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Minnesota Insider Reported in April That USC Had Contacted B1G

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iowabuckeyes's picture
by iowabuckeyes
July 7, 2022 at 12:08am
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SIAP in another expansion thread but this was news to me. The tweet below is from a Gopher insider and dated April 4, 2022. In the video, he says:

  • His info came from a B1G insider who’s been leaking news to him since 2014. 
  • Contact was initiated by USC because it wanted to make more money than the PAC-12 was going to be able to pay. Contact was made even earlier than April 4 but that’s the date he became aware of it.
  • USC acted alone and on its own behalf, which means UCLA was added later. 
  • The SEC added Texas and Oklahoma because once it was clear they wanted out of the Big XII, the SEC knew it couldn’t let them go elsewhere (i.e., B1G, Big XII) and Kevin Warren needed to look at USC in the same light—would the B1G be willing to say no and then look like idiots as the Trojans defected to the SEC?

This news creates 3+ month timeline from whenever USC’s initial contact was to the June 30 announcement that USC and UCLA were joining the B1G.

My key takeaways:

  • How and when did UCLA get added to the mix as USC’s plus-1 when there were other—and arguably better—options, e.g., Notre Dame, Oregon?
  • We shouldn’t expect a deal with Notre Dame or any other school to be done in a couple days or even weeks. Unless the Irish decline quickly—which would be foolish because you should always run out every ground ball—it’s going to take awhile. If nothing else, they might learn something that could aid them in their upcoming negotiations with  NBC or another network.
  • Kevin Warren was in the loop all along, which suggests he deserves due credit for a) keeping a lid on it (even though there’s evidently a mole on his staff), and b) getting it done. It was his deal to screw up and he didn’t.

Lastly, how did we not hear about this back in April or did I just miss it somehow? I found it on a Penn State 247 thread started on April 4, 2022. (Out of curiosity, I’ve been checking other B1G teams’ fan sites to see what their feelings are about more B1G expansion, specifically adding Notre Dame.)

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