I agree. Stanford and Cal are in a tough position. They are academically elite, but their football teams no longer have USC and Washington to carry the burden of winning big time football. In all honesty, they begged the ACC to take them, but who would you rather have if you were the ACC? Notre Dame or Cal? You see ND is going to have to join a conference and that conference will either be the ACC or a new league will be created to keep the blue blood football teams separate from the rest of the "lower class of teams"...aka Cal, Stanford, Nevada, Texas Tech, etc...So what do they do? I don't know, but I'll tell you what I would do if I were in charge.
We are in a new age of college sport. It's no longer about kids going to college and playing for their school for spirit. That day is over. College sports is business...a billion dollar business. So what are the assets? Our kids. Look around at the college football across the country, what do you see? I see a ton of California kids on Texas, Ohio St, ND, Clemson, Miami, Florida, Georgia...all those "GREAT" football schools are winning with our kids. College football wants California kids but they do not want California schools to get a piece of the pie (kill the PAC). Look at the list of where the top California kids are attending school:
1. Kodi Greene, Santa Ana - Washington
2. Chris Henry, Santa Ana - Ohio St
3. Tommy Tofi, San Francisco - Oregon
4. Brandon Arrington, San Diego - Texas A&M
5. Ryder Lyons, Folsom - BYU
6. Khary Wilder, Gardena - Ohio St
7. Richard Wesley, Chatsworth - Texas
8. Davon Benjamin, Westlake Village - Oregon
9. JD Hill, Mission Viejo - Washington
10. RJ Mosley, Pittsburg - Arizona
Look at that list of the top 100 kids in California, only 20% are staying in California to attend school. Why is that? Why are our kids choosing to attend lower academic schools outside the state? It's not the academics, in most cases we are better. So what is it? I'll tell you, the NCAA and the SEC specifically have turned college football into a business. So what I say is we turn our football schools into a business as well...and we keep our assets at home....except we don't try to buy it by trying to get out of state schools to join California...instead we build our own. We invest in building a California Conference. This will take flushing the "elitism" status we have been taught to believe...aka "Cal, Stanford, UCLA, and USC are the only "real" college football schools. Gotta trash that idea.
California Conference
Cal
Stanford
UC Davis
UCLA
USC
San Diego St
Fresno St
San Jose St
Cal Poly
Sac St
We invest in building a new conference that maximizes our kids opportunities and taps into the largest football talent in the country. We use Silicon Valley and Hollywood to leverage our hand. We create our own TV network. We keep California money in California. We keep our California kids in California. By doing this the rest of the country loses its grip on taking our kids out of state. As the conference grows and money increases, we funnel that into the California schools which impacts all of us. Schools get more funding, business grows, and the overall California economy wins.
By focusing on building California schools, we create more community and natural rivalries. We have the stadiums like the Rose Bowl, Levi Stadium, LA stadium, San Diego.
Do I think this is possible? Yes, however the rest of the nation will not like this at all. They will fight hard to keep it the way it is. They will do everything possible to keep it status quo, because if this did happen, the top talent will stay home and every conference will fight us.
Just my opinon.