Plenty of people have partial knowledge of what is going on, but that's something to be mindful of. For example, let's look at a scenario which may or may not happen: someone from the Big 12 office might have caught wind that Miami has reached out to the Big 12. So they go on twitter and break the news "Miami in talks with the Big 12!." Twitter does its thing, and next thing you know, people take it as fact that this is where Miami's future is headed.
Meanwhile, what ACTUALLY happened was Miami reached out to the Big 12 as a contingency plan, to keep the door open just in case it doesn't work out with conference X. But the person at the Big 12 office, well all they know is that Miami was in talks with them.
And this is what I'm talking about, the circle of people who really know what's going on, ie have the complete picture, is smaller than you'd assume and the number of people with incomplete and therefore potentially misleading information is quite large.
Oregon/Washington to the BIG is actually a great example of that. It's not necessarily that things changed (Ore/Wash were likely always going to accept partial shares, what alternative did they have?) so much as the information that the BIG wasn't interested was PARTIAL, yes it was true on the surface and it probably came from a legit source in the Big 10 but what got lost in the game of telephone was that they were only not interested if it were full shares.
Look, NOBODY has the capacity to know everything. NOBODY. Even Genetics, who has plenty of sources and is very wired in, has a blind spot over how much Clemson and F$U would prefer the SEC over the Big 10.
It's not the end of the world, and it's nothing personal. But there are plenty of people who have a lot (not all) information on what is happening.
I'm not assuming anything. I know who I talk to. I know where people I talk to are getting their information from. As an example, I had the Washington-Oregon information BEFORE it broke as a news story. But I didn't tell anyone. And I knew what was about to happen, that the "half-share" was going to become an unwanted option in the various negotiations.
And to be clear, I have always provided context in my comments. When speaking about half-shares, I made it very clear that the Big 10 would be "interested" in USF if USF offered to play for free for a decade. Yes, anything is possible.
What was stated about Washington-Oregon ALL ALONG was accurate. The Big 10 was not interested in them the way they were interested in USC-UCLA, or at the same price.
Everyone does due diligence. I've analyzed WAY more "acquisition targets" than my employer has ever actually acquired. I get it.
But in your Big 12 example (hypothetical or not), you can tell the difference between the TRUE insiders and the gossips. The true insiders **** well know that Miami is never ever ever ever going to choose to join the Big 12. And anyone who "reports" that Miami is in conversations with the Big 12 is just proving the point, that they do not KNOW what is actually happening.
We can compare notes when it all goes down. My intel is solid.
