Conferencepocalypse II: The music’s still playing

The only things that seemed to happen Thursday were that a) time expired on the Big 12’s release of A&M, and b) this awesome animated GIF made the rounds. Watch for Cy.

Although the Kansas City Star did sense something:

…[O]ne idea seemed to form Thursday that should have every underdog wagging its tail: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri suddenly have leverage.

And then there was this from a St. Petersburg Times columnist who makes sense right until he says “Even with expanded conferences, no one else is talking about throwing teams out.”

Unless he was referring to the Big East specifically, this is absolutely incorrect. It’s the entire background of Baylor’s legal action (or so-far lack thereof). Start with the Oklahoman’s Berry Tramel, saying about the nicest thing anyone’s said about the Cyclones all week:

In all this conference realignment, I feel sorry for only one school. Iowa State. The Cyclones haven’t done anything except mind their own business, try to do things right and play decent football and basketball from time to time. And they might get left out in the cold.

ESPN Big Ten blogger Brian Bennett:

But I just don’t see Iowa State as a viable candidate. For one, it adds nothing in value to the league since the Big Ten already has those TV markets sewn up with Iowa and Nebraska. The Hawkeyes wouldn’t support the move, either. Iowa State is one of those teams that is in serious danger of being left out if the Big 12 crumbles.

Tom Keegan at KUSports.com:

The Big 12 stayed together, and the Big East added TCU, bringing to nine the number of football schools it will field in 2012. It would rather have 12. That’s why Kansas and Missouri need not worry about getting left out of the BCS musical-chairs game, with the Big East being a nice fall-back position. The New York Post reported that the Big East already has extended an offer to KU, K-State and MU. Iowa State will have to look for another home, probably not a BCS one.

A Charleston (WV) Gazette columnist, proposing a “dispersal draft” of sorts to put the Big 12 and Big East out of their misery:

Sorry, Iowa State and Cincinnati, but someone gets left out here.

ESPN’s Pat Forde calls ISU, KSU, and Kansas “undesirable commodities.”

Fox Sports’ Jennifer Floyd Engel, praising Baylor, sort of:

Trying to save the Big 12, a league that seemed doomed by geographical infighting, idiocy and greed since it was founded in the mid-90s, probably seems like a cause not worth fighting for. For Baylor, and their friends also on the wrong side of this situation in Ames, Manhattan (the miserable one in Kansas), Lawrence, Columbia and beyond, though, a sorry-ass joke of a conference run by an idiot is better than a big bag of nothing.

Hawkeye fans, of course, are overjoyed at the prospect of never setting foot in Jack Trice Stadium again because ISU would no longer be an equal – at least, until the Legislature stepped in, which they would.

(I’ll be honest. I have not given a single thought about the game this week. I don’t know how the coaching staff keeps focused, but hats off to them.)

The Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Bianchi still hates us (and the state of Mississippi, for good measure):

And this is the shame of the disgracefully inequitable BCS cartel: It is based on an affiliation of schools formed nearly a century ago – some of which have no business being in BCS leagues today. Do Mississippi, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt really belong in the SEC – the premier conference in the country? What do they really bring to the table? The same with Wake Forest in the ACC and Iowa State and Baylor in the Big 12.

The Des Moines Register has some cold, hard numbers about differences between the haves and the have-nots (hint: It’s a lot).

As a parting thought, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says that this all started because of a few words said about a high school football game.

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