Things fall apart, the center cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
— W.B. Yeats
Yeah, it’s like this, only a thousand times worse.
To all of you who stumbled here after reading my column in the Des Moines Register: Hi. Take a look around. Main site link is under the title picture.
Stuff is going to happen today. The board of regents for the state University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas board of regents both have “conference alignment” on their agendas. The Austin American-Statesman says a Pac-16 format is already being hammered out. See also this story from the Register about ISU and the Big East.
I’m a pessimist at heart, and with everything I’ve read about this situation, it’s hard not to be. Unless the University of Iowa has a change of heart and tells the Big Ten “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,” Iowa State is at serious risk of being swallowed up by the shifting tectonic plates of the college sports world. As someone who bleeds cardinal and gold (see bottom), it’s hard to think positive after repeatedly reading stuff like this:
Unfortunately, a few others like Iowa State and Baylor will be looking for someone to take them into the fold and may find that the WAC, MWC, or Conference USA will be their only options.
And SI’s Stewart Mandel, a sentence conspicuous in what it doesn’t say:
If anything, it now makes more sense than ever for [the Big East] to pursue Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri to replace its two departing basketball powers.
Or this semi-obituary of the Big East from an ESPN columnist — and she’s coming from the basketball side:
But you don’t replace an iconic school like Syracuse and a competitive, big-market powerhouse like Pittsburgh with, say, Iowa State and Baylor and call it an even swap.
And this from the AP as a BEST-case scenario (note choice of words):
The Big 12 schools left behind — Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor and Iowa State — might make serviceable fits for a reconstituted Big East.
There are four Division I-A football schools within 500 miles of Ames not in the Big Ten, Big 12, or named Notre Dame: Northern Illinois, Tulsa, Arkansas, and Western Michigan. None of them are in the existing Big East (although two basketball schools are).
There’s this nugget in an interesting take on the whole thing from the Sporting News:
According to various reports, the ACC is going to add Texas, UConn and Rutgers unless Texas goes to the Pac-12 with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, which disperses what’s left of the Big 12 to the what’s left of the Big East and/or the Western Athletic Conference unless the Big Ten gets antsy and tries to co-opt Notre Dame.
NPR has done a story. Big Eight – where have I heard that before?
A Louisville Courier-Journal columnist wonders about political scrutiny, and messes up the name of Iowa’s senior senator. (Richard Grassley?)
As I’ve said earlier here, I hope against hope that I am wrong. I want to be horribly, absurdly wrong. The next few hours, and weeks, will tell.
Halloween 1983. (Oct. 29: Missouri 41, Iowa State 18; Nov. 5, #1 Nebraska 72, Iowa State 29.) If only I had known what lay in store.
UPDATE: Added link to column. Corrected line about Oklahoma regents.