A glance down the emergency stairway told Lightoller the water was now on C Deck … rising fast. But the lights were still bright … the music still ragtime … the beat still lively.
Only two more boats.
— Walter Lord, A Night To Remember
(Three of ISU’s bowl opponents in the 2000s have gone on to win BCS bowl games.)
This year, the Big East has eight football teams and 16 basketball teams. Next year, TCU will become the ninth/17th. That leaves, realistically, three spots, maybe five.
According to multiple sources, the most likely scenario — should Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech leave the Big 12 for the Pac-12 — would bring Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri to the Big East.
When the Big 12 nearly lost five members to the Pac-12 last year, the Big East had an agreement in principle with Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State. The Big East has since added TCU, making Iowa State expendable.
The nation’s first land-grant university, the birthplace of the electronic digital computer, a university that has close relationships and does serious research with both the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture, is about to be thrown on the scrap heap because its football team sucks.
The Houston Chronicle quotes a recruiting consultant making the obvious shot: “The good players want to play the best competition, and no one is arguing that the SEC isn’t the best conference. So from A&M, the talk track will be that you can stay in Texas, play as many home games as you’re playing now, and then when we go out of state, you’ll go to Auburn and Alabama and LSU and Tennessee instead of Iowa, Kansas State and Missouri.”
Funny, I didn’t think the Aggies played the Hawkeyes.