alternatehistory.com
2009-10
TV
While the Big 12 South controversy was reaching it peak last season, ESPN took a few headlines away by securing the broadcast rights to the BCS games, other than the Rose which was already under an ABC contract, for four years starting with the 2010-11 season. Media watchers were shocked by their high offer which outbid FOX, who was seeking to keep the games, by over $120 million. In addition, ESPN scooped up the rights to Big East games.
Season
The 2009 season was one marked by revenge. In a rare double revenge game (for OU because they had lost, and Texas because they felt that OU cheated them in the polls in route to their title), Texas prevailed in the Red River Shootout 16-13 after a tough defensive struggle. In the SEC, Florida and Alabama once again entered the conference title game undefeated, but Alabama got their revenge for last year and beat Florida 32-13.
Cincinnati also went undefeated in a major conference (the Big East), and TCU and Boise St went undefeated in the Mt. West and WAC receptively. Even though this left a log jam of 5 undefeated schools, the public was in large support of the Alabama / Texas title game, thought the Big East protested they were being disrespected as a major conference and people claimed it once again showed the bias against the non-major conferences, especially when TCU and Boise St were matched up in a bowl game and thus prevented from having a chance of upsetting a major conference school.
The title game set up another chance for revenge, as Texas had beaten Alabama and last year's Fiesta Bowl, but it was not to be as Colt McCoy threw a go ahead TD pass with under 2 minutes left in the game and Texas hung on to win 28-24.
2009-10 College Football Major Bowls
Title Game: (1) Texas over (2) Alabama 28-24
Fiesta Bowl: (6) Boise St over (3) TCU 17-10
Orange Bowl: (10) Iowa over (9) Georgia Tech 24-14
Rose Bowl: (8) Ohio st over (7) Oregon 26-17
Sugar Bowl: (5) Florida over (4) Cincinnati 51-24
Realignment
In December, after the regular season but before the bowl games, Big 10 commissioner Jim Delaney shook the college football world with the announcement that the Big 10 was looking to expand “to at least 12 schools.” Reasons for doing this was to hold a conference title game and to expand into new markets for the sake of their cable network. It was speculated that they had wanted to expand east into the large TV markets there, but the Big East's new TV deal had included a grant of rights to the conference that largely precluded it (the school's rights would stay with the conference even if the school left), for now. It has been speculated that this saved the Big East as a conference.
Shortly after the PAC 10 announced plans to expand, and for the same reasons as the BIG.
Meanwhile the Big 12 was in a full on internal crisis. The northern schools were displeased with the shift in the conference power to the south (both on and off the field) and unequal TV revenue sharing, and of course alarm over the purposed Longhorn Network. Texas A+M was reaching a breaking point with Texas, and the war of words between Texas and Oklahoma threatened a falling out between the conference's most powerful football schools.
As rumors flew around in the 2010 off-season, the Big 12 held meetings to arrange new revenue and TV agreements. They failed. The rumors only intensified. The PAC would swoop in and take 6 schools and when the dust settled there'd four 6-team super conferences. Schools were trying to join the BIG 10, or the SEC, or both. As the calendar turned to June it became semi-confirmed that the PAC was offering invitations to Colorado/OU/OSU/Texas/A+M/Tech and that the Big 10 was in the final stages of offering Nebraska. The PAC deal fell apart among Texas declining over not being able to have the Longhorn Network in that conference, the PAC's reluctance to go to expand past 12 without Texas being in on it and A+M's putting out feelers to the SEC.
However the Big 10 announced Nebraska would be joining and then the PAC went with plan B and invited just Colorado and Utah, both of who quickly accepted. Boise St announced that they would be joining the Mt. West and BYU announced they were planning on becoming independent. All these moves were expected to take place after the 2010-11 season. The Big 12's turmoil continued as Oklahoma's president David Boren stated that OU would be an active player in realignment, that they were not necessarily committed to the Big 12 if it became something other than what it was, and that they would most assuredly not be playing second fiddle to Texas in anything.
Realignment would continue, but there was another season to play first, and the first one under the new plus one plan.
Notes:
OTL ESPN also won the BCS game rights. Since the Cotton Bowl with the Big East tie-in is part of it ITTL, they were also interested in the Big East rights. OTL they was also interested but they didn't make an offer until a year later, after the R bomb had dropped. The Big East initially accepted the offer but then rejected it because of the PAC's new deal with Fox / their network which paid more (this was ultimately the death blow for the Big East. Here the offer is made before all of that and the Big East accepts it.
The Bowls are OTL, except Colt McCoy doesn't get hurt and Texas wins the game. They were driving late to take the lead before turnovers by the backup QB put the game out of reach, I'm firmly convinced they win that game if McCoy didn't get hurt (which he was early in the game).
Anyways, if fits the theme of this TL, which is a SEC “screw”, compared to OTL's SEC wank. My point was to show how even though the SEC was the best conference during the period, their run of title included a lot of luck (getting into a title game or not getting out of a title game due to one play which might very well have been in a game between non-SEC schools), which then started to give them the benefit of the doubt all the time. I originally was not going to have them win one until the lost one OTL, but now the TL is diverging more with a different title structure and conference makeup (it's coming), so we will see.
