Wilner with some love for the Utes:
“If we reach the point where it all implodes and the Big Ten and SEC are both 22-24 schools – and I expect this by the early 2030s – then Utah would have a good chance to make the cut.”
(I don’t have the Twitter link)
That’s a great point. For our vacation we spent time in the Texas Hill Country. Any rancher you talk to there has more diversified financial management experience, dealing with a diverse labor pool and internalized economic theory praxis than any academic I have ever met.
Edit to say that to expect an invite to the B1G is still pie in the sky. OreWash is going to do what’s best for them. I see the B1G taking UNC, UVA and possibly Cal/Stanford to expand its footprint. Big alumni bases, healthy endowments, top notch academics (to offset tOSU and Nebraska) . I say join ranks with the other 4 corner schools and go to the Big 12 now to establish it as the necessary 3rd bloc in college football OR prepare to join antitrust litigation against the SEC/B1G.
My preference is for the PAC to stick together, B1G, B12, in that order.
If we ever were invited to the B1G there would be a sizable western division, so that would be most like sticking with the PAC.
If we joined the B12, that would be fine, too.
Really, we’re talking about sports. Whatever happens we’ll be OK. If I lived in Albuquerque I’d probably go to the Lobos games. “Everyone’s a Lobo… woof, woof, woof!” (Who can’t get behind that kind of Back-to-the-Wacky-WAC atmosphere?)
People have real problems, this ain’t one of them.
Weird none of y’all think the SEC wouldn’t have an interest in expanding west or that you wouldn’t want to join that conference.
If the 2 Supers goes really big, I’d be more than fine with SEC, too. That’s in the no-brainer category (even though I’d prefer to stick with either PAC or B1G for the academic aspect, realizing for most fans it’s sports. We’re not in the drivers seat, so I’d be happy not having to walk.)
There could be some value in overlapping geographies, if things went that way. SEC would need to expand geographically, north and west.
Four corners would provide MT / AT product. Even though they currently don’t add numbers and have always been somewhat of a sleeping giant, SDSU could be getting attention from the P5, possibly the S2 in the future.
I think the key is to create regional “pods” so the travel isn’t stupid, and regional rivalries can add that spice for the fans. (Would Cal be a logical PT addition?)
One thing - if SEC goes into the MT/AT time zone or PT, gotta think about re-branding.
The SEC doesn’t strike me as a conference that is looking to expand any further west than Texas. Their members don’t usually seem to travel very far out of the southeast. Whether that is cause or effect, I don’t know.
I grew up in ABQ and my first Lobo game was my freshman year of college when Utah visited UNM and me and some friends drove down. With them driving, took 6.5 hours (usually 10).
That’s one seriously scary drive. All the 2-way. Catching air in dips on the road through the Apache rez out of Farmington, NM. I made that drive 3 years ago, just after New Years, after the storm that dumped snow on Tucson.
Here’s a butte just south of Cortez, CO
Because you have to go thru Cuba.
Why is it weird? It was only last month that Greg Sankey said “the SEC will not expand just to expand.”
FTFO!
I know this would shock people but I’ve heard from people I worked with that the SEC at one point talked about having Two or Three teams from the Midwest (ND, Michigan and OSU) join and adding UNC or Virginia. I know some would be shocked but if you add a combo of those 4 to one conference it’s a wrap. That would probably Nuke college sports. However I could see the SEC Adding WVU, Ok State, Colorado and Utah. UF really doesn’t want the other two Florida ACC schools, UGA doesn’t want Ga Tech, So Carolina doesn’t want Clemson and UK def doesn’t want Louisville.
I value Utah. Why would their addition be expanding to just expanding? I think adding Utah would make the SEC stronger. Unlike SC and UCLA who weakened the B1G brand. A broke ■■■ Basketball school and a corrupt has been program, bleh.
Dude comes on to the board acting like UCLA and SC are getting eyeballs. Utah had three of the Pac 12’s highest-rated games last season. SC didn’t have one top 5 game.
2019, Utah had a game with over 4 million viewers, SC didn’t. You have to go back to 2018 to find one game over 4 million for SC and it was a Notre Dame game. 2017 was the last time SC had a conference game with over 4 million viewers and that was against UCLA.
Games of 4 million plus viewers since 2018:
Utah-5
SC-1
SC vs. UCLA got less viewers than South Carolina vs Auburn this season on the same weekend. Sad.
I think you missed where I mentioned how Utah was superior to SC in TV Viewers? 
I also was discussing how Utah would fit in other conferences. Arguing Alabama would be boooooring.
Some of y’all act like I am a tourist and didn’t attend Utah’s biggest game and flashed a 
the whole game.
US 491 from Shiprock to Gallup used to be 666 and one of the most deadly highways (and lots of ghost stories too). I only went that way once, but US 550 has improved a lot with some 4-lane due to being a route for nuclear waste (or at least that was the plan before Yucca mountain was essentially killed). In the dark is even crazier and when someone is going nearly 100, those dips become head hitters if the seat belt isn’t tight enough.
NM - land of entrapment … 
But I digress.
This. SEC would not invite us and has enough teams in the SE to not get too far away geographically.
How was that? When I was at the U I had classes with a guy who grew up in ABQ. He said it was pretty rough for a white kid in the schools there.
DU will have much better info, but ABQ varies a LOT in neighborhoods. The east side, Tramline, is kind of like Foothill Blvd here in SLC. (That’s where Hank lived in BB). The east side is gorgeous.
There are some decent areas around the University and in suburbs up north. On the west side of the Rio Grande it’s really tough… like in BB. I have a cousin who lives next to the AFB / “Sunport” and she says it’s a little rough.
Albuquerque provided Mike Judge the experiences he used in creating Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill, Idiocracy, etc. I’ll bet it was a “unique” experience for high schoolers.
I think I was insulated for the most part growing up in the NE part of the city (and in a gated community after we got robbed). City is aging and most new growth is out in Rio Rancho (solid middle class) or the westside (city is boxed in by the AFB and some reservations), but NE part was mostly upper middle class (doctors, lawyers, engineers, dentists, business owners). There are pockets of nice areas and lots of pretty areas to the east up the canyon (but becoming increasingly alt right). When we went down to play tennis at some Valley schools, we were told NOT to wear our school gear.
I grew up there in the 80s/90s but still visit my parents and 1 sister who is still there. We wouldn’t probably move there with our mixed-race family (through adoption) as there are some challenges in the schools and policing. But growing up there, we mostly just hung out at friend’s house or cruised Montgomery which was the classier road to cruise rather than Central.
One of my favorite tales from Albuquerque was flying in for a Utes game, getting a rental car at the Sunport, which was only $9 a day.
The kid who checked me out asked if I wanted their supplemental insurance, and I waved him off. He asked a second time, and I said my own insurance would cover things, and then he took the sales pitch to the max:
“It’s only $20 a day, and if I could remind you, sir… you are in New Mexico”
I laughed and took the insurance. I don’t think the Governor or the ABQ Chamber of Commerce would appreciate his sales style. The neighborhood near University Stadium was definitely “modest” but I didn’t have a problem.
Again, I don’t think you guys realize how much sway current members have in blocking their ACC rivals from joining.
