Hey all,
I just got back from talking to my friend who works in Athletics (we do early morning runs sometimes).
According to him, there has been a ton of behind the scenes activity in USF athletics and moving to the Big 12. He was working till late last night on communications and proposals and apparently AD Kelly has been working the phone, his CFP connections, and every other avenue for the past two days.
The big thing is it looks like USF is likely to have a home in the Big 12. However, AD Kelly is working very hard to keep this under wraps and out of the media so we don’t get undermined by some of our competitions.
A couple interesting notes:
- WVU is the driving force behind USF joining the B12. Based on our rivalry and past games, WVU started reaching out and lobbying the other Big 12 schools last night after their meeting.
- USF’s status as being in a BCS conference before and being able to be ranked #2 in the nation is carrying a ton of weight with the other schools.
- USF is prepared to offer a deal where they will accept no revenue from the Big 12 for the first two years as provisional members. After two years, if USF can prove their worth through increased attendance and performance, they will get full membership. These are two of our weak spots and they think offering to forego revenue for two years will “sweeten the pot.”
The excitement in the air is palpable, with one old timer comparing the feeling to what was going around in 2005! He also gave me a couple other really interesting tidbits, but I can’t post them here on a public forum, these are things that can’t get out to the “competition.”
Go Bulls!