Atlanta, Bedlam, and the geopolitics of college football
The strategic implications of Atlanta recruiting and the end of Bedlam.
During one of my final conversations with Jonathan Tjarks, I believe the “Vecna” conversation which ebbed and flowed between intense spiritual warfare and casual sports talk, Jon dropped a fantastic college football take I knew I’d need to eventually borrow.
It was about Texas’ move to the SEC and their future avoidance of what had long been a fruitless partnership in the Big 12 with regional schools like Texas Tech, Baylor, and TCU.
“Yeah see, you don’t want to be playing those schools. The only thing that can happen is that you elevate them. You want to be consolidating your base of power regionally to compete with schools from somewhere else.”
Pretty simple, Bismarckian sense in that argument. What does Texas get from playing smaller schools within the state? If you win, great, you consolidate an area where you already have massive market share. If you lose? You boost potential new rivals.
There are schools which have massive competitive advantages built around being THE school for football in their state. Such as THE Ohio State University, which for a long time didn’t bother playing Cincinnati. The two schools aren’t even really in the same sort of overarching geographic region (barely even in the same state), yet Ohio State was disinclined to give them equal footing. The Buckeyes wanted to be THE school for football players in the state who wanted to play on a big stage. THE school for local businesses and potential patrons to find as an attractive investment.
Many programs have this advantage within their state. Wisconsin is the only major program in a fairly well populated state. LSU is supercharged from being the only big time program in Louisiana. Even Arkansas has some distance between them and any other major programs in their state.
With their moves to the SEC, Texas and Oklahoma accomplished something similar in terms of putting distance between themselves and their local Big 12 partners such as Texas Tech, TCU, Baylor, and Oklahoma State. Don’t think these schools don’t know it all too well, also.
In other states or important areas in college football you will always necessarily have multiple competing interests and programs. Texas battles A&M in Houston and Oklahoma in Dallas. One of the fiercest battlegrounds in college football is for what is arguably the greatest prize. A prize too great to be dominated solely by one program. The Atlanta metro area with its six million people and hordes of talented prospects.
Atlanta is contested in recruiting between much of the SEC, but three powers in particular consider Atlanta to be an essential base. Georgia (duh), Clemson (just a two hour drive), and that school which has been in the news of late for the wrong reasons…Auburn, which is just under two hours from Atlanta in the opposite direction of Clemson.
Here’s some Bismarck-Ian takes on the news of the day about Bedlam and Auburn’s coaching drama.
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