Mike DeCourcy Discusses Impact of College Conference Realignment

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00:00Of course, Mike, of course, he joins us every week from the sporting news.

00:07He's a legend.

00:08You see him on Fox Sports, Big Ten Network doing hooves.

00:11He comes on here and rages about everything, soccer, you name it.

00:15So Mike, the conferences are changing again.

00:19Are you buying that Gonzaga's going?

00:21Are you buying the Utah State stories?

00:25Some people are refuting it.

00:27Some people say it's legit.

00:29Where do you think all these teams end up when it's all said and done?

00:33Well, there's also a lawsuit that was filed today by the Pac-12 against the penalty fees

00:41that would be due the Mountain West for taking certain members of their league.

00:46So it really has become wild in the last week.

00:50What's interesting to me is that there's this level of interest, even though we're talking

00:55about what the zombie Pac-12 and the Mountain West and the American Conference, leagues

01:01that don't usually get that much attention.

01:03So maybe a little bit of expansion talk is good for them because it puts their product

01:09in the spotlight some.

01:10I'm not sure where the Pac-12 ends up at this point.

01:15I didn't like their strategy at all for what they did.

01:18I thought that, honestly, that what the Pac-12 and Mountain West should have done was cooperate,

01:24put together a league that added Oregon State and Washington State to the existing Mountain

01:32West, and then just decide which is a better brand.

01:36Mountain West is a pretty cool name.

01:38Pac-12 is a really powerful name that's been around for a long time.

01:42Decide which is a better brand and go from there.

01:44Instead, they decided to fight each other.

01:47And I don't think that the strategy of the reanimated Pac-12 has been good.

01:52They did not have a good handle on their attempt to raid the American Conference.

01:56And look, first of all, if you go after Tulane, Scott, I mean, you do not know what you're

02:01doing.

02:02All right.

02:03You don't want to get Tulane.

02:04Tulane is a wonderful university.

02:07And New Orleans is a cool city.

02:09But you don't want that athletic program.

02:11Even though the football program has gotten better competitively on the field, it's still

02:15not a prime program.

02:18Its history is so up and so down.

02:22It's not one that's been consistent.

02:25The addition of Tulane to the Big East back in 2013, I believe it was, was what precipitated

02:33the basketball school saying, heck with this, we're out of here.

02:36We're going somewhere else and doing our own thing.

02:40So I didn't like the fact that the Pac-12 did that.

02:42And then to get rejected by Tulane, Memphis, and USF shows they really didn't have a good

02:48plan.

02:49They should have been all in on Vegas, which offers so much in terms of the possibility

02:55of what the Rebels could become, what they have been many times in basketball.

02:59And hey, Scott, the worst case scenario, if you add Vegas, what is it?

03:04The worst case scenario is your team goes on the road, gets a W, and all your fans get

03:08to go to Vegas.

03:09How do you not want them in your league?

03:12Are they staying in the Mountain West?

03:14That's their plan.

03:15And do you think that, I talked about this earlier yesterday about St. Mary's.

03:22Why are they being left out?

03:23Because they're pretty good at hoops too.

03:25Well, it comes down to the fact that in a case of St. Mary's, they have a magnificent

03:31basketball program, but not one that, one that is believed to have endurance.

03:38And it doesn't have great national appeal.

03:42It has, it has had great success nationally, but it's not like a lot of people are turning

03:48on the television when St. Mary's is there, unless they're playing Gonzaga, which is a

03:52brand that draws people to the television set and is why there is some interest in the

03:57Pac-12 in adding them as a basketball member.

04:00I'm not sure where Vegas goes because they were pretty much firm on staying in the Mountain

04:06West when they, when they weren't initially invited by the Pac-12.

04:10And then the idea that Utah State might cross the line there and go to the Pac-12 sort of

04:16destabilized Vegas's interest in remaining in the Mountain West.

04:19So we don't know where it's going to end up at this point.

04:23As you said, even Utah State's interest in the Pac-12 now seems to be dubious.

04:28I just think that the Pac-12 strategy here was really poor.

04:33And why should we be surprised now?

