best shoe on turf #GoBucks pic.twitter.com/8L8z5rBs79 	
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) July 5, 2022
Word of the day: Latent. 
 THE ALLIANCE, PT.  II.  The first “loose partnership” the Pac-12 agreed to led to a swift stab in the back courtesy of the Big Ten when it poached USC and UCLA.  So the Pac-12’s response is to… join another loose partnership? 
	What would a “loose partnership” with the ACC look like?  It could include a joint media rights deal with ESPN, which currently works with both entities.  It also could result in the 10 remaining Pac-12 teams being stuck together and the winner of that “10-team division” playing in an ACC vs. Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas at the end of the season.  Also, there could be some attractive regular-season crossover games between the football and men’s basketball teams. 	
	“Besides geography,” Thompson told me Tuesday, “(the ACC) has significantly better television markets than the Big 12.” 	
As hilarious as this is, does it also sound kind of awesome as a college football fan?  I mean, if there’s anything to keep me interested in the Pac-12 and ACC in the middle of the Big Ten and the SEC just claiming college football for itself, it’s a combined conference title game in Vegas at the end of The year. 
Someone will be the first team in college football history to win two conferences in one season, and that’s about it.  I love the new college football. 
 THIS IS MY LAST DEPOSIT.  For any of you hoping this wave of conference realignment would be the thing to finally propel Notre Dame into the Big Ten, don’t hold your breath. 
You’d be surprised to hear that it sounds like the Irish aren’t interested in joining a conference basically until college football as we know it ceases to exist. 
	A source familiar with the school’s thinking told Sports Illustrated that “independence remains the preference and leader in the clubhouse.”  It will take a lot to dislodge Notre Dame from its cherished identity, but the instability of the entire landscape remains a concern and could further affect the Irish outlook. 	
	Two areas to watch: the fortunes of both the College Football Playoff and the Atlantic Coast Conference.  If either or both collapse, Notre Dame could be forced into the Big Ten.  Under his current contract, the playoffs cease to exist in January 2026. There is no guarantee that another iteration of him will be replaced, of any magnitude.  “The vast majority of writing assumes a playoff and that it’s going to get bigger,” says the industry source.  “I’m not sure about this case.” 	
The most interesting thing here to me is actually the one about the college football playoffs, because somehow, I hadn’t even thought about how all this nonsense would affect the playoffs. 
I guess if the playoffs die, the winner of the new Big Ten can play the winner of the new SEC for the title every year.  That sounds kind of dumb, but realistically, it’s what would probably get us a playoff spot anyway. 
 THE BRAND IS STRONG.  If you want to know why Ohio State still attracts recruits looking for that precious NIL money, even though the Buckeyes don’t squeeze in that NIL collegiate money like other schools, it’s actually pretty simple – the brand. 
Ohio State’s national brand and social reach surpasses absolutely any other team in the country. 

	College football programs generating the most interactions on official team social media accounts in June 2022. pic.twitter.com/WGjWB5eRZp 	
— SkullSparks (@SkullSparks) July 5, 2022
With a huge devoted fan base, a star player with the Buckeyes is always, always worth a hefty price in the NIL market. 
 THE SAVIOR OF UCLA.  The Big Ten may have just saved UCLA’s athletic department. 
	The timing is uncertain and the number of teams that would have been affected is not known, but the Bruins were headed for an Olympic sports Armageddon without the cash infusion that will accompany its departure from the Pac-12 Conference in 2024. 	
	Now its 25 teams and more than 700 athletes can breathe a sigh of relief knowing their futures are secured, making those cross-country flights and frigid midwinter temperatures in Big Ten country that much more bearable. 	
	“If you love Olympic sports, you should be a fan of this move,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond told The Times on Tuesday.  “When your program has significant debt, it’s hard to just maintain it, never mind invest.  This not only preserves the programs now — which was not a given — but will also allow us to invest in them.  This move allows us to reimagine what UCLA athletics can be with more strategic investment and resources.” 	
	Over the past three fiscal years, UCLA’s athletic department ran a $102.8 million deficit, which it only projected would get worse given the school’s declining football attendance and paltry Pac-12 payouts that lagged behind their major conferences. .  It’s now understood the Bruins could get $100 million from the Big Ten annually if the expanded conference can nail down its projected $1 billion media rights deal that is set to begin in 2024. 	
That’s a big reason why I thought Stanford would be interested in following USC and UCLA in the Big Ten – that’s another absolutely huge athletic program that could definitely use an infusion of cash to keep all 36 of its sports. university. 
 SONG OF THE DAY.  “Pursuit of Happiness” by Kid Cudi. 
 NOT STUCK IN SPORTS.  Women look to porn addicts on Reddit for relationship advice… The hotly debated mechanics of pterosaur flight… What a dying hip-hop star has to do with dictators everywhere… An exonerated man who spent 33 years wrongfully in prison is arrested again for attempted murder… A 76-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton is to be auctioned in New York… Ed Dwight was going to be the first black astronaut, but history had other ideas.  ..