PAC-10: Add Utah and BYU!
19 December 2009 in Facebook Sequel, SportsDear Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott,
I write this letter to minimize your effort in finding suitable teams for the Pacific 10 Conference proposed expansion. Here is your answer: Add BYU and Utah. Done and done.
Let’s be frank. We all know that the proposed augmentations of the Pac-10 and Big-10 (11) have more to do with money than anything else. These conferences want to increase revenue. In practical terms, that means that the conferences are looking specifically at football programs. In today’s fraudulent BCS setup, the more teams a conference has, the greater the likelihood of placing two teams in BCS bowls.Having two teams in BCS bowls means enormous amounts of money for the conference and its schools. None of the money will go to the athlete-students (yes, I purposely put “athlete” before “student”) doing the dirty work, but that’s their problem, and besides, they’re getting an education, right. Additionally, by adding top-performing teams from the non-BCS conferences, the many people criticizing the money-making BCS scheme and its subjective, figure-skating-like ways of ranking teams and selecting games, will be silenced for a while.
Okay, now that we are on the same page after leveling with each other, let’s talk about what teams are best suited to join the Pac-10: BYU and Utah.
-BYU and Utah are major rivals. This rivalry is often ranked in the top 10 or 15 in the country and regularly generates national attention for the close games and fierce intensity among fans. All other schools in the Pac-10 have paired rivals (USC/UCLA; Cal/Stanford; Oregon/OSU; Arizona/ASU; Washington/WSU). The BYU/Utah rivalry is a natural fit.
-BYU and Utah are close to one another. Like all the other rivalries mentioned in the first point, BYU and Utah are not more than a short drive (1 hour) from each other.
-BYU and Utah are close to the other Pac-10 schools, which will mean better attendance ($$$). Rather than forcing players to stretch their road games halfway across the country, Utah is right smack in the middle of Pac-10 territory. Arizona is close. Oregon and California are close (10-14 hours drive). Washington isn’t so close, but the distance from Utah is still less than the Los Angeles-to-Washington road trip.
-Utah opens up the Pac-10 to the Rocky Mountain region. Again, this means more fans, bigger television ratings, and more money for the conference.
-Utah and BYU are academically excellent schools. You would have to reach all the way to Texas and then into the East Coast to find another pair of schools better than BYU and Utah. The Pac-10 is not just about athletics. Rather, it’s a collection of high quality national universities that compete and cooperate with each other.
-BYU and Utah are athletically excellent schools. Utah has been to two BCS games this decade, and was the only undefeated team last season, destroying Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. BYU was the season-ending #1 ranked team in 1984 and has arguably produced the best quarterbacks of any program over the past few decades. They nearly always field a strong football team. Utah reached the NCAA Basketball National Championship several years ago, and regularly has one of the strongest women’s gymnastics teams in the country. Both Utah and BYU have unconventional recruiting techniques, which is what has allowed them to excel in a fairly low density, homogeneous state.
-BYU brings a huge international fan base. Enough $aid.
-BYU has always had a strong national reputation. Utah’s reputation has grown exponentially this decade with its massive successes. Both of these schools are of high enough caliber academically and athletically to jump right into, and add quality to, the Pac-10 mix.
Please, if you have any questions do not hesitate to call!
Happy Holidays,
Brook
Your letter should be distributed widely and a grassroot movement should be devised to make this happen. I lived in Alabama for two years and SEC football is another level of entertainment and popular culture that the PAC 10 schools can attain by adding the two schools you suggested. The academic angle should be considered by the PAC 10 committee. I am a neurobiologist and The University of Utah has an excellent biology and neurobiology program. The neurobiology program alone could be better than that of Oregon State, Arizona State and Washington State, and compete with the rest.
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Thanks! it always makes my day to read a good comment!
I’ve spent the last few years in SEC country, so I know what you mean about it being another level of entertainment. I think there’s a big problem, though, in that most fans seem to want to correlate popularity with talent. Rather than letting teams play it out on the field to determine the best, we allow sportswriters to rank and categorize teams, many of which they’ve admittedly never seen play, and then we have rich old businessmen pick bowl matchups. College football rankings and the entire BCS are a disgrace, and put the sport subjectivity on par with figure skating. Actually, that’s in insult to figure skating—at least skating judges have grading standards and usually aren’t influenced by big businesses. But I digress…
I sent this letter to the Pac-10 assistant commissioner, but he never replied. From other articles I’ve read, it looks like rumors have BYU going to the Big-10 and Utah and a Colorado school moving to the Pac-10. I think it would be a horrible mistake to break up the Utah-BYU tandem and hope it doesn’t happen.
Thanks for the comment and the academic angle. Sadly, most people haven’t the slightest clue about their favorite schools’ academic sides.