500

Given the tumult in the state of California these days with the budget deficit estimated at 16 Billion according to a 21 Feb 2009 article in the LA Times. I'm left wondering how will the FBS schools respond to the drastic cuts that will surely come in an attempt to balance the state's budget.

Already news is coming out of Palo Alto that the most successful athletic department (as measured by the director's cup rankings) over the past decade is looking at making significant cuts as a result of loss in revenue. Much of the revenue that Stanford is losing is a result of the under-performance of it's endowment which is a significant contributor of revenue to the athletic department and the university as a whole.

Stanford and USC aside, which are private universities, what will be the effect on state schools dependent on revenue from the Sacramento which if reduced would almost certainly effect the athletic departments.

Will Title IX violations start soaring as athletic departments are forces to obey laws of finance as opposed to well-intentioned but financially naive politicians. Will we see football programs at places like San Jose State, or San Diego State disappear. Or will the athletic departments emerge unscathed by the rounds of budgetary cuts.

We can only hope for the best, but in the mean time I suspect that a lot of change will be happening not only in California but all over the country as the laws of mathematics start reimposing themselves.