Thread: Florida St. wooed by Big XII

It's out in the open now that the Big XII has been wooing Florida St. with the release of a memo from the school president weighing the pros and cons of such a move. The ACC isn't as solid a football conference and FSU may one of only a few schools (Miami, Clemson, VT the others) that seem to care more about football than basketball.

The president (a former regent at the University or Texas) claimed that the ACC is too Carolina-centric and too basketball-oriented. However, the Big XII, he noted is too Texas-centric and doesn't share money evenly. He also laments that Big XII schools might not travel to Tallahassee and that he'd like to keep the rivalry with Miami.

The other problem is that the Big XII, if it expands, wants to keep the four Texas schools and the two Oklahoma schools in the same division which means FSU's rivals would become West Virginia, Kansas, Kansas St., Iowa St. and one other school - not exactly geographic neighbors or ones with big traveling parties.

So, the only way I see this working is if the Big XII can woo Miami or Clemson to join them and while I could see Miami doing that, I can't see Clemson passing up all their close neighbors for distant shores even though they sometimes feel dismissed by the North Carolina schools.

That still makes the "East Division" look awfully spread out. I think Louisville and Cincinnati are better choices because of their proximity to West Virginia but neither has the prestige of FSU.

I honestly don't see the Big 12 as much of an upgrade, at least not enough to warrant jumping conferences and changing geographic rivalries.