Sigh. It was nice while it lasted. Back to scrambling for the lifeboats. Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
A statement by Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive, acknowledging plans to have a 13-team league that includes Texas A&M in the 2012-13 school year, marked that league’s first indication that it will not sit still and let the Aggies’ desired move be stalled by the legal threats of Baylor and other Big 12 schools.
Also, Oklahoma regents have scheduled a Sept. 19 meeting in Claremore, Okla. The agenda will not be finalized until Friday but multiple Big 12 sources said Monday that a likely item will be realignment. One regent told the Tulsa World that “sensitive” negotiations are expected.
The official statement from the SEC is here. Notice the sentence “When Texas A&M joins our conference, we don’t have immediate plans for a 14th member.” But Google knows all and sees all:
Texas tried to talk to Oklahoma in an apparently fruitless effort. And where Oklahoma goes, Oklahoma State goes.
Andy Staples says this has escalated from a game of chicken to a Mexican standoff, and it’s all in Oklahoma’s hands:
But Oklahoma and the Pac-12 won’t make a move unless Texas A&M and the SEC make a move. Texas A&M and the SEC won’t make a move unless Oklahoma and the Pac-12 make a move. Either act would tip the domino that destroys the Big 12 as we know it, and neither side wants to be considered the responsible party and open itself to lawsuits from Baylor, Iowa State and any other school that stands to lose its seat at the financial grown-ups table.
Staples, if you’ve been following along, has already kicked Iowa State out once. (Alternate link here; I was having trouble with that one.) The Omaha World-Herald kicked Iowa State out in its version, too. So did Oklahoma’s KOTV. And the Macon Telegraph (“Any takers? No, not really. Didn’t think so.”).
CBS Sports’ Ray Ratto was a little more colorful in his language:
All I know is that every moment spent debating Iowa State’s legal rights not to be abandoned to the apparent hell of Conference USA, or to watch Baylor desperately trying not to be forcibly ram-rodded into a reconstituted Southwest Conference, is a moment not dedicated to the greater PR disasters at Miami and Ohio State and etc. etc. etc.
The Oklahoman’s Jenni Carlson says Oklahoma City shouldn’t be hitting the panic button yet in regards to the city losing conference tournaments, but “they’ve hit it in Ames, Iowa, where Iowa State could be left without a home.” The Kansas City Star, though, if not pressing the button for what it will do to Kansas City’s college sports scene, is really, really leaning on it.
The Star’s Blair Kerkhoff says the fact that Iowa State could be left hanging “borders on insulting” (read the whole thing):
Iowa State finds itself in the line of realignment fire. If the Big 12 dissolves, the Cyclones could end up outside of a major conference, the chatter goes. … Somehow, a program that just defeated Iowa — and one that is averaging more fans at home this season than eight schools in the Pac-12, seven in the ACC, five in the Big Ten, plus Oklahoma State and Texas Tech — doesn’t cut muster in the major-college football world.
But it’s not the Iowa State that just defeated Iowa that’s the subject here. It’s the Iowa State that lost 15 straight to Iowa and is singlehandedly responsible for more than 10% of Nebraska’s all-time wins. It’s the Iowa State that, from 1963 to 1999, only had more than six wins three times and then went 55-68 in the 2000s.
Oh, and by the way, a previously scheduled Missouri Board of Curators meeting Monday had a “mystery item” on the agenda.
This liveblog from the Lawrence Journal-World goes through Monday’s events.