On the football field, the Big 12 Conference is a combined 23-2. In fact, by one metric right now it’s the nation’s best conference. Iowa State is undefeated after three fourth-quarter comebacks and will face undefeated Texas in a game on FX that might be called by Gus Johnson. Iowa State got more votes in the AP poll than Ohio State or Notre Dame, and even got one from Mike Hlas.
And nobody is talking about it. The joyful air of football season has been sucked out of the room by one dreadful word, almost a euphemism really – “realignment”. Forces from within and without are picking at the Big 12 like a wounded buffalo on the Great Plains. (OK, enough with the tortured metaphors.)
In retrospect, we should have known the whole thing was doomed when it was based on something that historically has been very difficult: Getting Texans to show humility.
It may not be the point of no return for the Big 12 and the alignment of college athletics as we know it, but Oklahoma and Texas passed a significant milestone Monday when each school’s board of regents voted to empower its president to negotiate with other conferences. Barring an eleventh-hour miracle even more incredible than the one that saved the Big 12 in June 2010, the conference as currently constituted is toast, and its explosion could set off shockwaves that affect nearly every other conference.
The Wall Street Journal is blunt right from the title, “Schools That Could End Up Nowhere”:
So which schools’ fans should be the most nervous? According to six former coaches, athletic directors and TV media and marketing experts contacted by the Journal, the six most vulnerable programs are Baylor, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Louisville, South Florida and TCU. These schools, said former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer, “are in a really tough spot right now.” …
Not only do Baylor and Iowa State play in small media markets, experts say, they also lack the prestige of other Big 12 teams such as Oklahoma and Texas. The Bears and Cyclones also have another strike: they’re not the most popular programs in their own states.
Gregg Doyel admits hypocrisy on the subject, but says now is the time for Congress to do something:
We would have Kansas State and Iowa State and Cincinnati and Louisville most likely kicked to the curb because we have the Big 12 going down in flames, the Big East mortally wounded, and several schools — big schools, state schools — in jeopardy of losing millions of dollars by getting checkmated right off the board.
The AP says the Big 12 and Big East are discussing a merger. If you thought the Big Eight and the Texas schools of the Southwest Conference were a disparate bunch, we were blood relatives compared to this.
The Kansas Board of Regents will get their turn to panic Thursday.
The Iowa Board of Regents, meanwhile, meets today in a meeting scheduled a long time ago, and a list of candidates for ISU president will be presented – all two of them.
Finally, we have this sentence, hidden in the middle of ESPN’s own article about the ex-Big 12 South and the Pac-12: “ESPN, which operates the Longhorn Network, had no comment.” Says a lot, doesn’t it?