Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

It’s official: TCU is joining the Big 12. The first actual realignment news! With something that makes geographic sense! A&M won’t be able to gig ’em, though.

It’s not official: Missouri thinks it can get big money and no whammies in the SEC. (Aside from football never sniffing the top half of a conference again.) I don’t know whether this study took into account the actual income from a new Big 12 contract vs. potential income from an SEC contract that isn’t up for renegotiation until 2025.

It’s very not official: The SEC presidents made no move Monday toward expansion. Missouri could drag this out for a long time.

Meanwhile, the Big East is getting desperate and going after Central Florida.

(Name h/t: Kirk Bohls)

PS: San Diego State? Huh?

Moving around the pieces…

The Big 12 can’t be certain of its expansion plans until Missouri decides what to do, and teams the Big 12 is interested in won’t do anything until the conference is stable, except maybe TCU. The ACC won’t go to 16 until it knows what’s happening to the Big East, because it’s holding out for the “Notre Dame panics” scenario, while the Big East is worried about being picked for parts and losing West Virginia to the SEC, who would have to weigh WV’s academics … if Missouri doesn’t move. Everyone’s waiting for someone else to do something, but Missouri most of all.

None of these would be issues if Missouri had committed to the Big 12. (Except possibly the SEC/WV issue, but Texas A&M put the SEC into this situation.)

One school the ACC won’t be looking at, despite that school’s intense interest, is UConn, because Boston College is against it. This quote from BC AD Gene DeFilippo is…interesting: “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money.  TV – ESPN – is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.” Told us??? What, precisely, does that mean?

DeFilippo also says BC’s keeping UConn out because “We wanted to be the New England team.” That would be news to New England. A least one UConn fans thinks those are fighting words.

Oklahoma and Missouri’s furthering of the Big 12’s instability may well have cost the conference a chance to add Pitt and West Virginia, which would have been a geographic match and kept the Backyard Brawl going. West Virginia/Louisville may still be an option to go to 12, except that’s only 11 if Missouri jumps ship. Continue reading →

(Iowa State vs. Kansas State, 2011, and the world’s largest use of Comic Sans)

CBS’s Dennis Dodd:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Welcome to the Big Doughnut Hole.

This used to be the center of the college universe. At least one of them. This city still has hosted more Final Fours (10) than any other. It’s a Chiefs town first and a Jayhawks town second. Most of all, it’s a melting pot with a sizable amount of Iowa State, Nebraska, Missouri alums here as well. …

Conference realignment goes on unabated. Traditional rivalries are being cut down like rainforests. Our natural habitat is being destroyed. Is this a good thing for college athletics? No, that’s not really the point.

Kansas City used to be headquarters of the NCAA. It used to be headquarters of the Big Eight. It used to have a pro basketball team and a baseball team before the Royals that both migrated to California. With the University of Kansas a short hop away, it earned a reputation as the capital of college basketball. Missouri’s move to the SEC could be a devastating blow. Sam Mellinger, Kansas City Star:

This is financial. This is emotional. This is more self-esteem than a region should probably put in a flimsy affiliation of college sports teams, but this is also the way it is in Kansas City. This is real.

Without Missouri in the Big 12, there’s no reason for the Big 12 to be in the state of Missouri. All the basketball arenas are within two miles of the border, but Missouri none the less. Any attempt to use that as a bargaining chip in the new Big 12 — that is, keep the basketball tournaments permanently in KC with the potential future football championship game in Texas — is severely weakened. That hurts not just the Kansas City area, but the conference as a whole. No more “Hilton South” or “Phog Allen East.” The remainder of the Big 12 North would be even more out in the cold. Geographically, the loss of the state of Missouri makes Iowa an island in a four-state conference.

And through it all, Missouri still pines for the Big Ten.

Kansas City’s fall in prominence is similar to the emptying of the Great Plains as a whole. Maybe we have gone about as far as we can go.

(An explanation of the title, for the non-musically-inclined. The Sprint Center, obviously, is very up to date.)

The Huffington Post’s Hank Koebler thinks the lack of TV for the Missouri-Iowa State game is a reason for Missouri to jump to the SEC (that and, of course, the Longhorn Network):

For a conference with a future currently contingent on Missouri’s membership, the Big 12 hasn’t placed anywhere near as much of a priority on keeping Missouri as it did Texas last year.

Columbia Daily Tribune reporter Dave Matter reported Tuesday the University of Missouri’s Homecoming game against Iowa State will not be televised. The Big 12 offered to broadcast the game at either 11 a.m. or 6 p.m. on Fox College Sports, but Missouri declined in favor of starting at the traditional 1 p.m. start time, according to Matter. …

Interim Big 12 Commissioner Chuck Neinas has said the Big 12 wants to keep Missouri, but actions speak louder than words. If the Big 12 cannot even be bothered to televise the 100th anniversary of Missouri’s first Homecoming, the conference doesn’t want the Tigers’ membership badly enough for Missouri to justify staying despite the turmoil.

Unbelievable. Has Missouri not noticed that nobody televises 1 PM kickoffs anymore? The offer was Fox College Sports (higher tier), but it was television. Missouri said no. That is not the Big 12’s fault, unless you want to fault the conference for putting top-5 team Oklahoma on ESPN2 against Kansas. Missouri and Iowa State have PLAYED for more than 100 years, before television and radio were invented. Isn’t that a direct counterargument for staying in the Big 12?

The writer’s upset because the Big 12 didn’t want to show a team that just laid an egg against Texas. If the situation wasn’t so tragic it would be funny.