Buzz: This is not the time to panic.
Woody: This is the perfect time to panic!
— Toy Story
Pete Thamel of the New York Times talked to a representative “from a state with a university potentially negatively impacted,” who said “I think the situation is rising to a level where getting Congress engaged may be unavoidable.”
There are only so many states that fit that category. Right up until yesterday, in fact, there were arguably only three: Iowa (Iowa State), Kansas (Kansas/Kansas State), and Texas (Baylor). Missouri could be added in there, but of the Forgotten Five Mizzou has the best chance of survival.
Pitt and Syracuse, as it happens, are the only two members of the Big East that are AAU schools. Only four AAU universities are left in the lurch, all in the Big 12: ISU, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas. (A&M also became an AAU member in 2001.)
And there are rumblings that the ACC could go after UConn and Rutgers next, making the Big East even more feeble. (There goes the idea of regular-season ISU-UConn men’s and women’s basketball, which wouldn’t have been a great consolation prize, but something.)
Iowa State, as a university and as a cultural entity, doesn’t have that much in common with the Big East, in current or future forms. I doubt that their radio and television broadcasts have many ads for herbicides or farm machinery. In Big East land, college anything takes a back seat to the pros, and judging by the Big East’s willingness to play on Friday nights, high school football doesn’t seem to mean as much there either.
But right now, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of options – anywhere. Millions of dollars, not just athletically but academically, are at stake here. To borrow from The Hunt for Red October, this business has already gotten out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.
UPDATE: NBC says Texas to the Pac-12 “almost certain.” (Actually, NBC says that Austin reporter says.) Now is the time to show the button.
UPDATE 2: Most apt quote of the day: “They’re about to push Play for the biggest game of musical chairs ever staged in the United States. It’s anyone’s guess as to who will be sitting where when it stops, and who will be left standing, completely forlorn.”
Running realignment blog from KUSports.com here.