While the Big 12 South controversy was reaching it peak last season, ESPN took a few headlines away by securing the broadcast rights to the BCS games, other than the Rose which was already under an ABC contract, for four years starting with the 2010-11 season. Media watchers were shocked by their high offer which outbid FOX, who was seeking to keep the games, by over $120 million. In addition, ESPN scooped up the rights to Big East games.
Season
The 2009 season was one marked by revenge. In a rare double revenge game (for OU because they had lost, and Texas because they felt that OU cheated them in the polls in route to their title), Texas prevailed in the Red River Shootout 16-13 after a tough defensive struggle. In the SEC, Florida and Alabama once again entered the conference title game undefeated, but Alabama got their revenge for last year and beat Florida 32-13.
Cincinnati also went undefeated in a major conference (the Big East), and TCU and Boise St went undefeated in the Mt. West and WAC receptively. Even though this left a log jam of 5 undefeated schools, the public was in large support of the Alabama / Texas title game, thought the Big East protested they were being disrespected as a major conference and people claimed it once again showed the bias against the non-major conferences, especially when TCU and Boise St were matched up in a bowl game and thus prevented from having a chance of upsetting a major conference school.
The title game set up another chance for revenge, as Texas had beaten Alabama and last year's Fiesta Bowl, but it was not to be as Colt McCoy threw a go ahead TD pass with under 2 minutes left in the game and Texas hung on to win 28-24.
2009-10 College Football Major Bowls
Title Game: (1) Texas over (2) Alabama 28-24
Fiesta Bowl: (6) Boise St over (3) TCU 17-10
Orange Bowl: (10) Iowa over (9) Georgia Tech 24-14
Rose Bowl: (8) Ohio st over (7) Oregon 26-17
Sugar Bowl: (5) Florida over (4) Cincinnati 51-24
Realignment
In December, after the regular season but before the bowl games, Big 10 commissioner Jim Delaney shook the college football world with the announcement that the Big 10 was looking to expand “to at least 12 schools.” Reasons for doing this was to hold a conference title game and to expand into new markets for the sake of their cable network. It was speculated that they had wanted to expand east into the large TV markets there, but the Big East's new TV deal had included a grant of rights to the conference that largely precluded it (the school's rights would stay with the conference even if the school left), for now. It has been speculated that this saved the Big East as a conference.
Shortly after the PAC 10 announced plans to expand, and for the same reasons as the BIG.
Meanwhile the Big 12 was in a full on internal crisis. The northern schools were displeased with the shift in the conference power to the south (both on and off the field) and unequal TV revenue sharing, and of course alarm over the purposed Longhorn Network. Texas A+M was reaching a breaking point with Texas, and the war of words between Texas and Oklahoma threatened a falling out between the conference's most powerful football schools.
As rumors flew around in the 2010 off-season, the Big 12 held meetings to arrange new revenue and TV agreements. They failed. The rumors only intensified. The PAC would swoop in and take 6 schools and when the dust settled there'd four 6-team super conferences. Schools were trying to join the BIG 10, or the SEC, or both. As the calendar turned to June it became semi-confirmed that the PAC was offering invitations to Colorado/OU/OSU/Texas/A+M/Tech and that the Big 10 was in the final stages of offering Nebraska. The PAC deal fell apart among Texas declining over not being able to have the Longhorn Network in that conference, the PAC's reluctance to go to expand past 12 without Texas being in on it and A+M's putting out feelers to the SEC.
However the Big 10 announced Nebraska would be joining and then the PAC went with plan B and invited just Colorado and Utah, both of who quickly accepted. Boise St announced that they would be joining the Mt. West and BYU announced they were planning on becoming independent. All these moves were expected to take place after the 2010-11 season. The Big 12's turmoil continued as Oklahoma's president David Boren stated that OU would be an active player in realignment, that they were not necessarily committed to the Big 12 if it became something other than what it was, and that they would most assuredly not be playing second fiddle to Texas in anything.
Realignment would continue, but there was another season to play first, and the first one under the new plus one plan.
Notes:
OTL ESPN also won the BCS game rights. Since the Cotton Bowl with the Big East tie-in is part of it ITTL, they were also interested in the Big East rights. OTL they was also interested but they didn't make an offer until a year later, after the R bomb had dropped. The Big East initially accepted the offer but then rejected it because of the PAC's new deal with Fox / their network which paid more (this was ultimately the death blow for the Big East. Here the offer is made before all of that and the Big East accepts it.
The Bowls are OTL, except Colt McCoy doesn't get hurt and Texas wins the game. They were driving late to take the lead before turnovers by the backup QB put the game out of reach, I'm firmly convinced they win that game if McCoy didn't get hurt (which he was early in the game).
Anyways, if fits the theme of this TL, which is a SEC “screw”, compared to OTL's SEC wank. My point was to show how even though the SEC was the best conference during the period, their run of title included a lot of luck (getting into a title game or not getting out of a title game due to one play which might very well have been in a game between non-SEC schools), which then started to give them the benefit of the doubt all the time. I originally was not going to have them win one until the lost one OTL, but now the TL is diverging more with a different title structure and conference makeup (it's coming), so we will see.
- Jasen777
- Word Count: 1.1k