ORLANDO, Fla. — Terry Mohajir doesn’t seem worried in the least about the most recent upheaval in college football and what it could mean for his athletic program as it gets ready to enter a new conference.
In fact, during a phone conversation on Tuesday, the UCF athletics director seemed more delighted than distressed with how UCF’s new league — the Big 12 — is positioned in the aftermath of last week’s shocking announcement that USC and UCLA are leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten.
There are some who believe the Pac-12 will now raid the Big 12, but Mohajir seems to think it’s the other way around in what is expected to be the next major battle in the ongoing conference expansion wars.
“I think we’re in a really good position of strength,” Mohajir says. “I think the Big 12 is going to be a stronger conference in the future because of what’s just happened and I truly believe that this gives us opportunities to be aggressive.”
Although Mohajir didn’t come right out and say it and wouldn’t name the teams the “aggressive” Big 12 might be pursuing, there has been widespread speculation that Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State would be the prime targets.
If brand-new Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is the bright, bold, out-of-the-box thinker Mohajir and everyone says he is then he won’t stop with Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State. The Big 12 should also go after the Pac-12′s three remaining marquee programs — Oregon, Washington and Stanford. Those three schools seem to be holding out hope that they, too, will get invited into the Big Ten, but if they don’t — what then? Are they going to stay in a weakened Pac-12 or swallow their pride and join forces with the Big 12?
With all the speculation of college football moving toward two or three mega-conferences, think of the impact it would make if the Big 12 and Pac-12 essentially merged and formed the very first mega-conference of 20 or more teams. With both conferences in the process of negotiating new TV deals, wouldn’t now be the perfect time to negotiate such a merger? It would be a brassy move, but isn’t that what Yormark, the former chief operating officer of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, is known for?
Granted, a complete Big 12-Pac-12 merger is a longshot, but even if the Big 12 were to add four Pac-12 teams to get to 16 members that would still put the Big 12 in an enviable position moving forward. It’s no secret that the SEC and Big Ten are college football’s unquestioned Power 2 with the ACC being a distant third. However, a legitimate case could certainly be made that a 16-team Big 12 — with the addition of Utah, Colorado and the Arizona schools — could supplant the ACC as the third-best conference in college football.
It’s the Big 12 position — and a logical one to be sure — that desired members of the Pac-12 need to move east and join the Big 12 instead of desired Big 12 members moving west to join the Pac-12. Why? Because conference expansion is all about TV ratings and TV networks, and it’s no secret that the further east you go, the better your TV ratings are. An expanded Big 12 that covers the Eastern, Central and Mountain time zones would be appealing for TV networks. The Western Time Zone, even without the L.A. market, would be even more appealing.
That being said, nothing is guaranteed in today’s rapidly changing college football world. An empowered Big 12, of course, would be the best-case scenario for UCF, but what happens if the Pac-12 somehow ends up winning the expansion battle and plucking programs from the Big 12 such as Oklahoma State, Baylor and perhaps incoming member BYU and its national brand? That would leave UCF in a watered-down Big 12 that is really no better than its current conference — the American.
Which is probably why Mohajir says he is spending a lot of time on the phone these days trying to get a handle on possible scenarios.
Not only is Mohajir talking to his soon-to-be Big 12 brethren, but he’s likely on the phone to other conferences as well. If he’s not, he should be — just in case.
He should be on the phone with Pac-12 officials, letting them know that it would behoove them to have a school in a major TV market in the Eastern Time Zone in the recruiting-rich State of Florida.
He should be on the phone with ACC officials, letting them know if Florida State and Miami should bolt for the SEC then it would behoove the “Atlantic Coast Conference” to have a TV and recruiting presence in the largest state on the Atlantic Coast.
He should be on the phone with Big Ten officials, letting them know if they really want to be a truly national conference then they should certainly have a TV footprint in the third most-populous state in the nation.
And, yes, he should be on the phone with SEC officials, telling them to forget about adding FSU and Miami because UCF is in a bigger TV market than both of those schools and might actually have more future growth potential as well.
Isn’t it crazy how much things have changed in a matter of a week?
The UCF Knights are set to join the Big 12 after the upcoming football season, but who really knows what Big 12 they will be joining?
Will it be an expanded, empowered Big 12 that has surpassed the ACC or will it be a weakened, watered-down Big 12 that is no better than the AAC?
“I’m very confident about where the Big 12 is positioned moving forward,” Mohajir says.
I think Mohajir might be right
For UCF’s sake, I sure hope he is.