04:35Because whoever's been in charge, the Pac-12 in the last 15 years has made very few good

04:42moves from hiring Larry Scott, to letting him run things as he did, to then when he

04:47was, when he departed, to then asking for a King's ransom for their television rights

04:53and seeing a reasonable contract go to the Big 12 instead that could have been, belonged

04:58to the Pac-12.

04:59They haven't, when's the last time they made a good move?

05:01When they decided they wanted UCLA maybe?

05:03Was that the last time?

05:05But I mean, do you really, I never thought it should have, you know, broken up.

05:10Seriously.

05:11I thought it was a great conference.

05:13Maybe they had bad decision, bad people running it.

05:17Who knows?

05:18I never thought it should have ended.

05:19And I think that they're trying to save it is a good thing.

05:24And I loved it.

05:25You didn't like watching those basketball games and the West Coast football games?

05:29I really was rooting hard for the Pac-12 to remain together.

05:32I understood why USC and UCLA left with the opportunity they had to make the money they

05:37would make and to compete at the level that the Big 10 will compete with the SEC, et cetera.

05:42I understood that.

05:44After that, I was hopeful that the Pac-12 would survive, but Scott, they did it to themselves.

05:50At that point, their contract was worth X number of dollars and they asked for X plus

05:56and they stood firm at X plus and it backfired on them because the ESPN said, OK, we'll just

06:03go sign up the Big 12 instead and you guys can do whatever you want to do.

06:07And then there was no one left to bid for them.

06:10At that point, Fox wasn't interested and there are only so many players in this market.

06:14The only other player at that point was Apple, which meant going entirely online.

06:19And the money would have been sufficient, but they felt skeptical about whether they'd

06:23be able to recruit in an entirely online world, an entirely streaming world.

06:29And so they balked at that.

06:31And then before long, you saw Oregon and Washington peel off to the Big 10.

06:37And then it was pretty much over.

06:39When you saw USC go to Michigan, play them in, you know, the big house.

06:45Did you think that, you know, them and UCLA and these, you know, Washington's and Oregon's

06:51going there in the end was a good idea?

06:54It was such a great game.

06:55And the future looks bright with those types of games.

06:58It was such a heavyweight tilt.

07:00It could have been a national championship.

07:02You remember my whole life.

07:04You'd watch Michigan play USC in the Rose Bowl, but never in this setting in a Big 10 game.

07:10I think that it's been very good for the conferences that have expanded and survived.

07:16And I think it's been very good for the viewers.

07:20And I think there's been much too much histrionics about the travel for the non-revenue sports.

07:25And I pointed out in the column that I wrote last week about why this is good or can be good.

07:32The Pitt volleyball team.

07:34I live in Pittsburgh.

07:35Pitt's volleyball team is number one in the country.

07:37They have yet to lose a set.

07:39I think they are 9-0 at this point.

07:41They have won 27 consecutive sets.

07:45That's how good they are.

07:46They began their season by going to Oregon and playing two matches out there.

07:50Then after coming home for one, then they went on the road to Southern California and

07:55played three matches out there.

07:56All of them were non-league matches.

07:58None of them were mandatory.

08:00They chose to do it.

08:01Why?

08:02Because it would make them better.

08:04Fine by me.

08:05Whatever makes you better and whatever you feel comfortable doing, fine.

08:07But at no point did Pitt say, oh, we can't go to the coast twice in the first three weeks

08:11of the season.

08:12It'll tire our players out.

08:14No, they went for it.

08:15They played great.

08:16As I mentioned, they played perfectly.

08:18And now they're in the situation that they are joining the ACC competition soon.

08:23And they'll play some more regional opponents.

08:26But also, at some point, they'll probably have to play Stanford and Cal, home or away.

08:32And so somebody's going to have to travel.

08:34That's the way it is now.

08:36And I think that the concern about the non-revenue travel, as long as it can be afforded, and

08:42it certainly can be afforded at the Big Ten and SEC level, I don't see any problem at

08:46all.

08:47Who do you like in the Georgia-Bama game Saturday in Tuscaloosa?

08:53I think the tide's going to shock them.

08:56Really?

08:57I think Kalen DeBoer is a magnificent coach.

09:00Jalen Milrow has played great.

09:02And Georgia, man, we saw them against Kentucky.

09:04Did not look like they were vintage Georgia.

09:06So we'll see how it goes.

09:07But I favor the tide.

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